University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.
THE WARNINGS.

King Lear.

The morning of the eighteenth of October, the day so
eagerly looked forward to by the conspirators, and so
much dreaded by the good citizens of the republic, had
arrived. And now was seen, as it will oftentimes happen,
that when great events, however carefully concealed, are
on the point of coming to light, a sort of vague rumour, or
indefinite anticipation, is found running through the whole
mass of society—a rumour, traceable to no one source,
possessing no authority, and deserving no credibility from
its origin, or even its distinctness; yet in the main true
and correct—an anticipation of I know not what terrible,
unusual, and exaggerated issue, yet, after all, not very
different from what is really about to happen.

Thus it was at this period; and—though it is quite certain,
that on the preceding evening, at the convocation of
the senate, no person except Cicero and Paullus, unconnected
with the conspiracy, knew anything at all of the
intended massacre and conflagration; though no one of
the plotters had yet broken faith with his fellows; and
though none of the leaders dared avow their schemes openly,
even to the discontented populace, with whom they
felt no sympathy, and from whom they expected no cordial

or general coöperation—it is equally certain that for
many days, and even months past, there had been a feverish
and excited state of the public mind; an agitation and
restlessness of the operative classes; an indistinct and
vague alarm of the noble and wealthy orders; which had
increased gradually until it was now at its height.

Among all these parties, this restlessness had taken the
shape of anticipation, either dreadful or desirable, of some
great change, of some strange novelty—though no one,
either of the wishers or fearers, could explain what it was
he wished or feared—to be developed at the consular
comitia.

And amid this confusion, most congenial to his bold and
scornful spirit, Catiline stalked, like the arch magician, to
and fro, amid the wild and fantastic shapes of terror which
he has himself evoked, marking the hopes of this one, as
indications of an unknown, yet sure friend; and revelling
in the terrors of that, as certain evidences of an enemy too
weak and powerless to be formidable to his projects.

It is true, that a year before, previous to Cicero's elevation
to the chief magistracy, and previous to the murder of
Piso by his own adherents on his way to Spain, the designs
of Catiline had been suspected dangerous; and, as
such, had contributed to the election of his rival; his own
faction succeeding only in carrying in Antonius, the second
and least dreaded of their candidates.

Him Cicero, by rare management and much self-sacrifice,
had contrived to bring over to the cause of the commonwealth;
although he had so far kept his faith with
Catiline, as to disclose none, if indeed he knew any of his
infamous designs.

In consequence of this defeat, and this subsequent secession
of one on whom they had, perhaps, prematurely
reckoned, the conspirators, all but their indomitable and
unwearied leader, had been for some time paralyzed. And
this fact, joined to the extreme caution of their latter proceedings,
had tended to throw a shade of doubt over the
previous accusation, and to create a sense of carelessness
and almost of disbelief in the minds of the majority, as to
the real existence of any schemes at all against the commonwealth.

Under all these circumstances, it cannot be doubted, for

a moment, that had Catiline and his friends entertained any
real desire of ameliorating the condition of the masses, of
extending the privileges, or improving the condition, of the
discontented and suffering plebeians, they could have over-turned
the ancient fabric of Rome's world-conquering oligarchy.

But the truth is, they dreamed of nothing less, than of
meddling at all with the condition of the people; on whom
they looked merely as tools and instruments for the present,
and sources of plunder and profit in the future.

They could not trust the plebeians, because they knew
that the plebeians, in their turn, could not trust them.

The dreadful struggles of Marius, Cinna, and Sylla, had
convinced those of all classes, who possessed any stake in
the well being of the country; any estate or property,
however humble, down even to the tools of daily labour,
and the occupation of permanent stalls for daily traffic,
that it was neither change, nor revolution, nor even larger
liberty—much less proscription, civil strife, and fire-raising—but
rest, but tranquillity, but peace, that they required.

It was not to the people, therefore, properly so called,
but to the dissolute and ruined outcasts of the aristocracy,
and to the lowest rabble, the homeless, idle, vicious,
drunken poor, who having nothing to love, have necessarilly
all to gain, by havoc and rapine, that the conspirators
looked for support.

The first class of these was won, bound by oaths, only
less binding than their necessities and desperation, sure
guaranties for their good faith.

The second—Catiline well knew that—needed no winning.
The first clang of arms in the streets, the first
blaze of incendiary flames, no fear but they would rise to
rob, to ravish, and slay—ensuring that grand anarchy
which he proposed to substitute for the existing state of
things, and on which he hoped to build up his own
tyrannous and blood-cemented empire.

So stood affairs on the evening of the seventeenth;
and, although at times a suspicion—not a fear, for of that
he was incapable—flitted across the mind of the traitor,
that things were not going on as he could wish them;
that the alienation of Paullus Arvina, and the absence of
his injured daughter, must probably work together to the

discomfiture of the conspiracy; still, as hour after hour
passed away, and no discovery was made, he revelled in
his anticipated triumph.

Of the interview between Paullus and Lucia, he was as
yet unaware; and, with that singular inconsistency which
is to be found in almost every mind, although he disbelieved,
as a principle, in the existence of honor at all, he
yet never doubted that young Arvina would hold himself
bound strictly by the pledge of secrecy which he had reiterated,
after the frustration of the murderous attempt
against his life, in the cave of Egeria.

Nor did he err in his premises; for had not Arvina
been convinced that new and more perilous schemes were
on the point of being executed against himself, he would
have remained silent as to the names of the traitors;
however he might have deemed it his duty to reveal the
meditated treason.

With his plans therefore all matured, his chief subordinates
drilled thoroughly to the performance of their parts,
his minions armed and ready, he doubted not in the least,
as he gazed on the setting sun, that the next rising of the
great luminary would look down on the conflagration of
the suburbs, on the slaughter of his enemies, and the
triumphant elevation of himself to the supreme command
of the vast empire, for which he played so foully.

The morning came, the long desired sun arose, and all
his plots were countermined, all his hopes of immediate
action paralyzed, if not utterly destroyed.

The Senate, assembled on the previous evening at a
moment's notice, had been taken by surprise so completely
by the strange revelations made to them by their
Consul, that not one of the advocates or friends of Catiline
arose to say one syllable in his defence; and he himself,
quick-witted, ready, daring as he was, and fearing
neither man nor God, was for once thunderstricken and
astonished.

The address of the Consul was short, practical, and to
the point; and the danger he foretold to the order was
so terrible, while the inconvenience of deferring the elections
was so small, and its occurrence so frequent—a sudden
tempest, the striking of the standard on the Janiculum,
the interruption of a tribune, or the slightest informality

in the augural rites sufficing to interrupt them—
that little objection was made in any quarter, to the motion
of Cicero, that the comitia should be delayed, until
the matter could be thoroughly investigated. For he
professed only as yet to possess a clue, which he promised
hereafter to unravel to the end.

Catiline had, however, so far recovered from his consternation,
that he had risen to address the house, when
the first words he uttered were drowned by a strange and
unearthly sound, like the rumbling of ten thousand chaiots
over a stony way, beginning, as it seemed, underneath
their feet, and rising gradually until it died away
over head in the murky air. Before there was time for
any comment on this extraordinary sound, a tremulous
motion crept through the marble pavements, increasing
every moment, until the doors flew violently open, and the
vast columns and thick walls of the stately temple reeled
visibly in the dread earthquake.

Nor was this all, for as the portals opened, in the black
skies, right opposite the entrance, there stood, glaring
with red and lurid light, a bearded star or comet; which,
to the terror-stricken eyes of the Fathers, seemed a portentous
sword, brandished above the city.

The groans and shrieks of the multitude, rushed in with
an appalling sound to increase their superstitious awe;
and to complete the whole, a pale and ghastly messenger
was ushered into the house, announcing that a bright lambent
flame was sitting on the lance-heads of the Prætor's
guard, which had been summoned to protect the Senate
in its deliberations.

A fell sneer curled the lip of Catiline. He was not
even superstitious. Self-vanity and confidence in his own
powers, and long impunity in crime, had hardened him,
had maddened him, almost to Atheism. Yet he dared
not attack the sacred prejudices of the men, whom, but
for that occurrence, he had yet hoped to win to their
own undoing.

But, as he saw their blanched visages, and heard their
mutterings of terror, he saw likewise that an impression
was made on their minds, which no words of his could
for the present counteract. And, with a sneering smile
at fears which he knew not, and a smothered curse at

the accident, as he termed it, which had foiled him, he sat
down silent.

“The Gods have spoken!” exclaimed Cicero, flinging
his arms abroad majestically. “The guilty are struck
dumb! The Gods have spoken aloud their sympathy for
Rome's peril; and will ye, ye its chosen sons, whose all
of happiness and life lie in its sanctity and safety, will
ye, I say, love your own country, your own mother, less
than the Gods love her?”

The moment was decisive, the appeal irresistible. By
acclamation the vote was carried; no need to debate or
to divide the House—`that the elections be deferred until
the eleventh day before the Calends, and that the Senate
meet again to-morrow, shortly after sunrise, to deliberate
what shall be done to protect the Republic?'

Morning came, dark indeed, and lurid, and more like the
close, than the opening of day. Morning came, but it
brought no change with it; for not a head in Rome had
lain that night upon a pillow, save those of the unburied
dead, or the bedridden. Young men and aged, sick and
sound, masters and slaves, had wooed no sleep during the
hours of darkness, so terribly, so constantly was it illuminated
by the broad flashes of blue lightning, and the
strange meteors, which rushed almost incessantly athwart
the sky. The winds too had been all unchained in their
fury, and went howling like tormented spirits, over the
terrified and trembling city.

It was said too, that the shades of the dead had arisen,
and were seen mingling in the streets with the living,
scarcely more livid than the half-dead spectators of portents
so ominous. No rumour so absurd or fanatical, but it found
on that night, implicit credence. Some shouted in the
streets and open places, that the patricians and the knights
were arming their adherents for a promiscuous massacre
of the people. Some, that the gladiators had broken loose,
and slain thousands of citizens already! Some, that there
was a Gallic tumult, and that the enemy would be at the
gates in the morning! Some that the Gods had judged
Rome to destruction!

And so they raved, and roared, and sometimes fought;
and would have rioted tremendously; for many of the
commoner conspirators were abroad, ready to take advantage

of any casual incident to breed an affray; but that a
strong force of civil magistrates patrolled the streets with
armed attendants; and that, during the night several
cohorts were brought in, from the armies of Quintus Marcius
Rex, and Quintus Metellus Creticus, with all their
armor and war weapons, in heavy marching order; and
occupied the Capitol, the Palatine, and the Janiculum, and
all the other prominent and commanding points of the city,
with an array that set opposition at defiance.

So great, however, were the apprehensions of many of
the nobles, that Rome was on the eve of a servile insurrection,
that many of them armed their freedmen, and imprisoned
all their slaves; while others, the more generous
and milder, who thought they could rely on the attachment
of their people, weaponed their slaves themselves, and
fortified their isolated dwellings against the anticipated
onslaught.

Thus passed that terrible and tempestuous night; the
roar of the elements, unchained as they were, and at their
work of havoc, not sufficing to drown the dissonant and
angry cries of men, the clash of weapons, and the shrill
clamor of women; which made Rome more resemble the
Pandemonium than the metropolis of the world's most
civilized and mightiest nation.

But now morning had come at length; and gradually, as
the storm ceased, and the heavens resumed their natural
appearance, the terrors and the fury of the multitude
subsided; and, partly satisfied by the constant and well-timed
proclamations of the magistrates, partly convinced
that for the moment there was no hope of successful out-rage,
and yet more wearied out with their own turbulent
vehemence, whether of fear or anger, the crowd began to
retire to their houses, and the streets were left empty and
silent.

As the day dawned, there was no banner hoisted on
the Janiculum, although its turrets might be seen bristling
with the short massive javelins of the legions, and
gleaming with the tawny light that flashed from their
brazen casques and corslets.

There was no augural tent pitched on the hills without
the city walls, wherefrom to take the auspices.

And above all, there were no loud and stirring calls of

the brazen trumpets of the centuries, to summon forth
the civic army of the Roman people to the Campus, there
to elect their rulers for the ensuing year.

It was apparent therefore to all men, that the elections
would not be held that day, though none knew clearly
wherefore they had been deferred.

While the whole city was loud with turbulent confusion
—for, as morning broke, and it was known that the comitia
were postponed, the agitation of terror succeeded to
that of insubordination—Hortensia and her daughter sat
together, pale, anxious, and heartsick, yet firm and free
from all unworthy evidences of dismay.

During the past night, which had been to both a sleepless
one, they had sate listening, lone and weak women,
to the roar of tumultuous streets, and expecting at every
moment they knew not what of violence and outrage.

Paullus Arvina had come in once to reassure them: and
informed them that the vigilance of the Consul had been
crowned with success, and that the danger of a conflict
in the streets was subsiding every moment.

Still, the care which he bestowed on examining the fastenings
of the doors, and such windows as looked into the
streets, the earnestness with which he inculcated watchful
heed to the armed slaves of the household, and the
positive manner in which he insisted on leaving Thrasea
and a dozen of his own trustiest men to assist Hortensia's
people, did more to obliterate the hopes his own words
would otherwise have excited, than the words themselves
to excite them.

Nor was it, indeed, to be wondered that Hortensia
should be liable, above other women, not to base terror,—
for of that from her high character she was incapable—
but to a settled apprehension and distrust of the Roman
Populace.

It was now four-and-twenty years since the city had
been disturbed by plebeian violence or aristocratic vengeance.
Twenty-four years ago, the avenging sword of
Sylla had purged the state of its bloodthirsty demagogues,
and their brute followers; twenty-four years ago his powerful
hand had reestablished Rome's ancient constitution,
full of checks and balances, which secured equal rights to
every Roman citizen; which secured all equality, in short

to all men, save that which no human laws can give, equality
of social rank, and equality of wealth.

The years, however, which had gone before that restoration,
the dreadful massacres and yet more dreadful proscriptions
of Cinna and Marius, had left indelible and sanguinary
traces on the ancestral tree of many a noble house;
and on none deeper than on that of Hortensia's family.

Her brother, Caius Julius, an orator second to none in
those days, had been murdered by the followers of Marius,
almost before his sister's eyes, with circumstances of appalling
cruelty. Her house had been forced open by the
infuriate rabble, her husband hewn down with unnumbered
wounds, on his own hearth-stone, and her first
born child tossed upon the revolutionary pike heads.

Her husband indeed recovered, almost miraculously,
from his wounds, and lived to see retribution fall upon the
guilty partizans of Marius; but he was never well again,
and after languishing for years, died at last of the wounds
he received on that bloody day.

Good cause, then, had Hortensia to tremble at the tender
mercies of the people.

Nor, though they struck the minds of these high-born
ladies with less perplexity and awe than the vulgar souls
without, were the portents and horrors of the heaven,
without due effect. No mind in those days, however
clear and enlightened, but held some lingering belief
that such things were ominous of coming wrath, and sent
by the Gods to inform their faithful worshippers.

It was moreover fresh in her memory, how two years before,
during the consulship of Cotta and Torquatus, in a
like terrible night-storm, the fire from heaven had stricken
down the highest turrets of the capitol, melted the brazen
tables of the law, and scathed the gilded effigy of
Romulus and Remus, sucking their shaggy foster-mother,
which stood on the Capitoline.

The augurs in those days, collected from Etruria and
all parts of Italy, after long consultation, had proclaimed
that unless the Gods should be appeased duly, the end
of Rome and her empire was at hand.

And now—what though for ten whole days consecutive
the sacred games went on; what though nothing
had been omitted whereby to avert the immortal indignation

—did not this heaven-born tempest prove that the wrath
was not soothed, that the decree yet stood firm?

In such deep thoughts, and in the strong excitement
of such expectation, Hortensia and her daughter had
passed that awful night; not without high instructions
from the elder lady, grave and yet stirring narratives
of the great men of old—how they strove fiercely, energetically,
while strife could avail anything; and how,
when the last hope was over, they folded their hands in
stern and awful resignation, and met their fate unblenching,
and with but one care—that the decorum of their
deaths should not prove unworthy the dignity of their
past lives.

Not without generous and noble resolutions on the
part of both, that they too would not be found wanting.

But there was nothing humble, nothing soft, in their
stern and proud submission to the inevitable necessity.
Nothing of love toward the hand which dealt the blow
—nothing of confidence in supernal justice, much less
in supernal mercy! Nothing of that sweet hope, that
undying trust, that consciousness of self-unworthiness,
that full conviction of a glorious future, which renders
so beautiful and happy the submission of a dying christian.

No! there were none of these things; for to the wisest
and best of the ancients, the foreshadowings of the soul's
immortality were dim, faint, and uncertain. The legends
of their mythology held up such pictures of the sensuality
and vice of those whom they called Gods, that
it was utterly impossible for any sound understanding to
accept them. And deep thinkers were consequently
driven into pure Deism, coupled too often with the
Epicurean creed, that the Great Spirit was too grand
and too sublime to trouble himself with the brief doings
of mortality.

The whole scope of the Roman's hope and ambition,
then, was limited to this world; or, if there was a longing
for anything beyond the term of mortality, it was
for a name, a memory, an immortality of good report.

And pride, which the christian, better instructed, knows
to be the germ and root of all sin, was to the Roman, the
sole spring of honourable action, the sole source of virtue.

Now, with the morning, quiet was restored both to the
angry skies, and to the restless city.

Worn out with anxiety, and watching, sleep fell upon the
eyes of Julia, as she sat half recumbent in a large softly-cushioned
chair of Etruscan bronze. Her fair head fell
back on the crimson pillow, with all its wealth of auburn
ringlets flowing dishevelled; and that soft still shadow,
which is yet, in its beautiful serenity, half terrible, so nearly
is it allied to the shadow of that sleep from which there
comes no waking, fell over her pale features.

The mother gazed on her for a moment, with more gentleness
in her eye, and a milder smile on her face, than her
indomitable pride often permitted her to manifest.

“She sleeps”—she said, looking at her wistfully—“she
sleeps! Aye! the young sleep easily, even in their affliction.
They sleep, and forget their sorrows, and awaken,
either to fresh woes, as soon to be obliterated, or to vain
joys, yet briefer, and more fleeting. Thoughtlessness to
the young—anguish to the old—such is mortality! And
what beyond?—aye, what?—what that we should so toil,
so suffer, to be virtuous? Is it a dream, all a dream—this
futurity? I fear so”—and, with the words, she lapsed into
a fit of solemn meditation, and stood for many minutes silet,
and absorbed. Then a keen light came into her dark
eyes, a flash of animation coloured her pale cheeks, she
stretched her arms aloft, and in a clear sonorous voice—
“No! no!” she said, “Honour—honour—immortal honour;
thou, at least, art no dream—thou art worth dying,
suffering, aye! worth living to obtain! For what is life
but the deeper sorrow, to the more virtuous and the
nobler?”

A few minutes longer she stood gazing on her daughter's
beautiful face, until the sound of voices louder than usual,
and a slight bustle, in the peristyle, attracted her attention.
Then, after throwing a pallium, or shawl, of richly embroidered
woollen stuff over the fair form of the sleeper, she
opened the door leading to the garden colonnade, and left
the room silently.

Scarcely had Hortensia disappeared, before the opposite
door, by which the saloon communicated with the atrium,
was opened, and a slave entered, bearing a small folded
note, secured by a waxen seal, on a silver plate.

He approached Julia's chair, apparently in some hesitation,
as if he felt that it was his duty, and was yet half
afraid to awaken her. At length, however, he made up
his mind, and addressed a word or two to her, which were
sufficiently distinct to arouse her—for she started up and
gazed wildly about her—but left no clear impression of
their meaning on her mind.

This, however, the man did not appear to notice; at all
events, he did not wait to observe the effect of his communication,
but quitted the room hastily, and in considerable
trepidation, leaving the note on the table.

Julia was sleeping very heavily, at the moment when
she was so startled from her slumber; and, as is not unfrequently
the case, a sort of bewilderment and nervous
agitation fell upon her, as she recovered her senses. Perhaps
she had been dreaming, and the imaginary events of
her dream had blended themselves with the real occurrence
which awakened her. But for a minute or two,
though she saw the note, and the person who laid it on the
table, she could neither bring it to her mind who that person
was, nor divest herself of the impression that there was
something both dangerous and supernatural in what had
passed.

In a little while this feeling passed away, and, though
still nervous and trembling, the young girl smiled at her
own alarm, as she took up the billet, which was directed
to herself in a delicate feminine hand, with the usual form
of superscription—

“To Julia Serena, health”—
although the writer's name was omitted.

She gazed at it for a moment, wondering from whom it
could come; since she had no habitual correspondent, and
the hand-writing, though beautiful, was strange to her.
She opened it, and read, her wonder and agitation increasing
with every line—

“You love Paullus Arvina,” thus it ran, “and are loved
by him. He is worthy all your affection. Are you worthy
of him? I know not. I love him also, but alas! less
happy, am not loved again, nor hope to be, nor indeed deserve
it! They tell me you are beautiful; I have seen
you, and yet I know not—they told me once that I too was
beautiful, and yet I know not! I know this only, that I

am desperate, and base, and miserable! Yet fear me not,
nor mistake me. I love Paullus, yet would not have him
mine, now; no! not to be happy—as to be his would render
me. Yet had it not been for you, I might have been
virtuous, honourable, happy, his—for winning him from
me, you won from me hope; and with hope virtue; and
with virtue honour! Ought I not then to hate you, Julia?
Perchance I ought—to do so were at least Roman—and
hating to avenge! Perchance, if I hoped, I should. But
hoping nothing, I hate nothing, dread nothing, and wish
nothing.—Yea! by the Gods! I wish to know Paullus
happy—yea! more, I wish, even at cost of my own misery,
to make him happy. Shall I do so, by making him yours,
Julia? I think so, for be sure—be sure, he loves you.
Else had he yielded to my blandishments, to my passion, to
my beauty! for I am—by the Gods! I am, though he sees
it not, as beautiful as thou. And I am proud likewise—or
was proud once—for misery has conquered pride in me;
or what is weaker yet, and baser—love!

“I think you will make him happy. You can if you
will. Do so, by all the Gods! I adjure you do so; and if
you do not, tremble!—tremble, I say—for think, if I sacrifice
myself to win bliss for him—think, girl, how gladly,
how triumphantly, I would destroy a rival, who should fail
to do that, for which alone I spare her.

“Spare her! nay, but much more; for I can save her—
can and will.

“Strange things will come to pass ere long, and terrible;
and to no one so terrible as to you.

“There is a man in Rome, so powerful, that the Gods,
only, if there be Gods, can compare with him—so haughty
in ambition, that stood he second in Olympus, he would
risk all things to be first—so cruel, that the dug-drawn
Hyrcanian tigress were pitiful compared to him—so reckless
of all things divine or human, that, did his own mother
stand between him and his vengeance, he would strike
through her heart to gain it.

“This man hath Paullus made his foe—he hath crossed
his path; he hath foiled him!

“He never spared man in his wrath, or woman in his
passion.

“He hateth Paullus!

“He hath looked on Julia!

“Think, then, when lust and hate spur such a man together,
what will restrain him.

“Now mark me, and you shall yet be safe. All means
will be essayed to win you, for he would torture Paul by
making him his slave, ere he make you his victim.

“And Paul may waver. He hath wavered once. Chance
only, and I, rescued him! I can do no more, for Rome
must know me no longer! See, then, that thou hold him
constant in the right—firm for his country! So may he
defy secret spite, as he hath defied open violence.

“Now for thyself—beware of women! Go not forth
alone ever, or without armed followers! Sleep not,
but with a woman in thy chamber, and a watcher at thy
door! Eat not, nor drink, any thing abroad; nor at home,
save that which is prepared by known hands, and tasted by
the slave who serves it!

“Be true to Paullus, and yourself, and you have a friend
ever watchful. So fear not, nor despond!

“Fail me—and, failing truth and honour, failing to
make Paullus happy, you do fail me! Fail me, and nothing,
in the world's history or fable, shall match the greatness
of my vengeance—of your anguish!

“Fail me! and yours shall be, for ages, the name that
men shall quote, when they would tell of untold misery, of
utter shame, and desolation, and despair.

“Farewell.”

The letter dropped from her hand; she sat aghast and
speechless, terrified beyond measure, and yet unable to
determine, or divine, even, to what its dark warnings and
darker denunciations pointed.

Just at this instant, as between terror and amazement
she was on the verge of fainting, a clanging step was
heard without; the crimson draperies that covered the
door, were put aside; and, clad in glittering armour,
Paullus Arvina stood before her.

She started up, with a strange haggard smile flashing
across her pallid face, staggered a step or two to meet
him, and sank in an agony of tears upon his bosom.