CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Antonius was delighted to embrace Catilina, whom he admired for the beauty which even middle-age had not dimmed or distorted, and because Catilina was intellectual and amusing and made even a depraved phrase sound light-hearted and sophisticated. Catilina was not dusty with ledgers and with facts. He moved grandly and with natural stateliness, and spoke in the tones and words native to Antonius, and his allusions were familiar to him. Moreover, Catilina could be depended upon not to speak of the necessity of money—patricians disdained money—unlike Cicero who was always dwelling on the squalid subject. Antonius prepared himself for a pleasant evening. They sat together in Antonius’ library—he had not bought the manuscript of Aristotle after all, discerning it was a forgery—and drank wine and ate fruit and sweetmeats and commented on the cold winter weather, and jested, and laughed, and exchanged gossip of the city. It was a great relief to Antonius who liked to think that life would be a very happy state of affairs if men would cease to be grim and point at books and documents with an ink-stained finger and talk of economy, a most disheartening topic of conversation.

It was not for some time that Antonius became aware of the terrible fixity and vivid light in Catilina’s magnificent blue eyes, and that the whole power of his personality had begun to center on him. Catilina was unusually pale; his mouth had a bluish cast; his nostrils were white and distended with tension. Antonius, always solicitous, said, “Are you well, Lucius?”

“Well enough,” said Catilina. “Do not think I brood on my failure to become Consul of Rome.” He paused. “And how do you find our suetty Cicero, the Vetch, the Chick-pea, the dull man who bites every coin he spends either of his own or the Treasury’s?”

His voice was so full of hatred and malignancy that Antonius was disturbed. He knew that Catilina “disliked” Cicero, and was contemptuous of him as a “new man,” and that Catilina had ardently desired to be elected Consul despite the opposition—strange to Antonius—of those he could surely have deemed his friends. But cold and violent hatred was alien to the colleague of Cicero, and he could not understand it. He smiled with uneasiness. “Cicero is a very realistic man,” he replied. “I was much taken aback to discover how insolvent our Treasury is, and how dire are our natural circumstances. I constantly tell Marcus that matters will improve and that our nation is sound at heart and rich. But he is not so optimistic.”

“The Vetch is a vulgarian,” said Catilina, his fine voice hard as iron. “You have surely discerned this, yourself. He will destroy Rome, for he knows nothing of her spirit and vitality and the changing days in which we live, and the opportunities which are constantly presenting themselves to intelligent men. He would have us return to the meagre and barefoot days of Cincinnatus, and like Cincinnatus bend ourselves to the plow, forgetting that we are now an urbane and mighty nation, and complex, and surrounded by a myriad problems which cannot be solved by a few platitudes.”

Antonius was even more uneasy. “But still,” he murmured, “there are problems. I saw them for myself.”

“None that cannot be overcome,” said Catilina. He suddenly rose and shut the bronze door of the library. He refilled his goblet with wine and then stood in silence, staring down at the wine, his fine strong legs apart, his hands and neck and wrists and armlets glittering with jewels, his darkly ruddy hair touched with gray. His profile was still godlike and noble. He resembled a sparkling statue as he meditated. “You are not a fool,” he said suddenly to Antonius, “for all you dodge facts. I have a way to save Rome. A heroic way, the way of valorous men, the way of a patrician, the way of a man who knows his country and the people therein, as the Chick-pea does not know them.”

He turned his blazing eyes on Antonius, who was staring at him. “Are you valorous, Antonius? Are you brave, manly, aristocratic? I have known you from our childhood, and I think you are. Have you heard me? The Vetch is right in one matter: Rome is about to be destroyed.”

Antonius sat up in his carved ebony chair as if struck across the face. His light brown eyes fixed themselves on Catilina’s own eyes and it seemed to him that he was gazing at blue lightning.

“I have said that Rome is about to be destroyed,” said Catilina.

Antonius was incredulous. The warm lamplight on the lemonwood and teakwood tables stirred in a slight draft. The colors of the Persian carpets flowed into each other. The brazier was hot with red coals. Books gleamed on shelves and figurines were illuminated, and there was a scent of roses in the air. Antonius darted a bemused glance about him, disbelieving what he had heard, then turned again to the standing Catilina with an imploring smile which beseeched the other man to withdraw his frightful words.

“It is true that the Treasury is almost empty,” he said. “But surely it can be refilled, if we take long and serious consideration.”

“It is not the Treasury of which I speak,” said Catilina. “It is of some of the people of Rome, themselves, who will destroy Rome tomorrow.”

“Those of whom Cicero has been speaking, the mobs who will not work but depend on bribes and favors and gifts from the government?”

“Ah, so the Vetch still loathes the people, does he? He has no compassion for the poor and the destitute, the homeless, the sick, the exploited, the shelterless, the unfortunate, the hapless ones who are miserable and in despair for no fault of their own?”

Catilina knew Antonius for an idealist, and it was to the idealist that he had spoken, while detesting him in his violent heart.

“I do not think that Cicero is merciless, and detests the people,” said Antonius. “He wishes only to curtail or remove laws which encourage idleness and beggary and footless ease of life at the expense of the general public, the taxpayers. He wishes to relieve the burden on the industrious and the venturesome, who have pride.” Antonius paused. “I know, Lucius, that your heart has always bled for the masses, and that you have always desired to relieve misfortune, and for that I honor you. But there are the multitudes who have no honor, no pride, no discipline, no patriotism—” He was amazed at his own words.

Catilina sat down and once again fixed him with his terrible eyes. “I see that the Vetch has already corrupted you, my friend.”

Antonius shook his head in confusion. “No. No. It is true that Cicero speaks always of this, but never before did it strike me so starkly.”

Catilina not only now despised his friend, but hated him. But he spoke gently and softly in his very musical voice, as one who speaks to a dearly beloved.

“You have misunderstood me, Carissime. Those who will destroy Rome are the ‘new men,’ the gross merchants, bankers, businessmen, manufacturers, brokers, and all their disgusting companions who loot the defenseless people and rob their workers. They are joined in their conspiracy against our country by avaricious Senators, and even some of our own class who love money more than our nation. I know them well! I know Caesar and Crassus and Clodius and Pompey, who are ambitious, not for Rome, but for loot and power. And what will be the end? Chaos. Infamy. Destruction. Decay. The fall of Rome. It is inevitable, unless we strike at their hearts and remove them from their seats of power and restore the Republic again in all her pride and strength and virtue.”

He waited, then said, “You know Manlius?”

Catilina knew the magnetism of his voice, and the formidable force of his charm. He saw Antonius staring at him with considerable wildness, and he thought to himself in satisfaction that the other man had been seduced as by a siren. He did not know that to Antonius his words and his voice had sounded like the thunderings of an earthquake, as if mountains had been falling, and that the pit had yielded up dreadful forms before his horrified gaze. It was as if his spirit had been struck from sleep by a bolt from the hand of Zeus, and in the fearsome light of that bolt he was seeing a landscape he had never known before.

Antonius closed his eyes, for it is an appalling thing for an idealist to see the world suddenly for what it is, and not the pleasant garden he had believed it was, populated with men of innate nobility, men of reason, men who preferred goodness to evil, and men who are civilized and mindful of the fate of their fellows, and striving for justice at all times.

All that he had disbelievingly heard of Catilina returned to him in a hundred strong and emphatic voices, and he said to himself, It is true. It is quite true.

He said in a faint voice, “Yes, I know Manlius.”

“C. Manlius,” said Catilina, making his voice deep and warm and vibrating, “is an old general, one of Sulla’s heroes, a man who gave all to his country, and who is beloved of the veterans of the legions. Manlius has pleaded with Cicero to assist the old veterans and increase their piteous pensions. Cicero has refused. But then, he is no military hero himself, but a pale man of the city, without valor or bravery. Do we not owe all we have to the old generals like Manlius, and his legionnaires? Shall we abandon them to starvation, or force them to sell themselves into slavery in order that they might be sheltered and fed? This Cicero would permit, the traitorous Cicero who is very ambitious and greedy, and who is known for his avarice.”

Antonius pretended to be moved and desperately uncertain. He said, forcing himself to meet those deranged eyes fixed on him: “Cicero has been kind to the old veterans of many wars, to the disabled and the sick, and has generously increased their allowances. He wishes only that the young and able-bodied support themselves henceforth, with their own labor and industry, in order that our country not become bankrupt and ruined.’”

“Ah,” cried Catilina, striking his strong knee with his jeweled fist. “He lies! I can tell you of tens of thousands of veterans who are in despair at this very moment, old, unfortunate, landless, unable to find employment, because they spent years in the service of their country! I can tell you of their tears and their homelessness and their bitter cries against those who have abandoned them!”

“Oh,” murmured Antonius, in compassionate tones. “I have not seen these veterans. Where are they? What is their place of congregation, that I may address them and inspire them with hope?”

Catilina was silent. His fists remained on his knees. His eyes flickered like blue fire on Antonius, whose ingenuous expression was more ingenuous than ever. Then Catilina, having satisfied himself that this unworldly fool had spoken without guile, answered, “They are with C. Manlius, who gives what he can to them, in Etruria, and what shelter he can, though his own purse is lean.”

Antonius’ heart jumped. He was recalling vague rumors, which he had discounted, that General C. Manlius had gathered about him thousands of disgruntled mercenaries who had enlisted in the legions for the pay, and who had expected looting and small fortunes in return.

“Why does not Manlius present himself before Cicero, and the Senate, and ask help for his men?” said Antonius.

“Has he not done so?” exclaimed Catilina. “Did he not appeal under the proposed new agrarian law (lex agraria) to give to the old veterans proportions of the public lands for their own use? I spoke before the Senate, myself, as you may recall, in support of agrarian reform. And, who opposed the law and caused the Senators and the tribunes to vote against it? Your superior colleague, Cicero!”

“Cicero opposed it, not because he was against the giving of land, but because it placed too much power in the hands of government,” said Antonius, with a pleading and questioning look at the excited Catilina. “You will recall what he said:

“‘In studying this law, I find that nothing else is intended or done than the creation of ten “kings,” who under the name and pretense of agrarian law, are made the masters of the whole republic, the kingdoms, the free nations—in short, the whole world. I assure you, men of Rome, that by this specious and popularity-hunting agrarian reform law nothing is given to you, but all things are conferred on a few individuals. A show is made of granting lands to the Roman people and the veterans, but in fact they are deprived of their liberty. The wealth of private persons is increased, and their power under this law, but the public wealth is decreased. In short, by means of the government, the tribunes of the people, whom our ancestors intended to be the protector and guardian of freedom, petty kings without restraint are to be established in the state.’”*

Catilina threw back his magnificent head and laughed loudly, while Antonius affected to regard him with trouble. Antonius added, “Not only the veterans were to be given rich land, but the mobs of Rome, also, who wished, according to Cicero, only to loot and exploit and resell at marvelous profits.”

“If that is true, and it is not, who has more right to land than Romans, to use as they wish? Have they not labored and fought for it? Who is this Vetch that he should oppose the agrarian law which grants to the people what is their due, their civil rights?”

Antonius shook his head as if in doleful agreement and great trouble, and yet greater confusion. His heart was pounding against the walls of his chest like a hammer, and he said to himself, Why is it that I never understood before, and never believed in the enemies of my country, and smiled disbelievingly at Cicero when he spoke of them?

“I tell you,” cried Catilina, “for this alone Cicero is in danger of assassination at the outraged hands of the very citizenry who elected him!”

“Oh, not truly,” murmured Antonius. “Surely the people understand his opposition. You will recall that Cicero said, in opposing the lex agraria, that the petty ‘kings’ would surround themselves with a regal and legal retinue in order to enforce the law, and so would terrorize the populace and repeal their liberties. Even the Senate, even those who favored the law, laughed uproariously, when Cicero mentioned the ridiculous probability that Rullus would send a summons to General Pompey, the Magnus, to stand by in military might while he, Rullus, put up for sale the lands which Pompey, himself, had won by his own sword! When a civil right, Cicero said, invades the domain of the rights of all the people, then it becomes a special right of a special class.”

I am convincing him against his own foolish convictions, thought Catilina with exultation. It is easier to convince a good and silly man than to convince a rascal, thank the gods. Catilina said, “Cicero forgets that times move, that a nation is always confronted by new situations and changes, and that which was excellent for our ancestors is anachronistic today.”†

“Cicero has said,” remarked Antonius in an appealing voice, “that though externals change, the nature of man does not, and therefore that which was true yesterday is true today and tomorrow.”

“Spoken like a true plebeian!” said Catilina. “But we patricians know there is no such thing as unchanging human nature. It can be readily molded and manipulated by laws. The Roman of today is not the Roman of yesterday. The old Roman declared that he who does not work neither shall he eat. But we are more cognizant of our public duties in these days, and are compassionate, and will let no man starve because he can find no employment or if the employment offered is distasteful to him. Is it not a man’s right to reject work for which he feels no interest, or if the wages offered are insufficient?”

Yesterday, thought the alarmed Antonius, I should have agreed with him, with all my heart and my enthusiasm! He said, “Then the mobs of Rome are one with the mercenaries—I mean the veterans—of Manlius?”

Again Catilina scrutinized him for duplicity, but found none in that open countenance and in eager shining of the eyes. He said soberly and with emphasis, “Yes, the people of Rome are one with the veterans. So are the miserable gladiators, and the hungry actors, and the intellectuals who love the people and are angered by the wrongs forced on them, and the artists, and the essayists, and all who feel a responsibility toward the common good, which includes many Senators and tribunes of the people, and the freedmen who are not permitted to forget that once their ancestors were slaves and bondsmen.”

Catilina rose and began to pace up and down the library as if seized by unbearable agitation and sorrow and noble anger. His face changed, became charged with wrath and emotion. He raised his right fist high in the air and shook it violently. “What am I to do, I who love the people and weep for their wrongs? What gods can I implore?”

Antonius said in grieving tones, his shoulders fallen and his hands hanging between his knees: “Yes, what are we to do?”

Catilina halted his pacing. He flung himself into a chair and leaned toward the other man and spoke in a hushed and panting voice. “You and I, Antonius, should be Consuls of Rome, you the first Consul, I your colleague. The Vetch did not win rightfully. He won by guile, and by his oratory. Is that the way of true Romans? Shall not our wrongs be redressed?”

Antonius pretended to immense eagerness. “You believe I should be Consul of Rome, Lucius?”

Catilina smiled darkly. “I do indeed. And I your colleague, in the name of Rome.” He paused, then continued, “Let us reason together. Desperate times demand desperate solutions.”

Julius Caesar said to Crassus and Clodius and Pompey, “So, he visited Antonius tonight, according to our spies, and he has left in a state of jubilation. No doubt he will go immediately to Manlius. What a fool is that Antonius! Has Catilina assigned him the task of assassinating Cicero publicly, in the name of Rome?”

“Without doubt,” said Crassus, meditatively chewing a fig and listening to the early winter gale outside his warm windows. “A stupid man can be induced to do anything, especially if he is emotional, and Antonius’ emotions are well known. He could be brother to the Gracchi.”

“We should have coddled Catilina, even though his madness repulsed us,” said Julius. “But I wearied of him. I thought even the mobs would become aware of his insanity. It seems I was wrong.”

“The politician who promises can always obtain enthusiastic followers,” said Clodius, surnamed Pulcher. “It is true that Catilina is mad. But his very madness appeals to the irresponsible rabble. Has it not been said that men are insane, though man is rational? What must we do to protect Cicero, that orator in a white toga?”

“He must be protected at all cost,” said Julius. “Catilina is now prepared to loose his criminals upon Rome. He is moving without us. We have restrained him thus far. But now we can restrain him no longer. Thanks to our stupid Antonius.”

“I suggest that Catilina be murdered,” said Clodius, idly refilling his goblet.

“How?” asked Crassus. “He surrounds himself with guards. He never sleeps without them. Let him be murdered, or even an attempt on his life, and the rabble would rise against us and that would be the end.”

Julius played with his rings. “We face a desperate dilemma. Were we to warn Cicero he would speak of ‘conspiracies’ again. Were we to guard him, he would reject the guard. He does not trust us.”

“Strange,” said Pompey.

His friends burst out laughing.

The momentary mirth was a relief. But they all knew that they must act at once. However, how they should act was a puzzle. On the one hand they had Cicero, who would mistrust them. On the other hand they had Catilina, and his dupe, Antonius, who would believe anything if it were said in sonorous periods and in the falsity of the righteous.

In the midst of their serious and alarmed arguments, Crassus’ overseer sidled into the dining room with the news that a hooded visitor begged to be admitted to the presence of Crassus, and to speak to the dictator in private. Crassus went into the atrium while the men he had left exchanged frowning glances and fell into an uneasy silence.

When Crassus appeared in the columned atrium with its singing fountains, the visitor threw back his hood and revealed the pale carved features of C. Antonius Hybrida. Crassus, who had known him from his birth, embraced him and exclaimed, “My dear young friend! How delightful it is to see you! I have guests. Join us.”

But Antonius, who seemed very agitated, grasped his arm and said, “Who are these guests, Licinius?”

Crassus’ eyes were a granite flash upon him. He paused. Then Crassus said slowly, “Caesar. Clodius. Pompey.”

“But not Catilina?”

“Not Catilina.”

“I thought you were not engaged with Pompey any longer, Licinius.”

Crassus smiled, but his eyes remained on him intently. “A minor quarrel, Antonius, which is now healed. What is this to you?”

But Antonius appeared even more agitated. “I have heard, long ago, Licinius, that you and Caesar and Catilina and Pompey and Clodius and Curius and Piso and Sittius Nucerinus, and many others, had conspired earlier together to murder Cicero, then seize power and Rome and declare yourselves rulers of the world. It was when Cicero was Praetor of Rome. Licinius! Declare that the rumor was false!”

Crassus put his fingers over the pressing ones on his arm. He raised his marked eyebrows. “I know of no such conspiracy, my friend. Did Cicero inform you of this ridiculous libel?”

“Then, it is not true?” The kind brown eyes, strained and anxious now, looked into the gray murkiness of the eyes of his father’s friend.

“It is not true,” said Crassus with slow emphasis. “Did Cicero take the libel seriously?”

Antonius sighed deeply and dropped his hand. “I pray the gods that you are not deceiving me, Licinius, for all Rome depends on the possibility that you speak in truth.”

Crassus spoke calmly, but the granite flash was deeper in his eye-sockets. “You may be certain that I speak the truth, Antonius. What is it that you wish to confide in me?”

But now Antonius hesitated and his pallor was touched with a sudden flush of color on his cheeks. “You know that rumor and I were never friends, and I believed only good of my fellows. I never credited the existence of villains, except in myth and story. I preferred to think well of others. I am not excitable, Licinius, or given to fantasy, or womanish alarms, nor do I see enemies where there are only shadows. Nevertheless, tonight I was told of a strange—a strange—” He faltered into silence.

Crassus maintained his calm. “What strange thing, dear friend?”

Antonius flushed even more as if both shamed and embarrassed. “You must not laugh, Licinius. And yet, I should prefer that you laugh and reassure me at once.” Again he faltered into silence. Crassus took his arm suddenly. “It is Catilina, is it not?” His voice struck like a sword on Antonius’ face, and he paled again so that he was whiter than before.

“Yes. It is Catilina. But how was it possible for you to know?”

Crassus led him from the atrium. “What you have to say you must say before Caesar, Pompey, and Clodius. We were discussing Catilina before you arrived.”

“Gods!” cried Antonius with despair, and holding back ineffectually against the stern clutch on his arm. “Then I have not been just affrighting myself! Your face, Licinius, your face—”

But Crassus drew him into the dining hall, and three faces turned to them from the table and none spoke or rose. Crassus thrust Antonius forward, then shut the large bronze doors and bolted them. His breath was loud and quick in the complete quiet. But in a moment he had recovered himself and could speak in a controlled voice. “Our friend, Antonius Hybrida, colleague of Cicero, has a matter to confide to us. Let us hear him with deep attention.”

Antonius looked from one to the other in great fear. He tried to smile. He could even regret for an instant that the pleb, Pompey the Magnus, who was no patrician, should be present at what he must say about a patrician, Lucius Sergius Catilina. Crassus stood beside him. He was afraid that Antonius would faint, and he said to Julius, “Give Antonius wine.” Julius stood up and filled a goblet and brought it with both hands clasped about it to the colleague of Cicero, and himself put the vessel to the other man’s pale lips. Antonius closed his eyes and drank. Then he opened them and looked at Caesar, Caesar who could always jest and perhaps would jest now, if only to encourage him, Antonius, and lessen his fear and take from him some of his pain. But Caesar was regarding him with great gravity and the antic eyes were as bright and commanding as the points of daggers.

“Speak, Antonius,” said Crassus, imperatively.

Antonius moistened his lips. Again, he looked from one to the other, from the stony face of Crassus to the eyes of Caesar, from the impassive broad countenance of Pompey to the grim visage of young Clodius. He tried to speak, and failed. He tried again. He was conscious of the enormous silence in the splendid room and the scent of viands and wine. Then with an utmost effort of will he stammered, “It—is Catilina. He came to me tonight, he left but an hour ago, with a strange story and a stranger request. It is impossible to believe.” He halted and turned to Crassus, who said:

“It is not impossible not to believe anything of Catilina. Speak, Antonius.”

So with a weak voice that trembled, and with eyes that implored incredulous laughter, Antonius told his story to the four men who never removed their gaze from his face and uttered no word and made no gesture of any kind, not even to shift on a chair.

“It is a mad tale,” Antonius ended. “I can only believe, and hope, that Catilina was drunk tonight.”

The three men, Caesar, Clodius, and Pompey, did not speak, however. They only stared at Crassus. But Antonius said, “You must tell me that this wild tale is not only incredible but that Catilina has become deranged.”

Crassus led him gently to a chair. Then he leaned toward him and said, “It is true that Catilina is mad. But the story he has told you is true. He has not told you all, my poor Antonius. He has said that he has with him the great-hearted of Rome, many Senators and patricians, who weep for Rome and its multitudes of the desperate. They are not greathearted, though they are indeed Senators and patricians; they are traitors to their nation. Catilina has promised them debt-remission, debts which they incurred through profligacy and extravagance or the financial ruin of their families.

“He has with him, as he has asserted, the hired mercenaries of Rome, who are not satisfied with the loot they were permitted to acquire, but shout for more. Few of them are true men of Rome, many are from Etruria, of poor families who are embittered by fate, and seek revenge on gods and men. Of those who are true Romans, they are those who are veterans of Sulla, who have already wasted the grants given them lavishly, and had hoped to live for the rest of their lives at ease on the substance of the people. Catilina has told you they are ‘wronged and patriotic veterans.’ He lied.

“When he tried to move your kind heart with the story of the ‘oppressed multitudes’ of Rome, did he tell you truly who they are? No! In the vast majority they are Asiatics and others from a dozen other nations, criminals, adventurers, gladiators, pugilists, pirates, bandits, the scum of all the gutters of the world, who came to Rome in the hope of rapine and rapid fortune, or because they were hunted from their own countries and fled for shelter within these walls. They are unspeakable dogs and swine, beggars and mendicants, thieves and the diseased, and many of them are runaway slaves or low freedmen.

“Then there are those among our own class who are not content with the honors of their birth and station, and their money, but who long for power and empire. These stand with Catilina also, who has promised them that for which they dream. We know their names; we can control them.

“But I tell you, Antonius, that we cannot control the others!”

Antonius raised his hands then dropped them despairingly. “You knew of this, and did nothing?”

“We knew.” Crassus flicked the gray glitter of his eyes over his shoulder at the three silent men still at the table. “But we have had little to do with Catilina for a long time, knowing he was mad, and fearing his madness, though not underestimating his fearful power over those I have mentioned. We hoped that he had lost his following, that his increasing madness would overwhelm him. We should have had him quietly murdered.”

Antonius stared at him, aghast. “Murdered! You, Crassus, triumvir of Rome, and a man of law? You speak of murder so casually?”

Julius Caesar was forced, even then, to put his hand over his mouth to control a sudden desire to laugh at this earnest man who had not believed the rumors in Rome which had not even approached in virulence the outmost borders of the real truth. Pompey’s broad face expressed nothing, and Clodius compressed his lips to stop a cynical smile.

“Is it wrong to kill a traitor, a madman, a man who would destroy your country?”

“My dear Licinius,” Antonius faltered, “it is wrong to take the law into one’s own hands, and that you know surely.”

“True,” said Crassus, with the utmost gravity. “But these are desperate times, though it seems you were not aware of them, my good friend. We are in a state of war. We have dallied too long. Yes, we knew of Catilina and his frightful plots. But there was one thing that we did not know: When he would move. You have now told us, and for that all Rome will honor and revere your name.

“You have asked me why he came to you, the colleague of Cicero. In his black and deranged heart he believed that as you received the second largest vote, after Cicero, you would be resentful and lustful, as he is both resentful and lustful. Who would not desire to be Consul of Rome, the highest office in the land? Therefore, reasoned Catilina, you were sleepless with hatred. You are also a patrician, like himself. He believed that this Cicero was something you could not endure. And then”—here Crassus hesitated deliberately and held Antonius with the power of his clever eyes—“he thought you a man whom he could delude with promises to make you Consul of Rome. He thought you as vile as himself.”

Antonius had suddenly covered his face with his hands as if to shut out what he could not bear to see. Crassus flashed another look at the three silent men at the table, and his hard mouth jerked slightly. He continued:

“You have told us of his plot against Cicero’s life, for it is necessary for many reasons, to Catilina, that Cicero must die. Let me repeat this, as you have told it, that we have understood no error. You are, on a certain night next week, to send a message to Cicero through your freedman, Solus, at midnight, imploring Cicero to see you at once on a matter of the greatest importance. You are Cicero’s friend and colleague; you have a great love for him. He would trust you, and grant you an interview at once, no matter the hour.

“As Cicero is Consul he has soldiers to guard him. But on receiving your urgent request for an audience, even at midnight, he would inform the soldiers that you were expected and not to delay your passage to him through the gates of his house and into his presence. As the streets at that hour are always dangerous you would naturally come with a bodyguard of your own freedmen or trusted slaves, cloaked and hooded, and they would enter with you. But in reality they would be Catilina and a number of his friends. Once in Cicero’s presence they would all fall on him at once and slay him.” Crassus looked down at the wretched man seated before him and he smiled fully now, with mingled contempt and pity.

“Have you not considered something, Antonius? The soldiers and their captain would have been informed of your arrival and would have admitted you with the conspirators. They would also have recognized you, for they know you well. Would Catilina, then, have permitted you to live, to betray him? No. You would have died an instant after Cicero had died.”

Antonius let his hands fall. He looked up into Crassus’ face speechlessly and Crassus thought: Surely it is not possible that the thought had not occurred even to this credulous mind?

Crassus said, “His vileness is so monstrous that he could underestimate you. Fortunately for Rome, for Cicero, and for yourself, you are not the man Catilina judged you were.”

“But what can we do?” cried Antonius in a hopeless voice. “Much,” said Crassus. “We can go to Cicero at once, even if he has retired and it is late, and tell him of the nearness of disaster and chaos. But the danger is not past! We have known for a long time that this madman, this appalling creature, longs to burn Rome, herself! Why? Out of perversity, out of the black destructiveness that lives in his inhuman heart.”

“No!” exclaimed Antonius. “It is not possible to believe this even of Catilina!”

“You must believe it,” said Crassus, sternly. “For it is true. I have told you, Antonius, that we were deluded that he was no longer a threat to Rome, or at least that he was not so great a threat as we now know he is, thanks to you. Cicero, the famed and honorable, the beloved of Rome, must know the whole plot against him and Rome. He will arouse the people, even the most apathetic, not only to indignation but to horror and vengeance, and the crushing of the danger that threatens all of us. They have heard rumors of Catilina and his horrific multitudes for a long time; apprehension has stirred them often. But not enough! They have heard of the disaffection of Etruria, and Manlius, that rude old soldier. They have heard of the lust of the criminals, and the treason of many of the patricians. All this has, from time to time, swept over their consciousness like a vague black wind. But not enough! Now the hour has come to expose Catilina for what he is, and Cicero is the only man who can do so.”

*As reported by the historian Sallust.

† From a speech Catilina gave before the Senate.