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Updated: June 15, 2025
"What, Catiline, here?" "Catiline it was! my Prætor." "And have you consulted with him, ere you spoke with me?" "Not so! most noble, for he would not admit us!" "Speak, Sergius. Is this so? did you behold these fellows in deep converse with Cæcilius Arvina, in the Minervium? But no! it must be folly! for what should you have been doing there at sunrise?"
"By Mars the great avenger! dost soar so high a pitch already? ho! boy, the first is mine, by right, as by daring. How say you? are you mine?" "If I say no!" "Thou diest on the instant." "I think not," replied Arvina quietly, "and I do answer No." "Then perish, fool, in thy folly."
"So far, then," replied Lentulus, "you have cleared yourselves from suspicion; but your charge on Arvina needs something more of confirmation, ere I dare cite a Patrician to plead to such a crime! Have you got witnesses? was any one in sight, when he spoke with you on the Minervium?" "There was one; but I know not if he will choose to speak of it?"
That is a very handsome dagger," he broke off, interrupting himself suddenly—"where did you get it? I should like much to get me such an one to give to my friend Cethegus, who has a taste for such things. I wonder, however, at your wearing it so openly." Taken completely by surprise, Arvina answered hastily, "I found it last night; and I wear it, hoping to find the owner."
Arvina could do no otherwise than assent; but his heart beat violently, and he could scarcely frame his words, so dreadful was his agitation. Yet, by dint of immense exertion, he contrived to maintain the outward appearance of composure, which he was very far from feeling, and even to keep up a connected conversation as they walked along.
And he again dashed at Arvina, without waiting to see if his gladiators meant to second his attack; but they hung back, reluctant to fight against such odds; for, though brave men, and accustomed to risk their lives, without quarrel or excitement, for the gratification of the brute populace of Rome, they had come to the cave of Egeria, prepared for assassination, not for battle; and their antagonists were superior to them as much in accoutrement and arms—for their bronze head-pieces were seen distinctly glimmering in the rays of the rising moon—as in numbers.
The lictors rushed away upon his track, but there seemed little chance that, encumbered with their heavy fasces, they would overtake so swift a runner, as, by the momentary sight they had of him, the fugitive appeared to be. Arvina and the Consul speedily reached the booth. "Volero! Volero!" But there came forth no answer. "Volero! what ho! Volero!"
Without a word Fuscus leaped from the back of the fine blood-bay barb he bestrode, and beckoning to a confidential slave who followed him, "Here," he said, "Geta, take Nanthus, and ride straightway up the Minervium to the house of Arvina; thou knowest it, beside the Alban Mansions, and do as he shall command you. Tell him, my Paullus."
And forgetful of all that he had heard to her disparagement from her bad father’s lips, or, if he half remembered discrediting all in that moment of excitement, he flung himself at her feet, and grovelled like a crushed worm on the floor, in the degrading consciousness of guilt. "Arise, arise for shame, young Arvina!" she said.
Had the mind of Arvina been less agitated than it was by dark and ominous forebodings, that walk had been a pleasant one, in the calm and breezeless evening.
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