The Roman Traitor Volume Ii Part 7

"The thing is settled," cried Aurelia Orestilla, "I told him yesterday he ought to do it, himself-I should not be content, unless Catiline's hand dealt him the death blow, Catiline's eye gloated upon him in the death-struggle, Catiline's tongue jeered him in the death-pang!"

"You love him dearly, Orestilla," said Cethegus.

"And clearly he has earned it," she replied.

"By Venus! I would give half my hopes, to see him kiss you."

"And I, if my lips had the hydra's venom. But come," she added, with a wreathed smile and a beaming eye, "Let us go see the fishes eat yon varlet; else shall we be too late for the sport."

"Rare sport!" said Cethegus, "I have not seen a man eaten, by a tiger even, these six months past; and by a fish, I think, never!"

"The fish do it better," replied Catiline-"Better, and cleaner-they leave the prettiest skeleton you can imagine-they are longer about it, you will say-True; but I do not grudge the time."

"No! no! the longer, the merrier!" said Aurelia, laughing melodiously-"The last fellow I saw given to the tigers, had his head crushed like a nut-sh.e.l.l, by a single blow. He had not time to shriek even once. There was no fun in that, you know."

"None indeed," said Cethegus-"but I warrant you this German will howl gloriously, when the fish are at him." "Yes! yes!" exclaimed the lovely woman, clapping her hands joyously. "We must have the gag removed, to give free vent to his music. Come, come, I am dying to see him."

"Some one must die, since Cicero did not."

"Happy fellow this, if he only knew it, to give his friends so much pleasure!"

"One of them such a fair lady too!"

"Will there be more pleasure, think you, in seeing the congers eat the gladiator, or in eating the congers afterward?"

"Oh! no comparison! one can eat fat congers always."

"We have the advantage of them truly, for they cannot always eat fat gladiators."

And they walked away with as much glee and expectation, to the scene of agony and fiendish torture, vitiated by the frightful exhibitions of the circus and the arena, as men in modern days would feel, in going to enjoy the fict.i.tious sorrows of some grand tragedian.

Can it be that the contemplation of human wo, in some form or other, is in all ages grateful to poor corrupt humanity?

CHAPTER V.

THE ORATION.

Quousque tandem abutere- CICERO.

The Senate was a.s.sembled in the great temple on the Palatine, built on the spot where Jupiter, thence hailed as Stator, had stayed the tide of flight, and sent the rallied Romans back to a glorious triumph.

A cohort was stationed on the brow of the hill, its spear-heads glancing in the early sunshine.

The Roman knights, wearing their swords openly, and clad in their girded tunics only, mustered around the steps which led to the colonnade and doors of the temple, a voluntary guard to the good consul.

A mighty concourse had flowed together from all quarters of the city, and stood in dense ma.s.ses in all the neighboring streets, and in the area of the temple, in hushed and anxious expectation.

The tribunes of the people, awed for once by the imminence of the peril, forgot to be factious.

Within the mighty building, there was dead silence-silence more eloquent than words.

For, to the wonder of all men, undismayed by detection, unrebuked by the horror and hate which frowned on him from every brow, Catiline had a.s.sumed his place on the benches of his order.

Not one, even of his most intimate a.s.sociates, had dared to salute him; not one, even of the conspirators, had dared to recognize the manifest traitor.

As he a.s.sumed his place, the senators next to him had arisen and withdrawn from the infamous vicinity, some of them even shaking their gowns, as if to dissipate the contamination of his contact.

Alone he sat, therefore, with a wide vacant s.p.a.ce around him-alone, in that crowded house-alone, yet proud, unrebuked, undaunted.

The eyes of every man in the vast a.s.sembly were riveted in fear, or hatred, or astonishment, on the set features and sullen scowling brow, of the arch conspirator.

Thus sat they, thus they gazed for ten minutes' s.p.a.ce, and so deep was the all-absorbing interest, that none observed the Consul, who had arisen to his feet before the curule chair, until the great volume of his clear sonorous voice rolled over them, like the burst of sudden thunder amid the hush of nature which precedes it.

It was to no set form of words, to no premeditated speech, that he gave utterance; nor did he in the usual form address the Conscript Fathers.

With his form drawn to its fullest height, his arm outstretched as if it was about to launch the thunderbolt, he hurled his impa.s.sioned indignation against the fearless culprit.

"Until how long, O Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience? Until how long, too, will thy frantic fury baffle us? Unto what extremity will thy unbridled insolence display itself? Do the nocturnal guards upon the Palatine nothing dismay you, nothing the watches through the city, nothing the terrors of the people, nothing the concourse hitherward of all good citizens, nothing this most secure place for the senate's convocation, nothing the eyes and faces of all these?" And at the words, he waved both arms slowly around, pointing the features and expression of every senator, filled with awe and aversion.

"Dost thou not feel that all thy plots are manifest? Not see that thy conspiracy was grasped irresistibly, so soon as it was known thoroughly to all these? Which of us dost thou imagine ignorant of what thou didst, where thou wert, whom thou didst convoke, what resolution thou didst take last night, and the night yet preceding? Oh! ye changed Times! Oh, ye degenerate customs! The Senate comprehends these things, the Consul sees them! Yet this man lives! Lives, did I say? Yea, indeed, comes into the Senate, bears a part in the public councils, marks out with his eyes and selects every one of us for slaughter. But we, strenuous brave men, imagine that we do our duty to the state, so long as we escape the frenzy, the daggers of that villain. Long since it had been right, Catiline, that thou shouldst have been led to death by the Consul's mandate-Long since should that doom have been turned upon thyself, which thou hast been so long devising for all of us here present. Do I err, saying this? or did that most ill.u.s.trious man, Publius Scipio, pontifex maximus, when in no magisterial office, take off Tiberius Gracchus, for merely disturbing the established order of the state? And shall we, Consuls, endure Catiline aiming to devastate the world with ma.s.sacre and conflagration? For I omit to state, as too ancient precedents, how Caius Servilius Ahala slew with his own hand Spurius Melius, when plotting revolution! There was, there was, of old, that energy of virtue in this commonwealth, that brave men hedged the traitorous citizen about with heavier penalties than the most deadly foe! We hold a powerful and weighty decree of the Senate against thee, O Catiline. Neither the counsel nor the sanction of this order have been wanting to the republic. We, we, I say it openly, we Consuls are wanting in our duty.

"The Senate decreed once, that Lucius Opimius, then Consul, should see THAT THE REPUBLIC TOOK NO HARM; not one night intervened. Caius Gracchus was slain on mere suspicions of sedition, the son of a most n.o.ble father, most n.o.ble grandfather, most n.o.ble ancestry. Marcus Fulvius, a consular, was slain with both his children. By a like decree of the Senate, the charge of the republic was committed to Caius Marius and Lucius Valerius, the Consuls-did the republic's vengeance delay the death of Lucius Saterninus, a tribune of the people, of Caius Servilius, a praetor, even a single day? And yet, we Consuls, suffer the edge of this authority to be blunted, until the twentieth day. For we have such a decree of the Senate, but hidden in the scroll which contains it, as a sword undrawn in its scabbard. By which decree it were right, O Catiline, that thou shouldst have been slaughtered on the instant. Thou livest; and livest not to lay aside, but to confirm and strengthen thine audacity. I desire, O Conscript fathers, to _be_ merciful; I desire, too, in such jeopardy of the republic, not to _seem_ culpably neglectful. Yet I condemn myself of inability, of utter weakness. There is a camp in Italy! hostile to the republic, in the defiles that open on Etruria! Daily the numbers of the foe are increasing! And yet the general of that camp, the leader of that foe, we see within the walls, aye, even in the Senate, day by day, plotting some intestine blow against the state. Were I to order thee to be arrested, to be slain now, O Catiline, I should have cause, I think, to dread the reproaches of _all_ good citizens, for having stricken thee too late, rather than that of _one_, for having stricken thee too severely.

And yet, that which should have been done long ago, I am not yet for a certain reason persuaded to do now. Then-then at length-will I slay thee, when there is not a man so base, so desperately wicked, so like to thee in character, but he shall own thy slaying just. So long as there shall be one man, who dares to defend thee, thou shalt live. And thou shalt live, as now thou livest, beset on every side by numerous, and steady guards, so that thou canst not even stir against the commonwealth. The eyes moreover, and the ears of many, even as heretofore, shall spy thee out at unawares, and mount guard on thee in private.

"For what is there, Catiline, which thou now canst expect more, if neither night with all its darkness, could conceal thy unholy meetings, nor even the most private house contain within its walls the voice of thy conspiracy? If all thy deeds shine forth, burst into public view? Change now that hideous purpose, take me along as thy adviser, forget thy schemes of ma.s.sacre, of conflagration. Thou art hemmed in on every side. Thy every council is more clear to me than day; and these thou canst now review with me. Dost thou remember, how I stated in the Senate, on the twelfth day before the Calends of November,(1) that Caius Manlius, the satellite and co-minister of thy audacity, would be in arms on a given day, which day would be the sixth(2) before the Calends of November?-Did I err, Catiline, not in the fact, so great as it was, so atrocious, so incredible, but, what is much more wondrous, in the very day? Again I told thee in the Senate, that thou hadst conspired to slay the first men of the state, on the fifth(3) day before the Calends of November, when many leading men of Rome quitted the city, not so much to preserve their lives, as to mar thy councils. Canst thou deny that thou wert hemmed in on that day by my guards, and hindered by my vigilance from stirring thy hand against the state, when, frustrate by the departure of the rest, thou saidst that our blood, ours who had remained behind, would satisfy thee? What? When thou wert so confident of seizing Praeneste, by nocturnal escalade, upon the very(4) Calends of November, didst thou not feel that it was by my order that colony was garrisoned, guarded, watched, impregnable?-Thou doest nothing, plottest nothing, thinkest nothing which I shall not-I say not-hear-but shall not see, shall not conspicuously comprehend.

"Review with me now, the transactions of the night before the last, so shalt thou understand that I watch far more vigilantly for the safety, than thou for the destruction of the state. I say that on that former night,(5) thou didst go to the street of the Scythemakers, I will speak plainly, to the house of Marcus Laeca; that thou didst meet there many of thy a.s.sociates in crime and madness. Wilt thou dare to deny it? Why so silent? If thou deniest, I will prove it. For I see some of those here, here in the Senate, who were with thee. Oh! ye immortal G.o.ds! in what region of the earth do we dwell? in what city do we live? of what republic are we citizens? Here! they are here, in the midst of us, Conscript Fathers, here in this council, the most sacred, the most solemn of the universal world, who are planning the slaughter of myself, the slaughter of you all, planning the ruin of this city, and therein the ruin of the world. I the consul, see these men, and ask their opinions on state matters. Nay, those whom it were but justice to slaughter with the sword, I refrain as yet from wounding with a word. Thou wert therefore in the house of Laeca, on that night, O Catiline. Thou didst allot the districts of Italy; thou didst determine whither each one of thy followers should set forth; thou didst choose whom thou wouldst lead along with thee, whom leave behind; thou didst a.s.sign the wards of the city for conflagration; thou didst a.s.sert that ere long thou wouldst go forth in person; thou saidst there was but one cause why thou shouldst yet delay a little, namely, that I was alive. Two Roman knights were found, who offered themselves to liberate thee from that care, and promised that they would butcher me, that very night, a little before daylight, in my own bed. Of all these things I was aware, when your a.s.sembly was scarce yet broken up.

I strengthened my house, and guarded it with an unwonted garrison. I refused admittance to those whom thou hadst sent to salute me, when they arrived; even as I had predicted to many eminent men that they would arrive, and at that very time.

"Since then these things stand thus, O Catiline, proceed as thou hast begun; depart when thou wilt from the city; the gates are open; begone; too long already have those camps of Manlius lacked their general. Lead forth, with the morrow, all thy men-if not all, as many at least as thou art able; purify the city of thy presence. Thou wilt discharge me from great terror, so soon as a wall shall be interposed between thee and me.

Dwell among us thou canst now no longer. I will not endure, I will not suffer, I will not permit it! Great thanks must be rendered to the immortal G.o.ds, and to this Stator Jove, especially, the ancient guardian of this city, that we have escaped so many times already this plague, so foul, so horrible, so fraught with ruin to the republic. Not often is the highest weal of a state jeoparded in the person of a single individual. So long as you plotted against me, merely as Consul elect, O Catiline, I protected myself, not by public guards, but by private diligence. When at the late Comitia, thou wouldst have murdered me, presiding as Consul in the Field of Mars, with thy compet.i.tors, I checked thy nefarious plans, by the protection and force of my friends, without exciting any public tumult.-In a word, as often as thou hast thrust at me, myself have I parried the blow, although I perceived clearly, that my fall was conjoined with dread calamity to the republic. Now, now, thou dost strike openly at the whole commonwealth, the dwellings of the city; dost summon the temples of the Immortal G.o.ds, the lives of all citizens, in a word, Italy herself, to havoc and perdition. Wherefore-seeing that as yet, I dare not do what should be my first duty, what is the ancient and peculiar usage of this state, and in accordance with the discipline of our fathers-I will, at least, do that which in respect to security is more lenient, in respect to the common good, more useful. For should I command thee to be slain, the surviving band of thy conspirators would settle down in the republic; but if-as I have been long exhorting thee, thou wilt go forth, the vast and pestilent contamination of thy comrades will be drained out of the city.

What is this, Catiline? Dost hesitate to do that, for my bidding, which of thine own accord thou wert about doing? The Consul commands the enemy to go forth from the state. Dost thou enquire of me, whether into exile? I do not order, but, if thou wilt have my counsel, I advise it.

"For what is there, O Catiline, that can delight thee any longer in this city, in which there is not one man, without thy band of desperadoes, who does not fear, not one who does not hate thee?-What brand of domestic turpitude is not burnt in upon thy life? What shame of private bearing clings not to thee, for endless infamy? What scenes of impure l.u.s.t, what deeds of daring crime, what horrible pollution attaches not to thy whole career?-To what young man, once entangled in the meshes of thy corruption, hast thou not tendered the torch of licentiousness, or the steel of murder? Must I say more? Even of late, when thou hadst rendered thy house vacant for new nuptials, by the death of thy late wife, didst thou not overtop that hideous crime, by a crime more incredible? which I pa.s.s over, and permit willingly to rest in silence, lest it be known, that in this state, guilt so enormous has existed, and has not been punished. I pa.s.s over the ruin of thy fortunes, which all men know to be impending on the next(6) Ides, I proceed to those things which pertain not to the private infamy of thy career, not to thy domestic difficulties and baseness, but to the supreme safety of the state, and to the life and welfare of us all.

Can the light of this life, the breath of this heaven, be grateful to thee, Catiline, when thou art conscious that not one of these but knows how thou didst stand armed in the comitium, on the day previous(7) to the calends of January, when Lepidus and Tullus were the Consuls? That thou hadst mustered a band of a.s.sa.s.sins to slay the Consuls, and the n.o.blest of the citizens? That no relenting of thy heart, no faltering from fear, opposed thy guilt and frenzy, but the wonted good fortune of the commonwealth? And now I pa.s.s from these things, for neither are these crimes not known to all, nor have there not been many more recently committed. How many times hast not thou thrust at me while elect, how many times when Consul? How many thrusts of thine so nearly aimed, that they appeared inevitable; have I not shunned by a slight diversion, and, as they say of gladiators, by the movements of my body? Thou doest nothing, attemptest nothing, plannest nothing, which can escape my knowledge, at the moment, when I would know it. Yet thou wilt neither cease from endeavoring nor from plotting. How many times already hath that dagger been wrested from thy hand? how many times hath it fallen by chance, and escaped thy grasp? Still thou canst not be deprived of it, more than an instant's s.p.a.ce!-And yet, I know not with what unhallowed rites it has been consecrated and devoted by thee, that thou shouldst deem it necessary to flesh it in the body of a Consul.

"Now then, what life is this of thine? For I will now address thee, not so that I may seem moved by that detestation which I feel toward thee, but by compa.s.sion, no portion of which is thy due. But a moment since, thou didst come into the Senate, and which one man, from so vast a concourse, from thine own chosen and familiar friends, saluted thee? If this has befallen no one, within the memory of man, wilt thou await loud contumely, condemned already by the most severe sentence of this silence? What wouldst thou have, when all those seats around thee were left vacant on thy coming? When all those Consulars, whom thou so frequently hadst designated unto slaughter, as soon as thou didst take thy seat, left all that portion of the benches bare and vacant? With what spirit, in one word, can thou deem this endurable? By Hercules! did my slaves so dread me, as all thy fellow citizens dread thee, I should conceive it time for leaving my own house-dost thou not hold it time to leave this city?-And if I felt myself without just cause suspected, and odious to my countrymen, I should choose rather to be beyond the reach of their vision, than to be gazed upon by hostile eyes of all men. Dost thou hesitate, when conscious of thine own crimes thou must acknowledge that the hate of all is just, and due long ago-dost thou, I say, hesitate to avoid the presence and the sight of those whose eyes and senses thine aspect every day is wounding?

If thine own parents feared and hated thee, and could by no means be reconciled, thou wouldst, I presume, withdraw thyself some-whither beyond the reach of their eyes-now thy country, which is the common parent of us all, dreads and detests thee, and has pa.s.sed judgment on thee long ago, as meditating nothing but her parricide. Wilt thou now neither revere her authority, nor obey her judgment, nor yet dread her violence? Since thus she now deals with thee, Catiline, thus speaks to thee in silence.

"'No deed of infamy hath been done in these many years, unless through thee-no deed of atrocity without thee-to thee alone, the murder of many citizens, to thee alone the spoliation and oppression of our allies, hath been free and unpunished. Thou hast been powerful not only to escape laws and prosecutions, but openly to break through and overturn them. To these things, though indeed intolerable, I have submitted as best I might-but it can now no longer be endured that I should be in one eternal dread of thee only-that Catiline, on what alarm soever, alone should be the source of terror-that no treason against me can be imagined, such as should be revolting to thy desperate criminality. Wherefore begone, and liberate me from this terror, so that, if true, I may not be ruined; if false I may at least shake with fear no longer.'

"If thy country should thus, as I have said, parley with thee, should she not obtain what she demands, even if she lack force to compel it? What more shall I say, when thou didst offer thyself to go into some private custody? What, when to shun suspicion, thou didst profess thy willingness to take up thy residence under the roof of Manius Lepidus? Refused by whom, thou hadst audacity to come to me, and request that I would admit thee to my house. And when thou didst receive from me this answer, that I could not exist within the same house with that man, whose presence even inside the same city walls, I esteemed vast peril to my life, thou didst then go to the praetor Quintus Metellus; and, then, repulsed by him, to Marcus Marcellus, thine own comrade, a virtuous man truly, one whom past doubt thou didst deem likely to be most vigilant in guarding, most crafty in suspecting, most strenuous in bringing thee to justice. And how far shall that man be believed distant from deserving chains and a dungeon, who judges himself to be worthy of safekeeping?-Since, then, these things are so, dost hesitate, O Catiline, since here thou canst not tarry with an equal mind, to depart for some other land, and give that life, rescued from many just and deserved penalties, to solitude and exile? 'Lay the matter,' thou sayest, 'before the Senate,' for that it is which thou requirest, 'and if this order shall command thee into banishment, thou wilt obey their bidding.' I will not lay it before them-for to do so is repugnant to my character, yet I will so act, that thou shalt clearly see what these think of thee. Depart from the city, Catiline! Deliver the state from terror! begone into banishment, if that be the word for which thou tarriest!"