"Of course the sole presiding judge was none other than the decemvir Appius Claudius. His lackey Marcus recited a preposterous story that Verginia was not Verginius's daughter at all-she was actually the daughter of one of his own slaves and had been stolen from his house as an infant and palmed off on Verginius as his own flesh and blood. Marcus claimed he could produce the evidence for all this later. The point was that the girl was actually a slave, his slave, and he was reclaiming her as was his legal right.
"Up on the tribunal, Appius Claudius pretended to consider all this as if he'd just heard it for the first time, when of course he was the author of the plot. You can imagine him moving his lips along with Marcus as the man recited the lines Appius had written for him! Finally he declared that only a formal hearing could determine the girl's status. Virginia's friends explained that her father was away on military duty, but could be back in Rome the next day. Appius Claudius agreed to hear the case then. In the meantime, he ruled, the girl would remain in the custody of Marcus. Verginia shrieked! The crowd shouted in protest and the girl's nurse fainted dead away, but Appius Claudius pointed out that according to the law Marcus couldn't be made to hand the girl over to the custody of anyone but her father, and since Verginius was not present, she would therefore have to remain in Marcus's custody until such time as her father arrived to claim her. Verginia would be in Marcus's hands- in Appius Claudius's power-for the whole night to come. Can't you see the fox licking his chops up on the tribunal, playing with himself beneath his toga?
"The ruling was crazy, and there was plenty of muttering and indignation, but nobody ventured to speak openly against it. That's how cowed the people were under the rule of the decemvirs. Marcus started to leave the court, hustling the weeping Verginia along with him.
At this point Verginia's betrothed young lover, the rising politician, arrived on the scene, and delivered an outraged speech about how Appius Claudius was using the law to make slaves of everyone in Rome just for the purpose of satisfying his own lust. He would die himself, the young man vowed, before he would let his betrothed spend a night away from her father's house. The girl was a virgin, and it was a virgin he intended to marry.
"He stirred the crowd to a frenzy. Appius Claudius called for armed lictors to keep order, and threatened to have the young orator arrested for starting a riot. But to keep the situation from getting completely out of hand, Appius Claudius agreed to let the girl go home with her uncle for the night and made the man post a huge bond in silver to make sure Verginia would show up for her hearing.
"At dawn the next morning the city woke in a fever of excitement. Verginius, back from his military duty, appeared in the Forum leading his daughter by the hand – he in mourning, she in rags, followed by all the women of the family making lamentations. There was a trial, or something resembling a trial, with each of the sides presenting arguments and Appius Claudius presiding as sole judge. Evidence and common sense counted for nothing. The verdict was decided before the trial began. As soon as the arguments were finished, Appius Claudius announced that Verginia was the slave of Marcus, not the daughter of Verginius. Marcus was free to claim his property.
"The crowd was stupefied. Nobody uttered a word. Marcus began pushing his way through the crowd, heading for Verginia. The women around her burst into tears. Verginius shook his fist at Appius and cried out, 'I meant my daughter for a bridal bed, not for your brothel! No man who owns a sword will put up with this sort of outrage!'
"Appius Claudius was prepared for this. He'd received alarming reports of an uprising being planned against the decemvirs, he claimed, and so just happened to have a troop of armed lictors on hand to keep order. He called them out and told them to draw their swords and clear the way so that Marcus could claim his property. Anyone who obstructed this act of justice would be killed on the spot as a disturber of the peace. Marcus strode forward through the cordon of steel and laid his hands on Verginia.
"Verginius finally seemed to lose heart. With tears in his eyes he called to Appius Claudius: 'Perhaps I have been terribly mistaken all these years. Yes, perhaps you're right and the girl isn't really my daughter after all. Let me take the child and her nurse aside for just one moment so that I can talk to them both privately. If I can reconcile myself to this mistake, I can give her up without violence.' Appius granted this request, though in retrospect one has to wonder why. Perhaps he wanted to savor the actual moment of acquiring the girl, of seeing her fall into Marcus's clutches, and didn't mind an excuse for stretching out the ordeal just a bit longer.
"Verginius took his daughter to a little street off the Forum. He ran into a butcher's shop, grabbed a knife, and ran back to Verginia. Before anyone could stop him, he stabbed her in the heart. She died in his arms, convulsing and spitting blood, while he stroked her hair and whispered to her over and over, 'It was the only way to set you free, my child, the only way.' He staggered back into the Forum carrying her body. The crowd parted for him, stunned into silence, so that Verginius's cries echoed through the Forum.
'This blood is on your hands, Appius Claudius! The curse of my virgin daughter's blood is on your head!' "
Catullus fell silent. I stared into the darkness above us. "Quite a story," I finally said. "What happened next?"
"Verginius and the young man who was to have been his son-in-law led an uprising. The decemvirs were brought down. Appius Claudius was arrested."
"Was he punished?"
"He killed himself in prison, awaiting trial."
"No wonder the Clodii don't brag about him. But I don't see how the story relates to your Lesbia."
"Don't you? You see, there's this particular strain of madness in their blood. Yes, the Clodii have a heritage of building, creating, rising to glory and triumph. But there's also this other aspect, this unwholesome tendency to obsess, this inability to see beyond a thing they desire but cannot have. If they come to want a thing, they'll do anything to get it. Anything! And if their skewed judgment takes them down the wrong path, don't expect them to realize the error and turn back. Oh no, once set upon it, they'll run the course, even straight into disaster. And all in the name of love! They'll wager everything on the slim chance that when the dice are cast they'll score the Venus Throw."
"Are you sure you're speaking of Clodia? Or could it be yourself you're describing, Catullus?"
He was silent for a long moment. "I suppose I wouldn't love her as I do if we weren't alike in certain ways."
He was quiet then for so long that I thought he must have fallen asleep, until he murmured, "Cicero speaks tomorrow."
"What?"
"At the trial."
"Yes."
"She should have known better than to take him on. Cicero is a dangerous man."
"I know. I saw what he did to Catilina when he made up his mind to destroy him. All it took were words."
"Clodia thinks everything comes down to bodies, and sex. She doesn't understand the power of words. It's why she thinks my poetry is weak." He was quiet, then said, "Cicero was in love with her once. Did you know that?"
"I once heard a very vague rumor of some such thing, but it sounded like nonsense to me. Cicero, in love with anyone but himself?"