The Seventh of January
I
The rapid march of events that week had taken Drusus out of himself,
and made him forgetful of personal consequences; but it sobered him
when he heard Curio and Caelius, his associates, telling Balbus where
their wills would be found deposited if anything calamitous were to
befall them. After all, life was very sweet to the young Livian. He
could not at heart desire to drift off into nothingness--to stop
breathing, thinking, feeling. And for the last time he reviewed his
position; told himself that it was not an unworthy cause for which he
was contending; that it was not treason, but patriotism, to wish to
overthrow the great oligarchy of noble families, who by their
federated influence had pulled the wires to every electoral assembly,
so that hardly a man not of their own coterie had been elected to high
office for many a long year; while the officials themselves had grown
full and wanton on the revenues wrung from the score of unfortunate
provinces.
The feeling against the Caesarians was very bitter in the city. Caesar
had always been the friend and darling of the populace; but, now that
his star seemed setting, hardly a voice was raised, save to cry up the
patriotism and determination of the consuls and Pompeius Magnus.
Soldiers of the latter's legions were everywhere. The Senate was to
convene the afternoon of the seventh, in the Curia of Pompeius, in the
Campus Martius. Lentulus Crus was dragging forth every obscure
senator, every retired politician, whose feet almost touched the
grave, to swell his majority. All knew that the tribunes' vetoes were
to be set aside, and arbitrary power decreed to the consuls. Drusus
began to realize that the personal peril was pressing.
"Won't his head look pretty for the crows to pick at?" commented
Marcus Laeca to a friend, as the two swept past Drusus on the street.
The Livian heard the loudly muttered words and trembled. It was easy
to laud the Decii who calmly sacrificed their lives for the Republic,
and many another martyr to patriotism; it was quite another thing to
feel the mortal fear of death coursing in one's veins, to reflect that
soon perhaps the dogs might be tearing this body which guarded that
strange thing one calls self; to reflect that all which soon will be
left of one is a bleaching skull, fixed high in some public place, at
which the heartless mob would point and gibber, saying, "That is the
head of Quintus Livius Drusus, the rebel!"
Drusus wandered on--on to the only place in Rome where he could gain
the moral courage to carry him undaunted through that which was before
him--to the Atrium of Vesta. He entered the house of the Vestals and
sent for his aunt. Fabia came quickly enough, for her heart had been
with her nephew all these days that tried men's souls. The noble woman
put her arms around the youth--for he was still hardly more--and
pressed him to her breast.
"Aunt Fabia," said Drusus, growing very weak and pale, now that he
felt her warm, loving caress, "do you know that in two or three days
you will have as nephew a proscribed insurgent, perhaps with a price
on his head, who perhaps is speedily to die by the executioner, like
the most ignoble felon?"
"Yes," said Fabia, also very pale, yet smiling with a sweet, grave
smile--the smile of a goddess who grieves at the miseries of mortal
men, yet with divine omniscience glances beyond, and sees the
happiness evolved from pain. "Yes, I have heard of all that is passing
in the Senate. And I know, too, that my Quintus will prove himself a
Fabian and a Livian, to whom the right cause and the good of the
Republic are all--and the fear of shame and death is nothing." And
then she sat down with him upon a couch, and took his head in her lap,
and stroked him as if she were his mother. "Ah! my Quintus," she said,
"you are still very young, and it is easy for one like you to enlist
with all your ardour in a cause that seems righteous; yes, and in the
heat of the moment to make any sacrifice for it; but it is not so easy
for you or any other man calmly to face shame and annihilation, when
the actual shadow of danger can be seen creeping up hour by hour. I
know that neither you nor many another man wise and good believes that
there are any gods. And I--I am only a silly old woman, with little or
no wisdom and wit--"
"Not silly and not old, carissima!" interrupted Drusus, smiling at her
self-depreciation.
"We won't argue," said Fabia, in a bit lighter vein. "But--as I would
say--I believe in gods, and that they order all things well."
"Why, then," protested the young man, "do we suffer wrong or grief? If
gods there are, they are indifferent; or, far worse, malevolent, who
love to work us woe."
Again Fabia shook her head.
"If we were gods," said she, "we would all be wise, and could see the
good to come out of every seeming evil. There! I am, as I said, silly
and old, and little enough comfort can words of mine bring a bright
young man whose head is crammed with all the learned lore of the
schools of Athens. But know this, Quintus, so long as I live, you
shall live in my heart--living or dead though you be. And believe me,
the pleasure of life is but a very little thing; it is sweet, but how
quickly it passes! And the curses or praises of men--these, too, only
a few mouldy rolls of books keep for decay! What profits it to
Miltiades this hour, that a few marks on a papyrus sheet ascribe to
him renown; or how much is the joy of Sextus Tarquinius darkened
because a group of other marks cast reproach upon his name? If so be
death is a sleep, how much better to feel at the end, 'I die, but I
die self-approved, and justified by self!' And if death is not all a
sleep; if, as Socrates tells us, there are hopes that we but pass from
a base life to another with less of dross, then how do pleasures and
glories, griefs and dishonours, of this present life touch upon a man
whose happiness or woe will be found all within?"
And so the good woman talked, giving to Drusus her own pure faith and
hope and courage; and when the intellectual philosopher within him
revolted at some of her simple premises and guileless sophistries,
against his will he was persuaded by them, and was fain to own to
himself that the heart of a good woman is past finding out; that its
impulses are more genuine, its intuitions truer, its promptings surer,
than all the fine-spun intellectuality of the most subtle
metaphysician. When at last Drusus rose to leave his aunt, his face
was glowing with a healthy colour, his step was elastic, his voice
resonant with a noble courage. Fabia embraced him again and again.
"Remember, whatever befalls," were her parting words, "I shall still
love you." And when Drusus went out of the house he saw the dignified
figure of the Vestal gazing after him. A few minutes later he passed
no less a personage than the consular Lucius Domitius on his way to
some political conference. He did not know what that dignitary
muttered as he swept past in spotless toga, but the gloomy ferocity of
his brow needed no interpreter. Drusus, however, never for a moment
gave himself disquietude. He was fortified for the best and the worst,
not by any dumb resignation, not by any cant of philosophy, but by an
inward monitor which told him that some power in some way would lead
him forth out of all dangers in a manner whereof man could neither ask
nor think.
* * * * *
On the sixth of January the debate, as already said, drew toward its
end. All measures of conciliation had been voted down; the crisis was
close at hand. On the seventh, after his interview with Fabia, Drusus
went back to his own lodgings, made a few revisions in his will, and
in the presence of two or three friends declared Cappadox
manumitted,[143] lest he, by some chance, fall into the clutches of a
brutal master. The young man next wrote a long letter to Cornelia for
Agias to forward to Baiae, and put in it such hope as he could glean
from the dark words of the philosophers; that even if destruction now
overtook him, death perhaps did not end all; that perhaps they would
meet beyond the grave. Then he took leave of his weeping freedmen and
slaves, and strolled out into the city, and wandered about the Forum
and the Sacred Way, to enjoy, perchance, a last view of the sites that
were to the Roman so dear. Then finally he turned toward the Campus
Martius, and was strolling down under the long marble-paved colonnade
of the Portico of Pompeius. Lost in a deep reverie, he was forgetful
of all present events, until he was roused by a quick twitch at the
elbow; he looked around and found Agias before him.
[143] _Manumissio inter amicos_ was less formal than the regular
ceremony before the praetor.
"_A!_ domine," cried the young Greek, "I have friends in the house of
Lentulus. I have just been told by them that the consul has sworn that
he will begin to play Sulla this very day. Neither you, nor Antonius,
Cassius, Curio, nor the other supporters of Caesar will be alive
to-night. Do not go into the Curia. Get away, quickly! Warn your
friends, and leave Rome, or to-night you will all be strangled in the
Tullianum!"
The Tullianum! Drusus knew no other term to conjure up a like abode of
horrors--the ancient prison of the city, a mere chamber sunk in the
ground, and beneath that a dungeon, accessible only by an opening in
the floor above--where the luckless Jugurtha had perished of cold and
starvation, and where Lentulus Sura, Cethegus, and the other
lieutenants of Catilina had been garroted, in defiance of all their
legal rights, by the arbitrary decree of a rancorous Senate! So at
last the danger had come! Drusus felt himself quiver at every fibre.
He endured a sensation the like of which he had never felt before--one
of utter moral faintness. But he steadied himself quickly. Shame at
his own recurring cowardice overmastered him. "I am an unworthy
Livian, indeed," he muttered, not perhaps realizing that it is far
more heroic consciously to confront and receive the full terrors of a
peril, and put them by, than to have them harmlessly roll off on some
self-acting mental armour.
"Escape! There is yet time!" urged Agias, pulling his toga. Drusus
shook his head.
"Not until the Senate has set aside the veto of the tribunes," he
replied quietly.
"But the danger will then be imminent!"
"A good soldier does not leave his post, my excellent Agias," said the
Roman, "until duty orders him away. Our duty is in the Senate until we
can by our presence and voice do no more. When that task is over, we
go to Caesar as fast as horse may bear us; but not until then."
"Then I have warned you all in vain!" cried Agias.
"Not at all. You may still be of the greatest service. Arrange so that
we can leave Rome the instant we quit the Curia."
"But if the lictors seize you before you get out of the building?"
"We can only take our chance. I think we shall be permitted to go out.
I had intended to ride out of the city this evening if nothing
hindered and the final vote had been passed. But now I see that cannot
be done. You have wit and cunning, Agias. Scheme, provide. We must
escape from Rome at the earliest moment consistent with our duty and
honour."
"I have it," said Agias, his face lighting up. "Come at once after
leaving the Curia, to the rear of the Temple of Mars.[144] I know one
or two of the temple servants, and they will give me the use of their
rooms. There I will have ready some slave dresses for a disguise, and
just across the AEmilian bridge I will have some fast horses
waiting--that is, if you can give me an order on your stables."
[144] The AEdes Martis of the Campus Martius.
Drusus took off his signet ring.
"Show that to Pausanias. He will honour every request you make, be it
for a million sesterces."
Agias bowed and was off. For the last time Drusus was tempted to call
him back and say that the flight would begin at once. But the nimble
Greek was already out of sight, and heroism became a necessity. Drusus
resolutely turned his steps toward the senate-house. Not having been
able to forecast the immediate moves of the enemy, he had not arranged
for hurried flight; it was to be regretted, although he had known that
on that day the end of the crisis would come. He soon met Antonius,
and imparted to him what he had just learned from Agias, and the
precautions taken.
Antonius shook his head, and remarked:--
"You ought not to go with me. Little enough can we who are tribunes
do; you have neither voice nor vote, and Lentulus is your personal
foe. So back, before it is too late. Let us shift for ourselves."
Drusus replied never a word, but simply took the tribune's arm and
walked the faster toward the Curia.
"I am a very young soldier," he said presently; "do not be angry if I
wish to show that I am not afraid of the whizzing arrows."
"Then, my friend, whatever befalls, so long as life is in my body,
remember you have a brother in Marcus Antonius."
The two friends pressed one another's hands, and entered the Curia
Pompeii. There in one of the foremost seats sat the Magnus,[145] the
centre of a great flock of adulators, who were basking in the sunshine
of his favour. Yet Drusus, as he glanced over at the Imperator,
thought that the great man looked harassed and worried--forced to be
partner in a scheme when he would cheerfully be absent. Fluttering in
their broad togas about the senate-house were Domitius, Cato, the
Marcelli, and Scipio, busy whipping into line the few remaining
waverers. As Cato passed the tribune's bench, and saw the handful of
Caesarians gathered there, he cast a glance of indescribable malignity
upon them, a glance that made Drusus shudder, and think again of the
horrors of the Tullianum.
[145] Pompeius was not allowed by law to attend sessions of the Senate
(so long as he was proconsul of Spain) when held inside the old city
limits; but the Curia which he himself built was outside the walls in
the Campus Martius. This meeting seems to have been convened there
especially that he might attend it.
"I know now how Cato looked," said he to Antonius, "when he denounced
the Catilinarians and urged that they should be put to death without
trial."
Antonius shrugged his shoulders, and replied:--
"Cato cannot forgive Caesar. When Caesar was consul, Cato interrupted
his speech, and Caesar had him haled off to prison. Marcus Cato never
forgives or forgets."
Curio, Caelius, and Quintus Cassius had entered the senate-house--the
only Caesarians present besides Antonius and his viator. The first two
went and took their seats in the body of the building, and Drusus
noticed how their colleagues shrank away from them, refusing to sit
near the supporters of the Gallic proconsul.
"_Eho!_" remarked Antonius, his spirits rising as the crisis drew on.
"This is much like Catilina's days, to be sure! No one would sit with
him when he went into the Senate. However, I imagine that these
excellent gentlemen will hardly find Caesar as easy to handle as
Catilina."
Again Lentulus was in his curule chair, and again the solemn farce of
taking the auspices, preparatory to commencing the session, was gone
through.
Then for the last time in that memorable series of debates Lentulus
arose and addressed the Senate, storming, browbeating, threatening,
and finally ending with these words, that brought everything to a
head:--
"Seeing then, Conscript Fathers, that Quintus Cassius and Marcus
Antonius are using their tribunician office to aid Caius Caesar to
perpetuate his tyranny, the consuls ask you to clothe the magistrates
with dictatorial power in order that the liberties of the Republic may
not be subverted!"
The liberties of the Republic! Liberty to plunder provinces! To bribe!
To rob the treasury! To defraud! To violate the law of man and God! To
rule the whole world so that a corrupt oligarchy might be aggrandized!
Far, far had the nation of the older Claudii, Fabii, and Cornelii
fallen from that proud eminence when, a hundred years before,
Polybius, contrasting the Romans with the degenerate Greeks, had
exclaimed, "A statesman of Hellas, with ten checking clerks and ten
seals, ... cannot keep faith with a single talent; Romans, in their
magistracies and embassies, handle great sums of money, and yet from
pure respect of oath keep their faith intact."
But the words of selfish virulence and cant had been uttered, and up
from the body of the house swelled a shout of approval, growing louder
and louder every instant.
Then up rose Domitius, on his face the leer of a brutal triumph.
"Conscript Fathers," he said, "I call for a vote on the question of
martial law. Have the Senate divide on the motion. 'Let the consuls,
praetors, tribunes of the plebs, and men of consular rank see to it
that the Republic suffers no harm.'"
Another shout of applause rolled along the seats, fiercer and fiercer,
and through it all a shower of curses and abusive epithets upon the
Caesarians. All around Drusus seemed to be tossing and bellowing the
breakers of some vast ocean, an ocean of human forms and faces, that
was about to dash upon him and overwhelm him, in mad fury
irresistible. The din was louder and louder. The bronze casings on the
walls rattled, the pediments and pavements seemed to vibrate; outside,
the vast mob swarming around the Curia reëchoed the shout. "Down with
Caesar!" "Down with the tribunes!" "_Io!_ Pompeius!"
It was all as some wild distorted dream passing before Drusus's eyes.
He could not bring himself to conceive the scene as otherwise. In a
sort of stupor he saw the senators swarming to the right of the
building, hastening to cast their votes in favour of Domitius's
motion. Only two men--under a storm of abuse and hootings, passed to
the left and went on record against the measure. These were Curio and
Caelius; and they stood for some moments alone on the deserted side of
the house, defiantly glaring at the raging Senate. Antonius and
Cassius contemptuously remained in their seats--for no magistrate
could vote in the Senate.
It was done; it could not be undone. Not Caesar, but the Senate, had
decreed the end of the glorious Republic. Already, with hasty
ostentation, some senators were stepping outside the Curia, and
returning clad no longer in the toga of peace, but in a military
cloak[146] which a slave had been keeping close at hand in readiness.
Already Cato was on his feet glaring at the Caesarian tribunes, and
demanding that first of all they be subjected to punishment for
persisting in their veto. The Senate was getting more boisterous each
minute. A tumult was like to break out, in which some deed of violence
would be committed, which would give the key-note to the whole
sanguinary struggle impending. Yet in the face of the raging tempest
Marcus Antonius arose and confronted the assembly. It raged, hooted,
howled, cursed. He still remained standing. Cato tried to continue his
invective. The tempest that he had done so much to raise drowned his
own voice, and he relapsed into his seat. But still Antonius stood his
ground, quietly, with no attempt to shout down the raging Senate, as
steadfastly as though a thousand threats were not buzzing around his
ears. Drusus's heart went with his friend that instant. He had never
been in a battle, yet he realized that it was vastly more heroic to
stand undaunted before this audience, than to walk into the bloodiest
melee without a tremor.
[146] _Sagum_.
Then of a sudden, like the interval between the recession of one wave
and the advance of a second billow, came a moment of silence; and into
that silence Antonius broke, with a voice so strong, so piercing, so
resonant, that the most envenomed oligarch checked his clamour to give
ear.
"Hearken, ye senators of the Republic, ye false _patres_, ye fathers
of the people who are no fathers! So far have we waited; we wait no
more! So much have we seen; we'll see no further! So much have we
endured,--reproaches, repulses, deceits, insult, outrage, yes, for I
see it in the consul's eye, next do we suffer violence itself; but
that we will not tamely suffer. Ay! drive us from our seats, as Marcus
Cato bids you! Ay! strike our names from the Senate list, as Domitius
will propose! Ay! hound your lictors, sir consul, after us, to lay
their rods across our backs! Ay! enforce your decree proclaiming
martial law! So have you acted before to give legal fiction to your
tyranny! But tell me this, senators, praetorii, consulars, and consuls,
where will this mad violence of yours find end? Tiberius Gracchus you
have murdered. Caius Gracchus you have murdered. Marcus Drusus you
have murdered. Ten thousand good men has your creature Sulla murdered.
Without trial, without defence, were the friends of Catilina murdered.
And now will ye add one more deed of blood to those going before? Will
ye strike down an inviolate tribune, in Rome,--in the shadow of the
very Curia? Ah! days of the Decemvirs, when an evil Ten ruled over the
state--would that those days might return! Not ten tyrants but a
thousand oppress us now! Then despotism wore no cloak of patriotism or
legal right, but walked unmasked in all its blackness!
"Hearken, ye senators, and in the evil days to come, remember all I
say. Out of the seed which ye sow this hour come wars, civil wars;
Roman against Roman, kinsman against kinsman, brother against brother!
There comes impiety, violence, cruelty, bloodshed, anarchy! There
comes the destruction of the old; there comes the birth, amid pain and
anguish, of the new! Ye who grasp at money, at power, at high office;
who trample on truth and right to serve your selfish ends; false,
degenerate Romans,--one thing can wipe away your crimes--"
"What?" shouted Cato, across the senate-house; while Pompeius, who was
shifting uncomfortably in his seat, had turned very red.
"Blood!" cried back Antonius, carried away by the frenzy of his own
invective; then, shooting a lightning glance over the awe-struck
Senate, he spoke as though gifted with some terrible prophetic
omniscience. "Pompeius Magnus, the day of your prosperity is
past--prepare ingloriously to die! Lentulus Crus, you, too, shall pay
the forfeit of your crimes! Metellus Scipio, Marcus Cato, Lucius
Domitius, within five years shall you all be dead--dead and with
infamy upon your names! Your blood, your blood shall wipe away your
folly and your lust for power. Ye stay, we go. Ye stay to pass once
more unvetoed the decree declaring Caesar and his friends enemies of
the Republic; we go--go to endure our outlaw state. But we go to
appeal from the unjust scales of your false Justice to the juster
sword of an impartial Mars, and may the Furies that haunt the lives of
tyrants and shedders of innocent blood attend you--attend your persons
so long as ye are doomed to live, and your memory so long as men shall
have power to heap on your names reproach!"
Drusus hardly knew that Antonius had so much as stopped, when he found
his friend leading him out of the Curia.
Behind, all was still as they walked away toward the Temple of Mars.
Then, as they proceeded a little distance, a great roar as of a
distant storm-wind drifted out from the senate-house--so long had
Antonius held his audience spellbound.
"_Finitum est!_" said Curio, his eyes cast on the ground. "We have
seen, my friends, the last day of the Republic."
II
Behind the Temple of Mars the faithful Agias was ready with the
slaves' dresses which were to serve as a simple disguise. Antonius and
his companions tossed off their cumbrous togas and put on the dark,
coarse cloaks and slippers which were worn by slaves and people of the
lower classes. These changes were quickly made, but valuable time was
wasted while Antonius--who, as a bit of a dandy, wore his hair rather
long[147]--underwent a few touches with the shears. It was now
necessary to get across the Tiber without being recognized, and once
fairly out of Rome the chances of a successful pursuit were not many.
On leaving the friendly shelter of the Temple buildings, nothing
untoward was to be seen. The crowds rushing to and fro, from the Curia
and back, were too busy and excited to pay attention to a little group
of slaves, who carefully kept from intruding themselves into notice.
Occasionally the roar and echo of applause and shouting came from the
now distant Curia, indicating that the Senate was still at its unholy
work of voting wars and destructions. A short walk would bring them
across the Pons AEmilius, and there, in the shelter of one of the
groves of the new public gardens which Caesar had just been laying out
on Janiculum, were waiting several of the fastest mounts which the
activity of Agias and the lavish expenditures of Pausanias had been
able to procure.
[147] Slaves were always close clipped.
The friends breathed more easily.
"I hardly think," said Quintus Cassius, "we shall be molested. The
consuls cannot carry their mad hate so far."
They were close to the bridge. The way was lined with tall warehouses
and grain storehouses,[148] the precursors of the modern "elevators."
They could see the tawny Tiber water flashing between the stone arches
of the bridge. The swarms of peasants and countrymen driving herds of
lowing kine and bleating sheep toward the adjacent Forum Boarium
seemed unsuspicious and inoffensive. A moment more and all Drusus's
tremors and anxieties would have passed as harmless fantasy.
[148] _Horreae_.
Their feet were on the bridge. They could notice the wind sweeping
through the tall cypresses in the gardens where waited the steeds that
were to take them to safety. The friends quickened their pace. A cloud
had drifted across the sun; there was a moment's gloom. When the light
danced back, Drusus caught Curio's arm with a start.
"Look!" The new sunbeams had glanced on the polished helmet of a
soldier standing guard at the farther end of the bridge.
There was only an instant for hesitation.
"Lentulus has foreseen that we must try to escape by this way," said
Curio, seriously, but without panic. "We must go back at once, and try
to cross by the wooden bridge below or by some other means."
But a great herd of dirty silver-grey Etruscan cattle came over the
causeway, and to get ahead of them would have been impracticable
without attracting the most unusual attention. It was now evident
enough that there was a considerable guard at the head of the bridge,
and to make a rush and overpower it was impossible. The heavy-uddered
cows and snorting, bellowing bulls dragged by with a slow plodding
that almost drove Drusus frantic. They were over at last, and the
friends hastened after them, far more anxious to leave the bridge than
they had been an instant before to set foot upon it. On they pressed,
until as if by magic there stood across their path the twelve lictors
of one of the consuls, with upraised fasces. Behind the lictors was a
half-century of soldiers in full armour led by their _optio_.[149]
[149] Adjutant, subordinate to a centurion.
"Sirs," announced the head lictor, "I am commanded by the consul,
Lucius Lentulus Crus, to put you all under arrest for treason against
the Republic. Spare yourselves the indignity of personal violence, by
offering no resistance."
To resist would indeed have been suicide. The friends had worn their
short swords under their cloaks, but counting Agias they were only
six, and the lictors were twelve, to say nothing of the soldiers, of
whom there were thirty or more.
The ground seemed swaying before Drusus's eyes; in his ears was a
buzzing; his thoughts came to him, thick, confused, yet through them
all ran the vision of Cornelia, and the conviction that he was never
to see her again. He looked back. The soldiers at the head of the
bridge had taken alarm and were marching down to complete the arrest.
He looked before. The lictors, the troops, the stupid cattle and their
stolid drivers, and the great black-sided warehouses, casting their
gloomy shadow over the rippling river. Down stream; not a skiff seemed
stirring. The water was plashing, dancing, glancing in the sunshine.
Below the wooden bridge the spars of a huge merchantman were just
covering with canvas, as she stood away from her quay. Up stream (the
views were all compressed into the veriest moment)--with the current
came working, or rather drifting, a heavy barge loaded with timber.
Only two men, handling rude paddles, stood upon her deck. The barge
was about to pass under the very arch upon which stood the handful of
entrapped Caesarians. A word, a motion, and the last hope of escape
would have been comprehended by the enemy, and all would have been
lost. But in moments of extreme peril it is easy to make a glance full
of pregnancy. Antonius saw the face of his friend--saw and understood;
and the other seemingly doomed men understood likewise. In an instant
the barge would pass under the bridge!
"Fellow," replied Antonius (the whole inspection of the situation,
formation of the plot, and visual dialogue had really been so rapid as
to make no long break after the lictor ceased speaking), "do you dare
thus to do what even the most profane and impious have never dared
before? Will you lay hands on two inviolate tribunes of the plebs, and
those under their personal protection; and by your very act become a
_sacer_--an outlaw devoted to the gods, whom it is a pious thing for
any man to slay?"
"I have my orders, sir," replied the head lictor, menacingly. "And I
would have you know that neither you nor Quintus Cassius are reckoned
tribunes longer by the Senate; so by no such plea can you escape
arrest."
"Tribunes no longer!" cried Antonius; "has tyranny progressed so far
that no magistrate can hold office after he ceases to humour the
consuls?"
"We waste time, sir," said the lictor, sternly. "Forward, men; seize
and bind them!"
But Antonius's brief parley had done its work. As the bow of the barge
shot under the bridge, Curio, with a single bound over the parapet,
sprang on to its deck; after him leaped Quintus Cassius, and after him
Caelius. Before Drusus could follow, however, the stern of the barge
had vanished under the archway. The lictors and soldiers had sprung
forward, but a second had been lost by rushing to the eastern side of
the bridge, where the barge had just disappeared from sight. Agias,
Antonius, and Drusus were already standing on the western parapet. The
lictors and soldiers were on them in an instant. The blow of one of
the fasces smote down Antonius, but he fell directly into the vessel
beneath--stunned but safe. A soldier caught Agias by the leg to drag
him down. Drusus smote the man under the ear so that he fell without a
groan; but Agias himself had been thrown from the parapet on to the
bridge; the soldiers were thronging around. Drusus saw the naked steel
of their swords flashing before his eyes; he knew that the barge was
slipping away in the current. It was a time of seconds, but of seconds
expanded for him into eternities. With one arm he dashed back a
lictor, with the other cast Agias--he never knew whence came that
strength which enabled him to do the feat--over the stonework, and
into the arms of Curio in the receding boat. Then he himself leaped. A
rude hand caught his cloak. It was torn from his back. A sword whisked
past his head--he never learned how closely. He was in the air, saw
that the barge was getting away, and next he was chilled by a sudden
dash of water and Caelius was dragging him aboard; he had landed under
the very stern of the barge. Struggling in the water, weighed down by
their armour, were several soldiers who had leaped after him and had
missed their distance completely.
The young man clambered on to the rude vessel. Its crew (two simple,
harmless peasants) were cowering among the lumber. Curio had seized
one of the paddles and was guiding the craft out into the middle of
the current; for the soldiers were already running along the wharves
and preparing to fling their darts. The other men, who had just been
plucked out of the jaws of destruction, were all engaged in collecting
their more or less scattered wits and trying to discover the next turn
of calamity in store. Antonius--who, despite his fall, had come down
upon a coil of rope and so escaped broken bones and serious
bruises--was the first to sense the great peril of even their present
situation.
"In a few moments," he remarked, casting a glance down the river, "we
shall be under the Pons Sublicius, and we shall either be easily
stopped and taken, or crushed with darts as we pass by. You see they
are already signalling from the upper bridge to their guard at the
lower. We shall drift down into their hands, and gain nothing by our
first escape."
"Anchor," suggested Cassius, who was an impulsive and rather
inconsiderate man. And he prepared to pitch overboard the heavy
mooring-stone.
"_Phui!_ You sheep," cried Curio, contemptuously, mincing no words at
that dread moment. "How long will it be before there will be ten
boatloads of soldiers alongside? Can we beat off all Pompeius's
legions?"
Antonius caught up another paddle and passed it through a rower's
thong.
"Friends," he said, with that ready command which his military life
had given him, "these soldiers are in armour and can run none too
swiftly. Once show them the back, and they must throw away their arms
or give over the chase. It is madness to drift down upon the lower
bridge. We must turn across the river, risk the darts, and try to land
on the farther bank. Take oars!"
There was but one remaining paddle. Drusus seized it and pushed
against the water with so much force that the tough wood bent and
creaked, but did not snap. The unwieldy barge sluggishly answered this
powerful pressure, and under the stroke of the three oars began to
head diagonally across the current and move slowly toward the farther
shore. The soldiers did not at once perceive the intent of this move.
By their actions they showed that they had expected the barge to try
to slip through the Pons Sublicius, and so escape down the river. They
had run some little way along the south bank of the Tiber, to
reenforce their comrades at the lower bridge, when they saw the new
course taken by their expected prey. Much valuable time had thus been
gained by the pursued, time which they needed sadly enough, for,
despite their frantic rowing, their unwieldy craft would barely crawl
across the current.
Long before the barge was within landing distance of the northern
bank, the soldiers who had been on guard at the head of the Pons
AEmilius had regained their former station, and were running along the
shore to cut off any attempt there to escape. Soon a whizzing javelin
dug into the plank at Drusus's feet, and a second rushed over Caelius's
head, and plashed into the water beyond the barge. Other soldiers on
the now receding southern bank were piling into a light skiff to
second their comrades' efforts by a direct attack on the fugitives.
A third dart grazed Antonius's hair and buried its head in the pile of
lumber. The tribune handed his oar to Caelius, and, deliberately
wresting the weapon from the timber, flung it back with so deadly an
aim that one pursuing legionary went down, pierced through the
breastplate. The others recoiled for an instant, and no more javelins
were thrown, which was some slight gain for the pursued.
It seemed, however, that the contest could have only a single ending.
The soldiers were running parallel and apace with the barge, which was
now as close to the northern bank as was safe in view of the missiles.
The Pons Sublicius was getting minute by minute nearer, and upon it
could be seen a considerable body of troops ready with darts and
grapnels to cut off the last hope of escape.
But Antonius never withdrew his eye from the line of dark
weatherbeaten warehouses that stretched down to the river's edge on
the north bank just above the Pons Sublicius.
"Row," he exhorted his companions, "row! as life is dear! Row as never
before!"
And under the combined impulse of the three desperate men, even the
heavy barge leaped forward and a little eddy of foaming waves began to
trail behind her stern. Drusus had no time to ask of himself or
Antonius the special object of this last burst of speed. He only knew
that he was flinging every pound of strength into the heavy handle of
his oar, and that his life depended on making the broad blade push
back the water as rapidly as possible. Antonius, however, had had good
cause for his command. A searching scrutiny had revealed to him that a
single very long warehouse ran clear down to the river's edge, and so
made it impossible to continue running along the bank. A pursuer must
double around the whole length of the building before continuing the
chase of the barge. And for a small quay just beyond this warehouse
Antonius headed his clumsy vessel. The soldiers continued their chase
up to the very walls of the warehouse, where they, of a sudden, found
themselves stopped by an impenetrable barrier. They lost an instant of
valuable time in trying to wade along the bank, where the channel
shelved off rapidly, and, finding the attempt useless, dashed a volley
of their missiles after the barge. But the range was very long. Few
reached the vessel; none did damage. The soldiers disappeared behind
the warehouse, still running at a headlong pace. Before they
reappeared on the other side, Antonius had brought his craft to the
quay. There was no time for mooring, and the instant the barge lost
way the hard-pressed Caesarians were on shore. Another instant, and the
clumsy vessel had been caught by the current, and swung out into the
stream.
She had done her work. The pursued men broke into a dash for the
nearest highway. The soldiers were close after them. But they had
flung away their javelins, and what with their heavy armour and the
fatigue of running were quite as exhausted as the Caesarians, three of
whom had been thoroughly winded by their desperate rowing. On the Pons
Sublicius, where a great crowd had gathered to watch the exciting
chase, there was shouting and tumult. No doubt voices few enough would
have been raised for the Caesarians if they had been captured; but now
that they bade fair to escape, the air was thick with gibes at the
soldiers, and cries of encouragement to the pursued. On the two
parties ran. Soon they were plunged in the tortuous, dirty lanes of
the "Trans-Tiber" district, rushing at frantic speed past the shops of
dirty Jews and the taverns of noisy fishermen and sailors. Already
news of the chase had gone before them, and, as Drusus followed his
friends under the half-arching shadows of the tall tenement houses,
drunken pedlers and ribald women howled out their wishes of success,
precisely as though they were in a race-course. Now the dirty streets
were left behind and the fatigued runners panted up the slopes of the
Janiculum, toward the gardens of Caesar. They passed the little grove
sacred to the Furies, and, even as for life he ran, Drusus recalled
with shame how over this very road to this very grove, had fled Caius
Gracchus, the great tribune of the people, whom Drusus's own great
grandfather, Marcus Livius Drusus, had hounded to his death; that day
when all men encouraged him as he ran, but none would raise a hand to
aid.
But now up from the bridge came the thunder of horses'
hoofs,--cavalry, tearing at a furious gallop. Pompeius had evidently
ordered out a _turma_[150] of mounted men to chase down the runaways.
More and more frantic the race--Drusus's tongue hung from his mouth
like a dog's. He flew past a running fountain, and was just desperate
enough to wonder if it was safe to stop one instant and touch--he
would not ask to drink--one drop of the cool water. Fortunately the
Caesarians were all active young men, of about equal physical powers,
and they kept well together and encouraged one another, not by
word--they had no breath for that--but by interchange of courage and
sympathy from eye to eye. The heavy legionaries had given up the
chase; it was the cavalry, now flying almost at their very heels, that
urged them to their final burst of speed.
[150] Squadron of 30 horse.
At last! Here were the gardens of Caesar, and close by the roadway
under a spreading oak, their grooms holding them in readiness for
instant service, were six of the best specimens of horseflesh money
could command.
None of the little party had breath left to speak a word. To fling
themselves into the saddles, to snatch the reins from the attendants'
hands, to plunge the heels of their sandals, in lieu of spurs, into
the flanks of their already restless steeds,--these things were done
in an instant, but none too soon. For, almost as the six riders turned
out upon the road to give head to their horses, the cavalry were upon
them. The foremost rider sent his lance over Curio's shoulder, grazing
the skin and starting blood; a second struck with his short sword at
Caelius's steed, but the horse shied, and before the blow could be
repeated the frightened beast had taken a great bound ahead and out of
danger. This exciting phase of the pursuit, however, was of only
momentary duration. The horses of the Caesarians were so incomparably
superior to the common army hacks of the soldiers, that, as soon as
the noble blooded animals began to stretch their long limbs on the
hard Roman road, the troopers dropped back to a harmless distance in
the rear. The cavalrymen's horses, furthermore, had been thoroughly
winded by the fierce gallop over the bridge, and now it was out of the
question for them to pursue. Before the flight had continued a mile,
the Caesarians had the satisfaction of seeing their enemies draw rein,
then turn back to the city. The friends, however, did not check their
pace until, safe beyond chance of overtaking, they reined in at an
hospitable tavern in the old Etruscan town of Veii.
Here Drusus took leave of Agias.
"You are quite too unimportant an enemy," said he to the young Greek,
"to be worth arrest by the consuls, if indeed they know what part you
have had in our escape. I know not what perils are before me, and I
have no right to ask you to share them. You have long ago paid off any
debt of gratitude that you owed me and mine when Fabia saved your
life. I am your patron no longer; go, and live honourably, and you
will find deposited with Flaccus a sum that will provide for all your
needs. If ever I return to Rome, my party victorious, myself in
favour, then let us renew our friendship; but till then you and I meet
no more."
Agias knelt and kissed Drusus's robe in a semi-Oriental obeisance.
"And is there nothing," he asked half wistfully at the parting, "that
I can yet do for you?"
"Nothing," said Drusus, "except to see that no harm come to my Aunt
Fabia, and if it be possible deliver Cornelia from the clutches of her
bloody uncle."
"Ah!" said Agias, smiling, "that is indeed _something_! But be not
troubled, domine,"--he spoke as if Drusus was still his master,--"I
will find a way."
That evening, under the canopy of night, the five Caesarians sped,
swift as their horses could bear them, on their way to Ravenna.