CHAPTER II.
THE CONSULAR COMITIA.
Your voices! CORIOLANUS.
The morning had at length arrived, big with the fate of Rome. The morningof the Consular elections.
The sun shone broad and bright over the gorgeous city, and the wide greenexpanse of the field of Mars, whereon, from an hour before the first peepof 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 byan augur, had declared the auguries favorable.
The separate enclosures, with the bridges, as they were termed, acrosswhich the centuries must pass to give their votes, had been erected; thedistributors of the ballots, and the guardians of the ballot-boxes, hadbeen appointed.
And now, as the sun rushed up with his crown of living glory into thecloudless arch of heaven, the brazen trumpets of the centuries pealed longand loud, calling the civic army to its ranks, in order to commence theirvoting.
That was the awful moment; and scarce a breast was there, but beat highwith hope or fear, or dark and vague anticipation.
The Consul and the friends of order were, perhaps, calmer and moreconfident, than any others of that mighty concourse; for they weresatisfied with their preparations; they were firm in the support of thepatrician houses, and in the unanimity of the Roman knights conciliated byCicero.
Scarcely less confident were the conspirators; for with so much secrecyhad the arrangements of the Consul been made, that although Catiline knewhimself suspected, knew that his motives were perspicuous, and hismeasures in some sort anticipated, he yet believed that the time waspropitious.
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 theadjudication by that body of dictatorial power to the consuls, were nowdeceived into the idea that the danger was already over.
Still, his fierce heart throbbed violently; and there was a feeling of hotagonizing doubt blent with the truculent hope, the savage ambition, thestrong thirst of blood, which goaded him almost to madness.
From an early hour he had stood surrounded by his friends, the leaders ofthat awful faction, hard by the portico of the _diribitorium_, orpay-office, marking with a keen eye every group that entered the field ofMars, and addressing those, whom he knew friendly to his measures, withmany a fiery word of greeting and encouragement.
Cassius and Lentulus, a little way behind him, leaned against the columnsof the gateway, with more than a thousand of the clients of their houseslounging about in groups, seemingly inattentive, but really alive to everyword or glance of their leaders.
These men were all armed secretly with breast plates, and the puissantRoman sword, beneath their peaceful togas.
These men, well-trained in the wars of Sylla, hardy and brave, and actingin a body, were destined to commence the work of slaughter, by slaying theGreat Consul, so soon as he should open the comitia.
Cethegus had departed, already, to join his gladiators, who, to the numberof fifteen hundred, were gathered beyond the Janiculum, ready to act uponthe guard, and to beat down the standard which waved there, the signal ofelection.
Statilius, Gabinius, and Cæparius, were ready with their armed householdsand insurgent slaves, prepared at a moment’s notice to throw open theprison doors, and fire the city in twelve places.
Fearless, unanimous, armed, and athirst for blood, the foes of therepublic stood, and marked with greedy eyes and visages inflamed andfiery, their victims sweep through the gates, arrayed in their peacefulrobes, unarmed, as it would seem, and unsuspecting.
Not a guard was to be seen anywhere; not a symptom of suspicion; much lessof preparation. The wonted cohort only was gathered about the standard onthe bridge gate of the Janiculum; but even these bore neither shields, norjavelins; and sat or lounged about, unconcerned, and evidently off theirguard.
But the keen eye of Catiline, could mark the band of grey-tunickedGladiators, mustered, and ready to assume the offensive at a moment’snotice, though now they were sauntering about, or sitting down or lying inthe shade, or chatting with the country girls and rustic slaves, whocovered the sloping hill-sides of the Janiculum, commanding a full view ofthe Campus Martius.
"The Fools!" muttered Catiline. "The miserable, God-deserted idiots! Doesthe 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 ofworkmen, and a rabble of the lowest citizens,
"Ha!" he exclaimed, "hail, Crispus—hail, brave hearts!—all things lookwell for us to-day—well for the people! Your voices, friends; I must haveyour 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 proudpatricians, give noble Catiline your voices!"
"Catiline! Catiline for the persecuted people!" and, with a wild andstirring shout, the mob passed inward through the gate, leaving the smithbehind, however; who stopped as if to speak with one of the Cornelianclients, but in reality to wait further orders.
"When shall we march"—he asked, after a moment or two, stealthilyapproaching the chief conspirator. "Before they have called theprerogative century to vote, or when the knights are in the bridges?"
"When the standard goes down, fool!" replied Catiline, harshly. "Do notyou know your work?"
At this moment, a party of young and dissipated nobles came swaggeringalong 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 abloodshot eye, a pale and haggard face, and a strange terrible expression,half-sullen, half-ashamed, on all his features, as if he fancied that hislast night’s disgrace was known to all men, strode Aulus Fulvius, the sonof that stern senator.
"Your voices! noblemen, your voices!" cried Catiline, laughing withfeigned 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 deadeagle-bearer; he who had told so sad a tale of patrician cruelty toFulvius 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 Murœnaand Silanus? Ha?"
"For Catiline and justice!" answered the old man, "justice on him whowronged the Eagle-bearer’s child! who sits in the senate even yet, defiledwith 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 memberof the Cornelian house! Is’t Lentulus, I prithee, or Cethegus, on whomthou would’st have justice?"
But the old man replied angrily, "The people’s friend shall give thepeople justice! who ever knew a noble pity or right a poor man?"
"Ask Aulus Fulvius"—replied the other, with a sarcastic tone, and astrange smile lighting up his features. "Besides, is not Catiline anoble?"
At the word Aulus Fulvius leaped on him like a tiger, with his facecrimsoning, and his heart almost bursting with fury.
He could not speak for rage, but he seized the man who had uttered thosemysterious words by the throat, and brandished a long poniard, extricatedin a second’s space from the loose sleeve of his tunic, furiously in theair.
As the bright blade flashed in the sunlight, there was a forward rushamong the conspirators, who, anxious to avert any casual affray, thatmight have created a disturbance, would have checked the blow.
But their aid would have come too late, had not the man thus suddenlya
ssaulted, by an extraordinary exertion of strength, vigor, and agility,wrenched the dagger from Aulus’ hand, and, tripping him at the same momentwith his foot, hurled him upon his back in the dust, which surged up in agreat cloud, covering his perfumed hair and snow-white toga, with itsfilthy and fætid particles.
"Ha! ha!" he cried with a loud ringing laugh, as he tossed the weapon highinto 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’sthroats? Do they wave torches _all_, against the people’s workshops?"
The matter seemed to be growing serious, and while two or three of theconspirators seized Aulus, and compelled him with gentle violence todesist from farther tumult, Cæparius whispered into the ear of Catiline,"This knave knows far too much. Were it not best three or four of ourfriend Crispus’ men should knock him on the head?"
"No! no!" cried Catiline—"By Hades! no! It is too late, I tell you. Thewhole thing will be settled within half an hour. There goes the secondtrumpet."
And as he spoke, the shrill blast of the brazen instruments rosepiercingly and almost painfully upon the ear; and the people might be seencollecting themselves rapidly into the centuries of their tribes, in orderto 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 saysome thing that should commit the party. "But see," he added, pointingwith his hand across the wide plain toward a little knoll, on which therestood a group of noble-looking men, surrounded by a multitude of knightsand 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 thecomitia."
"Catiline! Catiline! the people’s friend!" again shouted Caius Crispus;and Bassus took the word, and repeated it in the shrill quavering accentsof old age—"All those who love the people vote for the people’sfriend—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 hurriedforward, accompanied by Lentulus and his armed satellites, panting alreadywith anticipated joy, and athirst for slaughter.
But, as he swept along, followed by the faction, a great body of citizensof the lower orders, decent substantial men, came crowding toward theCampus, and paused to inquire the cause of the tumult, which had left itsvisible effects in the flushed visages and knotted brows of many present.
Two or three voices began to relate what had passed; but the smithCrispus, who had lingered with one or two of his ruffians, intent tomurder the man who had crossed his chief, so soon as the signal should begiven, rudely broke in, and interrupted them with the old cry, "Thepeople’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 ofArpinum!’"
"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 whoslew 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, bythe hands of Saturninus?"
"Vote for Catiline! vote for Catiline! friends of the people!" shouted thesmith again, reëchoed by all his savage and vociferous gang, seeking todrown 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 allsides. "Live Fulvius Flaccus! Speak to us, noble Fulvius!"
"Aye!" he exclaimed, "friends of the people, followers of Marius, vote, ifye be wise men, for the murderer of his kinsman—for Catiline, who slewMarius Gratidianus!"
"No! no! we will none of them! no Catiline! no follower of Sylla? To yourtribes, men of Rome—to your tribes!"
The mingled cries waxed wild and terrible; and it was clear that thepopular party was broken, by the bold words of the speaker, into twobodies, if ever it had been united. But little cared the conspirators forthat, 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 togain a hearing, for the third time the brazen trumpets of the centuriesawoke their stirring symphonies, announcing that the hour had arrived forthe tribes to commence their voting.
Those who were in the secret looked eagerly over the field. The hour hadcome—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 densemultitude; parting the waves of the living ocean as a stout galley partsthe billows; struggling on steadily toward the knoll, whereon, amid themagnates of the land, consulars, senators, and knights, covering it withthe pomp of white and crimson gowns, gemmed only by the flashing axe-headsof the lictors, stood the great Consul.
They saw the gladiators forming themselves into a separate band, on theslopes of the Janiculum, with a senator’s robe distinct among the darkgray tunics.
Catiline and his clients were not a hundred paces distant from Cicero, andthe assembled nobles. They had halted! Their hands were busy in the bosomof their gowns, griping the hilts of their assassin’s tools!
Cethegus and his gladiators were not a hundred paces distant from thebridge-gate of the Janiculum, and the cohort’s bannered eagle.
They, too, had halted! they, too, were forming in battle order—they toowere mustering their breath for the dread onset—they too were handlingtheir 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 theechoing 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, brokesimultaneously 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, ananswering band of warriors, full armed.
And, last not least, as that warlike din smote the sky, Cicero, on whomevery eye was riveted of that vast concourse, flung back his toga, andstood forth conspicuous, armed with a mighty breastplate, and girded withthe 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, startingfrom their scabbards, five thousand sword-blades flashed in a trusty ringaround the savior of his country.
"Catiline would have murdered Him!" shouted the voice of FulviusFlaccus—"Catiline would have burned your workshops! Catiline would havemade himself Dictator, King! Vote, men of Rome, vote, friends of thepeople I vote now, I say, for Catiline!"
Anticipated, frustrated, outwitted,—the conspirators glared on each otherhopeless.
Against forces so combined, what chance of success?
Stil
l, although ruined in his hopes, Catiline bore up bravely, and with aninsolence of hardihood that in a good cause had been heroism.
Affecting to laugh at the precautions, and sneer at the pusillanimous mindthat had suggested them, he defied proof, defied suspicion.
There was no overt act—no proof! and Cicero, satisfied with histriumph—for alarmed beyond measure, and astonished, all ranks and classesvied with each other in voting for Silanus and Muræna—took no step toarrest 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 chilledand thunder-stricken; the loyalty and virtue of all classes aroused; theeyes of the Roman people opened to knowledge of their friends; two wiseand noble consuls chosen, by who were on the point of casting their votesfor a murderer and traitor; the city saved from conflagration; thecommonwealth preserved, in all its majesty; these were the trophies of theConsular Comitia.