CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The Roman Proconsul was displeased with Marcus. Marcus in turn was displeased, particularly with his brother, Quintus, whose tongue in the taverns had brought the Proconsul here to the lovely house of Atticus, on one wooded hill which looked upon the Acropolis. Quintus stood somewhat sheepishly beside Marcus in the breezy portico of the house while the Proconsul sipped wine and darted looks of displeasure at both brothers.

“I cannot believe that they were Romans who attacked you, noble Cicero.”

“I did not see their faces,” said Marcus. “Nevertheless, Quintus who fought them, and heard their voices, says they were Romans.”

“You were stunned,” said the Proconsul, an irritable little man with a huge hauteur and fussy arrogance.

“I am a soldier, and accustomed to being stunned yet retaining my wits,” said Quintus, who had learned that the Proconsul had never been a soldier. “This, I confess, is beyond the power of a civilian.”

Marcus glanced at him admiringly, and smiled.

“I should prefer, for the sake of peace and tranquillity in diplomatic concerns to believe they were not even Greeks,” said the Proconsul.

“They were not Greeks. They were Romans,” said Quintus.

The Proconsul coughed. “The Greeks admire your brother, Captain. But, on the other hand, they do not love Romans. They are already singing—in the taverns with which I believe you, Captain, to be familiar—of the inability of Romans to endure each other and their eagerness to destroy their virtuous and distinguished men. One of the least offensive verses in the newest songs concerns cannibalism and barbarism. You can understand why I am offended.”

“If you had examined the body of the man I slew you would have discovered he was a Roman,” said Quintus, who had begun to frown.

“I have told you. When the company I sent from Athens reached the spot the body had disappeared. Who bore it away? We have nothing but your word, noble Captain, which I regret you spread through the noisome taverns of Greece. The merchants saw the men in flight; they did not see their faces nor hear their voices. One was an Egyptian of noble Alexandrian family. They admired you, Captain, who, wounded and injured, pursued the—robbers—and overtook them and slew one and put to rout the other.”

“It is neither my will nor my desire that the authorities pursue this matter any longer,” said Marcus. The Proconsul fixed his eyes on him reprovingly and said with a weighty intonation, “You forget, noble Cicero, that we are people of Law. If I ignored this attack on you, and thus gave credence to the rumor that your attackers were Romans, the Athenians would be delighted. They have a saying, ‘The wolf protects his own cubs,’ thus implying that Romans can murder each other and rob each other with impunity, in utter lawlessness.”

“In my experience,” said Marcus, who was weary, “the more a wound is probed the more inflamed it becomes.”

The Proconsul became fretful. “But if I ignore this then total disregard for law will result. I thought better of you, Cicero, who are a lawyer.”

The Proconsul paused to sip at the excellent wine again. “I should like to see that famous ring which the noble Quintus Cicero removed from the hand of the—robber.”

Marcus looked at his brother with anger, and Quintus blushed and moved uneasily. “What ring?” asked Marcus, with apparent amazement. “I know of no ring!”

“No?” said the Proconsul, with obvious relief. “Why, then, do I hear rumors that the noble Quintus Cicero tore it from the hand of the dead man?”

“Rumor has no legs, therefore it cannot walk, but it has wings, therefore it can fly,” said Marcus.

The Proconsul was no fool. He had seen Marcus’ expression of vexation. “There is but one thing which I trust you can explain, noble Cicero. You have affirmed your belief in your brother’s words that the attackers were Roman. Why, then, considering that you were almost killed, are you protecting those who wished you to die? Is it possible,” the Proconsul continued, “that you know their identity or have some suspicion?”

“I do not know their identity.”

“But you protect them by your denials. Have you forgotten that as a Roman and as a lawyer it is your duty to uphold the law?”

“It is also my duty as a lawyer not to make wild accusations without proof,” said Marcus. “It is also my intention to face those murderers one day, myself. I will deal with them.”

“Then it is a private quarrel!” said the Proconsul, who loved vendettas.

The Proconsul rose. “Then, noble Cicero, you will not object if I give out the rumor that you were attacked by thieves of an alien race who spoke in an alien tongue?”

“Considering,” said Marcus, “that we Romans in Greece are an alien race and speak with an alien tongue, you will be quite correct.”

The Proconsul was not certain that this pleased him. He took his leave with much ceremony and expressed his hope that Marcus would enjoy his visit to Greece. He also implied by looks and gestures that he hoped Marcus would leave promptly so as not to be the cause, again, of a deplorable incident. When he had gone Marcus said to his brother with renewed anger, “What a babbler you are, Quintus, especially in your cups!”

“I regret that I was the cause of your embarrassment,” said Quintus, in a somewhat surly tone. He scratched his thick curls. “Why did you wish to protect those murderers, even if they are Romans?”

“We do not know who they are.”

“But you recognized the ring.”

“True. But I have seen only one man who wore that ring and whose name I know. I doubt that Pompey was one of those who attacked me.”

“You have always thought me a fool!”

Marcus was immediately contrite and put his hand on his brother’s arm. “No, Carissime, that is not true. I have always considered you truly an ‘old’ Roman, and I can think of no greater compliment.”

He went out into the beautiful garden of Atticus’ house and raised his eyes to the distant Acropolis and was again overcome with the same profound wonder and awe which he had at first experienced. The lucent air was so clear, the extraordinary cerulean sky so brilliant and sparkling, that the Acropolis appeared almost at hand, distinct in every detail, confounding the senses, diminishing all men in its aspect of total grandeur and heroic beauty, calling attention to the ephemeral life of man yet emphasizing his importance. For, had not man created this?

It was strange that man had, centuries ago, reared this splendor in honor of the gods, who had always hated him and had wished to destroy him. Zeus had decreed the extinction of man, in outrage that such a creature of mud should resemble the immortals. But Prometheus, the Titan, immortal himself yet of the Mother Earth, had taken pity on mankind, had brought it eternal fire, had inspired it, and had been chained to rock to expiate his crime of mercy and compassion and love. He had wept in his agony, yet had challenged the gods who would have driven man from the world, and had at one and the same time defied the gods and implored their pity both on himself and the creatures of their loathing wrath. They could no longer destroy man, for he had learned the secret of immortality and knowledge.

The challenge between the gods and men would never end, until the gods repented their disgust and hatred and man repented his bestial enormities. It was rare that the gods intervened in/the affairs of man in the name of justice and truth and law. It appeared that they intervened only in malice and to protect their own majesty, or to extend their own private quarrels which they had with each other. Ah, sometimes the gods were more malignant than men in their petulances! For men sometimes had mercy.

The garden in which Marcus stood was radiant in the first rosy rays of sunset. The fountains, in which nymphs or statues of Eros stood, sang musically and plashed their rainbow waters into smooth marble basins where gold and silver fish darted, catching light on their metallic scales. The paths of the garden were of red gravel winding among flowerbeds, and myrtle and fir and cypress trees mingled together in cool clumps. Here was a marble-outdoor portico to protect one from noonday sun and to rest the weary mind. The columns shone against the dark background of the trees, and the floor was paved with snowy marble. The sweetest voices of birds sounded in the golden air and rose against the absolute blue of the sky. Soft and scented breezes mounted from the hills surrounding the Acropolis.

Marcus looked down upon the crowded city, whose façades glowed with blinding yellow light and whose flat white roofs ran with scarlet and whose colored gardens were like gems set in the dusky shadows of the trees. He saw the hurried teeming of men in the many streets; the men were already leaving their shops and the Agora, and the faint clatter of their voices and laughter could be heard clearly. The heat of the day still lingered in the city and ascended the hills, a hot breath with many fragrances of heated stone and dust and dry spice and a new scent of water, and the arid aroma of palms freshening in the effulgent air. Through the surrounding hills Marcus could glimpse the purple water of the sea, already fuming with silver mist, and the crimson sails that peopled it. And he saw the narrow marble roads rising up through the hills to the Acropolis, filling with pilgrims who sang in far and melodious tones.

Marcus again raised his eyes to the towering Acropolis, and the mighty Cyclopian abutments, built by men, which sustained it. Crowning the abutments, and circling them, glimmered walls of marble, flashing with the red and gold and violet beams of the sunset. Far below abutments and white walls lay terraced gardens filled with white shrines and little temples and fountains and flowers and green grass and dark trees, until they met the city streets. And there on the hill, under the walls, stood the white and rising circle of the theatre of Dionysus, round rank upon rank of empty stone seats where the immortal plays of Greece were produced daily for the delight of the Athenians. Here Antigone had pleaded that the rights of the individual superseded the rights of the government, and that liberty should never be threatened by the evil laws of prideful men who wished to buttress their rule and advance their ambitions and silence the cry of freedom. Here, in the words of Antigone, had dictatorship by one man been denounced and defied, and here Antigone had died, as all free men must die at the whim of tyrants. But the dictator had perished in infamous exile and the call of Antigone still rang through the modern world which unendingly disputed the scream for power uttered by wicked men. Man and the State. Always must they be enemies, for men had been given freedom by God and the State hated God, and loathed men and everlastingly fought against the rights of men. The liberty of the individual defied the luxury and the privileges of those who deemed themselves greater and wiser than their fellows, and wished to enslave their brothers. The gods hated man, but how much more did man hate man!

But it was within the glistening walls above that man both adored the gods and challenged them, attempted to appease them and glorified them. The agony of man met the cold silence of the gods, and here in pale sentience the mystery remained to defy the philosophers who had once walked in those lofty colonnades, and to confuse them. The antagonism endured, sculptured in unanswering stone, colored in the friezes of the pediments, struck into marble. The question remained.

It was not answered by the imperial glory within the white walls, nor by the aspiring columns between which the vehement sky, flaming like intense blue metal, shone with hard incandescence. Temple and Parthenon, the white fire of colonnades, the paved marble, the stupendous majesty of façade and pillar, the grace of crowding statues: none answered the mystery that lay between man and God. The little dark figures of men roamed among all the vast buildings, which were total in their perfection. Men walked the colonnades where Socrates and Plato and Aristotle had meditated, and all the poets and the marvelous playwrights of the grandeur of Greece. They brought offerings and flowers and incense to the crowded temples. They stood, looking up in awe, at the tremendous statue of Phidias’ Athena Parthenos, which faced the east, that figure of pure gold and amber ivory many times the height of the tallest man, helmeted with golden plumes, her left hand resting on her glittering shield which was ornamented with the coiling sacred serpent, her right hand embracing a gilt and marble pedestal on which stood a little winged figure. Her vast and virginal face gazed unmoved at the centuries; her attitude of repose was undisturbed by the eons of men who had come and gone. The great calm eyes contemplated the east where always a tomorrow would arise and announce wisdom, austerity, self-denial and justice and purity. The mighty statue flashed against the peacock sky as if it breathed or stirred, guarding the temple behind it and lifting eye and spirit beyond the borders of the world.

Pylons with their winged charioteers, gleaming column, rounded temples, the Parthenon, the statue of Athena Parthenos, the many other statues and the small sanctuaries, the structures of buildings of learning and music, the white paths, the ascending stairs, the glitter of white roof: All these stood within the walls, and all these denied the truth that man, and not the gods, had created this titanic marvel, this climax of the ages, this crown of glory, this celestial chorus caught in marble. The terrible and monumental beauty affirmed the dream that lay enclosed, like a gem, within the small skull of man. It reflected the splendor of heaven as it had shone in the eyes of a few men, whose hands had re-created that splendor in the chastity of stone, that the vision might endure, that man might remember that not only was he an animal but that he was also clothed with divinity.

No wonder, thought Marcus, that men from all over the world came to look upon this Acropolis, to climb its stairs, to linger in its gardens and on its flowered terraces, to enter within the walls to bow before Athena Parthenos, to wander along the colonnades of the Parthenon, to halt before shrines and there leave an offering, to retrace the footsteps of the philosophers and the poets whose like would never be known again, no, not through the endless centuries to come! Let the men of the future admire their own science and their own wisdom and their own law and their own philosophies. Let them boast, as they would. Never again would any race of man raise such a marbled glory of absolute perfection and nobility under the sun. Man had reached his apex of loveliness and wisdom on this Acropolis. Henceforth, he must decline and become the smaller.

The west became one arch of golden light, and the fragrance of the garden rose more intensely about Marcus as he sat on the stone seat and looked at the Acropolis. He was invariably both depressed and exalted at the vision, depressed that man was now so little and exalted that man had once been so great. What was the power of empire compared with this? If men remained stupid then all their bannered and shouting armies were but the senseless march of the jungles, all their laws would be inscribed in dust, and all their boast would be but the echo of beastly voices, and all their cities would be inevitably inhabited by the lizard and the owl, the wild ass and the snake, the silent rubble of fallen pride.

Daemon and god: man was a greater mystery than even the Acropolis of Athens.

Now all was scarlet and purple and silver over and within the city. Marcus did not feel the chill of evening. He was sunken in himself and his meditations. He started, therefore, when burly Quintus brought him newly arrived letters. “I am to be a father!” he shouted, and struck his breast with his clenched fist in the military manner. “Rejoice with me, Marcus!”

Marcus rose and embraced him and kissed his cheek. “Have you told Atticus?” he asked.

“No,” said Quintus, “he has not returned from the city, and his speculations.”

“Let us pray you will have a fine son,” said Marcus.

Quintus swaggered boyishly up and down the garden paths while Marcus watched him fondly. Quintus breathed deeply; he stared at the Acropolis but it was evident that he did not truly see it. He said, “My son will be a brave man, a man of Rome. I will teach him well.”

Marcus did not suggest that the coming child might be a girl. For a moment he was envious of his brother. Pomponia, the young wife, might be oppressive and inhibiting, but she loved her husband and he loved her, if he also feared her. He would always return to her arms, to be chided and admired, to be admonished and advised, to be enjoyed and cherished. What had he, Marcus, to return to in Rome? Law would endure without him and Helvia had her favorite son and soon she would be a grandmother. She also had her husband, wise and lonely child though he was. For the first time Marcus thought seriously of marriage. Surely, in Rome, there must be one woman who would love him above all others and keep his new house and supervise his servants and bear his children, who would be a joy to him. She would not be Livia. But she would be a beloved woman on this earth where Livia no longer dwelled. He was tired of the random woman whose embraces meant nothing, and whose bed gave him no real ease. He was tired of changing faces, no matter how lovely or intriguing. Casual love, or bought love, was no love at all. A man needed a woman who loved no one but him, whose arms were a shelter for his despondencies, whose smile was a cure for his melancholy, whose eyes darkened with compassion for his pains. There was, after all, no substitute for marriage.

“You have not read your own letters,” said Quintus. “There is a letter from our mother, and many others.”

Marcus opened his mother’s letter. It was full of common-sense, as usual. Helvia had visited Marcus’ various villas in the countryside and had even gone to Sicily to see his farm and order it. She did not particularly approve of the “luxurious new house” in Rome, but at least she was supervising the gardens and purchasing the furniture. She and Tullius had gone to the island for a few weeks. She missed her sons. She rejoiced, pointedly, with Quintus that his wife was about to bear him a child. She had reviewed Marcus’ speculations in the stock market and now advised the sale of some holdings which appeared precarious. The interest on moneys had risen in the banks, which was an occasion for gratification. Tullius, the father, had become less secluded; he often visited the city and he had acquired a few congenial friends, who had even given him an interest in games. The olive groves and vineyards which Marcus owned were bearing well and were being harvested. In short, matters were going excellently.

She wrote with a firmness that was most penetrating:

“I have long sought to have you look upon the Lady Terentia as your wife, for not only is she of a patrician family but is sister to Fabia, the Vestal Virgin, which augurs a divine blessing on the marriage of Terentia, and her husband. Terentia is possessed of a dowry of one hundred thousand sesterces, a not inconsiderable fortune even in the light of your own possessions, and is mistress of several houses in Rome, from which she obtains a respectable income, and a farm near Arpinum. She is most virtuous, and no scandal has attached itself to her name, and she is in all ways a desirable wife for all she is past the age of twenty-one. Her household accomplishments meet with my approval, for her family is truly Roman with all the virtues of the past. She is modest and pleasant and her intelligence would delight even you, Marcus. She is of an attractive countenance, and she has never dyed her hair which remains its natural brown. Though a shrewd woman of investments in the city, she still retains the old Roman aspect of retirement and gentle deportment and does not possess a sharp tongue, as does my daughter-in-law, Pomponia, sister of your dear friend, Atticus. It is true that she does not boast the regal beauty of her sister, the Vestal Virgin, who could have chosen among the noblest families in Rome for her husband, but beauty is often cursed by the jealous gods.”

Marcus said to his brother, “Do you know the Lady Terentia?”

“Hah,” said Quintus, who had been staring up at the Acropolis. He turned on his heel and looked at Marcus. “Her sister, Fabia, the Vestal Virgin, is of a most remarkable loveliness! When she passes in procession with her virgin sisters to the altar of Vesta the people bow more in awe before her face than before her divine condition. What glorious eyes, beaming like the moon! What magnificent hair, even if half-hidden by her veil! It is the color of gold. Her neck is like a column, her waist—”

“We have a poet,” said Marcus. “But we were not speaking of Fabia. I believe I mentioned the Lady Terentia. I surmise she is not so beautiful as Fabia.”

Quintus thought, puckering his lips and rubbing them with a blunt brown finger. “She is a friend of my Pomponia. She has visited our house. Her appearance does not come readily to my mind, but I recall that her voice was amiable but firm, her demeanor retiring and truly old Roman. Ah, wait! I remember her more clearly. She has brown hair and brown eyes and a pale complexion. I thought her an invalid but Pomponia declares her in excellent health. She speaks softly.”

“Brown hair, brown eyes, and a pale complexion,” said Marcus. “They could be the: attributes of a beautiful woman or a young Fury. It is no description at all.”

But Quintus was thinking seriously, and he shook his head once or twice. “Her appearance is pleasing; she is not lovely, but is of a mild countenance. You will recall that my Pomponia has a mild countenance, also, and a tongue like a viper.”

Marcus laughed. “Do you suspect that Terentia has such a tongue also?”

Quintus grinned. “I invariably suspect these soft-spoken women with downcast eyes and sweet manners and glances that prettily invite but promise nothing. I believe Terentia is very virtuous. How could it be otherwise with a sister who is a Vestal Virgin? Delightful Fabia—”

“It is not Fabia I am considering marrying,” said Marcus.

“You! Marrying!” cried Quintus in astonishment.

“I am not decrepit nor of a great age, Carissime. Nor am I a male Vestal Virgin. It would please our mother if I married Terentia.”

“This is a grave matter,” said Quintus, seating himself on the parapet that contained the garden. He eyed Marcus seriously. “One does not marry casually. When one enters upon marriage his whole life is changed, curtailed, ordered. There is no more freedom, no more frolicking, no more adventure. One, it is suggested, becomes circumvented.”

Marcus concealed his mirth. “You do not consider it a happy estate, and do not recommend it.”

Quintus glanced cautiously at the door of the house, then leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. “There is not a husband, who, though possessed of a handsome and virtuous wife, often does not wish he had never laid eyes on her!”

Marcus could no longer hide his smile. “Ah, traitor! I consider Pomponia adorable, and you the most fortunate of men! If Terentia resembles Pomponia—”

“She does,” said Quintus in a somewhat sad tone.

“Then, I will give the matter the most earnest thought. I am weary of having no intimate attachments. My new house on the Palatine needs a mistress.”

“Our mother is not extraordinarily old,” said Quintus, in a last heroic effort to save his brother from disaster. “She is but forty-four or forty-five. There are ladies in Rome who have had four or even six husbands at that age, and are still merry and vivacious and desirable. Our mother could be mistress of your house.”

“You are not encouraging.”

“There are times,” said Quintus, “when I envy you.” His short red tunic hardly covered his big thighs; he slapped one of them with the air of a tragic man.

When Marcus did not answer, Quintus said, “You are serious! I had hoped you were jesting.”

“No.”

Quintus sighed, as if accepting inexorable fate. “Then, marry. Terentia is as good as any.” He paused, and gave his brother a long sharp stare. “You have—no regrets?”

“Do you speak of Livia Curius?”

Marcus stood up, and supported the elbow of his broken arm with the palm of his right hand.

“I have not forgotten Livia. I can give no woman what I gave that maiden. My heart remains in Livia’s dead hands. But my life does not lie in them also. I am no longer a youth. It is true that at times my life seems a very weary thing to me, but a man has no choice but to live until the gods decree his death, and the Fates cut the thread of his existence.”

“You speak as an unhappy man speaks,” said Quintus with affectionate concern, and he put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. Marcus looked at him with surprise.

“Unhappy? No, I do not think I am. I am not a child. If we are here for any purpose at all it is not happiness, which is the condition of little children.”

“There is no purpose,” said Quintus. “Or, if there is, it is not possible for man to know.”