CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The summer was extremely hot, and the monolithic city sweltered and sweated under fierce bronze rays of light from the sky. Every sunset was a conflagration, as ominous as a distantly seen fire which inexorably approaches.

Marcus received a letter from his friend and dear enemy, Julius Caesar, in Asia, where Julius was serving his first military campaign under Minucius Thermos:

“Greetings to the noble Marcus Tullius Cicero from his friend, Julius Caesar.

“Carissime, I rejoiced to receive your letter and to hear that all is well with you and that you have triumphed in your last major pleadings before the law. What a man is our Cicero, what a patriot! He needs only to become a politician to be complete, and I am happy that he is considering this matter as a duty. But when shall I have the pleasure of hearing of your marriage? A man is not complete without a wife. Do I not know this? Did I not lovingly adhere to my Cornelia in face of Sulla’s threats, even when he deprived me of my priesthood? What is it that you often said to me: ‘It is better to obey God than man.’ I, therefore, must be virtuous in the sight of God for I honored the sacredness of marriage.”

(At this, Marcus made a grimace which reluctantly became a smile as he remembered the dissipations and adulteries of his friend.)

“Alas,” continued Julius’ letter, “I was grieved to hear of Sulla’s death in Puteoli, a year only since he resigned his dictatorship of Rome. But I expected it long before this time, for though his visage and his form did not indicate that he possessed any plethora which would lead to apoplexy he was a man of great passions and inner violences. He detested many, and hated many, but for reasons of state he repressed all expression of these emotions, and such repression has a dread effect upon the body and the soul. It was unfortunate for his memory that he died suddenly in the arms of his latest actress, for it has stained his true image of a spiritually austere and Stoic man. But let us be glad that he lived to complete his memoirs. I am impatient to read them.”

(I am certain of that, thought Marcus at this point.)

“In your last letter, Marcus, you wrote that you feared I am ambitious. Is it evil to be ambitious, to yearn with all your might and heart to serve your country justly and bravely? If that be ambition, let Romans again be endowed with such a priceless virtue! You, above all, should rejoice in ambitious men. But why should you accuse me of what you apparently consider an ominous thing? Who am I but a humble soldier, serving my general in this steaming and ungrateful and rebellious province? My ambition is to serve him well. In all modesty I declare I did not seek nor desire the Civic Crown for saving a comrade’s life at Mytiline. Laugh if you will.”*

(Marcus laughed.)

“My general is sending me to serve under Servilius Isauricus against the Cillilian pirates. What a people are those pirates, a race composed of ancient Phoenicians, Hittites, Egyptians, Persians, Syrians, Arabs, and other maritime scourings of the Great Sea! Nevertheless, one must admire their effrontery and audaciousness, for do they not defy Rome? It is as if an ant would defy a tiger. They do not hesitate to seize even Roman ships and murder Roman sailors and seamen and to rob our cargoes. We shall put them down speedily.

“You prudently do not write your opinion of our present dictator, Lepidus, and I possess discretion also though you appeared to doubt it always.

“However,” continued Julius’ letter, “though a man of riches he does not possess the wealth that Sulla possessed. You were not then referring to him when you quoted Aristotle: ‘It is surely a bad thing that the greatest offices should be bought! The law which permits this abuse makes wealth of more account than nobility in a politician, and then the whole State becomes avaricious. For whenever the chiefs of the State deem anything honorable, the citizens are sure to follow their example, and where ability has not the first place there is no real aristocracy of mind and spirit.’ No, you were not referring to Lepidus.

“Or, is it possible that you were warning me? Incredible! It is true that I am not destitute, but it is also true that there is no office in Rome which I would attempt to buy, for I desire none.”

(Hah! thought Marcus.)

“I wish you were not always so ambiguous,” the letter went on. “But you possess the subtlety of a lawyer, which is beyond the comprehension of a humble soldier like myself.”

(“O Julius!” exclaimed Marcus aloud, in his office.)

“I had hoped,” wrote Julius, “that the paths of your brother, Quintus, and mine would cross, but it was not in our fate though we were less than two leagues apart at one time. I hear of the respect and honor in which he is held by his general. He is a noble Roman, for all his simplicity.”

(Which you do not admire, thought Marcus.)

“I feel a premonition, Carissime, that I shall soon look upon your amiable face, for have I not always loved you and held you to be a paragon of probity and all the virtues? I hope to return to Rome when the pirates are extinguished, which will be speedily. In the meantime, my sweetest thoughts are of my friend and the guide of my youth. Consider that I have just embraced you and kissed your cheek. I also kiss the hand of your dear mother and the cheek of your father, as though I were their son. May my patron, Jupiter, look upon you with favor, and my ancestress, Venus, grant you the sight of a desirable maiden for a wife, and may Cupid, the son of Venus, pierce your heart with his most delectable arrow.”

(And you consider that meaning me well! thought Marcus.)

He put down the letter, still smiling. Then the smile disappeared. He was filled with lassitude and weariness. He was but twenty-nine years old, but he felt aged and heavy. He could not forget Livia, the murdered wife of Catilina. Years had passed since her horrible death, but her face did not leave his inner eye. She remained passionately young to him, beautiful beyond all dreaming, eerie as a Sybil, elusive as a dryad, fleet of foot as a nymph, wild as a spring wind, a wraith from an unknown land.

As a man who analyzed everything, including himself, Marcus still did not know why he loved Livia, and why her face and her voice haunted him, why her whole person was as alive to him as no other was alive. He could recall the sound of her voice and her mystic singing at will, as sharp as if he had just heard it within the past hour. He could recall her smiles, the touch of her leaf-like hand, her faint laughter, the light of her blazing blue eyes. It was as if he had just left her side and then had looked back upon her over his shoulder and had seen her face again.

The fearful events which had shaken Rome, and himself, over these years were not so vivid to him as Livia Curius Catilina. When he visited the island near Arpinum he walked the little forest, and heard her voice echoing to him eagerly from shadows, and sometimes he believed he caught the flash of her hair, the floating of her palla, among the mysterious trees. When the wind ran through the branches he could hear Livia’s singing, the murmur of her unearthly song. His arms never ceased from aching to embrace her; he felt the sweetness of her kiss upon his lips. Her shade wandered over the bridge between the island and the town, and the stones whispered softly with her light step. It was on the island that he felt her presence most strongly, and not in Rome where she had lived and died.

He said to his mother, “No, I can never marry. I cannot forget Livia. I have nothing to offer another woman but the very shadow of myself, and that is not enough.”

Sometimes it seemed to him that his external life was a dream, and that the only reality he had ever known was Livia and the island, his endless studies, his poetry, and his thoughts. Years later he wrote to Atticus: “I served for a little space in the military service under Sulla (and was not considered the most able of soldiers). Nevertheless, the whole experience appears not to have any verity for me, but only a fantasy indulged in for an hour or more. I do not recall, now, even the name of my general, nor of my comrades—who never attempted any close approach to me. Nor I to them, I confess. They delighted in war, and thought it the noblest and most exciting of sports, even when the probability of death was always present. I found wars no pleasure to an intelligent man, and the short campaign in which I was engaged—Sulla, and my mother, believing I should miss no experience however arduous or dull—drowned me in yawning ennui. I do not decry armies and soldiers, for man, being what he is—a lover of war—can never be trusted especially if he is envious of your nation and lusts for your possessions, or yearns for power over you.”

Marcus was still receiving congratulations from many quarters because he had won the case of Cato Servius, and then, a little later, the case of one Sextus Roscius (who was no relative of the actor). Again, in the case of Sextus Roscius, he had had to oppose Sulla before a fearful jury, and he had had to accuse Chrysogonus, the friend of Sulla, and a former Greek slave, during the murder trial of Sextus, for whom he won an acquittal. In conclusion, and in referring to the sad state of law in Rome, Marcus said, “The daily spectacle of atrocious acts has stifled all feeling of pity in the hearts of men. When every hour we see or hear of an act of dreadful cruelty we lose all feeling of humanity. Crime no longer horrifies us. We smile at the enormities of our youth. We condone passion, when we should understand that the unrestrained emotions of man produce chaos. Once we were a nation of self-control and austerity and had a reverence for life and justice. This is true no longer. We prefer our politicians, particularly if they swagger with youth and are accomplished jesters and liars. We love entertainment, even in law, even in government. Unless we reform, our terrible fate is inevitable.”*

(In recalling that case Marcus was to write decades later, “It won such favorable comment that I was thought not incompetent to handle any sort of litigation. There followed in quick succession many other cases which I brought into court, carefully worked out and, as the saying is, smelling somewhat of the midnight oil.”)

In short, he became rich. He was not fool enough to despise riches, remembering his ascetic life in his youth, and he never believed that deprivation was nobler than money. “Poverty does not harden the soul, nor strengthen it. It creates slaves.”† Yet, with another part of his mind he regarded his new wealth with indifference. It was there; he could afford to forget it.

If Helvia, for all her plotting, had not yet been able to find a suitable and acceptable wife for her older son she manipulated the marriage of Quintus, her darling, to Pomponia, sister of Atticus, publisher to Marcus. Quintus, the secretly tenderhearted, had through long labor finally been able to acquire the reputation of being a blustering soldier. But Pomponia, a shrewd and intelligent young woman, had soon succeeded in conquering him, and it was a scandal in the family that he had become a typical Roman husband of modern times—afraid of his wife, fearful of her tempers, and docile, and well governed. In this connection Marcus remembered the angry statement of old Porcius Cato, “Romans govern the world but are themselves governed by their wives.” He also recalled that Themistocles, the ancient Greek statesman, had complained that while Athenians governed the Greeks and he governed the Athenians, his wife governed him, and their son governed her. Marcus had no desire to be governed by a woman. He amiably visited the country home of Quintus, when his brother was on furlough, and amiably smiled upon Pomponia, but he shuddered at the awe and terror in which Quintus held his young wife. Quintus the fearless, the impulsive, Quintus whose own temper among men had gained a respectable reputation! As if to balance the oppression of his wife, Quintus often undertook to advise Marcus about politics, about which he was certain that Marcus knew nothing. “One must be a tactician, as in war, and you, dear Marcus, hate war.”

At twenty-nine his work, his endless labors, his growing fame, his lassitude and sadness, began to overcome Marcus. He discovered, to his alarm, that that fine instrument of his, his voice—so sedulously trained by Noë and Roscius—was showing signs of failing. There were mornings when he awoke that he said to himself, “It is impossible for me to face the day.” Never exceptionally strong, he was aware of weakness in his limbs. He struggled on against increasing pain and increasing disability, and would listen to no advice, not from his physician, not from his parents. “There is so little time,” he would say with an irritability foreign to his affable nature.

Then, one hot summer day, he collapsed in his office, and his students carried him to his couch in a fainting condition. His physician was called. The physician said, “I hold no hope for your life unless you leave Rome and your work and rest your mind and your spirit.” Marcus scoffed. But in the days that passed he found that he could rarely stir from his bed, that his joints ached and throbbed with anguish. His physician said, “You must go to Greece, to the shrine of the great physician, son of Apollo, Aesculapius, who is reputed, in dreams, to cure the afflicted. You have rheumatism; your body reflects the weariness and pain of your soul.”

Quintus said, “I will go with you to Greece. Have you not always longed for that country?” Marcus smiled at him, thinking that Quintus might desire a little respite from Pomponia. “We shall see Pomponia’s brother, who is also my publisher,” he said. Atticus had discreetly fled from Rome before the trial of old Servius and had amassed a fortune in Greece by various methods. But his publishing business was still very prosperous in Rome, and he still employed one hundred scribes.

With seriousness, now, Marcus began to plan to go to Greece.

“You shall walk where Socrates and Plato and Aristotle walked!” Tullius exclaimed. “As you trace their footsteps, who knows but what their shades shall whisper to you? Never have I forgotten what Socrates said concerning the Unknown God: ‘There shall be born to men the Divine One, the perfect Man, who will bind our wounds, who will lift our souls, who will set our feet on the illuminated path to God and wisdom, who will cherish our ills and share them with us, who will weep with man and know man in his flesh, who will return us to that which we have lost and who will lift our eyelids that we may gaze again on the Vision.’”

Marcus was now so weak, in these last hot days of summer in his bed, that he could not control his emotions. He remembered his youthful dream of seeing the Divine One face to face in the flesh, and he was sorrowful that He had not yet appeared among men. Why did He delay, in this enormous world of confusion and pain and evil and strife, of endless distrust and betrayal and the clashing of arms?

Noë came to see his old friend and to read him his latest play. Roscius, the rascal, was in Jerusalem. “No doubt seeking forgiveness for his many crimes, especially those against me,” said Noë. “He has a copy of my play. He demands an extortionate price for appearing in it. He is also growing a beard, as he writes me. I prefer to believe he is growing a horse’s tail and hoofs, like a centaur.”

Noë was proud and pleased that crowds of former clients and devotees came daily to the house of the Carinae to inquire about Marcus’ health, and filled the street before it and even intruded on the gardens in the rear. Noë said, “We are famous, it seems. When are you going to buy a more impressive house, dear friend, and leave this decaying area?”

“When I return from Greece,” said Marcus.

Friends of Scaevola visited him, honoring both Scaevola and his favorite pupil. Looking on their elderly faces with the new charity of illness, Marcus began to wonder if they had not, over the years, smoothed his way for him, for many inexplicable things had happened.

One day a slave came running into his cubiculum with the news that Julius Caesar and Pompey had arrived. Marcus felt the old thrill of fond pleasure and amusement at the name of his young friend, and sat up in bed the better to receive him. He wondered, however, at the presence of Pompey, the strong and taciturn. Julius came in, flowing gracefully as usual in a long rich robe of the finest red silk, and with silver shoes and girdle and silver armlets studded with turquoises. He exhaled his customary air of exuberance and good-will and delight in living. He was also fragrant.

“Dear friend!” he cried, leaning over the bed to embrace Marcus. “What is this that I hear of you?”

“I thought you were still killing pirates,” said Marcus. “I thought there was a price on your head—again—in Rome.”

“I am a very valuable man,” said Julius, sitting down on the foot of Marcus’ bed and regarding the older man with deep affection. “I survive.”

“That is a great talent,” Marcus admitted. He looked at Pompey, in his military garb, standing at the end of the bed, his broad thumbs thrust into his leather girdle. Pompey was regarding him with kindness, and this startled Marcus. Then he noticed the serpentine ring on Pompey’s hand. He averted his eyes. Julius was chattering gaily, a habit he had when he wished to conceal his thoughts. “You smell like a rose,” said Marcus, a little sourly.

Julius laughed, and slapped Marcus’ bare foot. “I am the rose of Rome,” he said.

“Rome smells of the Cloaca,” said Marcus, and Julius was overcome with mirth. Pompey grinned, and his large white teeth flashed. Julius said, “One would not believe it, but our Marcus is a man of great wit, of subtle wit. He is also an augur.”

“So?” said Pompey, with gravity, and Marcus saw that he believed Julius. Marcus said, “Did you come to me for an omen, Julius?”

“I heard you were sick!” cried Julius, reprovingly. “I returned but yesterday to my wife and my little daughter, Julia, but when I heard of your illness but an hour ago I hastened to you. This is your gratitude.”

But Marcus said, “Has not Lepidus attempted to assassinate you as yet?”

“I am no threat to Lepidus,” Julius said. “I am a man of many parts, and priceless in them all. Besides, Lepidus and I belong to the populares party. I have given up politics. I am but a simple soldier.”

Marcus laughed. The two young men laughed with him.

“I respect the Consul of the people,” said Julius. “So does Pompey. Did not Pompey help Lepidus to be elected Consul? And Pompey is my friend.”

“I discern a winding connection,” said Marcus.

“As I have told you, Marcus, I have given up politics.”

Marcus watched him as he said, “Lepidus is attempting to overthrow Sulla’s Constitution. The Senate is angry. There are rumors that the Senate will exile him to his province, Transalpine Gaul. He is ambitious.”

Julius sighed. He helped himself to a bunch of grapes from Marcus’ table. A slave came in to pour wine. Julius eyed it mistrustfully before he drank it, then he shook his head, regretfully. “You are a rich man, it is rumored, yet your taste in wines is still deplorable. What is that you have said of Lepidus? That he is ambitious? Ah, to what excesses does not ambition lead! But when were men not ambitious? Except for myself.” Pompey was silent, holding a goblet of wine in his hand.

“You did not admire Sulla,” Julius went on when Marcus did not speak. “You ought to prefer Lepidus who at least is an amiable man regarded with affection by the people.”

“He also is a dictator, and a tyrant,” said Marcus. “Sulla forced the mobs to work at honest labor or go hungry. Lepidus has retired many of them, again, on the substance of the people, thus raising taxes on the industrious. Must position always be bought, and power, over the bellies of the despicable, the haters of work, the mendicants? Our treasury is empty again, thanks to Lepidus and his adoring mobs of rascals and graffiti and former slaves. It is no marvel that I am discouraged. Nevertheless, I must still uphold law in the very howling face of chaos, trusting that law will eventually prevail, and justice also.”

The two young men were regarding him in serious silence and intentness. He drank a large goblet of wine, for he was suddenly thirsty. Julius refilled the goblet for him, and he drank again. He leaned back on his pillows and wearily closed his eyes.

He said, “I am tired of mankind, and its natural degradation. Do we not all exalt ourselves when speaking of Socrates and Aristotle and Plato and Homer, and the other immortals? That is presumption. They are not of us. They are bright stars of another and unseen world, fallen into our darkness. They walked in our flesh. Still, they are not of us. They were glorious, but their glory is not ours.”

He opened his eyes and Julius gave him more wine. The narrow and vivid face of Julius was very still. Marcus’ weariness returned to him with powerful force, and again he closed his eyes. A whirling chaos was before him, shot with sparks of fire and strange half-seen forms and faces. He forgot where he was, and who was with him. Then the chaos began to take clearer form and he gazed fiercely at what he saw. Without opening his eyes he murmured, “There is not one of us in this cubiculum today who will die peacefully in his bed. We shall be betrayed, and perish in our own blood.” He began to shiver. The wine dulled his awareness of his body and his bodily senses.

“Who will betray me, Marcus?” Julius asked in a soft voice, leaning over Marcus whose face resembled that of the dead.

Marcus whispered, “Your son.”

Julius looked at Pompey, who, very pale, only shrugged. “I have no son,” said Julius.

Marcus did not speak. “And I?” said Pompey, speaking at last. “Who will kill me?”

“Your best friend,” said the lawyer in that faint and wandering voice.

The eyes of Julius and Pompey locked in hard ferocity. Then Julius said, “He has many best friends.”

The sick and dreaming man did not answer. Julius took his cold and flaccid hand and looked at it meditatively. “Who would kill you, Marcus?” he asked.

Marcus whispered, “I do not see their faces.”

“You are dreaming,” said Julius, still holding the other’s hand. “You are sick, and you have the visions of sickness. Do you see Catilina?”

“Fire, and blood,” said Marcus. “Livia is avenged at last.”

He fell into a deep sleep. The two young men stared at his pale and haggard face, at the dark shadows under the closed eyes, at the white exhaustion of his mouth. The curtain parted and Helvia stood on the threshold. Julius and Pompey kissed her hand, but her anxious gaze was on her son. “He falls, like this, into sudden slumbers,” she said. “It is because he is so tired. You must not be offended.” Now she looked at the visitors and was surprised at their disturbed expressions. “He is much better,” she said, thinking them sorrowful. “Soon he will be able to travel to Greece with his brother. He has not spared himself all these years. He will rest, in Greece.”

“He spoke very mysteriously to us,” said Julius. “And of us.”

“Marcus is superstitious,” said Helvia, with the indulgence of a mother. She reached under Marcus’ pillows and brought forth a small silver object of much antiquity, for it was worn and shining dimly with ancient scratchings. The young men regarded it with horrified repugnance, for it was the cross of infamy, the top curved into a loop to hold a chain.

“It was given to him by an Egyptian merchant who was his client two years ago,” said Helvia, replacing the cross under the pillow. “It came, the merchant said, from some old violated tomb of a Pharaoh, centuries ago. The merchant told my son that it was the sign of the Redeemer of mankind, prophesied eons ago in the mists of the youth of our world. It is, as we know, only the sign of the infamous death of criminals and malefactors and traitors and thieves and rebellious slaves. Yet, my son honors it and tells me, in moments of abstraction, that it is the sign of the redemption of man. He awaits, he declares, hourly for the birth of the son of the gods.”

Julius was smiling broadly. “Are the gods coming down from Olympus again for fresh rompings?” he said.

But Pompey, newly fearful, looked back over his shoulder as he and Julius left the sickroom. When they were in Julius’ litter, Julius saw, for the first time, the ring on his friend’s hand. “How imprudent of you!” he exclaimed with annoyance. “Marcus recognized that ring! In revenge, he deliberately disturbed us and filled us with dismay.” Then he smiled and shook his head admiringly. “Marcus is more subtle than even I knew. He wished us, in his gentle malice, to suffer in our minds.”

Marcus, unaware that his friends had left him, unaware that he had spoken to them in his half-dream, was dreaming again. He was wandering in a field that was lit by no sun he could discern. There was no limit to the horizon. His feet sank into soft green grass, and there was a murmurous sound of bees and birds in the gentle air. At each step flowers sprang up before him and filled the atmosphere with wonderful fragrance. Suddenly he saw a great city in the distance, bright and shining as if built of gold and alabaster. He hurried toward it, eagerly, but always it retreated, its columns and its glistening domes falling back from him. The breeze rustled as if with a multitude of unseen wings. Just beyond the limits of his hearing he heard singing voices, full of joy and merriment, but when he turned his head he saw nothing but flowers and grass and great stands of trees which were unfamiliar to him. Each tree bore masses of blossoms that exhaled a scent of intense perfume. And the distant city stood in radiance, as if emanating a light of its own and it was this light that lit up the world.

He felt his hand taken gently, and he started and turned his head. Young Livia was beside him, laughing, clad in garments that glowed and with a wreath of flowers on her autumn hair. Her eyes were bluer than he had remembered, and her hand was soft and warm in his. She held him tightly, and he looked at her with ecstasy. “You are not dead, beloved,” he cried.

“No, I am not dead. I was never dead, my dear one,” she answered in a voice he had never forgotten. She stood on the tips of her toes and kissed his lips, and the touch was like delicious fire. “Remember me, always,” she said, and laid her head on his shoulder.

Then a darkening fell over everything and all became wan and far. Marcus, in terror, seized Livia in his arms again. “Tell me!” he cried. “Did you ever love me, Livia? Did you ever know me, and my love for you?”

Her face was becoming the face of a shade, transparent and white, but her eyes lay on him with blue passion. “Yes, but it was not to be. It was the will of God that we did not possess each other in those days, for there is much for you to do and I should have hindered you.”

Her words were very mysterious to him and he could not understand them. He tried to grasp her but it was like grasping mist. “Remember me,” she said as if she spoke in echoes. “Above all, remember God, and we shall see each other again, and we shall never part thereafter.”

The darkness and the wanness fell faster, and now he was alone in a vast darkness, crying, “Livia, Livia!” Only silence answered him. He opened his eyes and saw the anxious face of his mother bent over him.

“I have seen Livia,” he said in a weak voice.

Helvia nodded indulgently. “Do we not all dream, my son?” She gave him the elixir the physician had left. “What is life, without a dream?”

*From letters to Cicero.

*Concluding speech of Cicero at the trial of Sextus Roscius.

†Letter to Caesar.