Spartacus by Howard Fast Page B

the basis of our lives and the meaning of our lives—and the whole question of our freedom, of human freedom, of the Republic and the future of civilization will be determined by our attitude toward them. They are not human; this we must understand and get rid of the sentimental nonsense the Greeks talk of the equality of all that walks and talks. The slave is the instrumentum vocale . Six thousand of these tools line the road; this isn’t wasteful, this is necessary! I am sick to death of the talk of Spartacus, of his courage—yes, of his nobility. There is no courage and there is no nobility in a cur that snaps at his master’s heels!”

    The coldness of Cicero had not dissipated; it had instead become transported into a livid anger, just as cold—but an anger which transfixed his listeners and made him their master, so that they stared at him, half-enchanted, half afraid.

    Only in the slaves who moved around the table, serving fruits and nuts and sweetmeats, replenishing the wine, was there no reaction. Caius noticed this, for now he was sensitized all over and the world was different for him and he was a creature of excitement and reaction. He saw how unchanged the faces of the slaves remained, how wooden their expression, how lethargic their movements. It was true then, what Cicero said—they were not made human by virtue of the fact that they walked and talked. He did not know why this should have comforted him, but it did.
     

XII
     
    Caius excused himself while they were still drinking and talking. His stomach was constricting now, and he felt that he would go insane if he had to sit there and listen to any more of this. He excused himself on the grounds of weariness from his journey; but when he had left the dining room, he felt that he needed a breath of fresh air desperately, and he went through the back entrance of the house to the terrace, which extended from the rear of the house, white marble except in the center, where there was a pool of water. In the center of this pool, a nymph rose out of a cluster of sea serpents. A stream of water poured out of the conch shell she held, dancing and sparkling in the moonlight. Benches of alabaster and green volcanic stone were placed here and there on the terrace, and they were artfully given a degree of privacy by cypress trees, set in great jugs carved out of black lava. The terrace, which ran the whole width of the huge house and extended some fifty feet out from the house, was enclosed by a marble railing, except in the center, where a flight of broad white steps led down to the less formal gardens below. It was like Antonius Caius to hide this extravagant display of wealth behind his house, and so used was Caius to expenditure in stone and stonework that he hardly gave the details of the place a second glance. Perhaps Cicero would have observed the genius of a people displayed in the use of stone and the smugness that laid out incidental decoration in terms of eternity; but the thought never occurred to Caius.

    Even in the normal course of things, few thoughts occurred to him which were not introduced by another; and generally they concerned food or sex. It was not that Caius lacked imagination or was stupid; it was simply that his role in life had never called for either imagination or original thought, and the only problem he faced at the moment was to understand completely the glance Crassus had given him before he left the dining room. He was thinking of that, staring out over the moonlit slopes of the plantation, when a voice interrupted him.

    “Caius?”

    The last person he wanted to be alone with on that terrace was Julia.

    “I’m glad I came out here, Caius.”

    He shrugged his shoulders without answering, and she walked up to him, laid a hand on either arm, and looked up at his face.

    “Be decent to me, Caius,” she said.

    “Why doesn’t she stop slobbering and whining,” he thought.

    “What you give is so little—it costs you so