A Friend of Cæsar: A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. by - (best ereader for manga TXT) 📖

of her disappearance. The pirates, indeed, might have wished to take her for ransom; but no, they bore her off with never a demand for money from any friend or relative. I have tried to trace them—the Pompeian ships on every sea make it impossible. I have questioned many prisoners and spies; she is not at the Pompeian camp with her uncle. Neither can I discover that her kinsmen among the enemy themselves know where she is. And to this is added that other mystery: whither has my Aunt Fabia vanished? How much of the account of those who followed her to the river dock is to be believed—that pirates saved her from Gabinius, and then abducted her? Upon all, my clever freedman Agias is gone—gone without ever a word, though I counted him faithful as my own soul!"

"And what then do you expect?" asked Antonius, not without friendly interest.

"What can a man, who dares to look the situation in the face, expect, except something too horrible to utter?" and Drusus groaned in his agony.

"You mean—" began his friend.

"That the pirates have kept Cornelia and perhaps Fabia in their vile clutches until this hour; unless, indeed, the Fates have been merciful and they are dead! Do you wonder at my pain?"

"Phui! we will not imagine any such disagreeable thing!" said Antonius, in a sickly effort to make banter at the other's fears.

"Don't speak again unless you want me your enemy," threatened Drusus, springing up in fury. Antonius knew his own interests enough to keep quiet; besides, his friend's pain cut him to the heart, and he knew himself that Drusus's dread was justified under the circumstances.

"Do you think there will be a battle to-morrow?" demanded Drusus, after some interval of gloomy silence.

"I would to the gods it might be so," was his answer; "are you thirsting for blood?"

Drusus half drew his short sword, which even in camp never left the side of officer or private during that campaign.

"Thirst for blood?" he growled. "Yes, for the lives of Lucius Lentulus, and Domitius and his accursed younger son. I am hot as an old gladiator for a chance to spill their blood! If Cornelia suffers woe unutterable, it will be they—they who brought the evil upon her! It may not be a philosophic mood, but all the animal has risen within me, and rises more and more the longer I think upon them and on her."

"Come," said Antonius, lifting his friend by the arm, "and let us lie down in the tent. There will be toil enough to-morrow; and we must take what rest we may."

II

On that same night, in a very sumptuous tent, fresh from an ample dinner and a season over choice wines, the high and the mighty of Cæsar's enemies were taking counsel together. No longer were they despairing, panic-stricken fugitives, driven from their native land which they had abandoned a prey to the invader. The strength of the East had gathered about them. Jews, Armenians, and Arabians were among their auxiliary forces; Asia Minor, Greece, the Archipelago, had poured out for them levies and subsidies. In the encampment were the vassal kings, Deiotarus of Galatia and Ariarathes of Cappadocia, allies who would share the triumph of the victorious Pompeius.

For none could doubt that the Magnus had proved his right to be called the favoured child of Fortune. Had not Cæsar been utterly defeated at Dyrrachium? Was he not now almost a fugitive in the interior of Greece,—liable at any moment to have his forces cut to pieces, and he himself to be slain, in battle like a second Catilina, or to die by the executioner's axe like another Carbo? Had not several delighted Pompeians just hastened away to Lesbos, to convey to Cornelia, the wife of the Magnus, the joyful tidings that Cæsar's power was broken and the war was over?

Throughout the Pompeian camps there was feasting and revelry, soldiers trolled low songs deriding their opponents, and drank themselves stupid, celebrating in advance the return of the victorious army to Italy. Their officers were looking forward even more eagerly to their reinstatement in their old haunts and pleasures at Rome. Lucius Ahenobarbus, who was outside the tent of the Magnus, while his father was taking part in the conference, was busy recounting to a crony the arrangements he was making.

"I have sent a freedman back to Rome to see that my rooms are furnished and put in order. But I have told him that I need a suite near the Forum, if possible, so as to be convenient for the canvass when I sue for quæstor at the next election, for it is time I began on my 'round of offices.'" (A "round of offices" being, according to this worthy young gentleman, an inalienable right to every male scion of his family.)

Within the debate was waxing hot. Not that any one had the least doubts that the Cæsarians were at their last gasp; rather it was so extremely difficult to decide how the spoils of victory were to be equitably shared, and what was almost equally important, how the hostile and the neutral were to be punished. The noble lords were busy settling amongst themselves who should be consuls for several years to come, and how the confiscated villas of the proscribed Cæsarians should be divided. As to the military situation, they were all complaisance.

"There is no need for a real battle," Pompeius was saying. "Our superior cavalry will rout their whole army before the infantry join the attack."

And Labienus, the only officer who had deserted Cæsar, protested that the opposing legions had long since been thinned of their Gallic veterans, that only raw recruits composed them now.

Loudly the councillors wrangled over the successor to Cæsar's pontificate; Scipio, Domitius, and another great noble, Lentulus Spinther, all had their claims. Domitius was clamouring against delay in disposing of Cæsar, and in returning to Italy, to begin a general distribution of spoils, and sanguinary requital of enemies and neutrals. The contest over the pontificate grew more and more acrimonious each minute.

"Gentlemen," broke in Pompeius, "I would that you could agree amongst yourselves. It is a grievous thing that we must thus quarrel with bitterness, when victory is within our grasp."

But the war of words went on hotter and hotter. Lentulus Crus noticed that Pompeius looked pale and worried.

"You look careworn, Magnus," he whispered; "it will be a relief for the burdens of war to be off your shoulders!"

"I know not how this all will come out," said the general. "All the chances are in our favour. We have numbers, the best position, cavalry, the prestige of victory. Labienus cannot be mistaken in his estimate of Cæsar's men; yet I am afraid, I am almost timorous."

"It is but the natural fear lest some slight event dim your excellency's great glory. Our position is too secure for reverse," remarked Lentulus, soothingly.

"Great glory—" repeated Pompeius, "yes, that makes me afraid. Remember Ulamhala's words,—they haunt me:—

"'He that is highest shall rise yet higher,
He that is second shall utterly fall.'

Lentulus, I know Cæsar is greater than I!"

Before he could continue, Labienus had risen to his feet in the council.

"An oath! an oath, gentlemen!" cried the renegade legate. "Swear all after me! 'By Jupiter Capitolinus, Optimus, Maximus, I swear not to return from the battle until victorious over Cæsar!'"

All the council rose.

"We swear!" cried a score of tongues, as though their oath was the lightest thing imaginable.

"Bravely done!" shouted Labienus, while the two Lentuli and Domitius and Scipio and many another scion of the great noble houses joined in the oath. "Hem! Most excellent Magnus, you do not have confidence enough in your own cause to join us. Do you doubt our loyalty or soldierly qualities!"

"Perpol!" replied Pompeius, with a rather ill-concealed effort to speak gayly, "do you think, good Labienus, that I am as distrustful of you as Cæsar ought to be of his men?"

And the Magnus also took the oath.

Outside the tent the sentries were exchanging their challenges. It was the end of the second watch of the night.[178]

"It is late, gentlemen," said Pompeius. "I believe that I have given my orders. Remember our watch word for to-morrow."

"Hercules Invictus!" shouted one and all.

"Unconquerable' we shall be, I trust," continued the commander-in-chief. "Good-night, gentlemen; we meet to-morrow."

The council broke up, and filed out of the tent. Lentulus Spinther paused to cast a look of savage anger at Scipio, who lingered behind. The contest over the pontificate still rankled in his breast. That four and twenty hours hence both of these aristocratic gentlemen might have more pressing things to think of seemingly entered the head of neither. Lentulus Crus, Domitius, and Scipio waited after the others were gone.

"I have been wondering all day," said the genial Domitius, when the tent had emptied, "how Cæsar will comport himself if he is taken prisoner and not slain in battle. I give him credit for not being likely to flee away."

"I trust he will die a soldier's death," replied Pompeius, gloomily. "It would be a grievous thing to have him fall into my hands. He has been my friend, my father-in-law. I could not treat him harshly."

"Doubtless," said the ever suave Lentulus Crus, "it would be most disagreeable for you, Magnus, to have to reward such an enemy of the Republic as he deserves. But your excellency will, of course, bow to the decrees of the Senate, and—I fear it will be very hard to persuade the conscript fathers that Cæsar has earned any mercy."

"Vah! gentlemen," retorted Pompeius, pressing his hands together, and walking up and down: "I have been your tool a long while! I never at heart desired this war! A hundred times I would draw back, but you in some way prevented. I have been made to say things that I would fain have left unsaid. I am perhaps less educated and more superstitious than you. I believe that there are gods, and they punish the shedders of innocent blood. And much good Roman blood has been shed since you had your way, and drove Cæsar into open enmity!"

"Of course," interposed Domitius, his face a little flushed with suppressed anger, "it is a painful thing to take the lives of fellow-countrymen; but consider the price that patriots must pay for liberty."

"Price paid for liberty," snorted Pompeius, in rising disgust, "phui! Let us at least be honest, gentlemen! It is very easy to cry out on tyrants when our ambition has been disappointed. But I am wasting words. Only this let me say. When, to-morrow, we have slain or captured our enemy, it will be I that determine the future policy of the state, and not you! I will prove myself indeed the Magnus! I will be a tool no longer."

The three consulars stared at each other, at loss for words.

"Time wastes, gentlemen," said Pompeius. "To your several commands! You have your orders."

The Magnus spoke in a tone that admonished the three oligarchs to bow in silence and go out without a word.

"His excellency is a bit tempted to play the high tragedian to-night," sneered Domitius, recovering from his first consternation. "He will think differently to-morrow. But of all things, my good Lentulus (if it comes your way), see that Cæsar is quietly killed—no matter what fashion; it will save us endless trouble."

"Mehercle!" quoth the other, "do I need that advice? And again remind me to-morrow of this. We must arrange the dividing of the estate of that young reprobate, Quintus Drusus, who gave us some anxiety two years ago. But I imagine that must be deferred until after the battle."

And so they separated, and the two armies—scarce five miles apart—slept; and the stars watched over them.

III

The sun was climbing out of the dark bank of clouds that pressed down upon the eastern horizon. The green plain of Pharsalus lay spread out far and wide under the strengthening light; the distant hills were peering dimly out from the mist; the acropolis of Pharsalus itself,—perhaps the Homeric Phthia, dwelling of Achilles,—with its two peaked crags, five hundred feet in height, frowned down upon the Cæsarian camp. The Enipeus and one or two minor streams were threading their way in silver ribbons down toward the distant Peneus. The fertile plain was green and verdant with the bursting summer. The scent of clover hung in the air, and with it the fragrance of thyme. Wild flowers were scattered under the feet. The early honeybee was hovering over the dew-laden petals. Wakeful thrushes were carolling out of the thickets. A thin grey fog was drifting off of the valley, soon to vanish in the blue of a perfect day. Clear and sweet the notes of the trumpets called the soldiers from their camp. The weary men shook the sleep from their eyes. There was a hurried pounding of grain in the stone mortars, breakfasts even more hurried. Then again the trumpets called out their signal. Busy hands tore up the tent pegs, other hands were folding the coverings, gathering up the poles and impedimenta, and loading them on the baggage animals.

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