“Do not let it weigh too heavily on your mind,” said Parthenius. “Women often have such crazes. If once a girl has taken it into her head, that she must guard her honor.... The greatest triumph you could now achieve, and the best punishment for the crime she dared to attempt, would be cold-blooded mockery and compulsion....”
“The gods forbid!” cried Domitian in horror. “The woman is a demon. She would be quite capable of strangling me in her arms, or setting her teeth in my throat under pretence of a kiss. No, Parthenius, I renounce all pretensions to such flowers as these. Henceforth I acknowledge no claim but that of justice. Punishment, the extremest punishment, torment for body and soul, and a cruel death—these must be the retribution for such a crime. And that Quintus Claudius—it was for his sake she aimed the blow at my sacred head—he too shall feel what it is to have the sovereign of the world for his enemy.”
CHAPTER XVI.
The little town of Rodumna[108] lay half-hidden in olive-woods and vineyards, on the right bank of the Liger, in Gallia Lugdunensis. It had formerly been strongly fortified, but since the fall of the Republic it had lost its strategical and military importance. The foreign wars of the Empire were carried on far, far away on the northern and eastern frontiers, while internal convulsions had been constantly more and more centralized in Rome, since the rule of the Caesars had been fairly established, and a civil war in its original sense had almost ceased to be a possibility. Men lived faster in these days, and political changes were rougher and more summary. Thus, Rodumna had gradually dwindled in importance as a citadel; the walls had begun to fall into ruin, and were being overgrown with ferns and maiden hair. In Rome, and even in Lugdunum, men had something else to do than to pay any attention to this out-of-the-way little town, whose inhabitants, for their part, troubled themselves little enough about the affairs of the great world, and repaid contempt with indifference. Here reigned that idyllic peace “far from the madding crowd,” which Horatius Flaccus had sung in his famous odes. The inhabitants, for the most part small land-owners or farmers, won from the surrounding lands all that they needed for actual existence, and even something more; produce which was sent either down the river in vessels to Decetia[109] and Noviodunum,[110] or in carts, over the ridge of mountains to the east, to the chief town of the province. The poorer inhabitants fished in the river, labored in humble toil, and kept a few taverns in which the thick and muddy wine of the country was sold.
In the course of the last ten years several houses and villas had been built outside the town walls, often separated by wide tracts and surrounded by gardens, fields and groves, each a little world of itself.
It was one of these isolated country-houses, the home of his old and paternal friend Rufinus, that Cneius Afranius had designated as the place of meeting for the conspirators. They were to concentrate on this point by the ides of February,[111] and meanwhile each was at work independently in different parts of the province. They were to assemble as quietly as possible, to report the success and prospects of their efforts, and to form their plans for future action.
The eventful thirteenth of February had dawned. The evening before, Cneius Afranius and the Batavian, accompanied by his freedman Herodianus and Magus the Goth, had already met, and early in the morning, before sunrise, the others had arrived, most of them in extraordinary disguise. Ulpius Trajanus appeared dressed as a merchant from Palestine, Nerva, who was with him, played the part of his accountant—his former tutor. The snowy beard, which he had allowed to grow during the last few months, entirely concealed his identity. Even the one-armed centurion had been so cautious as to assume a disguise, though his name was not on the list of the proscribed. He was travelling as a Lusitanian dealer in amulets. Cinna, on the other hand, like Afranius and Aurelius, though with less reason, had regarded these precautions as unnecessary. He wore an ordinary travelling-cloak, gave himself out to be a Roman knight of Lilybaeum,[112] who had come on business connected with an inheritance to Lugdunum, Vesontio[113] and Argentoratum,[114] and he trusted to his good fortune, which certainly had, so far, preserved him from any meeting with a too keen observer. Caius Aurelius had thought it wise to separate from Herodianus. The freedman’s conspicuous appearance and unmistakable physiognomy made him a dangerous travelling-companion, and it was not till they were close to Rodumna, that the great worshipper of the Opimian wine-jar[115] had rejoined him—to his unspeakable delight—for, away from his beloved patron, to him the finest Caecubum tasted no better than the verjuice of Veii.
Up to their present meeting, not one of the conspirators had been in a position of any real danger. Cinna attributed this to a certain amount of negligence and, perhaps, timidity in the administration. Of course he could not know, that the conspiracy had a noble and influential supporter in the Palatium itself, in the person of Clodianus, who, with all the zeal he seemed to devote to Caesar’s interests—and especially to the work of persecution—nevertheless contrived, by the subtlest expedients of intrigue, to cripple every active effort, particularly if it originated with Parthenius, and who managed to combine an appearance of the greatest energy with absolute inaction. His master-stroke consisted in collecting a considerable mass of evidence, which convinced Domitian, and even the chamberlain, that the conspirators were to converge upon Rhaetia,[116] and take that district as the basis of their operations. Thus, while Caesar’s agents were searching and watching that province with eager haste and, misled by false reports, advanced farther and farther to the north, the conspirators in Gallia Lugdunensis were congratulating themselves on their unhoped-for liberty. One old and devoted client of the adjutant’s was indeed cautiously endeavoring to track them—not to circumvent them as a foe, but because Clodianus wanted to open negotiations with them, and to further their plots against Domitian. This ambiguous conduct on his part was unexpectedly successful, mainly because for some days Parthenius had also betrayed a strange revulsion, and had ceased to urge on the persecutions with his original virulence. What could have caused this change in the man—whether it was his more intimate connection with the intriguing Massilian, Lycoris, or some secret understanding with the Empress—Clodianus could only guess. But, diligently as Parthenius strove to conceal the fact, he soon became aware of it, and with all his wonted elasticity he stretched out his feelers, so to speak, in order with all caution to investigate this new phenomenon.
The friends at Rodumna had no suspicion of all this. Even the fact, that some unknown friend had warned them of the danger, could not put them on the track of such a wild and incredible idea. When, on board the Batavia, Nerva had referred to these warning letters, Cinna had attributed them to a mercenary betrayal on the part of some subordinate about the court, who thus perhaps gave vent to his own spite and disaffection, and counted on a reward at some favorable opportunity.