Dictator

XVI

If Cicero had pleaded with me to return with him to Rome, I probably would have refused. It was his willingness to set off without me on the last great adventure of his life that piqued my pride and sent me chasing after him. Of course my change of heart did not surprise him. He knew me far too well. He merely nodded and told me to gather what I required for the journey, and to be quick about it: ‘We need to make good progress before nightfall.’

I called my little household together in the courtyard and wished them luck with the harvest. I told them I would come back as soon as possible. They knew nothing of politics or Cicero. Their expressions were bewildered. They lined up to watch me leave. Just before the place disappeared from view, I turned to wave, but they had already returned to the fields.

It took us eight days to reach Rome, and every mile of the journey was fraught with peril, despite the guards that had been provided for Cicero by Brutus, and always the threat was the same: Caesar’s old soldiers, who had sworn oaths to hunt down those responsible for the assassination. The fact that Cicero had known nothing of it beforehand did not concern them: he had defended it afterwards, and that was enough to render him guilty in their eyes. Our route took us across the fertile plains that had been given to Caesar’s veterans to farm, and at least twice – once when we passed through the town of Aquinum and then soon afterwards at Fregellae – we were warned of ambushes up ahead and had to halt and wait until the road was secured.

We saw burnt-out villas, scorched fields, slaughtered livestock; even once a body hanging from a tree with a placard reading ‘Traitor’ round its neck. Caesar’s demobbed legionaries roamed Italy in small bands as if they were back in Gaul, and we heard many stories of looting, rape and atrocities. Whenever Cicero was recognised by the ordinary citizens, they flocked to him, kissed his hands and clothes and pleaded with him to deliver them from terror. Nowhere was the common population’s devotion more evident than when we reached the gates of Rome on the day before the Senate was due to meet. His welcome was even warmer than when he returned from exile. There were so many deputations, petitions, greetings, handshakes and sacrifices of thanks to the gods that it took him nearly all day to cross the city to his house.

In terms of reputation and renown I guess he was now the pre-eminent figure in the state. All his great rivals and contemporaries – Pompey, Caesar, Cato, Crassus, Clodius – had died violent deaths. ‘They are not cheering me as an individual so much as the memory of the republic,’ he said to me when finally we got inside. ‘I don’t flatter myself – I’m merely the last left standing. And of course demonstrating in support of me is a safe way of protesting against Antony. I wonder what he makes of today’s outpouring. He must want to crush me.’

One by one the leaders of the opposition to Antony in the Senate trooped up the slope to pay their respects. There were not many but I must mention two in particular. The first was P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus, the son of the old consul who had recently died aged ninety: he had been a strong supporter of Caesar and had only just returned from governing Asia – a difficult and arrogant man, he was deeply envious of Antony’s dominant position in the state. The second opponent of Antony I have already mentioned: Lucius Calpurnius Piso, the father of Caesar’s widow, who had been the first to raise his voice against the new regime. He was a sallow, stooping, hairy-faced old man with very bad teeth who had been consul at the time Cicero went into exile: for years he and Cicero had hated one another, but now they both hated Antony even more, and so in politics at least that made them friends. There were others present, but this was the pair who mattered most and they were of one voice in warning Cicero to stay away from the Senate the next day.

‘Antony has laid a trap for you,’ said Piso. ‘He plans to propose a resolution tomorrow calling for fresh honours in memory of Caesar.’

‘Fresh honours!’ cried Cicero. ‘The man is already a god. What other honours does he need?’

‘The motion will state that every public festival of thanksgiving should henceforth include a sacrifice in honour of Caesar. Antony will demand to know your opinion. The meeting will be surrounded by Caesar’s veterans. If you support the proposal, your return to public life will be destroyed before it even starts – all the crowds who cheered you today will jeer you as a turncoat. If you oppose it, you will never reach home alive.’

‘But if I refuse to attend I’ll look like a coward, and what sort of leadership is that?’

Isauricus said, ‘Send word that you’re too exhausted from your journey. You’re getting on in years. People will understand.’

‘None of us is going,’ added Piso, ‘despite his summons. We’ll show him up as a tyrant whom no one will obey. He’ll look like a fool.’

This was not the heroic return to public life that Cicero had planned, and he was reluctant to hide away at home. Still, he saw the wisdom of what they were saying and the following day he sent a message to Antony pleading tiredness as his excuse for not attending the session. Antony’s response was to fly into a rage. According to Servius Sulpicius, who gave Cicero a full report, in front of the Senate he threatened to send a team of workmen and soldiers round to Cicero’s house to tear down his door and drag him to the meeting. He was only deterred from such extreme action when Dolabella pointed out that Piso, Isauricus and a few others had also stayed away: he could hardly round up all of them. The debate went ahead and Antony’s proposal to honour Caesar was passed, but only under duress.

Cicero was outraged when he heard what Antony had said. He insisted he would go to the Senate the next day and make a speech, regardless of the risk: ‘I haven’t returned to Rome in order to cower under my blankets!’ Messages went back and forth between him and the others, and in the end they agreed to attend together, reasoning that Antony wouldn’t dare to massacre them all. The following morning, shielded by bodyguards, they walked down in a phalanx from the Palatine – Cicero, Piso, Isauricus, Servius Sulpicius and Vibius Pansa (Hirtius could not join them because he really was ill) – right the way through the cheering crowds to the Temple of Concordia on the far side of the Forum, where the Senate was due to meet. Dolabella was waiting on the steps with his curule chair. He came over to Cicero and announced that Antony was sick and that he would be presiding in his place.

Cicero laughed. ‘So much illness going around at the moment – the entire state seems to be ailing! One might almost imagine that Antony shares the common characteristic of all bullies: eager to dish out punishment, unable to take it.’

Dolabella replied coldly: ‘I trust you won’t say anything today that will put our friendship in jeopardy: I’ve reconciled with Antony and any attack on him I’d regard as an attack on myself. Also I’d remind you that I did give you that legateship on my staff in Syria.’

‘Yes, although actually I’d prefer the return of my dear Tullia’s dowry, if you don’t mind. And as far as Syria is concerned – well, my young friend, I should make haste to get there, or Cassius might be in Antioch before you.’

Dolabella glared at him. ‘I see you have abandoned your usual affability. Very well, but be careful, old man. The game is getting rougher.’

He stalked away. Cicero watched him go with satisfaction. ‘I have wanted to say that for a long time.’ He was like Caesar, I thought, sending his horse to the rear before a battle: he would either win where he stood or die.

The Temple of Concordia was the place where Cicero had convened the Senate as consul all those years before, in order to debate the punishment of the Catiline conspirators; from here he had led them to their deaths in the Carcer. I had not set foot in it since and I felt the oppressive presence of many ghosts. But Cicero seemed immune to such memories. He sat on the front bench between Piso and Isauricus and waited patiently for Dolabella to call him – which he did, as late in proceedings as he could and with insulting offhandedness.

Cicero started quietly, as was his way: ‘Before I begin to speak on public affairs, I will make a brief complaint of the wrong done to me yesterday by Antony. Why was I so bitterly denounced? What subject is so urgent that sick men should be carried to this chamber? Was Hannibal at the gates? Who ever heard of a senator being threatened with having his house attacked because he failed to appear to discuss a public thanksgiving?

‘And in any case, do you think I would have supported his proposal if I had been here? I say: if a thanksgiving is to be given to a dead man, let it be given to the elder Brutus, who delivered the state from the despotism of kings and who nearly five hundred years later has left descendants prepared to show similar virtue to achieve a similar end!’

There was a gasp. Men’s voices are supposed to weaken as they age; but not Cicero’s on that day.

‘I am not afraid to speak out. I am not afraid of death. I am grieved that senators who have achieved the rank of consul did not support Lucius Piso in June, when he condemned all the abuses now widespread in the state. Not one single ex-consul seconded him by his voice – no, not even by a look. What is the meaning of this slavery? I say these men have fallen short of what their rank requires!’

He put his hands on his hips and glared around him. Most senators could not meet his eye.

‘In March I accepted that the acts of Caesar should be recognised as legal, not because I agreed with them – who could do that? – but for the sake of reconciliation and public harmony. Yet any act that Antony disagrees with, such as that which limits provincial commands to two years, has been repealed, while other decrees of the Dictator have been miraculously discovered and posted after his death, so that criminals have been brought back from exile – by a dead man. Citizenship has been given to whole tribes and provinces – by a dead man. Taxes have been imposed – by a dead man.

‘I wish Mark Antony were here to explain himself – but apparently he is unwell: a privilege he did not grant me yesterday. I hear he is angry with me. Well, I will make him an offer – a fair one. If I say anything against his life and character, let him declare himself my most bitter enemy. Let him keep an armed guard if he really feels he needs it for his own protection. But don’t let that guard threaten those who express their own free opinions on behalf of the state. What can be fairer than that?’

For the first time his words drew murmurs of agreement.

‘Gentlemen, I have already reaped the reward of my return simply by making these few remarks. Whatever happens to me, I have kept faith with my beliefs. If I can speak again here safely, I shall. If I can’t, then I shall hold myself ready in case the state should call me. I have lived long enough for years and for fame. Whatever time remains to me will not be mine, but will be devoted to the service of our commonwealth.’

Cicero sat to a low rumble of approval and some stamping of feet. The men around him clapped him on the shoulder.

When the session ended, Dolabella swept out with his lictors, no doubt heading straight to Antony’s house to tell him what had happened, while Cicero and I went home.

For the next two weeks the Senate did not meet and Cicero stayed barricaded in his house on the Palatine. He recruited more guards, bought a ferocious new watchdog, and fortified the villa with iron shutters and doors. Atticus lent him some scribes, and these I set to work making copies of his defiant speech to the Senate, which he sent to everyone he could think of – to Brutus in Macedonia, to Cassius en route to Syria, to Decimus in Nearer Gaul, to the two military commanders in Further Gaul, Lepidus and L. Munatius Plancus, and to many others. He called it, half seriously and half in self-mockery, his Philippic, after the famous series of orations Demosthenes had delivered in opposition to the Macedonian tyrant Philip II. A copy must have reached Antony: at any rate, he made known his intention to reply in the Senate, which he summoned to meet on the nineteenth day of September.

There was never any question of Cicero attending in person: being unafraid of death was one thing, committing suicide another. Instead he asked if I would go and make a record of what Antony said. I agreed, reasoning that my natural anonymity would protect me.

The moment I entered the Forum, I thanked the gods that Cicero had stayed away, for Antony had filled every corner with his private army. He had even stationed a squadron of Iturean archers on the steps of the Temple of Concordia – wild-looking tribesmen from the borders of Syria, notorious for their savagery. They watched as each senator entered the temple, occasionally fitting arrows into their bows and pretending to take aim.

I managed to squeeze in at the back and take out my stylus and tablet just as Antony arrived. In addition to Pompey’s house in Rome, he had also commandeered Metellus Scipio’s estate at Tibur, and it was there that he was said to have composed his speech. He looked badly hungover as he passed me, and when he reached the dais, he leaned forward and vomited a thick stream into the aisle. This drew laughter and applause from his supporters: he was notorious for being sick in public. Behind me his slaves locked and barred the door. It was against all custom to take the Senate hostage in this manner, and clearly intended to intimidate.

As to his harangue against Cicero, it was in essence a continuation of his vomit. He spewed forth years of swallowed bile. He gestured around the temple and reminded senators that it was in this very building that Cicero had arranged for the illegal execution of five Roman citizens, among them P. Lentulus Sura, Antony’s own stepfather, whose body Cicero had refused to return to his family for a decent burial. He accused Cicero (‘this bloodstained butcher who lets others do his killing’) of having masterminded the assassination of Caesar, just as he had the murder of Clodius. He maintained that it was Cicero who had artfully poisoned the relations between Pompey and Caesar that had led to civil war. I knew the charges were all lies, but also that they would be damaging, as would the more personal accusations he made – that Cicero was a physical and moral coward, vain and boastful and above all a hypocrite, forever twisting this way and that to keep in with all factions, so that even his own brother and nephew deserted him and denounced him to Caesar. He quoted from a private letter Cicero had sent him when he was trapped in Brundisium: I shall always, without hesitation and with my whole heart, do anything that I can to accord with your wishes and interests. The temple rang with laughter. He even dragged up Cicero’s divorce from Terentia and his subsequent marriage to Publilia: ‘With what trembling, debauched and covetous fingers did this lofty philosopher undress his fifteen-year-old bride on her wedding night, and how feebly did he perform his husbandly duties – so much so that the poor child fled from him in horror soon afterwards and his own daughter preferred to die rather than live with the shame.’

It was all horribly effective, and when the door was unlocked and we were released into the light, I dreaded having to return to Cicero and read it back to him. However, he insisted on hearing it word for word. Whenever I tried to miss out a passage or a phrase, he spotted it at once and made me go back and put it in. At the end he looked quite crumpled. ‘Well, that’s politics,’ he said, and tried to shrug it off. But I could tell he was shaken. He knew he would have to retaliate in kind or retire humiliated. Trying to do so in person in the Senate, controlled as it was by Antony and Dolabella, would be too dangerous. Therefore his counter-charge would have to be made in writing, and once it was published there could be no going back. Against such a wild man as Antony, it was a duel to the death.

Early in October, Antony left Rome for Brundisium, in order to secure the loyalty of the legions he had brought over from Macedonia, and which were now bivouacked just outside the town. With Antony gone, Cicero also decided to retire from Rome for a few weeks and devote himself to composing his riposte, which he was already calling his Second Philippic. He headed off to the Bay of Naples and left me behind to look after his interests.

It was a melancholy season. As always in late autumn, the skies above Rome were darkened by countless thousands of starlings arriving from the north, and their chattering shrieks seemed to warn of some imminent calamity. They would nestle in the trees beside the Tiber only to rise in huge black flags that would unfurl overhead and sweep back and forth as if in panic. The days became chilly; the nights longer; winter approached and with it the certainty of war. Octavian was in Campania, very close to where Cicero was staying, recruiting troops in Casilinum and Calatia from among Caesar’s veterans. Antony was trying to bribe the soldiers in Brundisium. Decimus had raised a new legion in Nearer Gaul. Lepidus and Plancus were waiting with their forces beyond the Alps. Brutus and Cassius had hoisted their standards in Macedonia and in Syria. That made a total of seven armies, formed or forming. It was merely a question of who would strike first.

In the event, that honour, if honour is the word, fell to Octavian. He had mustered the best part of a legion by promising the veterans a staggering bounty of two thousand sesterces a head – Balbus had guaranteed the money – and now he wrote to Cicero begging his advice. Cicero sent the sensational news to me to pass on to Atticus.

His object is plain: war with Antony and himself as commander-in-chief. So it looks to me as though in a few days’ time we shall be in arms. But who are we to follow? Consider his name; consider his age. He wanted my advice as to whether he should proceed to Rome with three thousand veterans or hold Capua and block Antony’s route or go to join the three Macedonian legions now marching along the Adriatic coast, which he hopes to have on his side. They refused to take a bounty from Antony, so he says, booed him savagely, and left him standing as he tried to harangue them. In short, he proffers himself as our leader and expects me to back him up. For my part I have recommended him to go to Rome. I imagine he will have the city rabble behind him, and the honest men too if he convinces them of his sincerity.

Octavian followed Cicero’s recommendation and entered Rome on the tenth day of November. His soldiers occupied the Forum. I watched as they deployed across the centre of the city, securing the temples and the public buildings. They remained in position throughout that night and the whole of the following day while Octavian set up his headquarters in Balbus’s house and tried to arrange a meeting of the Senate. But the senior magistrates were all gone: Antony was trying to win over the Macedonian legions; Dolabella had left for Syria; half the praetors, including Brutus and Cassius, had fled Italy – the city was leaderless. I could see why Octavian was pleading with Cicero to join him on his adventure, writing to him once and sometimes twice a day: Cicero alone might have had the moral authority to rally the Senate. But he had no intention of putting himself under the command of a mere boy leading an armed insurrection with precarious chances of success; prudently he stayed away.

In my role as Cicero’s eyes and ears in Rome, I went down to the Forum on the twelfth to hear Octavian speak. By this time he had abandoned his attempts to summon the Senate and instead had persuaded a sympathetic tribune, Ti. Cannutius, to convene a public assembly. He stood on the rostra under a grey sky waiting to be called – slender as a reed, blond, pale, nervous; it was, as I wrote to Cicero, ‘a scene both ridiculous and yet oddly compelling, like an episode from a legend’. He was not a bad speaker, either, once he got started, and Cicero was delighted by his denunciation of Antony (‘this forger of decrees, this subverter of laws, this thief of rightful inheritances, this traitor who is even now seeking to make war upon the entire state …’). But he was less pleased when I reported how Octavian had pointed to the statue of Caesar that had been set up on the rostra and praised him as ‘the greatest Roman of all time, whose murder I shall avenge and whose hopes in me I swear to you by all the gods I shall fulfil’. With that he came down from the platform to loud applause and soon afterwards left the city, taking his soldiers with him, alarmed at reports that Antony was approaching with a much larger force.

Events now moved with great rapidity. Antony halted his army – which included Caesar’s famous Fifth Legion, ‘the Larks’ – a mere twelve miles from Rome at Tibur and entered the city with a bodyguard of a thousand men. He summoned the Senate for the twenty-fourth and let it be known that he expected them to declare Octavian a public enemy. Failure to attend would be regarded as condoning Octavian’s treason and punishable by death. Antony’s army was ready to move into the city if his will was thwarted. Rome was gripped by the certainty of a massacre.

The twenty-fourth arrived, the Senate met – but Antony himself did not appear. One of the Macedonian legions that had booed him, the Martian, encamped sixty miles away at Alba Fucens, had suddenly declared itself for Octavian, in return for a bounty five times the size of that Antony had offered them. He raced off to try to win them back, but they mocked him openly for his stinginess. He returned to Rome, summoning the Senate for the twenty-eighth, this time to meet in an emergency session at night. Never before in living memory had the Senate gathered in darkness: it was contrary to all custom and the sacred laws. When I went down to the Forum intending to make my report for Cicero, I found it full of legionaries drawn up in the torchlight. The sight was so sinister I lost my nerve and did not dare to enter the temple, but instead stood around with the crowd outside. I saw Antony arrive, hotfoot from Alba Fucens, accompanied by his brother Lucius, an even wilder-looking character than him, who had fought as a gladiator in Asia and slit a friend’s throat. And I was still there an hour later to see them both leave in a hurry. Never will I forget the rolling-eyed look of panic on Antony’s face as he rushed down the temple steps. He had just been told that another legion, the Fourth, had followed the example of the Martian and had also declared for Octavian. Now he was the one who risked being outnumbered. Antony fled the city that same night and went to Tibur to rally his army and raise fresh recruits.

While all this was going on, Cicero finished his so-called Second Philippic and sent it to me with instructions to borrow twenty scribes from Atticus and ensure it was copied and circulated as soon as possible. It took the form of a long speech – had it been delivered, it would have lasted a good two hours – and therefore rather than set each man to work making a single copy, I divided the roll into twenty parts and shared the pieces between them. In this way, once their completed sections were glued together, we were able to turn out four or five copies a day. These we sent to friends and allies with a request that they either make copies themselves or at least hold meetings at which the speech could be read aloud.

News of it soon spread. On the day after Antony withdrew from the city, it was posted in the Forum. Everyone wanted to read it, not least because it was filled with the most venomous gossip, for example that Antony had been a homosexual prostitute in his youth and was always falling down drunk and had kept a nude actress as his mistress. But I ascribe its phenomenal popularity more to the fact that it was also full of detailed information no one had dared disclose before – that Antony had stolen seven hundred million sesterces from the Temple of Ops and had used part of it to pay off personal debts of forty million; that he and Fulvia had forged Caesar’s decrees to extort ten million sesterces from the king of Galatia; that the pair had seized jewels, furniture, villas, farms and cash and had divided it all up among themselves and their entourage of actors, gladiators, soothsayers and quacks.

On the ninth day of December, Cicero finally returned to Rome. I had not been expecting him. I heard the watchdog barking and went out into the passage to discover the master of the house standing there with Atticus. He had been away for nearly two months and looked to be in exceptionally good health and spirits. Without even taking off his cloak and hat he handed me a letter he had received the previous day from Octavian:

I have read your new Philippic and think it quite magnificent – worthy of Demosthenes himself. I only wish I could see the face of our latter-day Philip when he reads it. I learn he has decided against attacking me here, no doubt nervous that his men would refuse to take the field against Caesar’s son, and instead is marching his army rapidly to Nearer Gaul with the intention of wresting that province from your friend Decimus.

My dear Cicero, you must agree my position is stronger than we ever could have dreamed of when we met at your house in Puteoli. I am here now in Etruria seeking fresh recruits. They are flocking to me. And yet as ever I am in sore need of your wise advice. Can we not contrive a meeting? There is no man in all the world I would sooner speak with.

‘Well,’ said Cicero with a grin, ‘what do you think?’

I replied, ‘It’s very gratifying.’

‘Gratifying? Come now – use your imagination! It’s more than that! I’ve been thinking about it ever since I got it.’

After a slave had helped him out of his outdoor clothes, he beckoned me and Atticus to follow him into his study and asked me to close the door.

‘Here is the situation as I see it. Were it not for Octavian, Antony would have taken Rome and our cause would be finished by now. But fear of Octavian forced the wolf to drop his prey at the last moment and now he’s slinking north to devour Nearer Gaul instead. If he defeats Decimus this winter and takes the province – which he probably will – he will have the financial base and the forces to return to Rome in the spring and finish us off. All that stands between us and him is Octavian.’

Atticus said sceptically, ‘You really think Octavian has raised an army in order to defend what’s left of the republic?’

‘No, but equally is it in his interests to allow Antony to take control of Rome? Of course not. Antony at this juncture is his real enemy – the one who has stolen his inheritance and denies his claims. If I can persuade Octavian to see that, we may yet save ourselves from disaster.’

‘Possibly – but only to deliver the republic from the clutches of one tyrant into those of another; and a tyrant who calls himself Caesar at that.’

‘Oh, I don’t know if the lad is a tyrant – I think I may be able to use my influence to keep him on the side of virtue, at least until Antony is disposed of.’

‘His letter certainly seems to suggest he would listen to you,’ I said.

‘Exactly. Believe me, Atticus, I could show you thirty such letters if I could be bothered to find them, going all the way back to April. Why is he so eager for my counsel? The truth is the boy lacks a father figure – his natural father is dead; his stepfather is a goose; and his adopted father has left him the greatest legacy in history but no guidance on how to gain hold of it. Somehow I seem to have stepped into the paternal role, which is a blessing – not so much for me as for the republic.’

Atticus said, ‘So what are you going to do?’

‘I shall go and see him.’

‘In Etruria, in the middle of winter, at your age? It’s a hundred miles away. You must be mad.’

I said, ‘But you can hardly expect Octavian to come to Rome.’

Cicero waved away these objections. ‘Then we’ll meet halfway. That villa you bought the other year, Atticus, on Lake Volsinii – that would suit the purpose admirably. Is it occupied?’

‘No, but I can’t vouch for its comfort.’

‘That doesn’t matter. Tiro, draft a letter from me to Octavian proposing a meeting in Volsinii as soon as he can manage it.’

Atticus said, ‘But what about the Senate? What about the consuls-designate? You have no power to negotiate on behalf of the republic with anyone, let alone with a man at the head of a rebel army.’

‘Nobody is wielding power in the republic any more. That’s the point. It’s lying in the dust waiting for whoever dares to pick it up. Why shouldn’t I be the one to seize it?’

Atticus had no answer to that and Cicero’s invitation went off to Octavian within the hour. After three days of anxious waiting Cicero received his reply: Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see you again. I shall meet you in Volsinii on the sixteenth as you propose unless I hear that that has become inconvenient. I suggest we keep our rendezvous secret.

To ensure that no one would guess what he was up to, Cicero insisted we left in the darkness long before dawn on the morning of the fourteenth of December. I had to bribe the sentries to open the Fontinalian Gate especially for us.

We knew we would be venturing into lawless country, full of roaming bands of armed men, and so we travelled in a closed carriage escorted by a large retinue of guards and attendants. Once across the Mulvian Bridge we turned left along the bank of the Tiber and joined the Via Cassia, a road I had never travelled before. By noon we were climbing into hilly country. Atticus had promised me spectacular views. But the dismal weather Italy had endured ever since Caesar’s assassination continued to curse us, and the distant peaks of the pine-covered mountains were draped in mist. For the entire two days we were on the road it barely seemed to get light.

Cicero’s earlier ebullience had faded. He was uncharacteristically quiet, conscious no doubt that the future of the republic might depend on the coming meeting. On the afternoon of the second day, as we reached the edge of the great lake and our destination came into view, he began to complain of feeling cold. He shivered and blew on his hands, but when I tried to cover his knees with a blanket, he threw it off like an irritable child and said that although he might be ancient, he was not an invalid.

Atticus had bought his property as an investment and had only visited it once; still, he never forgot a thing when it came to money and he quickly remembered where to find it. Large and dilapidated – parts of it dated back to Etruscan times – the villa stood just outside the city walls of Volsinii, right on the edge of the water. The iron gates were open. Drifts of dead leaves had rotted in the damp courtyard; black lichen and moss covered the terracotta roofs. Only a thin curl of smoke rising from the chimney gave any sign it was inhabited. We assumed from the deserted grounds that Octavian had not yet arrived. But as we descended from the carriage, the steward hurried forward and said that a young man was waiting inside.

He was sitting in the tablinum with his friend Agrippa and he rose as we entered. I looked to see if the spectacular change in his fortunes was reflected at all in his manner or person, but he seemed exactly as before: quiet, modest, watchful, with the same unstylish haircut and youthful acne. He had come without any escort, he said, apart from two chariot drivers, who had taken their teams to be fed and watered in the town. (‘No one knows what I look like, so I prefer not to draw attention to myself; it is better to hide in plain sight, don’t you think?’) He clasped hands very warmly with Cicero. After the introductions were over, Cicero said, ‘I thought Tiro here could make a note of anything we agree on and then we could each have a copy.’

Octavian said, ‘So you’re empowered to negotiate?’

‘No, but it would be useful to have something to show to the leaders of the Senate.’

‘Personally, if you don’t mind, I would prefer it if nothing were written down. That way we can talk more freely.’

There is therefore no verbatim record of their conference, although I wrote up an account immediately afterwards for Cicero’s personal use. First Octavian gave a summary of the military situation as he understood it. He had, or would have shortly, four legions at his disposal: the veterans from Campania, the levies he was raising in Etruria, the Martian and the Fourth. Antony had three legions, including the Larks, but also another entirely inexperienced, and was closing in on Decimus, whom he understood from his agents had retreated to the city of Mutina, where he was slaughtering and salting cattle and preparing for a long siege. Cicero said that the Senate had eleven legions in Further Gaul: seven under Lepidus and four under Plancus.

Octavian said, ‘Yes, but they are the wrong side of the Alps and are needed to hold down Gaul. Besides, we both know the commanders are not necessarily reliable, especially Lepidus.’

‘I shan’t argue with you,’ said Cicero. ‘The position boils down to this: you have the soldiers but no legitimacy; we have the legitimacy but no soldiers. What we do both have, however, is a common enemy – Antony. And it seems to me that somewhere in that mixture must be the basis for an agreement.’

Agrippa said, ‘An agreement you’ve just told us you have no authority to make.’

‘Young man, take it from me, if you want to make a deal with the Senate, I am your best hope. And let me tell you something else – it will be no easy task to convince them, even for me. There’ll be plenty who’ll say, “We didn’t get rid of one Caesar to ally ourselves with another.”’

‘Yes,’ retorted Agrippa, ‘and plenty on our side who’ll say, “Why should we fight to protect the men who murdered Caesar? This is just a trick to buy us off until they’re strong enough to destroy us.”’

Cicero slammed his hands on the armrests of his chair. ‘If that is how you feel, then this has been a wasted journey.’

He made as if to rise, but Octavian leaned across and pressed down on his shoulder. ‘Not so fast, my dear friend. No need to take offence. I agree with your analysis. My sole objective is to defeat Antony, and I would much prefer to do that with the legal authority of the Senate.’

Cicero said, ‘Let us be clear: you would prefer it even if – and this is what it would mean – you have to go to the rescue of Decimus, the very man who lured your adopted father to his death?’

Octavian fixed him with his cold grey eyes. ‘I have no problem with that.’

From then on, there was no doubt in my mind that Cicero and Octavian would make a deal. Even Agrippa seemed to relax a little. It was agreed that Cicero would propose in the Senate that Octavian, despite his age, be given imperium and the legal authority to wage war against Antony. In return, Octavian would place himself under the command of the consuls. What might happen in the longer term, after Antony was destroyed, was left vague. Nothing was written down.

Cicero said, ‘You will be able to tell if I have fulfilled my side of my bargain by reading my speeches – which I shall send you – and in the resolutions passed by the Senate. And I shall know from the movements of your legions if you are fulfilling yours.’

Octavian said, ‘You need have no doubts on that score.’

Atticus went off to find the steward and came back with a jug of Tuscan wine and five silver cups which he filled and handed round. Cicero felt moved to make a speech. ‘On this day youth and experience, arms and the toga, have come together in solemn compact to rescue the commonwealth. Let us go forth from this place, each man to his station, resolved to do his duty to the republic.’

‘To the republic,’ said Octavian, and raised his cup.

‘To the republic!’ we all echoed, and drank.

Octavian and Agrippa politely refused to stay the night: they explained that they needed to reach their nearby camp before darkness as the next day was Saturnalia and Octavian was expected to distribute gifts to his men. After much mutual backslapping and protestations of undying affection, Cicero and Octavian said goodbye to one another. The young man’s parting phrase I still remember: ‘Your speeches and my swords will make an unbeatable alliance.’ When they had gone, Cicero went out on to the terrace and walked around in the rain to calm his nerves while I out of habit cleared away the wine cups. Octavian, I noticed, had not touched a drop.