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Updated: June 15, 2025
And, for that right is right, to follow right Were wisdom, in the scorn of consequence. Paullus Arvina sat alone in a small chamber of his own house. The slender preparations for the first Roman meal were displayed temptingly on a board, not far from his elbow; but they were all untouched. His hair was dishevelled; his face pale, either from watching or excitement; and his eye wild and haggard.
"Willingly, willingly; but what is this?" exclaimed the cutler, as Arvina unbuckling his toga and suffering it to drop on the ground, stood clad in his succinct and snow-white tunic only, girded about him with a zone of purple leather, in which was stuck the sheathless dirk of Cataline. "What is this, noble Paullus? that you carry at your belt, with no scabbard?
"I do not recollect," answered Catiline; "perhaps they did, when I was a boy, and believed in Lemures and Lamia. But Paullus Arvina is not Lucius Catiline, nor yet Cornelius Lentulus; and I say that his oaths shall bind him, until—" "And I say, they shall not!" A clear high voice interrupted him, coming, apparently, through the wall of the chamber.
Arvina had thought lightly, if at all, of his first luxurious sin, but now to the depth of his secret soul, he felt that he was emmeshed and entangled in the deepest villainy. All that he ever had yet heard hinted darkly or surmised of Catiline’s gigantic schemes of wickedness, rushed on him, all at once!
Returning home at a much quicker pace than they had gone out, it was comparatively but a short time before they arrived at the house of Cicero, and there dismissed their followers, many of the slaves and freedmen of Arvina having joined the procession in honour of their fellow-servant Thrasea.
"Catiline!" he exclaimed, starting back in astonishment, and half expecting to feel a dagger in his bosom. "Tush! tush! young man—think you the walls in the house of Catiline have no ears, nor eyes? Paullus Arvina, I know all!" "All?" faltered the youth, now utterly aghast. "Ay, all!" replied the conspirator, with a harsh triumphant laugh.
"A contest now between myself, Aristius, and Aurelius, in the five games of the quinquertium, and then a foot race in the heaviest panoply." "Ha! can you beat them?" asked Catiline, regarding Arvina with an interest that grew every moment keener, as he saw more of his strength and daring spirit. "I can try." "Shall I bet on you?" "If you please.
They were assembled in the tablinum, or saloon, Arvina clad in a violet colored tunic, sprinkled with flowers in their natural hues, and Curius—a slight keen-looking man, with a wild, proud expression, giving a sort of interest to a countenance haggard from the excitement of passion, in one of rich crimson, fringed at the wrists and neck with gold.
So much, however, was Arvina interested by the manner and conversation of the singular man by whose side he sat, and who was indeed laying himself out with deep art to captivate him, and take his mind, as it were, by storm, now with the boldest and most daring paradoxes; now with bursts of eloquent invective against the oppression and aristocratic insolence of the cabal, which by his shewing governed Rome; and now with sarcasm and pungent wit, that he saw but little of the course, which he had come especially to look at.
Arvina, too, was very young; and very young men are often fascinated, as it were, by great reputations, even of great criminals, with a passionate desire to see them more closely, and observe the stuff they are made of.
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