223
XVI. THE SENATE 235

VOLUME II.

I. THE OLD PATRICIAN 3
II. THE CONSULAR 12
COMITIA
III. THE PERIL 21
IV. THE CRISIS 29
V. THE ORATION 38
VI. THE FLIGHT 54
VII. THE AMBASSADORS 65
VIII. THE LATIN VILLA 75
IX. THE MULVIAN BRIDGE 88
X. THE ARREST 101
XI. THE YOUNG 113
PATRICIAN
XII. THE ROMAN FATHER 123
XIII. THE DOOM 136
XIV. THE TULLIANUM 150
XV. THE CAMP IN THE 158
APPENINES
XVI. THE WATCHTOWER OF 168
USELLA
XVII. TIDINGS FROM ROME 185
XVIII. THE RESCUE 192
XIX. THE EVE OF BATTLE 205
XX. THE FIELD OF 215
PISTORIA
XXI. THE BATTLE 223
XXII. A NIGHT OF HORROR 233

THE ROMAN TRAITOR;

OR, THE DAYS OF

CICERO, CATO AND CATALINE.

A TRUE TALE OF THE REPUBLIC.

CHAPTER I.

THE MEN.

But bring me to the knowledge of your chiefs.
MARINO FALIERO.

Midnight was over Rome. The skies were dark and lowering, and ominous of
tempest; for it was a sirocco, and the welkin was overcast with sheets of
vapory cloud, not very dense, indeed, or solid, but still sufficient to
intercept the feeble twinkling of the stars, which alone held dominion in
the firmament; since the young crescent of the moon had sunk long ago
beneath the veiled horizon.

The air was thick and sultry, and so unspeakably oppressive, that for
above three hours the streets had been entirely deserted. In a few houses
of the higher class, lights might be seen dimly shining through the
casements of the small chambers, hard beside the doorway, appropriated to
the use of the Atriensis, or slave whose charge it was to guard the
entrance of the court. But, for the most part, not a single ray cheered
the dull murky streets, except that here and there, before the holy
shrine, or vaster and more elaborate temple, of some one of Rome's hundred
gods, the votive lanthorns, though shorn of half their beams by the dense
fog-wreaths, burnt perennial.

The period was the latter time of the republic, a few years after the fell
democratic persecutions of the plebeian Marius had drowned the