The Roman Traitor Volume Ii Part 37

Motionless they stood in their solid formation, as living statues, one ma.s.s, as it appeared, of gold and scarlet; for all their casques and shields and corslets were of bright burnished bronze, and all the ca.s.socks of the men, and cloaks of the officers of the vivid hue, named from the flower of the pomegranate; so that, to borrow a splendid image of Xenophon describing the array of the ten thousand, the whole army lightened with bra.s.s, and bloomed with crimson.

And now, from the camp in the rear a splendid train came sweeping at full speed, with waving crests of crimson horse-hair dancing above their gleaming helmets, and a broad banner fluttering in the air, under the well-known silver eagle, the tutelar bird of Marius, the G.o.d of the arch-traitor's sacrilegious worship.

Armed in bright steel, these were the body guard of Catiline, three hundred chosen veterans, the clients of his own and the Cornelian houses, men steeped to the lips in infamy and crime, soldiers of fifty victories, Sylla's atrocious colonists.

Mounted on splendid Thracian chargers, with Catiline at their head, enthroned like a conquering king on his superb black Erebus, they came sweeping at full gallop through the intervals of the foot, and, as they reached the front of the array, wheeled up at once into a long single line, facing their infantry, and at a single wafture of their leader's hand, halted all like a single man.

Then riding forward at a foot's pace into the interval between the horse and foot, Catiline pa.s.sed along the whole line from end to end, surveying every man, and taking in with his rapid and instinctive glance, every minute detail in silence.

At the right wing, which Manlius commanded, he paused a moment or two, and spoke eagerly but shortly to his subordinate; but when he reached the extreme left he merely nodded his approbation to the Florentine, crying aloud in his deep tones the one word, "Remember!"

Then gallopping back at the top of his horse's speed to the eagle which stood in front of the centre, he checked black Erebus so suddenly that he reared bolt upright and stood for a second's s.p.a.ce pawing the vacant air, uncertain if he could recover that rude impulse. But the rare horsemanship of Catiline prevailed, and horse and man stood statue-like and immoveable.

Then, pitching his voice so high and clear that every man of that dense host could hear and follow him, he burst abruptly into the spirited and stirring speech which has been preserved complete by the most elegant(15) of Roman writers.

"Soldiers, I hold it an established fact, that words cannot give valor-that a weak army cannot be made strong, nor a coward army brave, by any speech of their commander. How much audacity is given to each man's spirit, by nature, or by habit, so much will be displayed in battle. Whom neither glory nor peril can excite, you shall exhort in vain. Terror deafens the ears of his intellect. I have convoked you, therefore, not to exhort, but to admonish you in brief, and to inform you of the causes of my counsel. Soldiers, you all well know how terrible a disaster the cowardice and sloth of Lentulus brought on himself and us; and how, expecting reinforcements from the city, I was hindered from marching into Gaul. Now I would have you understand, all equally with me, in what condition we are placed. The armies of our enemy, two in number, one from the city, the other from the side of Gaul, are pressing hard upon us. In this place, were it our interest to do so, we can hold out no longer, the scarcity of corn and forage forbid that. Whithersoever we desire to go, our path must be opened by the sword. Wherefore I warn you that you be of a bold and ready spirit; and, when the battle have commenced, that ye remember this, that in your own right hand ye carry wealth, honor, glory, moreover liberty and your country. Victorious, all things are safe to us, supplies in abundance shall be ours, the colonies and free boroughs will open their gates to us. Failing, through cowardice, these self-same things will become hostile to us. Not any place nor any friend shall protect him, whom his own arms have not protected. However, soldiers, the same necessity doth not actuate us and our enemies. We fight for our country, our liberty, our life! To them it is supererogatory to do battle for the power of a few n.o.bles. Wherefore, fall on with the greater boldness, mindful of your own valor. We might all of us, have pa.s.sed our lives in utter infamy as exiles; a few of you, stripped of your property, might still have dwelt in Rome, coveting that of your neighbors. Because these things appeared too base and foul for men's endurance, you resolved upon this career. If you would quit it, you must perforce be bold. No one, except victorious, hath ever exchanged war for peace. Since to expect safety from flight, when you have turned away from the foe, that armor which defends the body, is indeed madness. Always in battle to who most fears, there is most peril. Valor stands as a wall to shield its possessor. Soldiers, when I consider you, and recall to mind your deeds, great hopes of victory possess me. Your spirit, age, and valor, give me confidence; moreover that necessity of conquest, which renders even cowards brave. As for the numbers of the enemy, the defiles will not permit them to surround you. And yet, should Fortune prove jealous of your valor, beware that ye lose not your lives unavenged; beware that, being captured, ye be not rather butchered like sheep, than slain fighting like men, and leaving to your foes a victory of blood and lamentation."

He ceased, and what a shout went up, seeming to shake the earth-fast hill, scaring the eagles from their high nests, and rolling in long echoes, like reverberated thunder among the resounding hills. Twice, thrice, that soul fraught acclamation pealed up to heaven, sure token of resolution unto death, in the hardened hearts of that desperate banditti.

Catiline drank delighted inspiration from the sound, and cried in triumphant tones:

"Enough! your shout is prophetic! Soldiers, already we have conquered!"

Then leaping from his charger to the ground, he turned to his body-guard, exclaiming,

"To fight, my friends, we have no need of horses; to fly we desire them not! On foot we must conquer, or on foot die! In all events, our peril as our hope must be equal. Dismount then, all of ye, and leading your chargers to the rear slay them; so shall we all run equal in this race of death or glory!"

And, with the word, leading his superb horse through the intervals between the cohorts of the foot, he drew his heavy sword, and smote him one tremendous blow which clove through spine and muscle, through artery and vein and gullet, severing the beauteous head from the graceful and swanlike neck, and hurling the n.o.ble animal to the earth a motionless and quivering ma.s.s.

It was most characteristic of the ruthless and brutal temper of that parricidal monster, that he cut down the n.o.ble animal which had so long and so gallantly borne him, which had saved his life more than once by its speed and courage, which followed him, fed from his hand, obeyed his voice, like a dog, almost like a child, without the slightest show of pity or compunction.

Many bad, cruel, savage-hearted men, ruthless to their own fellows, have proved themselves not devoid altogether of humanity by their love to some faithful animal, but it would seem that this most atrocious of mankind lacked even the "one touch of nature which makes the whole world kin."

He killed his favorite horse, the only friend, perhaps, that he possessed on earth, not only unreluctant, but with a sort of savage glee, and a sneering jest-

"If things go ill with us to day, I shall be fitly horsed on Erebus, by Hades!"

Then, hurrying to the van, he took post with his three hundred, and all the picked centurions and veterans of the reserve, mustered beneath the famous Cimbric Eagle, in the centre of the first rank, prepared to play out to the last his desperate and deadly game, the ablest chief, and the most daring soldier, that ever buckled blade for parricide and treason.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE BATTLE.

At least we'll die with harness on our back.

MACBETH.

It was indeed time that the last arrangements of the traitor were completed; for, long since, from the gates of the Consular camp the great army of the enemy had been filing out, and falling into order, not a mile distant.

One third, at least, superior to the rebel host in numbers, the loyal soldiers were as high in spirit, as firm in resolution; were better armed, better officered, and, above all, strong in a better cause.

Nor if those had the incentive of despair to spur them to great deeds, did these lack a yet stronger stimulus to action. There were bright eyes, and fair forms in their camp, dependent on their victory for life, and, yet dearer, honor. So great was the terror spread through those regions by the name of Catiline, and by the outrages committed already by his barbarous banditti, that all the female n.o.bility of the provinces, wherein the war was waging, had fled to the Roman camp, as to their only place of safety.

For all that district was ripe for insurrection; the borough towns awaited only the first sunshine of success, to join the rebellion; the rural slaves were, to a man, false at heart; and it was evident to all that the slightest check of the Consular forces would be the signal for tumult, ma.s.sacre, and conflagration in the provincial towns, for all the horrors of a servile rising in the champaign.

Flight to Rome was impossible, since all the villainy and desperate crime of the land was afloat, and every where, beyond the outposts of Antonius'

head quarters, the roads were infested with banditti, runaway slaves, and rustic robbers.

To the camp, therefore, had all the patricians of the district flocked, the men as volunteers, with such of their clients as they could trust, and such of their wealth as was portable; the women as suppliants, tearful and terrified, for Rome's powerful protection.

Meanwhile, for leagues around, by day the open country was seen blackened by numberless columns of smoke, by night flashing with numberless pyres of flame, the blaze of country seats and villas; and terror was on all sides, murder and rape, havoc and desolation.

The minds of the Roman soldiery were inflamed, therefore, to the utmost; the sight of the ravaged country, the charms, the tears, the terrors of the suppliant ladies, had kindled all that was patriotic, all that was generous, all that was manly in their nature; and it was with deep-recorded vows of vengeance that they had buckled on their armor, and grinded their thirsty swords for the conflict.

But throughout all that ardent host there was not one so determined, so calm in his resolved ire, so deadly bent on vengeance, as Paullus Arvina.

Julia was in the camp; for no means had occurred of sending her to Rome in safety, and her high counsels, her n.o.ble feminine courage, would have given birth alone to contagious valor in her lover's spirit, had he been weak and faltering as of old between his principles and his pa.s.sions.

But it was not so. The stern trials to which his constancy had been subjected, the fearful strife of the hottest pa.s.sions which had raged so long in his bosom, had hardened him like steel thrice tempered in the furnace, and he was now no longer the impulsive, enthusiastic, changeful stripling, in whom to-day's imagination swept away yesterday's resolve, but a cool, resolute, thoughtful man.

It is events, not years, which make men old or young. It is adversity and trial, not ease and prosperity, which make men, from dwarfs, giants.

And events had so crowded on the boy in the last few months, that those months had matured his wisdom more than all the years of his previous life. Adversity and trial had so swelled his mental stature, that aged men might have been proud to cope with him in counsel, strong men to rival him in execution.

The sun was already high in heaven, when the cavalry of the seventh legion, which had been selected to act as the general's escort, in addition to the Praetorian cohort of infantry, swept forth from the gates, following Petreius, who, although holding the second rank only in the army, was actually in command; Antonius, on the pretext of a fit of the gout, having declined to lead that day.

The men were already marshalled at the base of the ascent, leading to the narrow plain on which, as in the amphitheatre, the fight was to be fought out hand to hand, with little room for generalship, or intricate manoeuvring, but every opportunity for the display of mortal strength and desperate gallantry.

Here they had halted, on the verge of the broken ground, awaiting the arrival of their general in chief to reform their array, and complete their preparations, before advancing to the attack.

The lines of the enemy were concealed from them by the abrupt acclivity, and the level s.p.a.ce on the top of the plateau, which intervened between the hosts; and it seemed probable that an officer of Catiline's intuitive eye and rapid resource, would not fail to profit by the difficulties of the ground, in order to a.s.sail the consular troops while struggling among the rocks and thickets which enc.u.mbered the ascent. It behoved, therefore, to hold the men well in hand, to fortify the heads of the advancing columns with the best soldiers, and to be ready with reinforcements at all points; and to this end Petreius had ordered a brief halt, before attacking.

So eager were the spirits of the men, however, and so hot for the encounter, that they were murmuring already almost angrily, and calling on their centurions and tribunes to lead them at once to the shock.

The fierce acclamations of the rebels, consequent on the address of Catiline, had kindled not daunted the brave indignation which possessed them; and stung, as it were, by some personal insult, each soldier of the array burned to be at it.

So stood the case, when, escorted by the magnificent array of the legionary horse, Petreius gallopped through the ranks. A military man, by habit as by nature, who had served for more than thirty years as tribune, praefect of allies, commander of a legion, and lastly praetor, all with exceeding great distinction, he knew nearly all the men in his ranks by sight, was acquainted with their services and honors, had led them oftentimes to glory, and was their especial favorite.

He made no set speech, therefore, to his legions, but as he gallopped through the lines called to this man or that by name, bidding him recollect this skirmish, or think upon that storm, fight, as he did in this pitched battle, or win a civic crown as in that sally, and finally shouted to them all in a high voice, entreating them to remember that they were Roman soldiers, fighting against a rabble of unarmed banditti, for their country, their wives, their children, their hearths and their altars.

One full-mouthed shout replied to his brief address.

"Lead on! Petreius, we will conquer!"