THE FLIGHT.
Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit.
CICERO.
His heart was a living hell, as he rushed homeward. Cut off on every side,
detected, contemned, hated, what was left to the Traitor?
To retrace his steps was impossible,—nor, if possible, would his
indomitable pride have consented to surrender his ambitious schemes, his
hopes of vengeance.
He rushed homeward; struck down a slave, who asked him some officious
question; spurned Orestilla out of his way with a bitter earnest curse;
barred himself up in his inmost chamber, and remained there alone one
hour.
One hour; but in that hour what years, what ages of time, what an eternity
of agony, was concentrated!
For once in many years he sat still, motionless, silent, while thought
succeeded thought, and passion passion, with indescribable rapidity and
vividness.
In that one hour all the deeds of his life passed before him, from his
wild and reckless boyhood to his atrocious and dishonored manhood.
The victims of his fiendish passions seemed to fleet, one by one, before
his eyes, with deathlike visages and ghastly menace.
The noble virgin, whom he had first dishonored, scarcely as yet a boy,
pointed with bloody fingers to the deep self-inflicted wound, which yawned
in her snowy bosom.
The vestal, who had broken through all bounds of virtue, piety, and honor,
sacrificed soul and body to his unpitying lust, gazed at him with that
unearthly terror in her eyes, which glared from them as they looked their
last at earth and heaven, when she descended, young and lovely, into a
living grave.
The son, whom he had poisoned, to render his house vacant for unhallowed
nuptials, with his whole frame convulsed in agony, and the sardonic grin
of death on his writhing lips, frowned on him.
His brother, who had drawn life from the same soft bosom, but whose
kindred blood had pleaded vainly against the fratricidal dagger, frowned
on him.
His sister’s husband, that mild and blameless knight, whose last breath
was spent in words of peace and pardon to his slayer, now frowned on him.
The stern impassive face of Marius Gratidianus, unmoved alike by agony or
insult, frowned on him, in the serene dignity of sustaining virtue.
Men of all ranks and ages, done to death by his hand or his head, by
poison, by the knife, by drowning, by starvation—women deceived or
violated, and then murdered, while their kisses were yet warm on his
lips—infants tortured to death in the very wantonness of cruelty, and
crime that must have been nigh akin to madness, gibbered, and glared upon
him.
These things would seem impossible, they are in truth incredible, but they
are true beyond the possibility of cavil.
He was indeed one of those unaccountable and extraordinary monsters, who,
thanks to nature! appear but once in many ages, to whom sin is dear for
its own naked self, to whom butchery(8) is a pastime, and blood and
agonies and tears a pleasurable excitement to their mad morbid appetites.
And in this hour of downfall, one by one, did his fancy conjure up before
him the victims of his merciless love, his merciless hatred—both alike,
sure and deadly.
It was a strange combination of mind, for there must have been in the
spirit that evoked these phantoms of the conscience, something of remorse,
if not of repentance. Pale, ghastly, grim, reproachful, they all seemed to
him to be appealing to the just heavens for justice and revenge. Yet there
was even more of triumph and proud self-gratulation in his mood, than of
remorse for the past, or of apprehension for the future.
As he thought of each, as he thought of all, he in some sort gloated over
the memory of his success, in some sort derived confidence from the very
number of his unpunished crimes.
"They crossed me," he muttered to himself, "and where are they?—My fate
cried out for their lives, and their lives were forfeit. Who ever stood in
my path, that has not perished from before my face? Not one! Who ever
strove with me, that has not fallen? who ever frowned upon me, that has
not expiated the bended brow by the death-grin?—Not one! not one! Scores,
hundreds, have died for thwarting me! but who of men has lived to boast of
it!—Not one!"
He rose from his seat, stalked slowly across the room, drew his hand
across his brow twice, with a thoughtful gesture, and then said,
"Cicero! Cicero! Better thou never hadst been born! Better—but it must
be—my Fate, my fate demands it, and neither eloquence nor wisdom, virtue
nor valor, shall avail to save thee. These were brave, beautiful, wise,
pious, eloquent; and what availed it to them? My Fate, my fate shall
prevail! To recede is to perish, is to be scorned—to advance is to win—to
win universal empire," and he stretched out his hand, as if he clutched an
imaginary globe—"to win fame, honor, the applause of ages—for with the
people—the _dear_ people—failure alone and poverty are guilt—success, by
craft or crime, success is piety and virtue!—On! Catiline! thy path is
onward still, upward, and onward! But not here!"
Then he unbarred the door, "What ho, Chærea!" and prompt, at the word, the
freedman entered. "Send out my trustiest slaves, summon me hither
instantly Lentulus and the rest of those, who supped here on the Calends.
Ha! the Calends." He repeated the word, as if some new idea had struck
him, on the mention of that day, and he paused thoughtfully. "Aye! Paullus
Arvina! I had well nigh forgotten—I have it; Aulus is the man; he hath
some private grudge at him! and beside those," he added, again addressing
the freedman, "go thyself and bring Aulus Fulvius hither, the son of the
Senator—him thou wilt find with Cethegus, the others at the house of
Decius Brutus, near the forum. They dine with Sempronia. Get thee gone,
and beshrew thy life! tarry not, or thou diest!"
The man quitted the room in haste; and Catiline continued muttering to
himself—"Aye! but for that cursed boy, we should have had Præneste on the
Calends! He shall repent it, ere he die, and he shall die too; but not
yet—not till he is aweary of his very life, and then, by tortures that
shall make the most weary life a boon. I have it all, the method, and the
men! Weak fool, thou better hadst been mine."
Then turning to the table he sat down, and wrote many letters, addressed
to men of Consular dignity, persons of worth and honor, declaring that,
borne down on all sides by false accusations, and helpless to oppose the
faction of his enemies, he yielded to the spite of fortune, and was
departing for Marseilles a voluntary exile, not conscious of any crime,
but careful of the tranquillity of the republic, and anxious that no
strife should arise from his private griefs.
To one, who afterward, almost deceived by his profound and wonderful
dissimulation, read it aloud in the Senate, in proof that no civil war was
impending, he wrote:
"Lucius Catiline to Quintus Catulus, sends health. Your most distinguished
faith, known by experience, gives me in mighty perils a grateful
confidence, thus to address you. Since I have resolved to prepare no
defence in the new steps which I have taken, I am resolved to set forth my
apology, conscious to myself of no crime, which—So may the God of Honor
guard me!—you may rely upon as true. Goaded by injury and insult, robbed
of the guerdon of my toils and industry, that state of dignity at which I
aimed, I publicly have undertaken, according to my wont, the cause of the
unhappy and oppressed; not because I am unable to pay all debts contracted
on my own account, from my own property—from those incurred in behalf of
others, the generosity of Orestilla and her daughter, by their treasures,
would have released me—but because I saw men honored who deserve no honor,
and felt myself disgraced, on false suspicion. On this plea, I now take
measures, honorable in my circumstances, for preserving that dignity which
yet remains to me. I would have written more, but I learn that violence is
about to be offered me. Now I commend to you Orestilla, and trust her to
your faith. As you love your own children, shield her from injury.
Farewell."
This strange letter, intended, as after events evidently proved, to bear a
double sense, he had scarce sealed, when Aulus Fulvius was announced.
For a few moments after he entered, Catiline continued writing; then
handing Chærea, who at a sign had remained in waiting, a list of many
names, "Let them," he said, "be here, prepared for a journey, and in arms
at the fifth hour. Prepare a banquet of the richest, ample for all these,
in the Atrium; in the garden Triclinium, a feast for ten—the rarest meats,
the choicest wines, the delicatest perfumes, the fairest slave-girls in
most voluptuous attire. At the third hour! See to it! Get thee hence!"
The freedman bowed low, and departed on his mission; then turning to the
young patrician,
"I have sent for you," he said, "the first, noble Aulus, because I hold
you the first in honor, bravery, and action; because I believe that you
will serve me truly, and to the utmost. Am I deceived?"
"Catiline, you have judged aright."
"And that you cannot serve me, more gratefully to yourself, than in
avenging me on that young pedant, Paullus Arvina."
The eyes of the youthful profligate flashed dark fire, and his whole face
beamed with intense satisfaction.
"By all the Powers of Tartarus!" he cried, "Show me but how, and I will
hunt him to the gates of Hades!"
Catiline nodded to him, with an approving smile, and after looking around
him warily for a minute, as if fearful even of the walls’ overhearing him,
he stepped close up to him, and whispered in his ear, for several moments.
"Do you conceive me, ha?" he said aloud, when he had ended.
"Excellent well!" cried the other in rapturous triumph, "but how gain an
opportunity?"
"Look you, here is his signature, some trivial note or other, I kept it,
judging that one day it might serve a purpose. You can write, I know, very
cleverly—I have not forgotten Old Alimentus’ will—write to her in his
name, requesting her to visit him, with Hortensia, otherwise she will
doubt the letter. Then you can meet her, and do as I have told you. Will
not that pass, my Fulvius?"
"It _shall_ pass," answered the young man confidently. "My life on it!
Rely on me!"
"I hold it done already," returned Catiline, "But you comprehend
all—unstained, in all honor, until she reach me; else were the vengeance
incomplete."
"It shall be so. But when?"
"When best you can accomplish it. This night, I leave the city."
"You leave the city!"
"This night! at the sixth hour!"
"But to return, Catiline?"
"To return with a victorious, an avenging army! To return as destroyer!
with a sword sharper than that of mighty Sylla, a torch hotter than that
of the mad Ephesian! To return, Aulus, in such guise, that ashes and blood
only show where Rome—_was_!"
"But, ere that, I must join you?"
"Aye! In the Appenines, at the camp of Caius Manlius"
"Fear me not. The deed is accomplished—hatred and vengeance, joined to
resolve, never fail."
"Never! but lo, here come the rest. Not a word to one of these. The burly
sword-smith is your man, and his fellows! Strike suddenly, and soon; and,
till you strike, be silent. Ha! Lentulus, Cethegus, good friends
all—welcome, welcome!" he cried, as they entered, eight in number, the
ringleaders of the atrocious plot, grasping each by the hand. "I have
called you to a council, a banquet, and, thence to action!"
"Good things all," answered Lentulus, "so that the first be brief and
bold, the second long and loud, the last daring and decisive!"
"They shall be so, all three! Listen. This very night, I set forth to join
Caius Manlius in his camp. Things work not here as I would have them; my
presence keeps alive suspicion, terror, watchfulness. I absent, security
will grow apace, and from that boldness, and from boldness, rashness! So
will you find that opportunity, which dread of me, while present, delays
fatally. Watch your time; choose your men; augment, by any means, the
powers of our faction; gain over friends; get rid of enemies, secretly if
you can; if not, audaciously. Destroy the Consul—you will soon find
occasion, or, if not find, make it. Be ready with the blade and brand, to
burn and to slaughter, so soon as my trumpets shall sound havoc from the
hills of Fiesolè. Metellus and his men, will be sent after me with speed;
Marcius Rex will be ordered from the city, with his cohorts, to Capua, or
Apulia, or the Picene district; for in all these, the slaves will rise, so
soon as my Eagle soars above the Appenine. The heart of the city will then
lie open to your daggers."
"And they shall pierce it to the core," cried Cethegus.
"Wisely you have resolved, my Catiline, as ever," said Longinus Cassius.
"Go, and success sit upon your banners!"
"Be not thou over slow, my Cassius, nor thou, Cethegus, over daring.
Temper each one, the metal of the other. Let your counsels be, as the
gathering of the storm-clouds, certain and slow; your deeds, as the
thunderbolt, rash, rapid, irresistible!"
"How will you go forth, Catiline? Alone? in secret?" asked Autronius.
"No! by the Father of Quirinus! with my casque on my head, and my
broad-sword on my thigh, and with three hundred of my clients at my back!
They sup in my Atrium, at the fifth hour of the night, and at the sixth,
we mount our horses. I _think_ Cicero will not bar our passage."
"By Mars! he would beat the gates down rather, to let you forth the more
easily."
"If he be wise he would."
"He _is_ wise," said Catiline. "Would God that he were less so."
"To be overwise, is worse, sometimes, than to be foolish," answered
Cethegus.
"And to be over bold, worse than to be a coward!" said Catiline.
"Therefore, Cethegus, be thou neither. Now, my friends, I do not say leave
me, but excuse me, until the third hour, when we will banquet. Nay! go not
forth from the house, I pray you; it may arouse suspicion, which I would
have you shun. There are books in the library, for who would read; foils
in the garden, balls in the fives-court, for who would breathe themselves
before supper; and lastly, there are some fair slaves in the women’s
chamber, for who would listen to the lute, or kiss soft lips, and not
unwilling. I have still many things to do, ere I depart."
"And those done, a farewell caress to Orestilla," said Cethegus, laughing.
"Aye! would I could take her with me."
"Do you doubt her, then, that you fear to leave her?"
"If I doubted, I would _not_ leave her—or I would leave her _so_, as not
to doubt her. Alexion himself, cannot in general cure the people, whom I
doubt."
"I hope you never will doubt me," said Curius, who was present, the Judas
of the faction, endeavoring to jest; yet more than half feeling what he
said.
"I hope not"—replied Catiline, with a strange fixed glance, and a singular
smile; for he did in truth, at that very moment, half doubt the speaker.
"If I do, Curius, it will not be for long! But I must go," he added, "and
make ready. Amuse yourselves as best you can, till I return to you. Come,
Aulus Fulvius, I must speak with you farther."
And, with the words, he left them, not indeed to apply themselves to any
sport or pleasure, but to converse anxiously, eagerly, almost fearfully,
on the events which were passing in succession, so rapid, and so
unforeseen. Their souls were too much absorbed by one dominant idea, one
devouring passion, to find any interest in any small or casual excitement.
To spirits so absorbed, hours fly like minutes, and none of those guilty
men were aware of the lapse of time, until Catiline returned, dressed in a
suit of splendid armor, of blue Iberian steel, embossed with studs and
chasings of pure silver, with a rich scarlet sagum over it, fringed with
deep lace. His knees were bare, but his legs were defended by greaves of
the same fabric and material with his corslet; and a slave bore behind him
his bright helmet, triply crested with crimson horsehair, his oblong
shield charged with a silver thunderbolt, and his short broad-sword of
Bilboa steel, which was already in those days, as famous as in the middle
ages. He looked, indeed, every inch a captain; and if undaunted valor,
unbounded energy, commanding intellect, an eye of lightning, unequalled
self-possession, endless resource, incomparable endurance of cold, heat,
hunger, toil, watchfulness, and extremity of pain, be qualities which
constitute one, then was he a great Captain.
A captain well formed to lead a host of demons.
The banquet followed, with all that could gratify the eye, the ear, the
nostril, or the palate. The board blazed with lights, redoubled by the
glare of gold and crystal. Flowers, perfumes, incense, streamed over all,
till the whole atmosphere was charged with voluptuous sweetness. The
softest music breathed from the instruments of concealed performers. The
rarest wines flowed like water. And flashing eyes, and wreathed smiles,
and bare arms, and bare bosoms, and most voluptuous forms, decked to
inflame the senses of the coldest, were prodigal of charms and soft
abandonment.
No modest pen may describe the orgies that ensued,—the drunkenness, the
lust, the frantic mirth, the unnatural mad revelry. There was but one at
that banquet, who, although he drank more deeply, rioted more sensually,
laughed more loudly, sang more wildly, than any of the guests, was yet as
cool amid that terrible scene of excitement, as in the council chamber, as
on the battle field.
His sallow face flushed not; his hard clear eye swam not languidly, nor
danced with intoxication; his voice quivered not; his pulse was as slow,
as even as its wont. That man’s frame, like his soul, was of trebly
tempered steel.
Had Catiline not been the worst, he had been the greatest of Romans.
But his race in Rome was now nearly ended. The water-clocks announced the
fifth hour; and leaving the more private triclinium, in which the
ringleaders alone had feasted, followed by his guests,—who were flushed,
reeling, and half frenzied,—with a steady step, a cold eye, and a presence
like that of Mars himself, the Arch Traitor entered the great open hall,
wherein three hundred of his clients, armed sumptuously in the style of
legionary horsemen, had banqueted magnificently, though they had stopped
short of the verge of excess.
All rose to their feet, as Catiline entered, hushed in dread expectation.
He stood for one moment, gazing on his adherents, tried veterans every man
of them, case-hardened in the furnace of Sylla’s fiery discipline, with
proud confidence and triumph in his eye; and then addressed them in clear
high tones, piercing as those of an adamantine trumpet.
"Since," he said, "it is permitted to us neither to live in Rome securely,
nor to die in Rome honorably, I go forth—will you follow me?"
And, with an unanimous cry, as it had been the voice of one man, they
answered,
"To the death, Catiline!"
"I go forth, harming no one, hating no one, fearing no one! Guiltless of
all, but of loving the people! Goaded to ruin by the proud patricians,
injured, insulted, well nigh maddened, I go forth to seek, not power nor
revenge, but innocence and safety. If they will leave me peace, the lamb
shall be less gentle; if they will drive me into war, the famished lion
shall be tamer. Soldiers of Sylla, will you have Sylla’s friend in peace
for your guardian, in war for your captain?"
And again, in one tumultuous shout, they replied, "In peace, or in war,
through life, and unto death, Catiline!"
"Behold, then, your Eagle!"—and, with the word, he snatched from a marble
slab on which it lay, covered by tapestry, the silver bird of Mars,
hovering with expanded wings over a bannered staff, and brandished it on
high, in triumph. "Behold your standard, your omen, and your God! Swear,
that it shall shine yet again above Rome’s Capitol!"
Every sword flashed from its scabbard, every knee was bent; and kneeling,
with the bright blades all pointed like concentric sunbeams toward that
bloody idol, in deep emotion, and deep awe, they swore to be true to the
Eagle, traitors to Rome, parricides to their country.
"One cup of wine, and then to horse, and to glory!"
The goblets were brimmed with the liquid madness; they were quaffed to the
very dregs; they clanged empty upon the marble floor.
Ten minutes more, and the hall was deserted; and mounted on proud horses,
brought suddenly together, by a perfect combination of time and place,
with the broad steel heads of their javelins sparkling in the moonbeams,
and the renowned eagle poised with bright wings above them, the escort of
the Roman Traitor rode through the city streets, at midnight, audacious,
in full military pomp, in ordered files, with a cavalry clarion timing
their steady march—rode unresisted through the city gates, under the eyes
of a Roman cohort, to try the fortunes of civil war in the provinces,
frustrate of massacre and conflagration in the capitol.
Cicero knew it, and rejoiced; and when he cried aloud on the following
day, "ABIIT, EXCESSIT, EVASIT, ERUPIT—He hath departed, he hath stolen
out, he hath gone from among us, he hath burst forth into war"—his great
heart thrilled, and his voice quivered, with prophetic joy and conscious
triumph. He felt even then that he had "SAVED HIS COUNTRY."