Rome For Sale Read online

  ROME FOR SALE

  JACK LINDSAY

  © Jack Lindsay 1934

  Jack Lindsay has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published 1934 by Elkin Mathews and Marrot Limited.

  This edition published by Endeavour Press Ltd in 2014.

  Table of Contents

  DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

  FOREWORD

  I - CATALINA RETURNS

  I

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  II - CÆSAR AS CHIEF PRIEST

  I

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  III - CATALINA IN ETRURIA

  I

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  IV - THE TURMOIL

  I

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  V - BEFORE THE ELECTIONS

  I

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  VI - THE ELECTIONS

  I

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  VII - THE CONSPIRACY

  I

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  VIII - THE DUEL AT LAST

  I

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  IX - AMONG THE REBELS

  I

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  X - THE BETRAYAL

  I

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  XI - THE TRIAL

  I

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  XII - THE END OF CATALINA’S YEAR

  I

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  FOR PHILIP AND JEANNE LINDSAY

  DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

  MEN

  ACCO: a Gallic ambassador.

  ANTONIUS (Gaius): one of the consuls, later (59 B.C.) exiled through prosecution by Cælius.

  ANTONIUS (Marcus): ‘Marc Antony’ in his early youth, nephew of preceding.

  ATTICUS: a banker.

  AUTROTINUS: a radical politician.

  BESTIA: a radical, elected tribune, 63.

  BIBULUS: a conservative, later commanded fleet against Cæsar, dying 49.

  BRUTUS (Marcus): son of Servilia, the future murderer of Cæsar.

  CÆCINA: an enthusiast on horse-racing.

  CÆLIUS: a youth attached to Catalina, later killed in an anarchist revolt of his own, 48.

  CÆPARIUS: a conspirator.

  CÆSAR (Gaius Julius): the future radical dictator and first Emperor.

  CASSIUS: a conspirator.

  CATALINA (Lucius Sergius): the radical leader of 63.

  CATO: a strict reactionary, later committed suicide after Cæsar’s triumph.

  CATULUS: a conservative leader.

  CETHEGUS: a conspirator.

  CICERO (Marcus Tullius): consul, 63, finally slain by order of Marcus Antonius, 43.

  CLODIUS (popularised form of Claudius): a young noble who became proletarian organiser from 59 till 52, when he was killed in a brawl.

  CORNELIUS: a conspirator.

  CRASSUS: banker and politician, killed fighting the Parthians, 53.

  CURIO (the elder): a senator.

  CURIO: son of Curio the Elder, later as orator swayed politics for Cæsar at crisis leading up to the Civil War and died gallantly at head of his legions in Africa, 49.

  CURIUS: a degraded senator, addicted to gambling and Fulvia.

  DOMITIUS: a conservative, later fought fiercely against Cæsar and died in the war, 48.

  FAVONIUS: a conservative, imitator of Cato.

  FLAMMA: a friend of Catalina, devoted to farming.

  FLAVIUS: a youth in love with Fulvia.

  FULVIUS: a senator of conservative views.

  FULVIUS (Aulus): his son.

  FURIUS: a conspirator.

  GABINIUS: a conspirator.

  HORTENSIUS: a senator and famous orator.

  LABDA: a soothsayer.

  LABIENUS: a young politician (tribune 63) attached to Cæsar, fought as his chief lieutenant in the Gallic wars and then deserted to Pompeius on eve of civil war. Killed in Africa, 46.

  LAECA: a conspirator.

  LAMIA: a conservative.

  LENTULUS: prætor for 63, a conspirator.

  LEUCON: a soothsayer.

  LUCULLUS: the general who defeated Mithridates.

  LUCRETIUS: the great poet of On the Nature of Things.

  LYCON: a slave belonging to Cæsar.

  MANLIUS: a veteran centurion, a conspirator.

  MARCIUS REX: a conservative ex-consul.

  MATTHIAS: a soothsayer.

  MEMMIUS: a politician and literateur (the officer under whom the poet Catullus served in Bithynia, 58).

  METELLUS CELER: prætor, 63, a conservative.

  METELLUS NEPOS: half-brother of preceding, an officer of Pompeius.

  MUNATIUS: a conspirator.

  NACCA: a proletarian boss.

  NERO (Ti
berius): a senator (grandfather of the Emperor Tiberius).

  PAULLUS: a rich young noble (later joined Cæsar).

  PETREIUS: a professional soldier (died fighting against Cæsar, 46).

  PISO: a Conservative, vainly impeached by Labienus.

  PISO (Gnæus): young conservative who married Tullia.

  POMPTINUS: a prætor and conservative.

  PUBLICIUS: a conspirator.

  RULLUS: a radical, tribune 63.

  SÆNIUS: a conservative senator.

  SESTIUS: quæstor, 63.

  SILANUS: a liberal, husband of Servilia.

  STATILIUS: a conspirator.

  SULPICIUS (Servius): a jurisconsult whose work was of great value in the codification of Roman Law; he retired after Murena’s trial, reappearing in 51 to fight for peace, and died on embassy to Antonius, 43.

  TARQUINIUS: an informer.

  TITINNIUS: a jeweller.

  TONGILLUS: a youth attached to Catalina.

  UMBRENUS: a conspirator.

  VARGUNTEIUS: a conspirator.

  VARUS (Alfenus): a young law-student, later attained very high rank as an authority on the law.

  VOLTURCIUS: a conspirator.

  WOMEN

  ABRA: slave of Pompeia.

  AURELIA: mother of Cæsar.

  CHELIDON: mistress of Cassius.

  CHLOE: a camp-girl.

  CLODIA: sister of Clodius, later the mistress of Catulus and of Cælius.

  DORIS: a slave-girl.

  FANNIA: wife of Flamma.

  FLAVIOLA: daughter of Nacca.

  FULVIA: a well-born woman who has sunk to position of mistress of Curius.

  IULIA: daughter of Cæsar, later named Pompeius.

  MUCIA: wife of Pompeius and half-sister of the Metelli, divorced 62.

  ORESTILLA: wife of Catalina.

  POMPEIA: wife of Cæsar, divorced 61, for adultery with Clodius.

  POSTHUMIA: wife of Servius Sulpicius.

  PRECIA: mistress of Cethegus.

  SEMPRONIA: a loose-living matron, in the conspiracy.

  SERVILIA: wife of Silanus, mistress of Cæsar, mother of Marcus Brutus, half-sister of Cato.

  SERVILIA: her sister, wife of Lucullus.

  TERENTIA: wife of Cicero.

  TULLIA: daughter of Cicero.

  FOREWORD

  When a young and little-known author produces an ambitious novel which confidently recreates an alien and long vanished scene, and which boldly challenges established opinion as to the central character in an important historical episode, one may well ask, and indeed one must ask, to what extent he is equipped with knowledge and a sound interpretative judgment.

  Mr. Jack Lindsay has written an account in fictional form of the Cataline Conspiracy in Rome two thousand years ago. It is a spirited and colourful narrative, clearly displayed in general outline against a vividly detailed background, and with some highly controversial personal estimates, notably that of the luckless Catalina himself.

  But there need be no misgivings about Mr. Lindsay’s qualifications. He is a classical scholar of distinguished credentials, and in his treatment of the political issues and personal factors involved in the abortive conspiracy he reveals himself quite unmistakably as a man of shrewd practical judgment and of acute insight into the motives of human conduct. He has a graphic pen for the social and economic conditions of an empire on which the shadows had begun to lengthen, and for the forms in which the decadence of her great patrician families was revealed. He has, too, a poet’s imaginative comprehension of the seasonal religious festivals which he adroitly uses as the milestones of his tale. Withal he knows how to tell a story; for there is not a dull moment in his account of how Catalina’s revolutionary movement against a soulless financial oligarchy was wrecked through treachery born of political jealousies and amorous rivalries.

  Rome for Sale belongs to the domain of history rather than to that of fiction. Its setting, its characters and the incidents of its story are drawn so largely from recorded fact that only a thoroughly competent scholar will be able to determine with any assurance what is fact and what is fiction. Nevertheless, Mr. Lindsay presents a stirring drama, supremely well mounted. And his book is of considerable importance as a critical commentary by reason of the new angle from which he envisages the character and motives of the ill-fated Roman conspirator.

  Possibly the time is now ripening for a revised estimate of Catalina, for between his Conspiracy and the European Fascist movement of today there are resemblances that could be emphasised with equal plausibility by partisans on both sides of our modern controversy. We should be unwise to carry the analogy too far; but it will serve my present purpose of illustrating one of the pitfalls in the path of historical scholarship.

  If we could imagine a future historian writing of Fascism with nothing to guide him but a few records left by the most violent of its opponents, we can well believe that he would see it only as an assault upon liberty and the social order by jackbooted adventurers who had exploited the widespread discontent of their time by organising the vicious and the idle. He would not, we may be sure, perceive any constructive purpose, any impulse towards social amelioration, in a movement declared in the only available records to have been accompanied by savage excesses and to have had in its practical manifestations all the semblance of a kind of political gangsterism.

  Such a picture of Fascism would, of course, be a grotesque distortion, as any fair-minded person must admit. And its falsity would be due to circumstances not dissimilar from those in which modern scholarship has formed its judgment as to the origin, nature and purposes of the Cataline Conspiracy. Relying upon the testimony of two or three hostile contemporary commentators, and especially upon that of the historian Sallust, modern scholars see in Catalina’s movement the attempt of an unscrupulous swashbuckler to seize power for his own personal ends by the help of all the disgruntled riff-raff in Rome. This view is accepted without demur, and in its most extravagant form, by Colonel John Buchan in his recently published biography of Julius Cæsar. Catalina, says Colonel Buchan, was the leader of the anarchists, the libertines and the underworld elements which had nothing to lose by violence. He engineered in Rome and throughout Italy a great plot of the lawless, the disinherited, the bankrupt and the desperate. He planned debt-repudiation and public plunder, and he made murder and deeper infamies the daily incidents of his life. He was a ruffian who served no ends but his own; and there was not, we are to suppose, a single redeeming quality about him.

  Mr. Lindsay offers a more sympathetic view, and one which seems much more likely in the circumstances as he describes them. A plebeian class, grown rich by commercial exploitation following the rapid expansion of Rome overseas after the destruction of Carthage and Corinth, now ruled the state as a ruthless financial oligarchy. There was a heavy burden of public and private debt, and acute economic distress due to frozen credit. Farming and agriculture were in decay. In Rome itself a proletarian city population had developed which was workless and hungry, and which shared the revolutionary discontent of the bankrupt tradesmen and farmers throughout all Italy. There was corruption in public offices, debauchery among the patricians, and insensate extravagance by the wealthy. The old glories of Rome were forgotten, and the day of Cæsar was not yet.

  Such is the scene as Mr. Lindsay depicts it. And in the midst of it he shows us the grim figure of Catalina, foe of the vested interests, a patriot genuinely moved by the spectacle of the neglected countryside and the wrongs of the common people, a single-minded and darkly passionate man, weary and often ailing, yet of a fixed ferocity of purpose, and under no illusions as to the character of many of those whom his policy attracted and inspired. It is a striking portrait, very persuasive in the background against which it is set.

  Equally convincing, though subtler, are Mr. Lindsay’s studies of Julius Cæsar, patrician sympathiser with the popular cause, who escaped by a hair’s breadth from ruinous complicity in the plot, but achieved a clarified
purpose of his own through contact with Catalina’s selfless fanaticism; and of Cicero, smooth, watchful, calculating, a plebeian lawyer with a shrewd sense of public situations, niggling in debate, an opportunist in action, an able and ambitious man, but a pompous and diffuse rhetorician, self-deluding and addicted to voluble and flamboyant moralising.

  These are vivid and vital portraits. They are done, like the picture of Rome in that day, with a novelist’s imagination controlled by a scholar’s knowledge. And the result is a book to which it is a privilege for me to be invited to attach this enthusiastic commendation.

  COLIN STILL.

  I - CATALINA RETURNS

  I

  “I call on Lucius Sergius Catalina to come forward and speak his opinion.”

  At the tribune’s voice the crowd that stood packed in the western end of the Forum fell silent; necks craned, and there was a swaying movement towards the corner where a man was seen to detach himself from a group and move towards the Rostra. He reached the rear steps and ascended the curving wooden platform raised on arches of stone, hung with the brazen beaks of captured warships and bounded by huge staring statues, where the magistrates stood at the open space in the railing to address the people. All eyes were on the man who, aware of the spell cast by his appearance, came slowly forwards. Turning, he smiled gravely at the tribune of the plebs who by invitation had given him, though not an official, the right of public speech. A man in early middle age, he was tall and strongly built; his lean, dark, handsome face was saturnine in expression, but his full lips and enkindled eyes added a warmth and vivacity which more than balanced the first effect of absorbed seriousness. He wore his toga with careful ease, and moved with the springy step of a man energetic and well-conditioned.

  For a moment he stood looking down at the expanse of faces beneath the break in the parapet. The crowd filled all the paved space of the Forum, standing on the stairs of the basilicas and temples, clustering on the doorsteps of the shops, and leaning from the balconies. Every eye was fixed on him, and there was a low, unconscious murmur welling up that made the intent faces sway and merge in an ocean-surge of submission. He was the rock on which the tide foamed, and he felt the invincibility of this controlled force steal through his veins like a sweet chilly drug, like the immersion in a shaded spring on a sweltering day.

  Turning his back on the Senate House and the antique Temple of Ianus that looked shrunken beside the later buildings, he lifted his half-clenched hand. Some eighty years ago an orator had first dared to turn from the consecrated ground of the Senate and the Comitium where the old farmer-aristocrats had held their assembly, and to address frankly the body of electors who were yearly becoming more cosmopolitan and insolent.