Betrayal: A Novel of Rome

Betrayal

A Novel of Rome

Clifford Meyer

ISBN: 9781311782151

www.playfulmonkey.net

clifford.meyer@gmail.com

Yet each man kills the thing he loves

By each let this be heard.

Some do it with a bitter look,

Some with a flattering word.

The coward does it with a kiss,

The brave man with a sword!

Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, 1898

It becomes all men, who desire to excel other animals, to strive, to the utmost of their power, not to pass through life in obscurity, like the beasts of the field, which nature has formed grovelling and subservient to appetite.

Gaius Crispus Sallustius, Conspiracy of Catiline, c 30 BCE

I - A Visitor to the Subura

II - The New Man from Arpinum

III - Living with the Enemy

IV - The Death of a Roman Noble

V - Breakfast with Demetrius

VI - A Letter for the Financier

VII – The Conference after Dark

VIII - The Matron and the Slave Girl

IX – A Meeting with the Banker

X - To Kill a Consul of Rome

XI - The Orator at the Temple of Jupiter

XII - By the Banks of the Mighty Tiber

XIII - Caesar Repays a Debt

XIV – The Provenance of a Fortune

XV – The Conflagration of Men’s Ambitions

Notes

Copyright © 2014 by Clifford Meyer - All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and locations portrayed in this book and the names herein are fictitious. Any similarity to or identification with the locations, names, characters or history of any person, product or entity is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

- From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations.

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All information is generalized, presented for informational purposes only and presented as is without warranty or guarantee of any kind.

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I - A Visitor to the Subura

The first hour of the day is over. I retreat from the atrium to the colonnaded garden, and take a seat under the roofed portico. From where I sit, I can hear Demetrius pushing the last of the clients out into the street. Those who remain behind after the first hour, those who have not had the good taste, or good sense, to know when to take their leave, are the hereditary clients who have fallen on hard times, some who are deserving, and some who are less so; some are superannuated pensioners who have exhausted their stipend and need a little more to rub along; some are crippled and maimed veterans of the wars in the East, whose disability prevents them from earning a wage. All of them, and many more besides, are obliged to call at the house in the Subura at the first hour, because they are the late paterfamilias’ clients, and he is their patron.

Demetrius has bolted and locked the door. He shuffles from the entrance hall and into the atrium, always keeping to the left. When the paterfamilias lived here and the more important clients gathered to await him in the atrium, they would stand together on the south side of the room to catch the light in the hour after daybreak, and to feel any heat that might come from the rising sun, especially on a November day like today. As he passes through the office that connects the atrium to the garden, he stops briefly and I hear the shuffling of papers, the soft banging together of wax tablets as he stacks them in a neat pile, and the dry rattle of the styli and quill pens as he arranges them in the late paterfamilias’ preferred order. He knows his master will never again sit at his desk, preparing for the business of the day, but the rote habits of many years are hard to break.

I do not begrudge the small delays here and there. Demetrius is elderly. His body is broken by years of service and servitude, and in his remaining days, he should be granted his ease. Besides, I want him to be comfortable. He is a slave, in law and in fact, but I must now treat him as my equal, and accord him the respect due to his advanced age. He knows he is my last remaining connection to the early life of the deceased paterfamilias, and he knows he has few enough days to live, and to tell me what I want to know. He appears, and I beckon him to sit beside me. He does not speak, and I know he wants to protest, but instead he takes the seat I offer, hesitantly and reluctantly. It was unheard of for a slave to sit in his paterfamilias’ presence, and a slave was always careful to observe the proprieties, which might mean the difference between life and death. He sits in silence, his head inclined, and his eyes averted.

Demetrius, as the new paterfamilias, I welcome you to my household.

I see the trace of a smile. He raises his head and looks over at me. Few people now living remembered the young Demetrius, purchased from one of the slave markets established to sell the human plunder of the Mithridatic Wars, all those years ago. It is reckoned he had lived 50 years when Marcus Tullius Cicero and Gaius Antonius Hybrida were consuls, twenty years ago. He had always looked younger than the measure of a calendar or an almanac, and no more so than when he smiled. He must have lived over seventy years by now, counting the entries on the yearly list of consuls, now that Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, and his cousin Quintus Pedius, are suffect consuls.

Thank you, young master. You honor me.

The honor is, of course, mine. Demetrius was from a distinguished family of Greek scholars and pedagogues, and in earlier days, he was a slave in the household of the paterfamilias employed as a tutor to his young wards, of whom I was only one. It was made clear to me, after my father’s death, by a succession of guardians from the extended family, that I was always to treat him with the highest respect, and never to refer to him as a slave, much less attempt to treat him as one. He was caught up in the mad plunder of Lucullus’ victorious armies in the East, a young man from a respectable family, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Now we have dispensed with the formalities, dear Demetrius, tell me the news, both good and bad.

Cicero is dead.

He pauses, as well he might, as well might we all. Cicero was one of the celebrated men of this age, or any age, so however long we paused, we should never have time to compass the enormity of the act. I nod to him to continue.

"On the 7th December, Mark Antony, enraged and furious, sent his odious centurion Herennius, and his hardly less appalling military tribune Popilius, to Cicero’s villa in Formiae. Cicero had heard of their imminent approach and decided to flee in his litter, but far too late, and only half-heartedly. When he saw the two men approaching on horseback, he ordered his carriers to stop and set down the litter. Once they had put him down, the carriers drew back the drapes, and offered to help Cicero stand. With a wave of his hand and without a word, he dismissed the carriers and, pulling aside his toga and baring his neck, he waited for Herennius to approach.

The centurion had already unsheathed his sword as he dismounted, and as he strode towards the litter he picked up his pace, and without breaking step lifted the sword in both hands, bringing it down in a single sweep and decapitating Cicero.

He pauses again. It is not my place to offer consolation. I wait for him to continue.

"Herennius had with him a leather satchel slung over his left shoulder. Hardly had Cicero’s head hit the road by the side of the litter, the centurion scooped it up and returned to the corpse to cut off his hands. Mark Antony was particular on this point: he must have Cicero’s right hand. Popilius remained on horseback, paying attention to Cicero’s carriers, and the household staff who had rushed from the villa to investigate. Popilius’ gaze was enough to discourage their intervention, and all those present turned away, some covering their faces with their tunics.

"Herennius remounted, and he and Popilius turned about and spurred their horses, the faster to return to the city. They spoke neither to those present, nor to each other. Mark Antony and his wife Fulvia Flacca Bambula, whose first husband was the notorious Publius Clodius Pulcher, one of Cicero’s sworn enemies, were impatient for their trophy. Mark Antony had his revenge for Cicero’s opposition to him in the senate in the aftermath of Caesar’s murder, and for the death of his stepfather Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura, in whose household he had been raised, and who was strangled in the Tullianum, Rome’s only prison, and little more than a dungeon, on Cicero’s direct orders during the conspiracy of Catiline. Fulvia had her revenge for the death of her first husband at the hands of Milo's gang, who was later defended by Cicero.

I shall not tell you, young master, the further indignities they heaped upon Cicero’s severed head and hands. Herennius affixed his head on a pike on the Rostra, facing south so that all might shudder at the sight of one of Rome’s mightiest men, brought low by the insane fury of Mark Antony. His hands have been nailed to the door of the Senate House, so that all might see the hand that penned Cicero’s speeches, and understand the price to be paid for opposing the great Marcus Antonius, scion of one of Rome’s oldest families.

I sense he wants to say more, but an insistent rapping at the door interrupts us. The visitor we have been expecting since the first hour has arrived. He excuses himself and leaves me to my thoughts.

The paterfamilias would have been heartbroken to hear the news, and appalled to discover the rapid progress of Octavian, the political novice and parvenu, whom Caesar named as his adoptive son, and heir. This arrangement has been confirmed upon publication of the will, so it comes as no surprise Octavian’s joint heirs in the will have signed over their portions to him. The most prominent of the joint heirs are his cousins Quintus Pedius and Lucius Pinarius Scarpus, so it was natural for them to be the most public signatories when the documents were notarized.

Octavian is making a point. This gesture of goodwill by his cousins, all purely voluntary and unbidden of course, is intended to portray him as an unstoppable force, bound to win, by right or by might. The prestige of his adoptive name will assure the former; the formidable armed forces he has at his disposal will expedite the latter. Octavian is calculated, and I fear the results of his calculations.

He is prudent to come to an arrangement with Mark Antony. It would be foolish to make an enemy of an Antonius, and this particular Antonius, whose mother was Caesar’s cousin, and who was Caesar’s closest friend, will need to be handled with care if Octavian is to gain from their alliance. As for that patrician mediocrity, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, he is hardly worth Octavian’s consideration, but for the fact, he was Master of Horse, and effective deputy to Caesar, in the short-lived life dictatorship. Octavian could not discount or slight him without grave offense to Lepidus' clan and their clients. Therefore, to avoid their enmity, Octavian has offered him an equal partnership with Mark Antony as the price for his acquiescence. Thus is born the three-man commission for the restitution of the constitution of the Republic, enshrined in the Lex Titia passed this late 27th November.

I hear Demetrius’ shuffling steps before I see him return to the garden. He carries a small leather-covered wooden document case, and a sealed letter. He sets down the case on the table between us, and offers the letter to me. I gently push it away, and gesture for him to sit.

Dear Demetrius, you should have called had you had need of my assistance.

I considered it, young master, but as I was about to call out to you, our visitor indicated he did not wish his identity to be known to any but me. He has kept safe both document case and letter since the death of Caesar, and has lived fearing his subterfuge might be uncovered, with deadly consequences for us all.

I need only ask Demetrius our visitor’s name and he would tell me. It would serve no purpose to know, and it would be an unforgivable breach of trust.

I had known about papers the paterfamilias had lodged with Caesar before returning to resume his residence in the Subura. Demetrius had mentioned it the day I first put on my man’s toga, and had promised this day would come. We had never spoken of it in the years between that day and this, and in truth, I had all but forgotten about it until shortly after the paterfamilias’ death. Demetrius had come to me in the garden where we now sat, and had pulled gently on the hem of my toga. With a slightly anxious and conspiratorial look on his face, and even though we are alone, he silently mouths the name Caesar, bows his head and averts his gaze.

It is for you to read the letter, Demetrius.

He nods and slips a thumbnail under the seal, and I notice it is Caesar’s seal rather than that of the paterfamilias. He unrolls the scroll, and begins to read:

"CURIUS TO HIS SON, GREETINGS