A Friend of Caesar Part 27

"Play to life's end this wicked witless game And you will win what knaves and fools call Fame!"

repeated the general, leaning out from the stone work of the window-casing in order to catch the cool air of the court. "Yes, fame, the fame of a Xerxes; perhaps the fame of a Hannibal--no, I wrong the Carthaginian, for he at least struck for his country. And what is it all worth, after all? Does Agamemnon feel that his glory makes the realm of Hades more tolerable? Does not Homer set forth Achilles as a warrior with renown imperishable? And yet, 'Mock me not,' he makes the shade of Achilles say; 'Better to be the hireling of a stranger and serve a man of mean estate, whose living is but small, than be the monarch over all those dead and gone.'"

The general leaned yet farther out, and looked upward. "These were the stars that twinkled over the Troy of Priam; these were the stars that shone on Carthage when she sent forth her armies and her fleets, and nigh drove the Greeks from Sicily; and these are the stars which will s.h.i.+ne when Rome is as Troy and Carthage. And I--I am an atom, a creature of chance, thrown out of the infinite to flash like a shooting star for a moment across a blackened firmament and then in the infinite to expire. _Cui bono?_ Why should I care how I live my life, since in a twinkling it will all be as if it had never been? And if Cato and Domitius and Lentulus Crus have their way with me, what matter? What matter if a stab in the dark, or open violence, or the sham forms of justice end this poor comedy? I and all others play. All comedy is tragedy, and at its merriest is but dolorous stuff. While the curtain stays down[123] we are sorry actors with the whole world for our audience, and the hoots mingle full often with the applause.

And when the curtain rises, that which is good, the painstaking effort, the labour, is quickly forgotten; the blunders, the false quant.i.ties in our lives, are treasured up to be flung against our names. We play, but we do not know our parts; we are Oedipus, who has committed unwitting sin, and yet must reap his reward; we are Prometheus who is to be chained to the rock forever, for offending the G.o.ds; we are Orestes whom the Eumenides pursue, chasing him down for his guilt. And all the time we vainly imagine that we are some victorious hero, some Perseus, especially favoured by the G.o.ds to fare scatheless over land and sea, and bear away the Medusa's head, and live renowned and happy forever." The reverie was becoming deeper and deeper; the Roman was beginning no longer to whisper merely to himself, he was half declaiming; then of a sudden, by a quick revolution of mind, he broke short the thread of his monologue.

"_Phui!_ Caius, you are ranting as if you were still a youth at Rhodes, and Apollonius Molo were just teaching you rhetoric! Why has no letter come from Curio to-day? I am anxious for him. There may have been a riot. I hadn't expected that those excellent 'Optimates' would begin to murder tribunes quite so soon. The carrier is late!" and the general moved away from the window, and took from a cupboard a package of tablets, which he ran over hastily. "Here are the despatches of yesterday. None to-day. I fear the worst." The brow of the solitary speaker grew darker. "Poor Curio, poor Antonius; if they've dared to murder them, let them tremble. I could forgive a mortal enemy to myself, but not one who had slaughtered a friend."

[123] The ancient curtain (_aulaeum_) had its roller at the bottom.

There were steps in the court below, and voices were raised. In an instant the general's eyes were kindled, his frame on a poise. He sprang to the window, and shouted down the dark court.

"Curio! Do I hear you speaking?"

"_Salve!_ Caesar. It is I!"

"Venus be praised!" and the proconsul, with almost undignified haste, was running out upon the stairs to meet his friend. "Has the city broken out? Has Antonius been murdered? Is the truce at an end? Are you alone?"

And Curio, who did not quite possess his leader's ability to "do all things at the same time," answered in a breath: "The city so far keeps tolerable order. Antonius is safe. The consuls and Senate still keep the peace; but so poorly that I thought it my duty to come to you and say things that cannot go in a letter."

"And who is this young man with you?"

"My friend," said Curio, turning to his companion, "is Quintus Livius Drusus, of whom I have had occasion to write no little."

The proconsul sprang forward and seized Drusus by both hands, and looked him fairly in the eye.

"_Papae!_ I see s.e.xtus Drusus once more, the best tribune in his legion, and my dear friend. Your face should be cause for your welcome, if nothing else. Ah! how much we shall have to say! But you are travel-stained and weary. Words will keep while you bathe, and our dinner is prepared; for I myself have not dined, waiting, as I thought, for your despatches."

"Your excellency shows me too much courtesy," said Drusus, bowing in what was, to tell truth, some little embarra.s.sment; "it is not fit that a young man like myself should dine at the same table with an imperator before whom nations have trembled."

And then it was that Drusus caught his first glimpse of that n.o.ble and sententious egotism which was a characteristic of the great proconsul.

"To be a friend of Caesar is to be the peer of kings."

Drusus bowed again, and then, with Curio, followed the attendants who were leading them to comfortably, though not sumptuously, furnished apartments.

Quintus Drusus in years to come sat at the boards of many great men, enjoyed their conversation, entered into their hopes and fears, but he never forgot the first dinner with the proconsul of the Gauls. Caesar kept a double table. His hospitality was always ready for the people of note of the district where he happened to be staying, and for his own regular army officers. But he dined personally with such high-rank Romans and very n.o.ble Provincials as chanced to be with him from day to day. To this last select company Drusus found himself that evening admitted; and in fact he and Curio were the proconsul's only personal guests. The dinner itself was more remarkable for the refinement of the whole service, the exquisite chasteness of the decorations of the dining room, the excellent cooking of the dishes, and the choiceness of the wines than for any lavish display either of a great bill of fare, or of an ostentatious amount of splendour. The company of officers and gentlemen of the Ravenna district dined together in a s.p.a.cious hall, where Drusus imagined they had a rather more bounteous repast than did the immediate guests of their entertainer. At one end of this large hall was a broad alcove, raised a single step, and here was laid the dinner for the proconsul. Caesar pa.s.sed through the large company of his humbler guests, followed by Curio and Drusus,--now speaking a familiar word to a favourite centurion; now congratulating a country visitor on his election to his local Senate; now introducing the new-comers to this or that friend. And so presently Drusus found himself resting on his elbow on the same couch with Caesar, while Curio occupied the other end. For a time the latter held by far the larger part of the conversation in his hands. There were a myriad tales to tell of politics at the capital, a myriad warnings to give. Caesar listened to them all; and only rarely interrupted, and then with words so terse and penetrating that Drusus marvelled. The proconsul seemed to know the innermost life history and life motives of everything and everybody. He described a character with an epithet; he fathomed a political problem with an expletive. Only now and then did his words or motions betray any deep personal concern or anxiety, and once only did Drusus see him flush with pa.s.sion.

"That affair of the magistrate of Coma, to whom you gave the franchise," said Curio, "was extremely unfortunate. You of course heard long ago how Marcellus, the consul, had him beaten with rods and sent home, to show[124]--as he said--to you, Caesar, the print of his stripes."

[124] Caesar had given the magistrates of towns of the north of Italy the Roman franchise: no Roman citizens could be lawfully flogged.

By his action Marcellus denied Caesar's right to confer the franchise.

The face of the proconsul reddened, then grew black with hardly reined fury.

"Yes, most unfortunate for Marcellus." It was all that Caesar said, but Drusus would not have exchanged his life then, for that of Marcellus, for a thousand talents of gold.

"And our dear friend, Cato," went on Curio, who was perhaps not unwilling to stir the vials of his superior's wrath, "has just sworn with an oath in public, that as soon as your army is disbanded he will press an impeachment against you; and I've heard it reported that you will be compelled to plead, like Milo when he was tried for the Clodius affair, before judges overawed by armed men."

"I antic.i.p.ate no such proceeding," said Caesar, dryly, in an accent of infinite contempt. Then turning to Drusus, he entirely changed his intonation.

"So long," he said, with a shrug of his rather slight shoulders, "we have talked of comitias and senates! Praise to the G.o.ds, all life is not pa.s.sed in the Forum or Curia! And now, my dear Quintus, let us put aside those tedious matters whereof we all three have talked and thought quite enough, and tell me of yourself; for, believe me, our friends.h.i.+p would be one-sided indeed, if all your trouble and exertion went for me, and you received no solicitude in return."

And Drusus, who had at first found his words coming awkwardly enough, presently grew fluent as he conversed with the proconsul. He told of his student days at Athens, of his studies of rhetoric and philosophy, of his journey back to Praeneste, and the incidents of the sea voyage, and land travel; of his welcome at Praeneste by the old retainers and the familia of the Drusi, and then of his recent political work at Rome.

"These have been the chief events of my life, Caesar," he concluded, "and since you have condescended to hear, I have ventured to tell; but why need I ask if such a commonplace tale of a young man who has yet his life to live, should interest you?"

Caesar smiled, and laying down the beaker from which he was sipping very slowly, replied:--

"_Mehercle!_ And do you wish to have all your exploits crowded into a few short years of youth, that mature age will have nothing to surpa.s.s? Listen,--I believe that when the historians, by whom our dear Cicero is so anxious to be remembered favourably, write their books, they will say something of my name,--good or bad, the Genius knows,--but fame at least will not be denied me. Twelve years ago when I was in Spain I was reading in some book of the exploits of Alexander the Great. Suddenly it seemed as though I could not control myself. I began to weep; and this was the explanation I gave to my friends, 'I have just cause to weep, when I consider that Alexander at my age had conquered so many nations, and I have all this time done nothing that is memorable.'"

"But even when your excellency went into Spain," remarked Drusus, "you had done that which should have given renown. Consider, you had won the praetors.h.i.+p, the office of Pontifex Maximus--"

"_St_," interrupted the proconsul, "a list of t.i.tles is not a pledge from Fortune that she will grant fame. Besides, I was about to add--what folly it was for me to weep! Do I imagine now, that Alexander was happy and contented in the midst of his conquests?

Rather, unless he were, indeed, of more than mortal stuff, for every morsel of fame, he paid a talent of care and anxiety. Rush not too quickly after fame; only with age comes the strength to pay the price thereof."

Drusus was half wondering at, half admiring, the unconscious comparison the proconsul was drawing between himself and Alexander.

But Caesar went on:--

"But you, O Drusus, have not dealt honestly with me, in that you have failed to tell that which lies nearest your heart, and which you consider the pivot of all your present life."

Drusus flushed. "Doubtless, your excellency will pardon a young man for speaking with diffidence on a subject, to recollect which is to cause pain."

Caesar put off the half-careless air of the good-natured wit, which he had been affecting.

"Quintus Livius Drusus," and as he spoke, his auditor turned as if magnetized by his eye and voice, and hung on every word, "be not ashamed to own to me, of all men, that you claim a good woman's love, and for that love are ready to make sacrifice."

And as if to meet a flitting thought in the other's mind, Caesar continued:--

"No, blush not before me, although the fas.h.i.+onable world of Rome will have its stories. I care not enough for such gossip to take pains to say it lies. But this would I have declared, when at your age, and let all the world hear, that I, Caius Caesar, loved honourably, purely, and worthily; and for the sake of that love would and did defy death itself."

The proconsul's pale face flushed with something very akin to pa.s.sion; his bright eyes were more l.u.s.trous than ever.

"I was eighteen years old when I married Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, the great leader of the 'Populares.' Sulla, then dictator, ordered me to put her away. Cornelia had not been the wife of my father's choice. He had wished to force upon me Cossutia, an heiress, but with little save riches to commend her. I gained neither riches, political influence, nor family good-will by the marriage. Sulla was in the fulness of his strength. I had seen nearly all my friends proscribed, exiled, or murdered. Sulla bade me put away my wife, and take such a one as he should appoint. He was graciously pleased to spare my life, in order that I might become his tool. Why did I refuse?"

Caesar was sitting upon the couch and speaking nervously, in a manner that betokened great and unusual excitement.

"I knew the dictator meant to favour me if I would only humour him in this matter. A word from him and all ambition of mine had probably been at an end, I take no praise to myself for this. I refused him. I defied his threats. He seized my property, deprived me of my priesthood,[125] finally let loose his pack of a.s.sa.s.sins upon me. I almost became their victim. But my uncle, Aurelius Cotta, and some good friends of mine among the Vestal Virgins pleaded my cause. I escaped. Sulla said he was over-persuaded in sparing me; 'In me were many Mariuses.' But did I regret the loss, the danger, the check for the time being to my career? Quintus Drusus, I counted them as of little importance, not to be weighed beside the pure love that mastered me. And as the faithful husband of my Cornelia I remained, until cruel death closed her dear eyes forever. One can love once, and honourably, with his whole being, but not truly and honourably love a second time, at least not in a manner like unto the first. Therefore, my Quintus, blush not to confess that which I know is yours,--a thing which too many of us Romans do not know in these declining days,--something that would almost convince me there were indeed celestial G.o.ds, who care for us and guide our darkened destinies. For when we reason of the G.o.ds, our reason tells us they are not. But when pure pa.s.sion possesses our hearts, then we see tangible visions, then our dreams become no dreams but realities; we mount up on wings, we fly, we soar to Olympus, to Atlantis, to the Elysian fields; we no longer wish to know, we feel; we no longer wish to prove, we see; and what our reason bids us to reject, a surer monitor bids us to receive: the dangers and perils of this life of shades upon the earth are of no account, for we are transformed into immortals in whose veins courses the divine ichor, and whose food is ambrosial. Therefore while we love we do indeed dwell in the Islands of the Blessed: and when the vision fades away, its sweet memory remains to cheer us in our life below, and teach us that where the cold intellect may not go, there is indeed some way, on through the mists of the future, which leads we know not whither; but which leads to things purer and fairer than those which in our most ambitious moments we crave."

[125] Marius had made young Caesar, Flamen Dialis: priest of Jupiter.

The voice of the conqueror of Gaul and German sank with a half tremor; his eye was moist, his lips continued moving after his words had ceased to flow. Drusus felt himself searched through and through by glance and speech. Was the proconsul a diviner to find all that was deepest in his soul and give it an utterance which Drusus had never expressed even to himself? The young man was thrilled, fascinated. And Caesar, in quite another tone, recovered himself and spoke.

"Wherefore, O Drusus! be ashamed to tell how the Lady Cornelia loves you and you love her? What if the grim old consul-elect, like the jealous elder in the comedy, will stand in your way! _Phui!_ What are the complaints, threats, and prohibitions of such as he? At present, the wind blows from his quarter, but it will not be ever so. Either Lentulus will be in no place to hinder you before long, or we all shall be beyond caring for his triumph or failure."

"Your excellency bids me hope!" cried Drusus.