The Roman Traitor, Vol. 2

by Henry William Herbert

At least we'll die with harness on our back.

Macbeth.

It was indeed time that the last arrangements of the traitor were completed; for, long since, from the gates of the Consular camp the great army of the enemy had been filing out, and falling into order, not a mile distant.

One third, at least, superior to the rebel host in numbers, the loyal soldiers were as high in spirit, as firm in resolution; were better armed, better officered, and, above all, strong in a better cause.

Nor if those had the incentive of despair to spur them to great deeds, did these lack a yet stronger stimulus to action. There were bright eyes, and fair forms in their camp, dependent on their victory for life, and, yet dearer, honor. So great was the terror spread through those regions by the name of Catiline, and by the outrages committed already by his barbarous banditti, that all the female nobility of the provinces, wherein the war was waging, had fled to the Roman camp, as to their only place of safety.

For all that district was ripe for insurrection; the borough towns awaited only the first sunshine of success, to join the rebellion; the rural slaves were, to a man, false at heart; and it was evident to all that the slightest check of the Consular forces would be the signal for tumult, massacre, and conflagration in the provincial towns, for all the horrors of a servile rising in the champaign.

Flight to Rome was impossible, since all the villainy and desperate crime of the land was afloat, and every where, beyond the outposts of Antonius' head quarters, the roads were infested with banditti, runaway slaves, and rustic robbers.

To the camp, therefore, had all the patricians of the district flocked, the men as volunteers, with such of their clients as they could trust, and such of their wealth as was portable; the women as suppliants, tearful and terrified, for Rome's powerful protection.

Meanwhile, for leagues around, by day the open country was seen blackened by numberless columns of smoke, by night flashing with numberless pyres of flame, the blaze of country seats and villas; and terror was on all sides, murder and rape, havoc and desolation.

The minds of the Roman soldiery were inflamed, therefore, to the utmost; the sight of the ravaged country, the charms, the tears, the terrors of the suppliant ladies, had kindled all that was patriotic, all that was generous, all that was manly in their nature; and it was with deep-recorded vows of vengeance that they had buckled on their armor, and grinded their thirsty swords for the conflict.