"A wise family always keeps a few members in every camp," I said. "That way, you don't lose everything if you've backed the wrong side. And Nepos, will accomplish nothing as Tribune, because Cato will be his colleague and Cato will block every piece of pro-Pompey legislation he introduces. Cato stood for the tribunate just to oppose Nepos."
"There is always Lucullus," Cethegus said, making it sound sarcastic. Everything he said sounded sarcastic.
"Lucullus and I have never been at odds," I said, "but I would not approach him. He is married to one of the sisters of Clodius, and Clodius hates me more than Pompey and Crassus combined."
"You have a rare knack for making enemies," Catilina said, laughing. Taking their cue, the others laughed as well. Aurelia didn't. "Well, any man Clodius hates is a friend of mine. So you've had to go to the professional moneylenders, then?"
"Why all this curiosity about my financial affairs?" I asked.
"Every man with ambition who was not born rich is in debt by definition," Catilina said, "but any man indebted to one of the three we mentioned is in that man's purse and cannot be trusted."
"Trusted?" I said. "Trusted in what fashion?"
"We are all ambitious men," Catilina said quietly, "and we know who stands between us and the power we are qualified to wield, the honors we deserve. They sequester to themselves every high office and command while keeping better men crushed beneath a burden of debt. Surely you don't think that it is some form of accident that for the last twenty years the expenses of holding office have risen so tremendously?" His face was growing redder. "Is it any coincidence that we are pushed into the grasp of the moneylenders? How did it come about that highborn men, whose families have produced Rome's Consuls and generals for centuries, are beholden to baseborn cash-breeders our ancestors would not have considered worthy to be spat upon?"
"Freedmen, most of them," Cethegus said, "men who should have stayed slaves, even if they pretend to be citizens and equites."
"It is convenient for our higher officeholders," I allowed.
"It's more than convenient," Catilina insisted. "It is the result of plotting by a tiny clique of powerful men who will never willingly relinquish power. Who among us can live with such infamy and still call himself a man?" He was getting warmed up now, and the others were hanging on every word. I glanced at Aurelia and she was looking at him with adoration, but I detected something else in her expression. Was it mockery?
"And now," Catilina went on, "what sort of man assumes the leadership of Rome? Marcus Tullius Cicero! A lawyer! A man who has no qualification for office save a facility for bending words to his will. And there are more just like him. Such men could never bring themselves to make the sort of hard, quick, ruthless decisions a real Consul must make. They believe only in words, not deeds."
"So what sort of man does Rome need?" I asked him.
"A man like Sulla," Catilina said, surprising me. "Sulla took power when all had fallen into chaos. He sought neither the fawning favor of the mob nor the patronage of the aristocrats. He purged the Senate, proscribed enemies of the state, reformed the courts, gave us a new constitution and then, when he was done, he dismissed his lictors and walked from the Forum a private citizen, to retire to his country house and write his memoirs. That is the sort of man Rome needs."
There was much in what he said, but Catilina had left out a few details for rhetorical effect. For instance, that Sulla had been the cause as well as the queller of political chaos. Also, he could well afford to retire after his dictatorship, since he had killed or exiled all his enemies and left behind him his own partisans, firmly in power. There was no doubt of the identity of this putative new Sulla. I stared frowningly into my winecup, as if pondering, finally coming to a momentous decision.
"I think," I said solemnly, "that I could follow such a man. Twenty years ago, the Metelli were among the foremost supporters of Sulla. Why should I be less bold than they?"
"Why, indeed," Catilina said. He seemed to be satisfied, for now the women began to join the conversation. There was no more said of power or of cabals preventing worthy men from gaining office. I paid much attention to Aurelia, who seemed to be warming to me.
As the wine flowed, the dice and knucklebones came out and we began to gamble. I joined in, although I ordinarily confine my betting to races or fights, where I flatter myself that I have some skill in predicting the outcome. I have little taste for wagering on pure chance.
Although I did not lose heavily, I was a bit alarmed to see the sums the others were betting. For self-proclaimed poor men they seemed inordinately well furnished with cash. Although they all shouted loud, traditional curses when they lost, none of them seemed overly upset.
"Are you a lucky man?" Aurelia asked as the dice cup made its way back around to me.
"I wouldn't be alive if I weren't," I said. "But when it comes to dice and knucklebones, I have never been lucky."
"Let me lend you some luck," she whispered as I took the cup. She leaned toward me, as if watching the play over my shoulder, and I felt one prodigious breast pressing into my back. Through the cloth of my tunic and her gown, I could feel the hardness of her nipple. Almost as intimate was the softness of her breath on my ear. A surge of lust flooded me and I knew that it would be some time before I would be able to stand up without making a raucous spectacle of myself. To cover my discomfiture, I shook the leather cup with great vigor and smacked it down loudly upon the table, then jerked it back.
"Venus!" Aurelia breathed, making it sound almost like a prayer. Indeed, it was venus, the highest score. Each of the knucklebones showed a different surface.
"It will take some luck to match that," Catilina said, taking the cup. "But I have always been a lucky gambler." He shook the cup and slammed it down. He jerked the cup back and cursed, loudly and sincerely. I did not think it was because of the money he had lost. The knucklebones each showed the same surface, and it was the surface given the value of one. It was the lowest score, canicula, the little dog.
Chapter V
Over the next week, there were four more murders. All the victims were equites. Even for Rome, this was something unusual and the city was abuzz. One was bludgeoned, one had his throat cut, one was stabbed and the fourth was found floating in the Tiber, drowned. This last may have been accidental, but after five clear murders, nobody was ready to believe that.
The usual wild ideas made the rounds. Soothsayers offered murky revelations. But the city was not really alarmed. In fact, the general attitude was one of quiet satisfaction. The equites were not popular. They lacked the prestige of the nobiles and the senatorial class and they did not have the numbers of the commons. Too many people were in debt to them. They had wealth and comfort and thus were envied. There was still much hard feeling over the Praetor Otho's infamous action in reserving for the equites the fourteen rows of theater seats behind those traditionally reserved for the Senators and the Vestals. Overall, the general feeling in the city was that a few murders were just what that upstart class needed.
One of the murdered men, named Decimus Flavius, was a director of the Red faction in the circus. I decided to investigate him first, for no better reason than that the Caecilii were traditionally members of the Red faction, although the rest of the Metelli were Whites. Both of these factions were dwindling as the Blues and Greens came to dominate the races. The Greens had become the faction of the common man, while the Blues were the faction of the aristocratic optimates, their clients and supporters. Most of the equites were also Blues. These two factions would occupy facing sections of the circus and engage in great shouting matches before the races. Riots were still rare at that time, though.