No Title

A PILLAR OF IRON

TAYLOR CALDWELL

Paperback

Published by Fawcett Crest Books, a unit of CBS Publications,
The Consumer Publishing Division of CBS Inc.,
By arrangement with Doubleday & Company, Inc.

ISBN: 0-449-23952-7

Dedicated To
The Memory of President John F. Kennedy
and to Senator Barry Goldwater (R. Ariz.)
and Senator Thomas Dodd (D. Conn.)

Foreword

The dearest and most devoted frined of Cicero was his editor and publisher, Atticus, and their correspondence, covering thousands of letters oer a long lifetime, is touching, revealing, tender, despairing, and vexatious. Atticus frequently wrote that Cicero would not be appreciated in his lifetime, “but ages yet unborn will be the recipients of your wisdom, and all that you have said and written will be a warning to nations, yet unknown.” Cicero’s vision, hundreds of them, of the terrible future-which we now face ourselves in the modern world-are related in his letters to Atticus. He was deeply involved in Judean theology and philosophy, and was well acquainted with the prophets and particularly with the prophecies of the Messias-to-come, and was a worshiper of the unknown God. He longed to see the Incarnation, prophesied by King David and Isaias and other of the mighty Israelite prophets, and his vision of the end of the world, contained in the first and second chapters of Joel (King James Version) and Sophonias, (Douay-Challoner Version) is recorded in one of his letters to Atticus (Vatican Library) and certainly describes the world in a nuclear holocaust. His last letter, just before his death, to Atticus, is most moving, as he relates his dream of the vision of God’s Hand.
Cicero was particularly struck by the fact that in all religions, including the Indu and the Greek and the Egyptian and the Israelite, there is the prophecy of the Messias and the Incarnation of God as man. He was so fascinated, and so hopeful, that many of his letters include speculation on the Event. He desired, above all things, to be alive when it occurred. His Jewish friend (whose name he does not mention, but to whom I have given the name of Noe ben Joel) is frequently spoken of in his letters to various friends, and he was much drawn to the famous Jewish-Roman actor, and father of the modern theatre, Roscius, about whom another book could be written.

XIII

The work on this book by both myself and my husband was begun in 1947, and is contained in hundreds of typed notes and in thirty-eight notebooks.

XIV

Cicero’s speeches and letters are as freshly modern for today as they were pertinent to Romans two thousand years ago, and as momentous as our daily newspapers and carried similar events.

“That is wisdom, when one does not speak when one has nothing to say,” said Tullius, who thought words in themselves were beautiful and capable of infinite meanings beyond the mere seeming. Tullius had always lived in himself, in silent recesses. But he was lonely. He turned hopefully to his little son, who had his face and introspective expression.

Or will you be stronger than your father, and surmount them all, despising them not in silence as I have done, but with words like burning swords? Will you say to them that there is a Force that lives not in weapons but in the hearts and souls of righteous men, and cannot be overthrown? Will you tell them that power without law is chaos, and tht Law does not come from men but from God? What will you tell the, my son?…
Tullius lifted his eye to the sky and prayed. He prayed as the “old” Romans prayed, not for wealth or luster for his child, not for fame and glory and the snapping of banners, not imperial power or lustful ambition. He prayed only that his son would be a man as the Romans once knew a man to be, just in all his ways, resolute in virtue, strong in patriotism, ardent in piety, courageous in all adversity, peaceful of temper but no secret server of wrong, protector of the weak, prudent in decisions, eager for justice, temperate and honorable.
Tullius offered his child to God, pleaded for mercy for him that he might be kept from dishonor and greed, cruelty and madness, that he avoid no battle but engage in it in the name of right, and that he fear no man ever, and fear nothing but that of him who can maim the soul. He prayed as fathers had prayed before, and was comforted.

“The Greek gods are poetry,” said Archias one day to his pupil. “The Romans appropriated our gods, and renamed them. But they removed their poetry. Minerva is a bad-tempered shrew and her virginity astringent, but Pallas Athene is armed and noble wisdom and her virginity like marble in moonlight.”
Marcus always listened uneasily to any attack on Romans, however good-natured.
“Our gods have been perverted by man,” he said, “and given man’s temper by man. It was not always so in our history. Why must man eventually degrade even his gods?”
“It is man’s temper, as you have wisely said, my Marcus,” Archias agreed. “Only the Greeks have not done so. Perhaps this arises from innate wisdom, or perhaps it is because Greeks love poetry and let their gods alone. Man must not impudently dissect God, and make Him anthropomorphic. Socrates understood that, and that is why he was condemned by city fathers grown provincial and mean, and, in their hearts, atheistic. It is the man unsure of his faith, and uncertain of the existence of the Godhead, who is the most intolerant.”
“You are not intolerant, my teacher,” said Marcus with his charming and mischievous smile.
“Never despise inconsistency. It is man’s best safeguard against tyranny. God’s Law”-and here Archias hesitated for a moment-”is believed, and probably rightly, to be immutable. But the laws of men can never be dogmatic or they become like insentient stone.”

Hatred was unknown to Marcus; he had never encountered it before either in himself or in his family. Therefore, he was stunned when he early discovered that Lucius’ baiting of him was not mere schoolboy taunting founded on good-nature, but was inspired by a baffling rejected extended to the stranger and especially to the virtuous. All that Marcus was, generous, calm of temper, patient, kind and studious, persistent if a little plodding, aroused Lucius’ enmity and contempt and laughter.

Years later, when a mature man, Marcus wrote, “It is wrong to bring children up in an atmosphere solely of family and fraternal afffection, without enlightening them that beyond the safe walls of home there lives a world of Godless, dishonorable, and amoral men, and that these men are in the majority. For when an innocent youth must inevitably encounter the world of men he suffers a wound from which he will never recover, and a sickness of heart which will permanently sicken his soul. Better at once, even from the cradle, to teach your son that man is intrinsically evil and that he is a destroyer and a liar and a latent murderer, and that your son must be armed against his brother lest he die in body or in spirit! The Jews are quite correct when they declare that man is desperately wicked from his birth and even from his youth. Possessing this knowledge, your son can then say o himself, `With the help of God I shall be kinder than my brother, and shall strive for virtue. It is my duty to aspire above my human nature.’”*
…
*Letter to Terentia

Years later, remembering that night, he wrote to a friend: “Man lives in an awful isolation, imprisoned by his flesh, unable to stir his tongue of flesh to pronounce the words in his heart, unable to show that heart of flesh to anyone, neither father nor child nor brother nor wife. That is man’s tragedy, that he lives alone from the moment of his birth until the hour he lies upon his funeral pyre.”

“Wicked men are born every generation, and it is the duty of a nation to render them impotent. When you discover a man who seeks power for himself, out of hatred or contempt for his fellows, destroy him, Marcus. If a man seeks office because he secretly despises what he calls `the mass,’ and wishes to control them into slavery, with promises of luxuries they have not earned, expose him.

“There are moments when the very thought of God fills me with sharp ecstasy, beyond which rapture purely of the senses and mind is feeble. It is an ecstasy self-contained and complete, needing nothing else to ornament it. It lies in the heart like a globe of fire, giving life and joy and radiance as it burns and consumes that which is gross and unworthy. What is this thing beyond the imagination of men, so that it cannot be put truly into words? Memory of life before birth, when the soul recognizes the hand of the Creator? Nostalgia for the celestial vision, long lost, and forever mourned? Or of an existence of man from which we have fallen? If so, how great was that fall from knowledge!

“What is it, Marcus?” asked Tullius.
But Marcus could not answer. For once, he could not speak to his father, nor to anyone. Something was sealed within him. So, he thought, there are times when ther is no communication, not even among those who love. Could he speak

to Archias, who was a poet and wise? No. All at once he thought, I am sure of nothing, and he passed completely into manhood.

113

“He believes a noble hero will arise to bring justice once more to Rome and to unite all Italy with Rome again under our Constitution,” said the grandfather, spitting. “We shall not see Rome die tomorrow, but surely she is dying. For she has forgotten what once she was, or she laughs at it. We shall be enrolled among the nations who died by their own will and their own mischief.”

127

“Never,” said Archias, emphatically. “I stand apart. I love poetry and philosophy. But even thse amuse me. They are man’s attempt to come to terms with what is hidden from him forever. Does the eagle or the lion wonder form whence he came or what his end is? Does the mouse contemplate and try to solve riddles? Does the flower wonder what lies beyond the sun? No, they are content to be, as I am. They accept. They fear neither life nor death. They are wiser than we.”

129

In all of history, then, there had been no ruler so comparatively benign before. The Roman passion for jurisprudence had relieved populaces from a constant siege. But if subject nations showed signs of rebellion they felt the crushing weight of the Roman fist. Romans considered this only reasonable. They also considered that national pride and natural patriotism in conquered lands to be reprehensible, for did they not threaten the peace of Rome/ The world was Roman; let it beware of dr3aming of its own hegemony again, its own independence. What had independence wrought in the pat? Wars, competitive ambitions, destruction, disorder.
Marcus, lying on his hard bed, considered these things. He considered the Pax Romana, enforced with cold and efficient ruthlessness. It was against nature! Nations could not be welded together like bits of iron! They were composed of men, of different races, tongues, customs, gods. They ha a right to their land, and only they had a right. Rome strove to destroy individuality and variety, in the name of peace and in the name of Rome. But men persisted in being born with features of their own and souls forever alien from the Pax Romana. It was a mad and unnatural dream-that all men should have one government and look to that sole government for law, and pay their taxes to that government. Dead empires had had that dream before, including Greece, and it had destroyed them, for man’s spirit will not be mocked. What was it Noe ben Joel had quoted ot him, Marcus, from the writings of the Jews? That God had set the boundaries of the nations and had created the various races, and no man should intrude upon them.

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To a young man whose life had been serene, only once or twice lit by passion or anger, who had led a most bucolic existence in the heart of a peaceful family, whose days had been quiet and full of affection and without true responsibility, the situation seemed formidable. Nor for him had been the uneasy and turbulent days of those engaged in war or who had warriors in the family; not for him the days of anxiety which attended those whose income was uncertain. As he was no patrician, he had been subjected to no arrogances, no insistences on protocol, no heartburning honors, no strivings, no tremendous ambitions, no struggling for political power, no schemes or plots, no mingling with Senators or Consuls or tribunes, no terrors, no suspicions, no grandeur. “In all ways,” he wrote many years later, “my early life was the golden mean of the Greeks, without excess. But, alas, I do not admire it. Experience makes the man, and if it be fiery, then is the metal tempered. The quiet river moves through peaceful country, but it makes no living estuaries, it does not thunder in green fresh violence over stones. If it has no turbulence, neither has it life. It is stagnant.”

153

“For the reason that men make laws which are convenient for their political factions and for themselves, when it is necessary. `Unchanging law!’ Laws change as men need them to change; as I have said, law is a harlot.”
But Marcus kept his notes and later used that when writing his history of Roman law. He was never to deviate from his belief that law was above man’s exigencies and his lusts.
“Where did you learn this presence you possess, for your neck is too long and you are too slender to be naturally imposing/” asked Scaevola.
“My friend, Noe ben Joel, the actor and playwright and producer of plays,” Marcus confessed, blushing. “He has taught me the posture, the gestures, the motions of an actor.”
“Excellent,” said Scaevola, inspecting him critically. ‘You see then, my dear, that histrionics are the most important things in a lawyer’s career. Your voice, when you forget to be respectful, is mellifluous. Can we attribute that also to the astute Noe ben Joel?”
“True,” said Marcus. “I have a wonderful teacher, Archias. We quote long and sonorous poetry.”
“I recommend poetry for a lawyer,” said Seaevola, approvingly. “He can learn his speeches, then, by rote, perfecting and polishing them in private, and then delivering them in public without stammering and hesitation-as an actor speaks his lines. While so doing, he can think of his gifts, and thoughts of large gifts can put eloquence in a man’s voice. Money is better than a woman; it never betrays a man. Therefore I disagree with other lawyers who recommend thinking of one’s mistress when pleading a case. It is money which puts fervor in a man’s tones, and passion in his eyes. You will observe that the majority of cases which come to law concern money and property. These are the greatest preoccupations of men.”

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“The government needs money. That is always its plaint,” said Scaevola, with contempt. “Let us translate that properly: Tyrants need money with which to buy votes and influence. Ergo, they revive evil laws. Their bureaucrats dive into dusty manuscripts and come upon a regulation of a little obscure law which will justify their oppressions. It is all very legal, and very virtuous. When that law appeared on the books, centuries before this, it was to discourage profligacy and irresponsibility in our then new nation, and to impress men that they must not undertake more than was consistent with their abilities, and the intelligence with which nature had seen fit to endow them. But now the government, eagerly seeking revenue, exploits an ancient law which was never enforced because the people were frugal and provident and their rulers humane. Now it is being enforced because the people are profligate and irresponsible, and thir rulers monsters. It is a paradox, but governments are not noted for consistency. And, dos not the government need money? Your client is but one of thousands.”*
…
*Letter to Scaevola’s son.

195

Archias deftly rearranged a fold that fell from Marcus’ shoulder. He said, “One is moved, most of all, by his passionate sincerity and his belief in ultimate justice. One can question that innocence, but one must respect it for what it is.”

201

“The law concerning your client exists,” said Servius. “Therefore, according to what you have said you must respect this law also.”
“I respect just law,” said Marcus, and now his heart felt as if it were about to burst. “I respect the laws of Rome, which were founded on justice, patriotism, fearlessness of spirit, a proper regard for liberty, and charity and manhood. But I respect no evil law.”
Servius frowned. “Nevertheless, no matter your opinion, Cicero, this is law. It is truth. Truth is that which exists, and this law exists.”
He had a fondness for syllogisms. He added:
“Truth is that which exists.
This law exists,
Therefore, this law is truth.”
Again, he was sorry for Marcus. He considered the case concluded. He glanced at the Consul in his chair, waiting for the signal. Marcus held up his hand.
“Please, Lord, let me add one thing. You have made a valid syllogism. But validity is not always truth, as you know. Let me give you another, which is not only valid but true:
“A reality is that which exists.
Evil exists,
Therefore evil is a reality.”
“It is true that evil exists. It exists as objectively and as fully as dos good. It is at least as powerful as virtue, and in many cases it is more powerful, for there are more evil men than there are virtuous.
“But who, if he is a man of probity, will hurry to embrace evil because, in philosophy and in fact, it exists, has reality and has its measure of truth?”
His fine voice, youthfully sonorous, soared through the chamber, and all were silent, even the crowds within and without the portals. Scaevola nudged Noe with his elbow and smiled slyly.
The attention of the Senators was fully caught. The venal ones glanced uneasily at the distant Scaevola and wondered how much he had told his pupil.
Marcus resumed, his large eyes flashing like pale gold: “Pestilence exists, therefore it has verity. Do we hasten,

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therefore, to throw ourselves into pestilential circumstances and contagion, because of the true existence of the terror? For again, there are evil truths, and there are excellent truths. We sedulously avoid the one, with regard for our very lives and our spirits, and we embrace the other which make us fully men, and preserves us as a nation.

205

“My lords, let us consider just law. Does it bring tranquility, good order, piety, justice and liverty and prosperity to a people? Does it nourish patriotism and the way of a manly and upright life? Then it is a good law, and deserves our utter obedience.
“But if it brings pain, intolerable burdens, injustice, sleepless anxiety and fear and slavery to a people, then it is an evil law passed and upheld by evil men, who hate humanity and wish to subjugte and control it. If this be treason on my part, lords, accuse me then of it, and say why it is treason. Let those who listen, hear your accusations before them and before God.”*
…
*From Cicero’s Law.

207

“Do justice to my client. It is said that the gods love to see mercy in man, for mercy gives a godliness even to the most humble. Be magnanimous. Let the news of your charity and your kindness reach the gates of the city, and beyond. Are you not honorable men, Romans, revering your fathers? Is not virtue the most becoming toga a man can wear? What is more shining? What is more laudable? What arouses admiration most of all in the breast of all men but examples of goodness, mercy, and justice? What do men reverence more than power? Honor and nobility and right doing. Fir, no matter how base the man, he adores virtue.”

209

He thought: There are many who make sardonic remarks on the blindness of Justice. But she wears a blindfold not for the obvious reason. She wears it that her judgment shall not be swayed by the mere “appearance” of those she judges in her balances, by overt and false pathos, or pleasing but meretricious distress. At all times she is impartial. That is the meaning of Law.

212

“I have done as you requested and have sought out more prophesies of the Messias for you. There are many Egyptian merchants here, and I have made their acquaintance, for they must be civil in Jerusalem while conducting their business. They tell me than an ancient Pharaoh, Aton, prophesied that Horus will descend from heaven to take on the flesh of a man and lead all men to justice, love, peace and faith, and reconcile them to their God. I have also made the acquaintance of Indu traders who linger here awhile, resting between their ships, and they have informed me that their Gita, which vaguely resembles our Torah, declares that man is corrupt from his conception, and by no effort of his own can he elevate his state. He is evil from the hour he draws breath, for he was conceived in evil, he lives in evil, and he dies in evil, and shall suffer death, except that on

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some far day God may rescue him from his foreordained wickedness. Again, possibly, when some god takes on the flesh of man and leads him to grace.
“I have heard that Hammurabi, the great Babylonia king, says in his Code: `How can man free himself from the evil of himself? By contemplation of God, by penitence and penance, by confession of sins, by the power of God, only. On a fated day God will manifest Himself to the eyes of men, in their own flesh.’
“You will observe the entwining theme in these prophesies and words of wisdom: The wickedness of man, his lack of grace, his sentence to eternal death, and his possible rescue by a compassionate God who will take on the flesh of mankind. You will recall, in this frame of reference, the words of Aristotle: “There is no good in mankind, save that which is vouchsafed it from God, by virtue of God and by His loving kindness. For man was born to evil, and he cannot free himself from the web of iniquity without God, no matter his striving or his good will.’

215

“As Jews are violent and intense by nature, the Romans respect their convictions. Ad dead people are not profitable to Rome, so Romans are careful not to insist on what the Jews call idolatry in Jerusalem. Coins struck here bear the head of no god, and Jews are not pressed into the Roman armies as they are in other countries. So long as Jews pay reasonable taxes the Romans do not disturb them. On the contrary, they are friendly, and many Roman officers are married to Jewish girls.
“Your Polybius would have delighted in Judea, where we have free schools for all youths and where universal learning is obligatory. I am not certain this is wise. It puffs up the ignorant who are incapable of true learning. If they acquire the words of the Law they do not understand its spirit. Many are there who are born mentally illiterate, and they have a place in the world. But they are like ravens, whose tongues are split, who learn words but not their meaning. Who is more dangerous than a man who can quote wisdom but who

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does not know how to apply it in his own life, and in his government? But at least we are profound in one way: we insist that all men, even the rabbis, must learn a trade and must work, no matter the wealth of the family. Beware of the man of the colonnades, who does not labor at anything with his hands! Beware even more of the rich and idle man, who has time to develop a lust for power to fill his empty days! The Jews know this. Therefore, we work. I manage my father’s gardens. I who knew nothing of the earth and the seasons and growing things until I came to Jerusalem.
“It is much more vociferous even than Rome, for we are a small country and are desperately crowded in the city. Jerusalem is like a hive of bees; one cell is packed upon another; one could run over the whole city on the rooftops without touching one’s feet to the ground. In truth, from the top of our yellow walls we seem to see nothing but heaving roofs extending into the gold and dusty distance, broken here and there by groves of cypresses and carob trees and palms, like oases. All the roofs are yellow or white, rising and falling blankly, except after sunset when they are crowded with people sitting or standing on them to catch the evening air. Then music bursts forth from various houses and the city resounds with a vast humming, and a trumpet shatters at intervals from the temple. We are locked within our yellowish and twisting walls, and hear the calls of the guards who pace the tops.
“Beyond the gates are the theatres which the Greeks or the Romans have built. The Greeks produce plays; the Romans produce bloody spectacles. One would deduce that the one was civilized, the other barbarous. This is a superficial judgment. Greek cruelty shines and glitters and sparkles in the erudite comedies. Who was it that said all laughter is cruel, even when it appears most harmless? For laughter must have an object, preferably man or men, to excite it, and who but an obtuse man can contemplate the predicament of humanity without compassion? There is no compassion in laughter. Gayety is an entirely different matter; it is innocent and does not caricature, doe not mock, does not deride. It is amused at the antics of man, but not man himself. You will see that I have changed. I, being only a man however, delight in the Greek plays, tragic or comic. I attend the presentations regularly, and so do other young Jews influenced by Hellenism. But not even the Greeks attend the Roman spectacles, except to observe, and deplore with disgust. As you know, crucifixion is a Roman method of

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execution. The Romans regularly produce spectacles of mass crucifixion of criminals, including Jews. They ask the Jews who violently object: `Is this worse than your method, which is stoning to death?”

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this little longer. Vague thoughts brushed through his mind soothingly. How easy it would be to die, to hold himself far down in the water and sleep, to escape this horror, to drift down the river-and to sleep, alone and in peace. Why should he struggle? What was life? A dram, a painful fantasy, a delusion, a weariness.

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Noe ben Joel had said that nothing was impossible with God. God had preserved him, therefore he must labor with the hand of God, in gratitude. Nevertheless, it demanded all his courage to disentangle the chain of his amulet from the saving twigs.

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Marcus no longer considered this complimentary, in view of the lack of athletic prowess which had almost resulted in his death. Once he had been pleased, for he believed that men, to be civilized must not be dangerous; they should be conciliatory, concerned with peace and justice, kindly to all men, tolerant and urbane. Such men, he was almost convinced now, incited attack and murder.

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Fear flashed on the man’s dark face. “I am afraid of law and lawmakers, Master! I am afraid of lawyers; I know how devious they are. I wish to avoid controversy. There is only danger in it.”
“I agree,” said Marcus in a dry tone. “Nevertheless, if every citizen acted only on that conviction justice would die and chaos result, and there would be no law whatsoever, and no government. Was it not Aristotle himself, who said that only gods and madmen can live safely without the law?”

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was always amused by Julius’ insouciant utterances, and his high-hearted impudence. Too, he had a great affection for him. He looked at the expressive and youthful face in the moonlight and discreetly sniffed at the perfume which wafted to him from that gay person. Archias had been correct: republics are austere, august, temperate, and masculine, but when they decayed into democracies they became vulgar, base, irrational, feminine, luxurious. Cincinnatus had spoken of the “ideal man,” who could appear only in republics. The only men who emerged in democracies were disheveled creatures, given to recklessness of principle and act.

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Marcus was so perturbed that he could not reply for a moment. Then in an abstractd voice he told of a search for a magistrate of noble family who would not be swayed in his opinion and justice by any oppressive government, but would be fearless and adhere to the law. He told of his client, Casinus. “I ask only justice,” said the lawyer. “If Veronus is exempt from this law, then it is because he has bribed someone of Importance. Are we to be ruled by favor, and not by impartial law? By exigency and extortion, and not by honor?”
Moved and disturbed, his voice rose and filled the garden with strong and musical fervor, and Julius listened rather to that eloquent voice than to the words. For it had the power to move the heart, to stir it. It was enforced by manly passion and the trumpet of reason, by the thunder of indignation and righteous probity. I see now, thought Julius, why it was judged he must die. Nevertheless, though I am one of them, he must not die. I need him for my own purposes. Does not every ambitious man need a follower side him who is all sincerity, all justice, all burning with truthful rage?

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“I?” cried Marcus, in amazement. “I have no ambitions but to be a better lawyer in order that our financial condition be improved. I also have ambitions to be considered at least a minor poet and essayist. Are these things inciting to murderers?”

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Scaevola changed the subject. “I have survived so far by not engaging in factions, feuds, and politics. I watch, with detachment, the steady decline of my country. Who can oppose it? Who can restore the Republic and all its virtues? No one. When a nation becomes corrupt and cynical, and prefers the rule of men and not the rule of law, it has entered upon

265

Destruction, notably its own. That is history. We have entered on the age of despots, as other nations so entered. Man never learns from the history of nations which died in the past. He pursues the same path to death. It is his nature, which is inherently evil. Let us consider the tribunes, the representatives of the people. Who receives the votes of the people, the virtuous man or the evil man who is extravagant in his promises? The evil man, invariably.”
Marcus made no comment.
“It does not even matter that the evil man dos not fulfill his promises! The people do not care, do not remind him. It is enough that he is evil, and reflects themselves. The mobs are more comfortable in the climate of malignity than the climate of good, which embarrass and discomfits them, for it is against their nature.

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“True,” said Julius, still keeping his face shadowed. His smile was gay and wide. “What is it that your old friend, Scaevola, always said? `Only in republics and despotisms are men utterly safe, for in the first they are free and in the second they are slaves. In democracies, they are not free and they are not slaves; therefore they live in danger.’

310

He had thought that he had put some restraint on his thoughts and his longings for Livia. Now he knew that the restraint had been false, that the fury of his love had only waited under his self-control for this moment. What had his life been, all these years, but a dullness and a monotony? He had not been alive at all. He had pursued duty, but duty was a grim and penurious mistress, with no flowers in her hands, no light in her hair, no song in her eyes. Men who espoused only duty became eunuchs. They begot no poetry, no grandeur, no splendid deeds. They lived in a gray cell, barred against the morning, and their fingers were smudged with dust.

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Hallowed Lord, why did You afflect this. Your world, with so ugly a race, and why have You promised to save us and have vowed to give us a Son? It is possibly only a dream of arrogant man. Behold me, Lord, the least valuable of Your creatures, the least comely, the least harmless, the least significant, the least holy, and permit me to say with David: `What is man that You are mindful of him, and the osn of man, that You visit him?’ We should spend our revolting lives with our faces in the dust, like the serpents we resemble. I can proffer Lucifer my sympathy, for we deserve his detestation. We are Your most inexplicable mystery, for we are but adulterers, liars, thieves.
In this subdued and uncomfortable state of mind Noe left the farmhouse and looked for company. Quintus, the true countryman, was with the shepherds in the meadows. Tullius was with his books in his ocol dim library. Helvia was with her women; Noe could hear the murmur of female voices and the industrious humming of looms. Where was Marcus? No doubt in his mournful solitude near the river. Noe, attracted soothingly by the women’s voices, went in search of Helvia, who was fond of him and who smiled at his very appearances and thought of him as a son.
Noe found Helvia and her women taking advantage of the glorious and shkining weather in the outdoor portico, where they had set up their spinning wheels and their looms and their tables of cloth. Noe paused for a moment to survey the women with delight, their placidity, their calm faes, their brisk hands, their bare brown feet, their red-lipped smiles, their dark brows and unbound hair. Their gossip was as innocent as bird-song, and occasionally a girl would laugh gently. Once, thought Noe, all Roman women were so, virtuous and simple and kind. It is a measure of the decay of Rome that the majority of her women are now only shrill-voiced imitations of men, busy with banking houses and stock brokers; or wantons, or idle fools concerned only with their appearances, their perfumed hair, their excesses, their scented bodies, their robes, their adventures, their jewelry, their scandal, their noisiness and raucous laughter, their endless follies which are like a stinking corruption.

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“However,” said Marcus, as the young men watched him with intent expressions, “Sulla is not omnipresent. He has, perforce, to delegate authority and responsibility. He has to trust many men about him, and woe to him who has to give this trust! He must rely upon their integrity concerning all they lay before him, and if they are men without integrity, such as politicizing and the opportunistic, not only does he suffer but his country, and honest soldiers with him.”

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“I would, even now,” said Sulla, “at the cot of my lie, try to restore Rome as she was once, and Roman law, and Roman virtues, and Roman faith, honesty, justice, charity, manliness, labor, and simplicity, if it would avail. But you know I should die in vain! A nation which has reached the abyss which now confronts Rome, by her own willing, her own fatness and ambition and greed, never retreats from that abyss. The leper cannot remove the marks of his disease; the blind man cannot restore his sight; the dead man cannot rise again.
‘You have thought me evil, the image of dictatorship. But I am what the people deserve. Tomorrow, I shall die as all men die. But I tell you that worse men than myself will follow me! There is a more inexorable law than any law ever made by man. It is the law of death for corrupt actions, and the minions of that law are already stirring in the wombs of history. There are many who are alive today, young and lustful and without faith. They will not fail. So passes Rome.”

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Marcus moved restively. But Tullius would not free his hand. “Let me repeat to you, Marcus, what Plotimus of Egypt said over a hundred years ago. “But mind contemplates its source, not because it is separated from it but because it is next after it and there is nothing between’. This is true also in the case of soul and mind. Everything has a longing for and loves that which begot it, and especially when there are only the One that begot and the one begotten. And when the Supremely Good is the One who begot, the one begotten is necessarily joined to Him so intimately that it is separated only insofar as it is a second being.”

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ten. God will not interfere if man is bent on destruction. He has given us free will.”
The Jew lifted his delicate eyebrows. “You are conversant with Jewish theology.”
The theme runs through all religions, from the most ancient Egyptian down. So universal a concept, then, can have no source but an original one, and that one is God.”
The Sadducee was disappointed in Marcus, and rallied him a little for his superstition. But others of the Sadducees, men worn with illness, looked on him with some hesitant uncertainty. They pondered. If even a Roman believed what they themselves had been taught as children then they should reexamine their skepticism.
Marcus said, “A very young and still unknown poet in Rome sent me one of his poems. He has read some of my work, and wanted an opinion. May I quote that poem to you, written by Lucretius, who is still almost a boy?:
“`No single thing abides, but all things flow,
Fragment to fragment clings; the things that grow
Until we know and name them,
By degrees
They meet and are no more the things we know.

Thou, too, O Earth-thine empires, lands and seas-
Least with thy stars of all the galaxies,
Globed from the drift like these, like these thou too
Shalt go. Thou art going, hour by hour, like these.

Globed from the atoms, falling slow or swift,
I see the suns, I see the systems lift
Their forms, and even the systems and their suns
Shall go back slowly to the eternal drift.

Nothing abides. Thy seas in delicate haze
Go off; those mooned sands forsake their place,
And where they are shall other seas in turn
Mow with their scythes of whiteness other bays.’”

The skeptical Sadducee thought on that for a few moments. Then he said, “So, as nothing abides, nothing is important.”
“Except God, and His children. For they are immortal, though the world and the suns, and their worlds in order, shall pass away.” Suddenly Marcus’ languor and pain diminished and he was filled with a brilliant courage and new fortitude, as if a divine Hand had touched him.

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Greece enforced upon man the knowledge that without God he was nothing, whether he was a laborer in the field or a dictator on an enameled throne. For, as Epictetus had said, “Whithersoever I go, there shall I still find sun, moon, and stars, there shall I find dreams and omens, and converse with God.”
Marcus had always believed this from his childhood, but Rome’s might and cynical power had finally confounded him and depressed him. He had been caught up in the whirlwind of despair. He had abandoned home. He had talked earnestly with man, hoping to enlighten him, when there was no en-

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lightenment. Manhood, he thought now, does not confer wisdom. It often distorts it, for men become too often the slave of the immediate. Again he thought of the words of Epictetus: “Give yourself more diligently to reflection. Know yourself. Take counsel with the Godhead. Without God put your hand to nothing!” And what of my unhappiness? Thought Marcus. Epictetus had an answer: “If any be unhappy let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone. For God has made all men to enjoy felicity and the constancy of God.”

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Marcus again raised his eyes to th towering Acropolis, and th mighty Cyclopian abutments, built by men, which sustained it. Crowning the abutments, and circling them, glimmered walls of marble, flashing with the red and gold and violet beams of the sunset. Far blow abutments and white walls lay trraced gardens filled with whit shrines and little temples and fountains and flowers and green grass and dark trees, until they met the city streets. And there on the hill, under the walls, stood the white and rising circle of the theatre of Dionysus, round rank upon rank of empty stone seats where the immortal plays of Greece were produced daily for the delight of the Athenians. Here Antigone had pleaded that the rights of the individual superseded the rights of the government, and that liberty should never be threatened by the evil laws of prideful men who wished to buttress their rule and advance their ambitions and silence the cry of freedom. Here, in the words of Antigone, had dictatorship by one man been denounced and defied, and here Antigone had died, as all free men must die at the whim of tyrants. But the dictator had perished in infamous exile and the call of Antigone still rang through the modern world which unendingly disputed the scream for power uttered by wicked men. Man and the State. Always must they be enemies, for men had been given freedom by God and the State hated God, and loathed men and everlastingly fought against the rights of men. The l8iberty of the individual defied the luxury and the privileges of those who deemed themselves greater and 3wiser than their fellows, and wished to enslave their brothers. The gods hated man, but how much more did man hate man!

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He wrote to his parents, “I had earned some fame in Rome with my oratory. But what a squeak and a squeal I really possessed in Rome compared with the eloquence of my noble teacher, Demetrius! His voice makes the air stir in grand periods; I swear that even the birds listen, enchanted. When he quotes Aristotle I feel that it is Aristotle speaking in accents that resemble shining marble, for they seem to gleam and glisten, visible to the dazzled eye, - How delightful it is to be a student again! Men should never cease from studying, from returning to those springs which so intoxicated their youth, for in books there is much wisdom and there is no end to what a man can acquire in knowledge. All surfeits but learning. All becomes stale and jaded that is of the body, but that which is of the mind and the spirit is never satisfied, never satiated, never exhausted. It is as if one possesses eternal youth, for one is always discovering and is always elated at some new treasure revealed to him. Every path is a pristine one; it has been touched by no foot before. Every portal opens on a new vista, never gazed on before that hour by another man. The words of Socrates or Plato mean something unique to each student, for he brings to them a unique mind and a novel soul. So must the Isles of the Blest be, never explored in full-horizon less, swept with winds that come from eternity.

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It was Quintus who induced Marcus to learn much of the physical arts, which strengthened him even more. His arm had healed. For the first time he found pleasure in boxing and fencing and wrestling and running and leaping, though his slender form never became muscular. The sad mists which had enveloped his mind the last years in Rome lifted from his brain and there were moments when he must admit to himself, “I am happy! It is not the joy of the child or the youth. It is the joy of full maturity and tranquility and acceptance.” He began to teach himself not to be as compromising as his nature leaned; he began to discover that prudence can sometimes be compliance, and that just anger should not be always restrained in the name of reason. The world had need of ruthless and even raging fire as well as the sweet voice of rationality and diplomacy. “I hope,” he said to Atticus a little ruefully, “that I will remember to be so dauntless when I return to Rome!”

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“Not so,” said Roscius. “I grew it because the play that scoundrel, Noe, has written concerns Job. You know of Job? A most dolorous man, most persecuted, defamed, reviled, and suffering. And a man of the most furious and affecting eloquence. He was just and virtuous, above all other men, yet God permitted Satan to afflict him in order to demonstrate to Satan that some men cannot be moved from their seat of probity and devotion and morality. The contest was very unfair. Job was but a man, the mouse between God and evil. You would think they would not descend to the torment of so small a creature. I feel very strongly about Job; my heart burns with indignation and compassion for him. Do you think the Romans will like that play?”
“The contest between good and evil is not unknown, even to Romans,” said Marcus.
“I see you still possess your old stinging tongue,” said Roscius, with approval. “You know how the story of Job ends?”
I believe God answered him with majestic questions,” said Marcus.
“Yes, yes. But what an answer! In Noe’s play, God does not answer at all. The questions Job hurled at Him remain unanswered, and the predicament of man still stands as an indictment against heaven. What do you think of it?”
“Aeschylus wrote something resembling that. I prefer the authentic version.”
They were sitting in the mild noonday on the terrace of Atticus’ house. Rosius was very splendid in silken robes and with a cloak of the softest fur. His noble head was the head of a heroic statue, enhanced by the brilliantly black and curling beard. He resembled a prophet. He considered Marcus’ words, then shook his head in denial. “God does not answer, except in riddles which no man can decipher. He is the original Sphinx. The old Jews disapproved of me. They uttered

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the great rolling words of God to Job. `Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the world? When all the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” And so on. Job should have reminded God that indeed he was not there, but that the question was a non sequitur, and should not be asked of a bewildered and suffering man who was anguished with boils and had lost all that he held dear. If Job was small and blind and confused and knew no celestial matters-was that his crime, and for that should he be rebuked? Did not God create him so meager and so without knowledge? If a man makes a wheel that is not round and true and with a weak hub that breaks at the first stress-shall that man curse that wheel and cast it into utter darkness and absolve himself of the blame?
“That,” said Roscius, “is the heart of the matter.” When Marcus did not speak, Roscius went on. “I am astounded at Job’s answer to those incredible questions. `Wherefore, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.’ That was unworthy of Job, who had endured so much. I suppose the wheel of which I have been speaking should have abased itself before its creator and have dashed itself against a stone in repentance for being what it had been made!”
“You have become a philosopher,” said Marcus. He pondered. “The eternal question of Job is always asked. Men should gaze on the marvels of the universe and consider the stupendous laws and the miraculous intricacy of creation, and the evidence of immortal power and glory. That is the divine answer.”
“That does not heal a man’s boils or restore to him his lands and his fields and his wife and his children and his treasure. It does not give him the return of his youth and his strength.”
“But, it gives him peace.” However, despite his words, Marcus felt melancholy.
“The peace of resignation. That is not enough.”
“Nevertheless,” said Marcus, “it is a great boon. Come, come, Job was a man of tremendous courage, before which the courage of a gladiator is nothing. It is the fortitude of man which inspires the respect and love even of God. For it is the measure of man how he can overcome fear and gird up his loins, as Job was commanded-and be a man. No, no. I do not like Noe’s conclusions. Man was not made to pity himself before the Eternal, and to describe himself as a weak thing and not responsible for his condition of mind and soul

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and body. He was made to become like one of the gods, himself.”
“What a Jew in your soul you are!” said Roscius, admiringly.
Marcus smiled. He felt a sudden curious exaltation. “God needs not to justify Himself to man. Man has no rights except those rights bestowed on him freely by his Creator, out of that Creator’s love and mercy. He never earned those rights, for he has not the power to earn them. They are a gift, granted out of an affection beyond understanding. For, what is man? A little creature of mud, doomed

466

Sighing, seeing that Terentia was firmly fixed in her chair and with a look on her face that indicated she would not be intimidated by anyone, Marcus put down his pen.
“I am engaged on an essay which I believe will cast some light on a most important subject,” he said with much weightiness. He never did quite know whether he talked in-

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tellectually to Terentia in order to enlighten her or whether it was to define the line between her mind and his, to the denigration of hers. “Where does reason end and emotion begin? Who can say that he thinks rationally on most subjects, which is estimable, or is impelled, unknown to himself, from some deep force hidden in his nature which has nothing to do with his intellect? If so impelled, how can he advance the idea that his `reason’ is objective and therefore to be accepted without quibbling by other men? I love law because I am disgusted with and fearful of lawlessness. But, is that pure reason? There are men who instinctively love lawlessness and recklessness, and find rational reasons for being so-such as the apparent anarchy they find in nature and the disregard of nature for our human ideas and motives. We say law is sacred. But nature regards nothing as sacred. We abhor murder, but nature regards it with tranquility. We have compassion on the weak-but nature ruthlessly eliminates them because weakness begets weakness and there is no place in the world for those who are not strong. Shall we quarrel with nature in that she has decreed that the advancement of men and animals and vegetables depends on the elimination of those not endowed with the genius to survive? She has shown that she does not desire the survival of a weak babe. But we use our arts of medicine to ensure that survival. Are we wrong, or is nature/ Do we use reason? Or are we merely emotional?”

480

Crassus removed a scroll from beneath his rich garments. “I have a letter written to me by Sulla before he died. I wish to read it to you, Cicero. `Among these, Licinius, whom you

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can trust is the lawyer, Marcus Tullius Cicero, whose mother is of the noble Heivi. He detested me but he knew I must do as I must. Unlike others, he is no liar, no hypocrite. Cultivate him well! Is not an honest man rarer than rubies? Is not that government blessed which boasts him in its crown? He will never betray his country nor his gods. He is valorous, among men who no longer can say they possess valor. Embrace him for me, for in these evil days my heart fails me. I am close to death; I see his shadow falling across my hand as I write these words to you. If any man can save Rome it is Cicero and those of his mind and spirit.’”

495

Marcus acquired many friends while he was Curule Aedile, but he discounted their protestations of loyalty and affection. Amid the hubbub of his work and his law cases and his clients he found life pressing. He had to attend public dinners in honor of various politicians and Senators and patricians, for he did not intend to live and die an aedile. He was also often feasted by Crassus and Julius Caesar and Pompey. He admitted at one time that scoundrels were frequently more engaging and amusing than virtuous men, and far better company. This offended his sense of rightness. Scoundrels should be repulsive, the virtuous charming. The reverse was proved only too often. He recalled what Noe had once quoted to him: “The children of darkness are wiser in their generation that the children of light.” He would add to himself, “And more attractive.” The dark children were not hounded by conscience and therefore could be exuberant and merry. But the children of light wore heavy countenances and grieved over the evil in the world. This did not make for frolic and the more amusing things of life. “Let us hope they receive a reward in an everlasting existence. They certainly do not receive it here.”
There were many times when an intense weariness overcame him. He recalled what Aristotle had said: “A wise man does not give his life lightly, for he knows that there are few things for which it is worth dying. Nevertheless, in periods of great crisis the wise man will give up his life, for under certain circumstances it is not worth living.”

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Julius said with a grave countenance, “Democracy, my dear Marcus, which grants to all free men the same opportunity. Is this not what you have always advocated? Or, are you now turning on your heel and declaring that a man’s competency should be judged only by his personal eccentricities or his political adherences?”
“A man’s personal conduct cannot be separated from his public; they are the two aspects of the same coin.”

616

“Death is the great ignominy. We sing of the death of heroes, and we honor their memory. But death in many ways

617

is a sacrilege against life, for it mortifies the restraint of our senses. We speak of the noble visages of the dead. We do not mention the sudden loosening of the sphincter muscles which flood the expired flesh with dung and urine. We do not mention it for we instinctively have reverence for life and avert our faces from the mortifications which death inflicts upon it. All our being is revolted at this abasement of a man, this open scorn of nature upon him as if she has declared, “He is no better than the beast of the field and dies as voluptuously shameful, with a spewing out of what is contained in his bowels and his bladder.’
“But we know that man is no beast of the field, for God has implanted in us a horror of death, the most powerful aversion against it, a rebellion of our senses against its humiliation. That which animated the flesh, though departed, has left a sanctity upon it and though we cannot evade nature’s last vile contempt for what has always defied her, we keep our decent silence. Therefore, in our decency, we hesitate against condemning a man to the remorseless processes of nature, for when one man is mortified all other men are disgraced also. This to me is worse than death itself.
“Nevertheless, men are often forced to defend themselves, their families and their countries. We are often forced to surmount our instinctive loathing for death and its obscenities. Only a man bereft of all manhood can rejoice in the extinction of another, even an enemy. Only a beast can feel triumphant at the sight of a bloody battlefield, even if his own nation has conquered. The true man, surveying that battlefield, must bow his head and pray for the souls of friend and foe alike-for both were men.
“It is with no malice, therefore, and no exultation, that I ask that this august boy of the Senate condemn Lucius Sergius Catilina to death, and his lieutenants with him. In their final ignominy even just men must share. But our country is greater than we. All that Rome is is nobler than any individual man. We are faced with the most direful of choices: Catilina lives or Rome dies!”

625

“Lords, Cato is of the opinion that men who have attempted to deprive us of life, to destroy this Republic, and to blot out the name of the Roman people, ought not to enjoy for a single second the privilege of life and the breath which we all share; and he bears in mind that this particular punishment has often been resorted to at Rome in dealing with disloyal citizens. Caesar understands that death has not been ordained by the immortal gods as a method of punishment, but is either an inevitable consequence of natural existence

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or a peaceful release from labors and afflictions. Thus th wise have never faced death with reluctance and the brave have often met it gladly. But imprisonment and especially death have certainly been devised as the exceptional penalty for abominable crimes. Caesar, however, proposes that Catilina and his conspirators be exiled from Rome and be distributed to unfortunate other towns or hamlets throughout Italy, which would seem, lords, to be an act of unfairness to those towns or hamlets!”

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Before sunset he went to the house of Quintus on the Carinae-the house so full of his own memories-where he found his brother still recovering from his wounds. There, for the first time, as he sat beside Quintus holding his hand, he learned of the true and desperate state of affairs in Rome. There was a serious shortage of grain in the city. A famine had begun. Sicily and Egypt, from whence came most of the

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cereals which supplied Rome, had reported extremely poor harvests that year. Clodius, emulating Catilina, had formed his own gangs of malcontents and criminals and had trained them in the manner of an army, which only he could control. He had incited them, and only lately, against the Senate itself, which they had actually stoned while it was in session. Several of the Senators had been wounded. The people had some justice on their side: Anticipating famine, the storers of corn had raised their prices enormously , so much so that cereals were often beyond the means of small purses. Some of Clodius’ mobs had even threatened to burn down Caesar’s beloved Temple of Jupiter. The people, as usual, cared little for liberty, but they cared everything for their bellies, so it was easy to arouse them to inflammatory madness at a word.
In short, Cicero reflected with dismay and returning apprehension, nothing had changed in Rome. His life, in the future, would indeed be but a repetition of what he had known too many years. Freedom had gone forever, under the iron Triumvirate, whose ambitions grew day by day. Pompey had been given enormous and unprecedented military power.
Cicero wrote to Atticus, and his letter was full of melancholy. As for the situation in Rome, he wrote, “it is, for a state of prosperity, slippery; for a state of adversity, good.” He added, with gloom, “It is the national climate of a democracy.”

CHAPTER SIXTY

“Though the Greeks declare that war is one of the arts,” wrote Cicero to Caesar, “and that the greatest game of all is man hunting man-I note that it is only man who hunts and murders his own species-I have discovered that governments resort to war to silence internal discontent and unite a nation against a `foe,’ or to bring a false prosperity to the State when its finances are declining and corruption has wholly seized the politicians. War is particularly loved of tyrants; it diverts a people form just complaint against them. It also enhances the powers of tyrants, for then in a state of emergency, as they call it, they can impose even more onerous restrictions upon liberty. “Yet,” he added sadly, “young men appear to love war and find even more gratification of their most bestial instincts in it than in the arms of women. There is a fatal fault in human nature, a primal core of evil.”

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He took refuge in his library, and in his writings. ‘At the last a man must return to himself and confront himself, and never can he escape that last confrontation,” he wrote. “The world cannot hid him; the love of his family cannot help him flee. Affairs of state cannot deafen the voice he must finally hear, which is his own. Books, music, sculpture, arts, science, philosophy: these are lovely delays, but they are only delays.”
…
“You are a pillar of iron,” Noe wrote him. “And God has indicated that a just man is such, among nations. Long after the polished marble has crumbled the iron of justice remains and upholds the roof over man. Without such as you, dear

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Marcus, throughout all history, nations would die and man would be no more.”

705

It was the custom of an augur to divine from signs in the sky-the domain of Jupiter, who was the patron of Julius-and from the flight of birds. By night the augur could designate with his staff the space to be allotted to him for his studies, usually a silent hill and in the presence of a magistrate who would then report to the Pontiffs. The augur prayed, sacrificed. Under the shelter of a tent he then observed the heavens and asked for a sign, and waited. He always gazed south, with the lucky quarter, the east, on his left. After the sign was given him he made his report to the magistrate, and the sign, thereafter, governed the affairs of Rome to a great extent. It had often come to Cicero that a corrupted augur could proclaim in favor of any powerful politician. Fortunately for Rome the augurs had, in most cases, been singularly free from corruption, for their office was never threatened by dismissal and their stipend was very high. Thus they owed nothing to anyone and could be truthful. In theory, it was wise. But men can be corrupted by other things besides money.
The birds of good fortune were the eagle and the vulture, the alites; the malign were the raven, the crow and the owl. Their flight, their manner of taking food, the sounds they made, were interpreted strictly by the rules of the Board of Augurs. There were other means of divination, such as the behavior of animals in the field, the appearances of rats in a temple, animals slain for sacrifice. Powerful men frequently requested the augurs to make comment on a proposed adventure they had in mind, the time for battle, the time to run for election, sittings of the Senate, and thousands of other actions. To be sure that the augurs did not lean consciously for or against a certain proposal the man seeking the offices of

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the augurs often merely indicated “my special intentions.” If the augur reported lightning in the sky the client did not act the next day but awaited a more auspicious sign.

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“There is such a thing as living too long,” he said to Quintus. “We are children until we are fourteen, we are youths until we are twenty-one. The period, then, of our youth encompasses only seven years! Seven years, you will note, out of a possible sixty-five of them. As children, we are not truly conscious. As aging men, after twenty-one, we are confronted by the cares, the ambiguities, the responsibilities, and the confusions of life. And, above all, by the despairs. For seven years only we are truly alive, like the gods, shining with splendor, believing in all the virtues, eager of life, crowned with dreams, desiring to change the world, hopeful, grand, heroic, beautiful. Therefore, like Athene, we should spring full-grown from our fathers’ brows when we are fourteen, and live no more than seven years thereafter. All else is misery.”

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“Extremes?” repeated Cicero, and suddenly he was alive again. “You have forgotten what Aristotle said in his Ethics: `Virtue is rightly defined as a Mean, and insofar as it aims at the highest excellence it is an Extreme.’ As for myself, I prefer a man who is totally evil and destructive to one who idly smiles and has no opinions at all, and is neither hot nor cold. We are openly warned by the first; the second will not oppose evil nor will he champion good. He is like lukewarm wine, an offense to the palate.”