SENECA
Silence, Porcius! To think of his bowels when it’s a question of saving the country—it’s indecent!
PORCIUS
Right! Now here’s Seneca preaching abstinence. But why do you scorn wine and good cheer?
SENECA
Because I am a philosopher.
PORCIUS
Come off it. Because you have bad digestion!
EVANDER
There, there—no quarreling, I beg you. It’s necessary to avenge Plautus.
PORCIUS
Yes! But the people? Are you sure of the populace?
SENECA
I will harangue them.
PORCIUS (aside)
This scrawny philosopher is good only for making phrases.
(Natalis emerges from Procula’s shop.)
AENEAS
Ha! Here’s Natalis.
NATALIS
Imprudents that you are. Don’t stand around in groups like this in this square, Let’s go into Nerva’s.
ALL:
Let’s go in.
AURELIUS
Halt right there my noble friends.
EVANDER
What does this bone head of an Aurelius want with us?
NATALIS (low)
Let’s avoid him.
(aloud)
Evening Aurelius, Evening. We are expected somewhere.
AURELIUS
Stay put, I tell you.
NATALIS
But—
AURELIUS
You are conspiring. Very good. I’m one of you.
EVANDER
Are you drunk?
AURELIUS
No. Unfortunately, I cannot even get high.
PORCIUS (aside)
Poor man!
AURELIUS
So you are conspiring, right? I’m with you. Oh, first of all ff you don’t want me, I’ll denounce you. It’s true, it’s already been done, no question.
PORCIUS
Huh?
AURELIUS
To conspire under old Tiberius without being denounced,—why, that would be a prodigy, since even those who do not conspire are denounced! Aren’t there informers everywhere? In the friend that embraces you, in the woman you love, in the air that goes by, in the flowers that bloom, in the tomb that closes?
EVANDER
Shut up, wretch, shut up!
AURELIUS
Not at all, at all. By all the Gods of Hell, I will say all I have to say. I have a flux of eloquence like the philosopher Seneca.
NATALIS
But you intend to ruin us!
AURELIUS
I’m ruining myself with you.
PORCIUS
Ah, the mad man!
AURELIUS
Informers everywhere, always informers! I knew a son who denounced his father; a sister, her brother; a wife, her husband—my right hand will denounce my left! Raise your eyes to heaven—it’s a crime, be out or come in, laugh or weep, be serious or distracted, active or idle, walk, run, listen, reply, cough too loud, blow your nose in a certain way—all that’s a crime! The informer is there. Roman, he must die—Tiberius insists on it. Tiberius will have you butchered by a soldier, strangled by an executioner, or bled by a surgeon! In a mood of clemency, he invites you politely to suicide or to taste some of his delicious food. May the Gods preserve you from the parties of Tiberius!
EVANDER
Luckily, this place is deserted.
AURELIUS
That’s where Rome is, my good friends! And to say I’m still alive. By Jupiter, it’s cause for despair! I thought aloud, I publicly insulted Tiberius, I trod hi image under my feet, as I do again, the one that I wear on my finger! Well, I’ve never had the luck to be denounced. There are informers for everybody but me. It makes you think that in the end they don’t take you seriously. Still, I can’t yet denounce myself! Nevertheless, I’ve decided, weary of war, since Ihad a good idea. Let’s conspire. I said to myself, it’s the best way to get it over with quickly. And so, here I am! Well, where are we, my good friends? Put me au courant. I’m all ears.
NATALIS
This is dementia.
AURELIUS
Not at all. Let’s consider it a little. Each of you here has a motive for conspiring. I have the right to mine. Porcius conspires from fear. Evander because he is ruined. You, because you want to be Consul again. Seneca because—actually, why is he conspiring?
SENECA
Because I am a philosopher.
AURELIUS
And bilious. Me, I conspire because I am weary of life. It’s a sort of suicide I intend to make fashionable! Opening one’s veins in a bath has become too common. I’ve got a better way. With the lancet, the dagger, poison, asphyxiation, drowning one may miss his mark—which is a bore. You must start all over again and that’s tiresome. While conspiring with you, one is sure of one’s fate.
NATALIS
Why shut up, will you!
PORCIUS
At least speak lower.
AURELIUS
To wake up, to go to sleep, be cold, be hot, hang around with drunks like Porcius, and philosophers like Seneca, go by foot or in a letter, and start all over again every day—is there anything more insipid? I bear one of the greatest names in Rome; I’m one of the Julian house which has on one side, Clodius, the Sabine, and Aeneas, King of Alba on the other. I’ve led the most extravagant and dissipated life; I’ve had mistresses by the hundreds, friends by the thousands, and despite my lunacy, my prodigality, my follies, I’ve never been able to devour my enormous inheritance—which infuriates me; in short, at thirty years of age, I’m disgusted by everything completely bored, radically blasé; I hold in honor the two best things in the world, young love and old wine; I can no longer love or drink—my heart has gastritis like my stomach. You see plainly, the moment has come for me to conspire against old Tiberius.
NATALIS
Well, so be it! We will make room for you if Nerva wants you.
AURELIUS (becoming serious)
Nerva! Noble heart, pure life, old fashioned character—we are a band of ambitious men and good-for-nothings. Nerva alone is a man! Come on, will you, you will see how under such a leader this fool, this debauched Aurelius, Faces Peril and death!
NATALIS
Let’s not all go through the main gate. Let Aeneas and two or