The Roman Traitor, Vol. 1

by Henry William Herbert

Under all these circumstances, it cannot be doubted, for [pg 211]a moment, that had Catiline and his friends entertained any real desire of ameliorating the condition of the masses, of extending the privileges, or improving the condition, of the discontented and suffering plebeians, they could have overturned the ancient fabric of Rome's world-conquering oligarchy.

But the truth is, they dreamed of nothing less, than of meddling at all with the condition of the people; on whom they looked merely as tools and instruments for the present, and sources of plunder and profit in the future.

They could not trust the plebeians, because they knew that the plebeians, in their turn, could not trust them.

The dreadful struggles of Marius, Cinna, and Sylla, had convinced those of all classes, who possessed any stake in the well being of the country; any estate or property, however humble, down even to the tools of daily labour, and the occupation of permanent stalls for daily traffic, that it was neither change, nor revolution, nor even larger liberty—much less proscription, civil strife, and fire-raising—but rest, but tranquillity, but peace, that they required.

It was not to the people, therefore, properly so called, but to the dissolute and ruined outcasts of the aristocracy, and to the lowest rabble, the homeless, idle, vicious, drunken poor, who having nothing to love, have necessarily all to gain, by havoc and rapine, that the conspirators looked for support.

The first class of these was won, bound by oaths, only less binding than their necessities and desperation, sure guaranties for their good faith.

The second—Catiline well knew that—needed no winning. The first clang of arms in the streets, the first blaze of incendiary flames, no fear but they would rise to rob, to ravish, and slay—ensuring that grand anarchy which he proposed to substitute for the existing state of things, and on which he hoped to build up his own tyrannous and blood-cemented empire.

So stood affairs on the evening of the seventeenth; and, although at times a suspicion—not a fear, for of that he was incapable—flitted across the mind of the traitor, that things were not going on as he could wish them; that the alienation of Paullus Arvina, and the absence of his injured daughter, must probably work together to the [pg 212]discomfiture of the conspiracy; still, as hour after hour passed away, and no discovery was made, he revelled in his anticipated triumph.

Of the interview between Paullus and Lucia, he was as yet unaware; and, with that singular inconsistency which is to be found in almost every mind, although he disbelieved, as a principle, in the existence of honor at all, he yet never doubted that young Arvina would hold himself bound strictly by the pledge of secrecy which he had reiterated, after the frustration of the murderous attempt against his life, in the cave of Egeria.

Nor did he err in his premises; for had not Arvina been convinced that new and more perilous schemes were on the point of being executed against himself, he would have remained silent as to the names of the traitors; however he might have deemed it his duty to reveal the meditated treason.