A Friend of Caesar by William Stearns Davis

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"Mercy, august lady," cried Alfidius,--for the chief executioner was
he,--with a supplicatory gesture. "If our mistress knows that her
commands are unexecuted, it is we, who are but slaves, that must
suffer!"

"Who is your mistress?" demanded Fabia.

"Valeria, wife of Lucius Calatinus."

"Livia's precious mother!" whispered Drusus. "I can imagine her doing
a thing like this." Then aloud, "What has the boy done?"

"He dropped a murrhine vase," was the answer.

"And so he must be beaten to death!" exclaimed the young man, who,
despite the general theory that most slaves were on a par with cattle,
had much of the milk of human kindness in his nature. "_Phui!_ What
brutality! You must insist on your rights, aunt. Make them let him
go."

Sulkily enough the executioners unbound the heavy furca. Agias
staggered to his feet, too dazed really to know what deliverance had
befallen him.

"Why don't you thank the Vestal?" said Alfidius. "She has made us
release you--you ungrateful dog!"

"Released? Saved?" gasped Agias, and he reeled as though his head were
in a whirl. Then, as if recollecting his faculties, he fell down at
Fabia's feet, and kissed the hem of her robe.

"The gods save us all now," muttered Alfidius. "Valeria will swear
that we schemed to have the boy released. We shall never dare to face
her again!"

"Oh! do not send me back to that cruel woman!" moaned Agias. "Better
die now, than go back to her and incur her anger again! Kill me, but
do not send me back!"

And he broke down again in inward agony.

Drusus had been surveying the boy, and saw that though he was now in a
pitiable enough state, he had been good-looking; and that though his
back had been cruelly marred, his face had not been cut with the
lashes. Perhaps the very fact that Agias had been the victim of
Valeria, and the high contempt in which the young Drusian held his
divorced stepmother, made him instinctively take the outraged boy's
part.

"See here," began Drusus, "were you to be whipped by orders of
Calatinus?"

"No," moaned Agias; "Valeria gave the orders. My master was out."

"Ha!" remarked Drusus to his aunt, "won't the good man be pleased to
know how his wife has killed a valuable slave in one of her tantrums?"
Then aloud. "If I can buy you of Calatinus, and give you to the Lady
Cornelia, niece of Lentulus, the consul-elect, will you serve her
faithfully, will you make her wish the law of your life?"

"I will die for her!" cried Agias, his despair mingled with a ray of
hope.

"Where is your master?"

"At the Forum, I think, soliciting votes," replied the boy.

"Well then, follow me," said Drusus, "our road leads back to the
Forum. We may meet him. If I can arrange with him, your executioners
have nothing to fear from Valeria. Come along."

Agias followed, with his head again in a whirl.

III

The little company worked its way back to the Forum, not, as now, a
half-excavated ruin, the gazing-stock for excursionists, a commonplace
whereby to sum up departed greatness: the splendid buildings of the
Empire had not yet arisen, but the structures of the age were not
unimposing. Here, in plain view, was the Capitoline Hill, crowned by
the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus and the Arx. Here was the site of
the Senate House, the Curia (then burned), in which the men who had
made Rome mistress of the world had taken counsel. Every stone, every
basilica, had its history for Drusus--though, be it said, at the
moment the noble past was little in his mind. And the historic
enclosure was all swarming, beyond other places, with the dirty,
bustling crowd, shoppers, hucksters, idlers. Drusus and his company
searched for Calatinus along the upper side of the Forum, past the
Rostra, the Comitium,[52] and the Temple of Saturn. Then they were
almost caught in the dense throng that was pouring into the plaza from
the busy commercial thoroughfares of the Vicus Jugarius, or the Vicus
Tuscus. But just as the party had almost completed their circuit of
the square, and Drusus was beginning to believe that his benevolent
intentions were leading him on a bootless errand, a man in a
conspicuously white toga rushed out upon him from the steps of the
Temple of Castor, embraced him violently, and imprinted a firm,
garlic-flavoured kiss on both cheeks; crying at the same time
heartily:--

[52] _Comitium_, assembly-place round the Rostra.

"Oh, my dear Publius Dorso, I am so glad to meet you! How are all your
affairs up in Fidenae?"

Drusus recoiled in some disgust, and began rubbing his outraged
cheeks.

"Dorso? Dorso? There is surely some mistake, my good man. I am known
as Quintus Drusus of Praeneste."

Before he had gotten further, his assailant was pounding and shaking a
frightened-looking slave-lad who had stood at his elbow.

"The gods blast you, you worthless _nomenclator_![53] You have
forgotten the worthy gentleman's name, and have made me play the fool!
You may have lost me votes! All Rome will hear of this! I shall be a
common laughing-stock! _Hei! vah!_ But I'll teach you to behave!" And
he shook the wretched boy until the latter's teeth rattled.

[53] Great men, and candidates for office who wished to "know"
everybody, kept smart slaves at their elbow to whisper strangers'
names in their ears. Sometimes the slaves themselves were at fault.

At this instant a young man of faultless toilet, whom we have already
recognized as Lucius Ahenobarbus, pushed into the little knot as a
peacemaker.

"Most excellent Calatinus," said he, half suppressing his laughter at
the candidate's fury, the nomenclator's anguish, and Drusus's vexed
confusion, "allow me to introduce to you a son of Sextus Drusus, who
was an old friend of my father's. This is Quintus Drusus, if in a few
years I have not forgotten his face; and this, my dear Quintus, is my
good friend Lucius Calatinus, who would be glad of your vote and
influence to help on his candidacy as tribune."

The atmosphere was cleared instantly. Calatinus forgot his anger, in
order to apologize in the most obsequious manner for his headlong
salutation. Drusus, pleased to find the man he had been seeking,
forgave the vile scent of the garlic, and graciously accepted the
explanation. Then the way was open to ask Calatinus whether he was
willing to dispose of Agias. The crestfallen candidate was only too
happy to do something to put himself right with the person he had
offended. Loudly he cursed his wife's temper, that would have wasted a
slave worth a "hundred thousand sesterces" to gratify a mere burst of
passion.

"Yes, he was willing to sell the boy to accommodate his excellency,
Quintus Drusus," said Calatinus, "although he was a valuable slave.
Still, in honesty he had to admit that Agias had some mischievous
points. Calatinus had boxed his ears only the day before for licking
the pastry. But, since his wife disliked the fellow, he would be
constrained to sell him, if a purchaser would take him."

The result of the conference was that Drusus, who had inherited that
keen eye for business which went with most of his race, purchased
Agias for thirty thousand sesterces, considerably less than the boy
would have brought in the market.

While Drusus was handing over a money order payable with Flaccus,
Lucius Ahenobarbus again came forward, with all seeming friendliness.

"My dear Quintus," said he, "Marcus Laeca has commissioned me to find a
ninth guest to fill his _triclinium_[54] this evening. We should be
delighted if you would join us. I don't know what the good Marcus will
offer us to-night, but you can be sure of a slice of peacock[55] and a
few other nice bits."

[54] Dining room with couch seats for nine, the regular size.

[55] The _ne plus ultra_ of Roman gastronomy at the time.

"I am very grateful," replied Drusus, who felt all the while that
Lucius Ahenobarbus was the last man in the world with whom he cared to
spend an evening's carousing; "but," and here he concocted a white
lie, "an old friend I met in Athens has already invited me to spend
the night, and I cannot well refuse him. I thank you for your
invitation."

Lucius muttered some polite and conventional terms of regret, and fell
back to join Servius Flaccus and Gabinius, who were near him.

"I invited him and he refused," he said half scornfully, half
bitterly. "That little minx, Cornelia, has been complaining of me to
him, I am sure. The gods ruin him! If he wishes to become my enemy,
he'll have good cause to fear my bite."

"You say he's from Praeneste," said Gabinius, "and yet can he speak
decent Latin? Doesn't he say '_conia_' for '_ciconia_,' and
'_tammodo_' for '_tantummodo_'_?_ I wonder you invite such a boor."

"Oh! he can speak good enough Latin," said Lucius. "But I invited him
because he is rich; and it might be worth our while to make him
gamble."

"Rich!" lisped Servius Flaccus. "Rich (h)as my (h)uncle the broker?
That silly straightlac(h)ed fellow, who's (h)a C(h)ato, (h)or worse?
For shame!"

"Well," said Lucius, "old Crassus used to say that no one who couldn't
pay out of his own purse for an army was rich. But though Drusus
cannot do quite that, he has enough sesterces to make happy men of
most of us, if his fortune were mine or yours."

"(H)its (h)an (h)outrage for him to have (h)it," cried Servius
Flaccus.

"It's worse than an outrage," replied Ahenobarbus; "it's a sheer
blunder of the Fates. Remind me to tell you about Drusus and his
fortune, before I have drunk too much to-night."

* * * * *

Agias went away rejoicing with his new master. Drusus owned an
apartment house on the Vicus Longus, and there had a furnished suite
of rooms. He gave Agias into the charge of the porter[56] and ordered
him to dress the boy's wounds. Cappadox waited on his master when he
lunched.

[56] Porter--_Insularius._

"Master Quintus," said he, with the familiar air of a privileged
servant, "did you see that knavish-looking Gabinius following Madame
Fabia all the way back to the Temple of Vesta?"

"No," said Drusus; "what do you mean, you silly fellow?"

"Oh, nothing," said Cappadox, humbly. "I only thought it a little
queer."

"Perhaps so," said his master, carelessly.

Chapter IV

Lucius Ahenobarbus Airs His Grievance

I

The pomp and gluttony of Roman banquets have been too often described
to need repetition here; neither would we be edified by learning all
the orgies that Marcus Laeca (an old Catilinian conspirator) and his
eight guests indulged in that night: only after the dinner had been
cleared, and before the Gadesian[57] dancing girls were called in, the
dice began to rattle, and speedily all were engrossed in drink and
play.

[57] From Cadiz, Spain.

Lucius Ahenobarbus soon lost so heavily that he was cursing every god
that presided over the noble game.

"I am ruined next Ides," he groaned. "Phormio the broker has only
continued my loan at four per cent a month. All my villas and
furniture are mortgaged, and will be sold at auction. _Mehercle_,
destruction stares me in the face!"

"Well, well, my dear fellow," said Pratinas, who, having won the
stakes, was in a mood to be sympathetic, "we must really see what can
be done to remedy matters."

"I can see nothing!" was his answer.

"Won't your father come to the rescue?" put in Gabinius, between deep
pulls on a beaker.

"My father!" snapped Ahenobarbus. "Never a sesterce will I get out of
him! He's as good as turned me adrift, and Cato my uncle is always
giving him bad reports of me, like the hypocritical Stoic that Cato
is."

"By the bye," began Gabinius again, putting down the wine-cup, "you
hinted to-day that you had been cheated out of a fortune, after a
manner. Something about that Drusus of Praeneste, if I recollect.
What's the story?"

Lucius settled down on his elbow, readjusted the cushions on the
banqueting couch, and then began, interrupted by many a hiccough
because of his potations.

"It is quite a story, but I won't bore you with details. It has quite
as much to do with Cornelia, Lentulus Crus's pretty niece, as with
Drusus himself. Here it is in short. Sextus Drusus and Caius Lentulus
were such good friends that, as you know, they betrothed their son and
daughter when the latter were mere children. To make the compact
doubly strong, Sextus Drusus inserted in his will a clause like this:
'Let my son Quintus enjoy the use of my estate and its income, until
he become twenty-five and cease to be under the care of Flaccus his
_tutor_.[58] If he die before that time, let his property go to
Cornelia, the daughter of Caius Lentulus, except;' and here Sextus
left a small legacy for his own young daughter, Livia. You see Drusus
can make no will until he is five-and-twenty. But then comes another
provision. 'If Cornelia shall marry any person save my son, my son
shall at once be free to dispose of my estates.' So Cornelia is laid
under a sort of obligation also to marry Quintus. The whole aim of the
will is to make it very hard for the young people to fail to wed as
their fathers wished."

[58] Commercial adviser required for young men under five-and-twenty.

"True," said Gabinius; "but how such an arrangement can affect you and
your affairs, I really cannot understand."

"That is so," continued Ahenobarbus, "but here is the other side of
the matter. Caius Lentulus was a firm friend of Sextus Drusus; he also
was very close and dear to my father. Caius desired that Cornelia wed
young Drusus, and so enjoined her in his will; but out of compliment
to my father, put in a clause which was something like this: 'If
Quintus Drusus die before he marry Cornelia, or refuse to marry
Cornelia at the proper time, then let Cornelia and all her property be
given to Lucius, the second son of my dearly loved friend, Lucius
Domitius Ahenobarbus,' Now I think you will begin to see why Quintus
Drusus's affairs interest me a little. If he refuse to marry Cornelia
before he be five-and-twenty, she falls to me. But I understand that
Lentulus, her uncle, is badly in debt, and her dowry won't be much.
But if Drusus is not married to her, and die before he is twenty-five,
_his property is hers and she is mine._ Do you understand why I have a
little grudge against him?"

"For what?" cried Laeca, with breathless interest.

"For living!" sighed Ahenobarbus, hopelessly.

The handsome face of Pratinas was a study. His nostrils dilated; his
lips quivered; his eyes were bright and keen with what evidently
passed in his mind for a great discovery.

"Eureka!" cried the Greek, clapping his hands. "My dear Lucius, let me
congratulate you! You are saved!"

"What?" exclaimed the young man, starting up.

"You are saved!" repeated Pratinas, all animation. "Drusus's sesterces
shall be yours! Every one of them!"

Lucius Ahenobarbus was a debauchee, a mere creature of pleasure,
without principle or character; but even he had a revulsion of spirit
at the hardly masked proposal of the enthusiastic Greek. He flushed in
spite of the wine, then turned pale, then stammered, "Don't mention
such a thing, Pratinas. I was never Drusus's enemy. I dare not dream
of such a move. The Gods forefend!"

"The Gods?" repeated Pratinas, with a cynical intonation. "Do you
believe there are any?"

"Do you?" retorted Lucius, feeling all the time that a deadly
temptation had hold of him, which he could by no means resist.

"Why?" said the Greek. "Your Latin Ennius states my view, in some of
your rather rough and blundering native tetrameters. He says:--

"'There's a race of gods in heaven; so I've said and still will say.
But I deem that we poor mortals do not come beneath their sway.
Otherwise the good would triumph, whereas evil reigns to-day.'"

"And you advise?" said Ahenobarbus, leaning forward with pent-up
excitement.

"I advise?" replied Pratinas; "I am only a poor ignorant Hellene, and
who am I, to give advice to Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, a most noble
member of the most noble of nations!"

If Pratinas had said: "My dear Lucius, you are a thick-headed,
old-fashioned, superstitious Roman, whom I, in my superior wisdom,
utterly despise," he would have produced about the same effect upon
young Ahenobarbus.

But Lucius still fluttered vainly,--a very weak conscience whispering
that Drusus had never done him any harm; that murder was a dangerous
game, and that although his past life had been bad enough, he had
never made any one--unless it were a luckless slave or two--the victim
of bloodthirsty passion or rascality.

"Don't propose it," he groaned. "I don't dare to think of such a
thing! What disgrace and trouble, if it should all come out!"

"Come, come, Ahenobarbus," thrust in Marcus Laeca, who had been
educated in Catilina's school for polite villains and cut-throats.
"Pratinas is only proposing what, if you were a man of spirit, would
have been done long ago. You can't complain of Fortune, when she's put
a handsome estate in your hands for the asking."

"My admirable fellow," said Pratinas, benevolently, "I highly applaud
your scruples. But, permit me to say it, I must ask you to defer to me
as being a philosopher. Let us look at the matter in a rational way.
We have gotten over any bogies which our ancestors had about Hades, or
the punishments of the wicked. In fact, what we know--as good
Epicureans--is that, as Democritus of Abdera[59] early taught, this
world of ours is composed of a vast number of infinitely small and
indivisible atoms, which have by some strange hap come to take the
forms we see in the world of life and matter. Now the soul of man is
also of atoms, only they are finer and more subtile. At death these
atoms are dissolved, and so far as that man is concerned, all is over
with him. The atoms may recombine, or join with others, but never form
anew that same man. Hence we may fairly conclude that this life is
everything and death ends all. Do you follow, and see to what I am
leading?"

[59] Born about 470 B.C.

"I think so," said the wretched Lucius, feeling himself like a bird
caught in a snare, yet not exactly grasping the direct bearing of all
this learned exposition.

"My application is this," went on Pratinas, glibly. "Life is all--all
either for pleasure or pain. Therefore every man has a right to
extract all the sweetness he can out of it. But suppose a man
deliberately makes himself gloomy, extracts no joy from life; lets
himself be overborne by care and sorrow,--is not such a man better
dead than living? Is not a dreamless sleep preferable to misery or
even cold asceticism? And how much more does this all apply when we
see a man who makes himself unhappy, preventing by his very act of
existence the happiness of another more equably tempered mortal! Now I
believe this is the present case. Drusus, I understand, is leading a
spare, joyless, workaday sort of existence, which is, or by every
human law should be, to him a burden. So long as he lives, he prevents
you from enjoying the means of acquiring pleasure. Now I have Socrates
of imperishable memory on my side, when I assert that death under any
circumstances is either no loss or a very great gain. Considering then
the facts of the case in its philosophic and rational bearings, I may
say this: Not merely would it be no wrong to remove Drusus from a
world in which he is evidently out of place, but I even conceive such
an act to rise to the rank of a truly meritorious deed."

Lucius Ahenobarbus was conquered. He could not resist the inexorable
logic of this train of reasoning, all the premises of which he fully
accepted. Perhaps, we should add, he was not very unwilling to have
his wine-befuddled intellect satisfied, and his conscience stilled. He
turned down a huge beaker of liquor, and coughed forth:--

"Right as usual, Pratinas! By all the gods, but I believe you can save
me!"

"Yes; as soon as Drusus is dead," insinuated the Greek who was already
computing his bill for brokerage in this little affair, "you can raise
plenty of loans, on the strength of your coming marriage with
Cornelia."

"But how will you manage it?" put in the alert Gabinius. "There
mustn't be any clumsy bungling."

"Rest assured," said Pratinas, with a grave dignity, perhaps the
result of his drinking, "that in my affairs I leave no room for
bungling."

"And your plan is--" asked Lucius.

"Till to-morrow, friend," said the Greek; "meet me at the Temple of
Saturn, just before dusk. Then I'll be ready."

II

Lucius Ahenobarbus's servants escorted their tipsy master home to his
lodgings in a fashionable apartment house on the Esquiline. When he
awoke, it was late the next day, and head and wits were both sadly the
worse for the recent entertainment. Finally a bath and a luncheon
cleared his brain, and he realized his position. He was on the brink
of concocting a deliberate murder. Drusus had never wronged him; the
crime would be unprovoked; avarice would be its only justification.
Ahenobarbus had done many things which a far laxer code of ethics than
that of to-day would frown upon; but, as said, he had never committed
murder--at least had only had crucified those luckless slaves, who did
not count. He roused with a start, as from a dream. What if Pratinas
were wrong? What if there were really gods, and furies, and
punishments for the wicked after death? And then came the other side
of the shield: a great fortune his; all his debts paid off; unlimited
chances for self-enjoyment; last, but not least, Cornelia his. She had
slighted him, and turned her back upon all his advances; and now what
perfect revenge! Lucius was more in love with Cornelia than he
admitted even to himself. He would even give up Clyte, if he could
possess her. And so the mental battle went on all day; and the prick
of conscience, the fears of superstition, and the lingerings of
religion ever grew fainter. Near nightfall he was at his post, at the
Temple of Saturn. Pratinas was awaiting him. The Greek had only a few
words of greeting, and the curt injunction:--"Draw your cloak up to
shield your face, and follow me." Then they passed out from the Forum,
forced their way through the crowded streets, and soon were through
the _Porta Ratumena,_ outside the walls, and struck out across the
Campus Martius, upon the Via Flaminia. It was rapidly darkening. The
houses grew fewer and fewer. At a little distance the dim structures
of the Portico and Theatre of Pompeius could be seen, looming up to an
exaggerated size in the evening haze. A grey fog was drifting up from
the Tiber, and out of a rift in a heavy cloud-bank a beam of the
imprisoned moon was struggling. Along the road were peasants with
their carts and asses hastening home. Over on the Pincian Mount the
dark green masses of the splendid gardens of Pompeius and of Lucullus
were just visible. The air was filled with the croak of frogs and the
chirp of crickets, and from the river came the creak of the sculls and
paddles of a cumbrous barge that was working its way down the Tiber.

Ahenobarbus felt awed and uncomfortable. Pratinas, with his mantle
wrapped tightly around his head, continued at a rapid pace. Lucius had
left his attendants at home, and now began to recall gruesome tales of
highwaymen and bandits frequenting this region after dark. His fears
were not allayed by noticing that underneath his himation Pratinas
occasionally let the hilt of a short sword peep forth. Still the Greek
kept on, never turning to glance at a filthy, half-clad beggar, who
whined after them for an alms, and who did not so much as throw a kiss
after the young Roman when the latter tossed forth a denarius,[60] but
snatched up the coin, muttered at its being no more, and vanished into
the gathering gloom.

[60] Four sesterces, 16 cents.

"Where are you leading me?" asked Ahenobarbus, a second time, after
all his efforts to communicate with the usually fluent Greek met with
only monosyllables.

"To the _lanista_[61] Dumnorix," replied Pratinas, quickening an
already rapid pace.

[61] Keeper of a school of gladiators.

"And his barracks are--?"

"By the river, near the Mulvian bridge."

At length a pile of low square buildings was barely visible in the
haze. It was close to the Tiber, and the rush of the water against the
piling of the bridge was distinctly audible. As the two drew near to a
closed gateway, a number of mongrel dogs began to snap and bark around
them. From within the building came the roar of coarse hilarity and
coarser jests. As Pratinas approached the solidly barred doorway, a
grating was pushed aside and a rude voice demanded:--

"Your business? What are you doing here?"

"Is Dumnorix sober?" replied Pratinas, nothing daunted. "If so, tell
him to come and speak with me. I have something for his advantage."

Either Pratinas was well known at the gladiators' school, or something
in his speech procured favour. There was a rattling of chains and
bolts, and the door swung open. A man of unusual height and ponderous
proportions appeared in the opening. That was all which could be seen
in the semi-darkness.

"You are Pratinas?" he asked, speaking Latin with a northern accent.
The Hellene nodded, and replied softly: "Yes. No noise. Tell Dumnorix
to come quietly."

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