THE CONSULAR COMITIA.
Your voices!
CORIOLANUS.
The morning had at length arrived, big with the fate of Rome. The morning
of the Consular elections.
The sun shone broad and bright over the gorgeous city, and the wide green
expanse of the field of Mars, whereon, from an hour before the first peep
of dawn, the mighty multitude of Roman citizens had stood assembled.
All the formalities had been performed successfully. The Consul Cicero,
who had gone forth beyond the walls to take the auspices, accompanied by
an augur, had declared the auguries favorable.
The separate enclosures, with the bridges, as they were termed, across
which the centuries must pass to give their votes, had been erected; the
distributors of the ballots, and the guardians of the ballot-boxes, had
been appointed.
And now, as the sun rushed up with his crown of living glory into the
cloudless arch of heaven, the brazen trumpets of the centuries pealed long
and loud, calling the civic army to its ranks, in order to commence their
voting.
That was the awful moment; and scarce a breast was there, but beat high
with hope or fear, or dark and vague anticipation.
The Consul and the friends of order were, perhaps, calmer and more
confident, than any others of that mighty concourse; for they were
satisfied with their preparations; they were firm in the support of the
patrician houses, and in the unanimity of the Roman knights conciliated by
Cicero.
Scarcely less confident were the conspirators; for with so much secrecy
had the arrangements of the Consul been made, that although Catiline knew
himself suspected, knew that his motives were perspicuous, and his
measures in some sort anticipated, he yet believed that the time was
propitious.
He hoped, and believed as fully as he hoped, that Cicero and his party,
content with the triumph they had obtained in the Senate, and with the
adjudication by that body of dictatorial power to the consuls, were now
deceived into the idea that the danger was already over.
Still, his fierce heart throbbed violently; and there was a feeling of hot
agonizing doubt blent with the truculent hope, the savage ambition, the
strong thirst of blood, which goaded him almost to madness.
From an early hour he had stood surrounded by his friends, the leaders of
that awful faction, hard by the portico of the _diribitorium_, or
pay-office, marking with a keen eye every group that entered the field of
Mars, and addressing those, whom he knew friendly to his measures, with
many a fiery word of greeting and encouragement.
Cassius and Lentulus, a little way behind him, leaned against the columns
of the gateway, with more than a thousand of the clients of their houses
lounging about in groups, seemingly inattentive, but really alive to every
word or glance of their leaders.
These men were all armed secretly with breast plates, and the puissant
Roman sword, beneath their peaceful togas.
These men, well-trained in the wars of Sylla, hardy and brave, and acting
in a body, were destined to commence the work of slaughter, by slaying the
Great Consul, so soon as he should open the comitia.
Cethegus had departed, already, to join his gladiators, who, to the number
of fifteen hundred, were gathered beyond the Janiculum, ready to act upon
the guard, and to beat down the standard which waved there, the signal of
election.
Statilius, Gabinius, and Cæparius, were ready with their armed households
and insurgent slaves, prepared at a moment’s notice to throw open the
prison doors, and fire the city in twelve places.
Fearless, unanimous, armed, and athirst for blood, the foes of the
republic stood, and marked with greedy eyes and visages inflamed and
fiery, their victims sweep through the gates, arrayed in their peaceful
robes, unarmed, as it would seem, and unsuspecting.
Not a guard was to be seen anywhere; not a symptom of suspicion; much less
of preparation. The wonted cohort only was gathered about the standard on
the bridge gate of the Janiculum; but even these bore neither shields, nor
javelins; and sat or lounged about, unconcerned, and evidently off their
guard.
But the keen eye of Catiline, could mark the band of grey-tunicked
Gladiators, mustered, and ready to assume the offensive at a moment’s
notice, though now they were sauntering about, or sitting down or lying in
the shade, or chatting with the country girls and rustic slaves, who
covered the sloping hill-sides of the Janiculum, commanding a full view of
the Campus Martius.
"The Fools!" muttered Catiline. "The miserable, God-deserted idiots! Does
the man of Arpinum deem me then so weak, to be disarmed by an edict,
quelled by a paltry proclamation?"
Then, as the stout smith, Caius Crispus, passed by him, with a gang of
workmen, and a rabble of the lowest citizens,
"Ha!" he exclaimed, "hail, Crispus—hail, brave hearts!—all things look
well for us to-day—well for the people! Your voices, friends; I must have
your voices!"
"You shall—Catiline!" replied the smith—"and our hands also!" he added,
with a significant smile and a dark glance.
"Catiline! Catiline—all friends of the good people, all foes of the proud
patricians, give noble Catiline your voices!"
"Catiline! Catiline for the persecuted people!" and, with a wild and
stirring shout, the mob passed inward through the gate, leaving the smith
behind, however; who stopped as if to speak with one of the Cornelian
clients, but in reality to wait further orders.
"When shall we march"—he asked, after a moment or two, stealthily
approaching the chief conspirator. "Before they have called the
prerogative century to vote, or when the knights are in the bridges?"
"When the standard goes down, fool!" replied Catiline, harshly. "Do not
you know your work?"
At this moment, a party of young and dissipated nobles came swaggering
along the road, with their ungirded tunics flowing down to their heels,
their long sleeves fringed with purple falling as far as to their wrists,
and their curled ringlets floating on their shoulders. Among them, with a
bloodshot eye, a pale and haggard face, and a strange terrible expression,
half-sullen, half-ashamed, on all his features, as if he fancied that his
last night’s disgrace was known to all men, strode Aulus Fulvius, the son
of that stern senator.
"Your voices! noblemen, your voices!" cried Catiline, laughing with
feigned gayety—"Do but your work to-day, and to-night"—
"Wine and fair women!" shouted one; but Aulus smiled savagely, and darkly,
and answered in one word "Revenge!"
Next behind them, came Bassus, the veteran father of the dead
eagle-bearer; he who had told so sad a tale of patrician cruelty to
Fulvius Flaccus, in the forge.
"Why, Bassus, my brave veteran, give me your hand," cried the conspirator,
making a forward step to meet him. "For whom vote you to-day, for Murœna
and Silanus? Ha?"
"For Catiline and justice!" answered the old man, "justice on him who
wronged the Eagle-bearer’s child! who sits in the senate even yet, defiled
with her pure blood!—the infamous Cornelius!"
Another man had paused to listen to these words, and he now interposed,
speaking to Bassus,
"Verily Catiline is like to do thee justice, my poor Bassus, on a member
of the Cornelian house! Is’t Lentulus, I prithee, or Cethegus, on whom
thou would’st have justice?"
But the old man replied angrily, "The people’s friend shall give the
people justice! who ever knew a noble pity or right a poor man?"
"Ask Aulus Fulvius"—replied the other, with a sarcastic tone, and a
strange smile lighting up his features. "Besides, is not Catiline a
noble?"
At the word Aulus Fulvius leaped on him like a tiger, with his face
crimsoning, and his heart almost bursting with fury.
He could not speak for rage, but he seized the man who had uttered those
mysterious words by the throat, and brandished a long poniard, extricated
in a second’s space from the loose sleeve of his tunic, furiously in the
air.
As the bright blade flashed in the sunlight, there was a forward rush
among the conspirators, who, anxious to avert any casual affray, that
might have created a disturbance, would have checked the blow.
But their aid would have come too late, had not the man thus suddenly
assaulted, by an extraordinary exertion of strength, vigor, and agility,
wrenched the dagger from Aulus’ hand, and, tripping him at the same moment
with his foot, hurled him upon his back in the dust, which surged up in a
great cloud, covering his perfumed hair and snow-white toga, with its
filthy and fætid particles.
"Ha! ha!" he cried with a loud ringing laugh, as he tossed the weapon high
into the sunny air, that all around might see it—"Here is one of your
_noble_ people’s friends!—Do they wear daggers _all_, for the people’s
throats? Do they wave torches _all_, against the people’s workshops?"
The matter seemed to be growing serious, and while two or three of the
conspirators seized Aulus, and compelled him with gentle violence to
desist from farther tumult, Cæparius whispered into the ear of Catiline,
"This knave knows far too much. Were it not best three or four of our
friend Crispus’ men should knock him on the head?"
"No! no!" cried Catiline—"By Hades! no! It is too late, I tell you. The
whole thing will be settled within half an hour. There goes the second
trumpet."
And as he spoke, the shrill blast of the brazen instruments rose
piercingly and almost painfully upon the ear; and the people might be seen
collecting themselves rapidly into the centuries of their tribes, in order
to give their votes in their places, as ascertained by lot.
"And the third"—exclaimed Cassius, joyfully—"Will give the signal for
_election_!" Catiline interrupted him, as if fearful that he would say
some thing that should commit the party. "But see," he added, pointing
with his hand across the wide plain toward a little knoll, on which there
stood a group of noble-looking men, surrounded by a multitude of knights
and patricians, "See yonder, how thickly the laticlavian tunics muster,
and the crimson-edged togas of the nobles—all the knights are there too,
methinks. And look! look the consuls of the year! and my competitors!
Come, my friends, come; we must toward the consul. He is about to open the
comitia."
"Catiline! Catiline! the people’s friend!" again shouted Caius Crispus;
and Bassus took the word, and repeated it in the shrill quavering accents
of old age—"All those who love the people vote for the people’s
friend—vote for the noble Catiline!"
And at once thousands of voices took the cry, "Catiline! Catiline! Hail,
Catiline, that shall be Consul!"
And, in the midst of these triumphant cries, hardened and proud of heart,
and confident of the success of his blood-thirsty schemes, he hurried
forward, accompanied by Lentulus and his armed satellites, panting already
with anticipated joy, and athirst for slaughter.
But, as he swept along, followed by the faction, a great body of citizens
of the lower orders, decent substantial men, came crowding toward the
Campus, and paused to inquire the cause of the tumult, which had left its
visible effects in the flushed visages and knotted brows of many present.
Two or three voices began to relate what had passed; but the smith
Crispus, who had lingered with one or two of his ruffians, intent to
murder the man who had crossed his chief, so soon as the signal should be
given, rudely broke in, and interrupted them with the old cry, "The
people’s friend! All ye who love the people, vote for the people’s friend,
vote for the noble Catiline!"
"Had mighty Marius been alive, Marius of Arpinum, or the great Gracchi,
they had cried, ’Vote rather for the man of the people!—vote for Cicero of
Arpinum!’"
"Tush, what knows he of Marius?" replied the smith.
"What knows he of the great Gracchi?" echoed one of his followers.
"Whether should best know Marius, they who fought by his side, or they who
slew his friends? Who should best know the great Gracchi if not Fulvius,
the grandson of that Fulvius Flaccus, who died with them, in the forum, by
the hands of Saturninus?"
"Vote for Catiline! vote for Catiline! friends of the people!" shouted the
smith again, reëchoed by all his savage and vociferous gang, seeking to
drown the voice of the true man of the people.
"Aye" exclaimed Fulvius, ironically, springing upon a stone horse-block,
thence to address the people, who shouted "Flaccus! Flaccus!" on all
sides. "Live Fulvius Flaccus! Speak to us, noble Fulvius!"
"Aye!" he exclaimed, "friends of the people, followers of Marius, vote, if
ye be wise men, for the murderer of his kinsman—for Catiline, who slew
Marius Gratidianus!"
"No! no! we will none of them! no Catiline! no follower of Sylla? To your
tribes, men of Rome—to your tribes!"
The mingled cries waxed wild and terrible; and it was clear that the
popular party was broken, by the bold words of the speaker, into two
bodies, if ever it had been united. But little cared the conspirators for
that, since they had counted, not upon winning by a majority of tribes,
but by a civic massacre.
And now—even as that roar was the loudest, while Flaccus in vain strove to
gain a hearing, for the third time the brazen trumpets of the centuries
awoke their stirring symphonies, announcing that the hour had arrived for
the tribes to commence their voting.
Those who were in the secret looked eagerly over the field. The hour had
come—the leader was at their head—they waited but the signal!
That signal, named by Catiline, in the house of Læca,—the blood of Cicero!
They saw a mass of men, pressing on like a mighty wedge through the dense
multitude; parting the waves of the living ocean as a stout galley parts
the billows; struggling on steadily toward the knoll, whereon, amid the
magnates of the land, consulars, senators, and knights, covering it with
the pomp of white and crimson gowns, gemmed only by the flashing axe-heads
of the lictors, stood the great Consul.
They saw the gladiators forming themselves into a separate band, on the
slopes of the Janiculum, with a senator’s robe distinct among the dark
gray tunics.
Catiline and his clients were not a hundred paces distant from Cicero, and
the assembled nobles. They had halted! Their hands were busy in the bosom
of their gowns, griping the hilts of their assassin’s tools!
Cethegus and his gladiators were not a hundred paces distant from the
bridge-gate of the Janiculum, and the cohort’s bannered eagle.
They, too, had halted! they, too, were forming in battle order—they too
were mustering their breath for the dread onset—they too were handling
their war weapons!
Almost had Caius Crispus, in his mad triumph, shouted victory.
One moment, and Rome had been the prize for the winner in the gladiators’
battle.
And the notes of the brazen trumpets had not yet died away, among the
echoing hills.
They had not died away, before they were taken up and repeated, east,
west, and north and south, by shriller, more pervading clangors.
It burst over the heads of the astonished people like heaven’s thunder,
the wild prolonged war-flourish of the legions. From the Tarpeian rock,
and the guarded Capitol; from the rampired Janiculum; from the fortress,
beyond the Island bridge; from the towered steeps of the Quirinal, broke
simultaneously the well known Roman war note!
Upsprang, along the turreted wall of the Janiculum, with crested casques,
and burnished brazen corslets, and the tremendous javelins of the cohorts,
a long line of Metellus’ legionaries.
Upsprang on the heights of the Capitol, and on each point of vantage, an
answering band of warriors, full armed.
And, last not least, as that warlike din smote the sky, Cicero, on whom
every eye was riveted of that vast concourse, flung back his toga, and
stood forth conspicuous, armed with a mighty breastplate, and girded with
the sword that won him, at an after day, among the mountains of Cilicia,
the high style of Imperator.
A mighty shout burst from the faithful ranks of the knights; and, starting
from their scabbards, five thousand sword-blades flashed in a trusty ring
around the savior of his country.
"Catiline would have murdered Him!" shouted the voice of Fulvius
Flaccus—"Catiline would have burned your workshops! Catiline would have
made himself Dictator, King! Vote, men of Rome, vote, friends of the
people I vote now, I say, for Catiline!"
Anticipated, frustrated, outwitted,—the conspirators glared on each other
hopeless.
Against forces so combined, what chance of success?
Still, although ruined in his hopes, Catiline bore up bravely, and with an
insolence of hardihood that in a good cause had been heroism.
Affecting to laugh at the precautions, and sneer at the pusillanimous mind
that had suggested them, he defied proof, defied suspicion.
There was no overt act—no proof! and Cicero, satisfied with his
triumph—for alarmed beyond measure, and astonished, all ranks and classes
vied with each other in voting for Silanus and Muræna—took no step to
arrest or convict the ringleaders.
It was a moral, not a physical victory, at which he had aimed so nobly.
And nobly had he won it.
The views of the conspiracy frustrated; the hearts of its leaders chilled
and thunder-stricken; the loyalty and virtue of all classes aroused; the
eyes of the Roman people opened to knowledge of their friends; two wise
and noble consuls chosen, by who were on the point of casting their votes
for a murderer and traitor; the city saved from conflagration; the
commonwealth preserved, in all its majesty; these were the trophies of the
Consular Comitia.