CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Marcus Tullius Cicero had known terror as a wild and flaring thing, as scarlet as a smear of fresh blood, as dark lightning, as a tempest that broke and scattered.

He had never known it as he knew it now, as a vast and silent grayness, as a climate like iron. It held the city in the hollow of its echoing palms; it filled the air with silent and drifting grit. Its shadows fell from all the tall buildings and appeared to obliterate their outlines. It rode in muttering quiet from gate to gate. Its hushed voice was on every threshold; its presence was in the temples, and in the colonnades. Wherever its crepuscular umbra swept men’s voices dropped. It obscured the faces of the crowds in shifting swarthiness, made all colors murky; even the noon was dull. Alleys were heavy with gloom; the vast fanlike stairs rising on every hill appeared laden with ghosts; thoroughfares even by moonlight and torchlight seemed shifting with forms that had no substance.

The Roman giantess had never known such terror before, no, not even under Marius, the old murderer, who had slain out of sheer and childish malice, and not with a plan. Sulla killed implacably and methodically. He had posted his five thousand proscribed names in the very Senate, but there were thousands of names more which were not known except to the bereaved. He had announced himself as dictator supreme. He had said, “I will restore the Republic.” In the name of the Republic, then, he murdered without emotion, without remorse. He brought to Rome her first experience with true dictatorship, which was lightless and terrible—almost soundless. Even the mobs were quiet, the emotional and animated mobs whose voices heretofore had never been silent. Their volatile faces were smoothed into masks by the horror that rode through the streets; they blinked emptily at each other, and their mouths opened. They knew they were too unimportant for murder to mark them as her own, that she did not even know their names. But they felt the presence of death everywhere, and saw funerals on every street. They said to each other in low, stuttering voices, “What is this?”

“I feel despair in the city,” said Tullius, who never left his home and wandered only in the narrow autumn gardens of his house, listening to the livid patter of the two small fountains, watching the leaves falling one by one onto the silent earth. “You must tell me, Marcus, what is abroad.”

But he was an invalid and frail, with strength only to move through the small halls of his house and in the garden, and he must not know. So his son, Marcus, said, “Matters have not settled themselves as yet, under Sulla. In the meantime, I pursue law in the midst of chaos.”

“It cannot be as bad, under Sulla, as it was under Cinna, Marius, and Carbo,” said Tullius, fretfully. “What tyrants they were! How they profaned the name and freedom of Rome! Sulla has said he will restore the Republic. Is that not what we have always dreamed, you, my son, I, and my father, and his fathers before him?” When Marcus did not answer, Tullius’ voice rose. “Is not Sulla restoring the Republic?”

“That is what he says,” replied Marcus.

He and Helvia did not tell Tullius that one of Helvia’s cousins, a gentle, slightly stupid businessman, had been murdered by order of Sulla. He had not been a man of politics; he had not known one tyrant from another. He had been a man of smiles and great amiability. He had hailed Marius, Cinna, and Carbo out of sheer good nature, and because they were “the government.”

He had been an excellent businessman, a merchant of textiles. He had numerous shops throughout the city; he imported silks and linens and the finest of wools. His designers and dyers were the best craftsmen. Therefore, even during the long wars he had become prosperous. “Let us go to the shops of Lynius,” the middle-class of Rome would say, and many of the rich. “For there we shall not be cheated; the quality of his goods is beyond compare.”

Lynius, like thousands of his kind, did not know that the middle-class was deeply hated by Sulla, as it is always hated by tyrants. He was never to know that an envious competitor whispered that Lynius had been devoted to Cinna. So Lynius was murdered.

Tullius became conscious that his wife’s cousin’s calm and genial presence was seen no longer in his house.

“Where is Lynius?” he asked of Helvia one night. “Has he deserted us?”

Helvia’s dauntless face these days had lost its bright color, and her hair was graying rapidly. She could not answer her husband and so Marcus said smoothly, “Now that the wars are over, Lynius has gone abroad for new and more enticing silks and linens.”

On another occasion Tullius wailed, “Why do we not hear from Quintus? Surely now that all is quiet letters could reach us. I fear he is dead.”

Marcus answered over his own fear, “Letters are often lost. I have heard a rumor in the city that his legion is on the way home.” This was not true, but Tullius, the scholar, the immured man, the God-enamored philosopher, must never be forced to confront the frightful reality of these days. His father had protected him in other years; his wife had protected him; his son, Marcus, must now protect him from hearing the voice of terror that muttered in the streets of Rome.

Marcus himself lived with fear and grief and anxiety. He had so many silent terrors of his own that often he could not endure his father’s petulant voice, his demands for an enlightenment which might kill him, his insistence that he be assured that all was well not only with his family but with his world. One night Helvia came into the darkness of Marcus’ cubiculum and sat on the edge of his bed and took his cold hand. She tried to speak calmly and with sympathy. She, the strong and indomitable, could only burst into tears. He held her in his arms and she wept against his cheek, “Where is my Quintus? Why should Lynius have been murdered? And many of our friends?”

Marcus began to ask his own wretched questions of his mother. He found he could speak to her of the awful pain of his own heart, and his dread of tomorrow. “I am only a lawyer; I am not a politician. Yet, there is Catilina among Sulla’s officers, and Catilina has forgotten me no more than I have forgotten him. I cannot forget Livia, my mother. Does Livia exist, still? Or, has she died of her wounds? Shall I be alive at tomorrow’s sunset? If I die, who shall care for you, and my father?”

“Pallas Athene will protect you, Marcus,” said Helvia, wiping away her tears and her son’s tears also. “The gods do not permit good men to die wantonly.” She paused, then added, “What nonsense is this I speak! Still, I believe that Pallas Athene is guarding your days.”

“I hope that Sulla is aware of that,” said Marcus. “How many names have fallen in Rome, the names of virtuous Senators as well as evil ones! How many men like my cousin, Lynius, innocent and bewildered, have died for nothing! What was their crime? That they did not hasten to make friends with tyrants, or fawn upon them. They wished only to live in peace, under any government which would permit them to earn an honest living. But governments will not permit men to live in peace!”

He had many clients, even in these days, but he had no friends. Men were too afraid to speak to each other in confidence. Sulla had proclaimed freedom, so men trod warily and spoke in low voices behind their shut doors and wondered if they could trust their sons. Sulla had restored peace, he declared, so fathers looked apprehensively at the faces of their young in their cradles. “I will refill our bankrupt treasury,” said Sulla, so men whispered with dismay at the rumors of even higher taxes, and withdrew their savings from the banks and hid them in their gardens, or stole from the city at night with their gold. “Justice, at last!” cried Sulla, and the citizens were afraid of each new dawn and held their wives desperately to their hearts, and knew that justice was dead.

“Rome is no longer a city-state,” said Sulla. “We are a nation, and we must march on to our manifest destiny!” So thousands of Romans, who had money with which to bribe, fled Rome for quiet spots in Greece or even in Egypt, or lost themselves on little farms in Sicily, praying that Rome’s manifest destiny would thunder abroad far from their doors.

One dark winter day Helvia said to her son, “We are no longer poor as once we were. One of my uncles has been wise enough, all these years, to walk prudently, inspire no envy, and hide his wealth. He has offered me a car and two fine horses. Let us go to Arpinum and forget our fear and our grief for a little.”

“Our father will suspect that something is greatly wrong if we flee when winter is on the land,” said Marcus.

One day he went into the Temple of Justice. He moved silently in the winter dusk to the smooth and empty white altar of the Unknown God. Marcus touched it with his hand; the marble felt sentient under his fingers. He prayed, “Why do You delay Your birth? The world is plunging swifter and swifter toward bloody destruction. Death waits in every shadow. Evil rides triumphantly through the streets of Rome. There is hope for man no longer. Why have You denied us Your salvation?”

The altar glimmered in the half-light; the crimson shadows of the votive lights on other altars licked the quiet marble of this one which awaited the visible sign of its God. It awaited its Sacrifice, its flowers, its vessels, the voice of its priests. Marcus pressed his cheek against the altar, and his tears wet the white emptiness of it. “Help us,” he said aloud.

Marcus’ old murdered mentor, the pontifex maximus, Publius Mucius Scaevola, had once told him, “We shall not be lost as a nation until the colleges of the Pontifices shall be seized by a tyrant and made to serve his will.”

Sulla declared himself not only the dictator of Rome’s civil life and government but head of the Pontifices, shrewdly understanding that he who controls the gods controls all humanity. It was not his will which was now being imposed on Rome, he said. He spoke only as directed from Olympus. The patrician Pontiffs did not revolt, or denounce Sulla. They, like their fellow Romans, had long since lost their manliness. “Let us consult together,” they said in privacy. “Shall we lead Rome into bloody insurrection and catastrophe? It is in our power, but this we must not do. Let Sulla declare himself privy to the desires of Jupiter. Men of wisdom will merely smile. For the sake of our people we must remain silent.” They were, like most Romans, practical men, but they were not practical, or wise, enough to understand that when priests abdicate to civil authority and to tyrants they have abandoned God and man.

Now the master of the abject Senate—the once powerful Senate—Sulla appointed his own favorites to that august body, increasing it to six hundred members. Almost all were patricians and men of property, for Sulla mistrusted the masses. The public assembly hastened to confirm those he appointed. Some of the new Senators were prosperous businessmen who had never favored Sulla. They did not know that they had received this honor solely because Sulla wished to gain the favor of the commercial class—so that they would desert their sound interests and pragmatic principles and be his absolute creatures. Unlike Cinna, he did not underestimate the power of businessmen. Contrary to ancient Roman law, which laid all power in the hands of the public assembly, the Senate now was given power over that assembly. All measures, once offered to the public assembly for approval or disapproval, had to receive the approval of the Senate first—a direct reversal of the law. The public assembly regarded this move with justified dread and despair, for now the government no longer represented the people. “I wish responsible government,” said Sulla, who destroyed the Constitution with a stroke of his pen. He then attacked the office of Tribune. No tribune, he decreed, could ever hold any other office henceforth and not serve again until ten years had elapsed since the first year of office. The “representatives of the people” then became impotent, and no honorable man, eager to serve his country honestly and under just law, felt any desire to circumscribe his life so stringently.

For the first time in its hundreds of years of life the Roman Republic became a slave nation, answerable only to its master, Sulla, and his creatures. What he had not accomplished through murder he accomplished through flattery and the giving of honors and powers to those who once were his instinctual enemies.

“I am a lawyer,” said Marcus to himself. “Yet, we now have no law but Sulla. However, I must behave, as a responsible man, as if law still exists, and I must pray that it will again exist, if not in Rome, in another nation perhaps yet unborn.”

That year the Saturnalia was very subdued. Sulla wished the rejoicing to be jubilant, as a tribute to himself, for, had he not restored the Republic? But the people were uneasy, confused, and afraid, though not understanding in the huge mass of them what it was that made them so. Their instincts sniffed out the odor of tyranny long before punitive laws against their public assembly and their tribunes became effective and reduced the power of the populace. Sulla, in honor of the Saturnalia, made a large gesture of magnanimity and generous solicitude for the general welfare. He ordered tremendous amounts of stored food to be given to the people without cost, and arranged for huge festivities, and magnificent games in the circuses.

The people accepted it all. But they were not gay, and they were filled with apprehension. They remembered the first days of terror, the funerals massed on the streets, the gray iron of the climate. It was a long time before they could smile willingly and regain their usual buoyancy.

The month of Janus was extraordinarily cold.

Marcus heaped coals upon the brazier in Scaevola’s office, which he now occupied. But still it could not heat the room adequately. The blue woolen curtains were drawn tightly over the windows even at noonday, and the frost penetrated and the cold winds. The floor was like a sheet of ice, and the chill seeped through Marcus’ fur-lined shoes. When he paused in his industrious writing of briefs he could hear the great uproar of the savage winter gale and the hiss of snow. He could not recall that he had ever known such a winter before in Rome. It seemed part of the pervading misery and fear in the city.

Now he had students of his own, and he was patient with them as Scaevola had never been patient. His sensitive face might be pale with dread and cold, but it was always kind. His changing eyes dwelled on the students gently. When he spoke he spoke as serenely as possible to these disturbed boys. “In the midst of the wilderness law must prevail or our humanity shall be lost,” he would tell them. “But Sulla changes the law,” they would reply. To this he would say, “There are the natural laws of God which can never be changed. Let us study them, for we are Romans still, and we have always invoked God.” But when he was alone he would bend his head and run his long fingers through his thick brown hair and sigh.

One day while he was preparing a civil case one of his students came to him in great terror and cried, “Master, there is a centurion who wishes to see you, and he is accompanied by his soldiers!”

Everything became very still in Marcus. Yet he could reflect, “Woe to us in these days, that the appearance of our own soldiers can inspire such fright in us!” He said calmly; “Request the centurion to enter, and send us wine.”

The centurion, a young armored man with swinging heavy cloak and bright helmet, entered with a clangor of iron-shod shoes, and raised his right arm stiffly in the military salute. Marcus rose. “Greetings,” he said. He leaned his palms on his table and smiled inquiringly at the soldier.

“Greetings, Marcus Tullius Cicero,” said the centurion. “I am Lepidus Cotta, and I am commanded to escort you to dine with my general, Sulla. At noon, which is now.”

Marcus regarded him with astonishment. The centurion stared at him arrogantly. It was this, at the last, which made Marcus’ thin face flush with indignation, and which made him remember that the old law placed civilian authority above that of the military.

“It is impossible for me to leave,” he said. “I am to present a very important case to a magistrate in the Basilica of Justice within the hour.”

The centurion’s stare loosened; his jaw dropped. Then he said, “Master, I have only my orders. Shall I return to Sulla and give him that reply?”

Be prudent; forever be prudent, thought Marcus. But his indignation was rising. A man had to stand for his rights or he was not a man.

“Let me think,” said Marcus, and sat down. Syrius, the black and faithful slave, silently poured wine into two silver goblets. Marcus motioned to Cotta to drink, then took up a goblet, himself.

“I have had two postponements of my case, Cotta,” he said. “The magistrate will not look kindly on my absence. I think it best that I go at once to the Basilica of Justice and present my case as rapidly as possible. Then I will be delighted to accept the honor of Sulla’s invitation.”

Cotta nodded solemnly. “This is very good wine,” he said in a boyish voice. He sat down opposite Marcus and poured his goblet full again. “But we have a litter awaiting you.”

Marcus’ lips pursed wryly. So, I am not to die, he thought. At least, not immediately. What did Sulla want of him, he a modest lawyer who was of an obscure family and who lived quietly, doing only his duty? Only the magistrates knew of him, and his clients. Then he thought of Catilina.

“Why am I given this honor?” he asked.

The centurion shrugged. “Master, I have only my orders. But I do know this: the great pontifex maximus, Scaevola, was the general’s devoted friend, and it is possible that Sulla wishes to honor Scaevola’s beloved pupil.”

“Scaevola was no politician,” said Marcus, with incredulity. The centurion gave him a youthful smile which attempted to be very knowing. Then Marcus thought of something and he burst out laughing. He pictured himself arriving in the Forum escorted by Cotta and the soldiers carrying the eagles of Rome and the fasces, and banners. The magistrate had been obdurate in the matter of his client. But the magistrate was only a man and this magnificent escort would awe him.

The lawyer said to the soldier, “I must appear in behalf of my client. I accept the courtesy of the litter. And your escort, my good Cotta. Shall we go?”

So Marcus put on his crimson, fur-lined cloak—the first luxury he had ever permitted himself—and pulled the warm hood over his head. Escorted by Cotta, he walked through Scaevola’s house and the faces of the law students became blank with fear and astonishment. Marcus said to them, “I shall not be long, lads. Do not be remiss in your studies while I am absent. I am to dine with General Sulla.”

Syrius appeared at his elbow, his great black eyes fixed and bright. “Master, I must accompany you.”

“Certainly,” said Marcus, putting his hand on the other’s shoulder. He went outside into the whirling blur of the snow and entered the warm litter awaiting him. Four slaves in scarlet mantles lifted it, and soldiers surrounded it, and led by Cotta they all marched off, Syrius running behind.

As Marcus had suspected, the magistrate was awed; the officers of the court were awed. The magistrate’s supercilious voice became respectful. Marcus presented his case ably. The magistrate nodded soberly, over and over. Then he drew the papyrus to him, signed it with a flourish of his pen, and imprinted his seal upon it. “I do not know, noble Cicero, why you should have had difficulty with this case of yours.”

Marcus was disgusted. But he bowed to the magistrate and then to the officers of the court, and they bowed to him also. He marched out with his clanging escort.

The streets were sheathed in ice. The watery sun had come out behind dark clouds, and the ice glittered. Icicles hung from the white porticoes of buildings. The river ran blackly between its white banks. Beggars and other riffraff had built bonfires near every intersection and were warming themselves or roasting scraps of meat on the flames. The rushing throngs hurried swiftly through the streets, hooded heads bent low before the wind. Acrid smoke drifted everywhere. The crowded hills shone and sparkled under the new sun, the red roofs gleaming with moisture and snow. Now the sky appeared in small patches, brilliantly blue and brilliantly cold.

It was not far to Sulla’s walled house, not a great distance from the Palatine. Soldiers stood at the gates, and saluted. A ruffle of drums announced Marcus. I know now, he thought, what it is to be a potentate. The soldiers and the slaves marched over the slushy gravel of the path that led to the bronze door of Sulla’s large white house. The door opened and more soldiers appeared, fierce-faced youths, black of eye and eagle of countenance, the sun glinting on their armor. Marcus alighted. The centurion went before him with rigid steps, and they entered a marble hall, softly warm, with thick white columns, and scented as if with spring flowers. A fountain played musically in the atrium. Somewhere, behind closed doors, a young woman laughed merrily.

Then Marcus was escorted into a spacious room with a floor of black and white marble, and delightfully heated. The furniture was sparse but elegant, the tables of lemonwood and ebony inlaid with ivory. Here and there Persian rugs were scattered. A man sat at an immense table with carved marble legs. He lifted his head, frowning musingly when Marcus entered.

It was as if he had scarcely noticed Marcus’ intrusion, nor the centurion, nor the fearful but resolute black face of Syrius peeping over Cotta’s shoulder. Cotta saluted. “I have brought the lawyer, Marcus Tullius Cicero, at your command, my General,” said the soldier.

Marcus bowed. “I am honored, lord,” he said. “Greetings.”

“Oh,” said Sulla, frowning again. “Greetings,” he added, impatiently. He looked down at the mass of scrolls and papyrus and books on his table, then thrust them aside. He rubbed his eyes, and yawned briefly.

He was a man about fifty-six years old, lean, browned with wind and weather, leathery of face, with deep furrows about his thin straight mouth and across his brow. His cheeks were sunken, and this gave him a sullen and hungry appearance. He had very black eyebrows, as straight as a dagger over the palest and most terrible eyes Marcus had ever seen, eyes like ice and bitterly shining. His black hair was cropped short to his finely shaped skull, and his ears were pallid and close to his head. He had a firm and angular jaw, and broad almost skeletal shoulders. He wore a long tunic of purple wool, with a leather girdle which held his dagger. There were no armlets on his arms, no rings on his fingers. Despite his lack of military garb no one would have known him for anything else but a soldier. His voice was harsh and clipped.

He contemplated Marcus without notable curiosity or interest for several long moments. He saw the tall and slender figure in the crimson cloak and hood and the modest dark blue long tunic. He saw Marcus’ pale and studious face, the fine features, the large eyes, the mass of curling brown hair on the white forehead. Marcus returned his regard straightly, and Sulla thought: This is a brave man, for all he is only a civilian and a lawyer. The formidable soldier smiled a little, and sourly.

“I am pleased you have accepted an invitation to my frugal meal,” he said. He waved a dismissing hand at the centurion. “We shall dine alone, except for my other guest,” he said. He noticed Syrius for the first time. “Who is this slave?” he demanded. “He is not of my household.”

“He is mine, lord,” said Marcus. He paused, then continued: “He protects me against my enemies.”

Sulla raised those thick black brows of his. “Is it possible for a lawyer to have enemies?” he asked. He laughed, and the laugh was unpleasant. “Ah, I remember what rascals lawyers are! I had forgotten.” He said to Cotta, “Take the slave to the kitchens and let him be fed while I dine with his master.”

Cotta saluted, seized Syrius by his reluctant arm, and led him away. The door closed after them. Sulla said, “Seat yourself, Cicero. You must be content with a soldier’s meal, not served in a dining room, but at the base of my operations. You have never been a soldier in the field?”

“No, lord.” Marcus removed his cloak and placed it over a chair, then sat on it. “But my brother, Quintus Tullius Cicero, is a centurion. In Gaul.”

Sulla’s pale eyes fixed themselves on Marcus with a curious expression.

“In Gaul?” said Sulla.

“Yes, my lord. We have not had a letter from him for a long time. My parents and I are gravely distressed. It is possible that he is dead.”

“Death is always the companion of soldiers,” said Sulla, contemptuously.

Marcus looked up. “And it is the companion of all Romans,” he said.

“And particularly now?” said Sulla. To Marcus’ amazement he was actually smiling.

Marcus did not reply. Sulla picked up his pen and tapped the table as if in thought. “I am a man of blood and iron,” he said. “I am also a man of grim humor. And I honor a brave man.”

Marcus could not speak. He remembered that Sulla had been called half-lion and half-fox, and was a man of no mercy.

“I have brought peace and tranquillity and order to Rome, which she has not known for a long time,” said Sulla. “I have brought them to all Italy.”

The peace and tranquillity and order of slavery, thought Marcus. Sulla, watching him, was amused.

“I have heard much of you, Cicero,” he said. “I have had many letters from my dear friend, Scaevola. Before he was murdered.” Sulla’s voice became as cold and smooth as a stone. “Did he never speak of me to you?”

Marcus was shaken. “My mentor did not admire the military,” he said at last. “I recall that he said that you were preferable to Cinna, and Carbo. He was a man of many acid jests.”

Sulla smiled. “He was also very discreet. He was more valuable to me, his friend from our youth, than a legion of couriers. I owe him the largest debt of my life. And you, whom he loved, never suspected it!”

“No, lord.” Marcus felt suddenly weary. “And that was why he was murdered. I thought the assassins had destroyed him because he was a man of justice and honor, and Carbo could not endure such men.”

“I do not impugn either his justice or his honor,” said Sulla. “Who should know more about this than I, his friend? Once he wrote me, ‘When one is confronted with two evils, one should choose the lesser.’ He decided I was the lesser. He also knew I was inevitable. But more than anything else, he loved me.” He turned in his chair and looked long at the many banners that hung from the black and white marble walls. “He had no greater love, except for his country. Nor have I.”

Marcus had always thought that only men of profound justice and goodness and integrity Could love their country as she should be loved. Yet now he heard the tremor of genuine emotion in the voice of one who was not just, not good, and had only the fierce integrity of a soldier. I am naïve, he thought.

Sulla stared at him again with those pale eyes. “Your grandfather was my captain,” he said. “I was his subaltern. He was an ‘old’ Roman, and I honor his memory. He compromised with no one when he believed himself in the right. Rome is poorer for his death. She has been growing poorer with every year, as her heroes have died. But they were old-fashioned heroes. We live in a changing world, and they would not change.”

Marcus said, “Lord, the world is never static. It will be another world in another year. Yet today, on every hand, I hear, ‘We live now in a changing world!’ This is said as an excuse for excesses!”

“You are disputatious,” said Sulla. “That is your lawyer’s failing. Let us consider. Do not the people love grandiloquent slogans and jargons? If they shout today that this is a changing world shall we quiet their enthusiasm? They always believe that change means progress. We must not disillusion them.” His sharp white teeth flashed in a broader smile. “I admire you, Cicero. You are much like your grandfather. You, too, are a brave man.”

“You have said that before, lord,” Marcus replied with heat. “Is it so unusual for a man to be brave?”

“Most unusual,” said Sulla. “Even soldiers are not always brave.” He threw his pen from him. “I wished to know the pupil of Scaevola. I wished to meet an honest lawyer, and to study such a strange manifestation. Ah, my other guest has arrived.”

Listlessly, for now his weariness of spirit was very great, Marcus turned his head. Then he started with the utmost astonishment. For, entering easily, and clothed with splendor, was his old friend, Julius Caesar, smiling as gayly as the summer sun.