Dictator

XVIII

What followed was the greatest day of Cicero’s life – more hard-won than his victory over Verres, more exhilarating than his election to the consulship, more joyful than his defeat of Catilina, more historic than his return from exile. All those triumphs dwindled to nothing in comparison to the salvation of the republic.

That day I reaped the richest of rewards for my many days of labour and sleepless nights, wrote Cicero to Brutus. The whole population of Rome thronged to my house and escorted me up to the Capitol, then set me on the Speakers’ Platform amid tumultuous applause.

The moment was all the sweeter for having been preceded by such bitter despair. ‘This is your victory!’ he shouted from the rostra to the thousands in the Forum. ‘No,’ they called back, ‘it is your victory!’ The following day in the Senate he proposed that Pansa, Hirtius and Octavian should be honoured by an unprecedented fifty days of public thanksgiving, and a monument erected to the fallen: ‘Brief is the life given us by nature; but the memory of a life nobly sacrificed is everlasting.’ None of his enemies dared oppose him: either they stayed away from the session or voted tamely as he asked. Every time he stepped out of doors he was cheered. He was at his zenith. All he needed now was the final official confirmation that Antony was dead.

A week later came a dispatch from Octavian:

From G. Caesar to his friend Cicero.

I am scribbling this by lamplight in my camp on the evening of the twenty-first. I wanted to be the first to tell you that we have won a second great victory over the enemy. For a week, my legions, in close alliance with those of the gallant Hirtius, probed the defences of Antony’s camp for weaknesses. Last night we found a suitable place and this morning we attacked. The fighting was bloody and obstinate, the slaughter great. I was in the midst of it. My standard-bearer was killed beside me. I shouldered the eagle and carried it. This rallied our men. Decimus, seeing that the decisive moment had arrived, at last led his forces out of Mutina and joined the battle. The greater part of Antony’s army was destroyed. The villain himself, with his cavalry, has fled, and judging by the direction of his flight he means to cross the Alps.

So much is wonderful. But now I must tell you the hard part. Hirtius, despite his failing health, advanced with great spirit into the very heart of the enemy camp and had reached Antony’s own tent when he was struck down by a fatal sword thrust to his neck. I have retrieved his body and will return it to Rome, where I am sure you will see that he receives the honours due to a brave consul. I shall write again when I can. Perhaps you will tell his sister.

When he had finished reading, Cicero passed me the letter, then clenched his fists together and raised his eyes to heaven. ‘I thank the gods I have been allowed to see this moment.’

‘Though it is a pity about Hirtius,’ I added. I was thinking of all those dinners under the stars in Tusculum.

‘True – I am very sorry for his sake. Still: how much better to die swiftly and gloriously in battle rather than lingeringly and squalidly on a sickbed. This war has been waiting for a hero. I shall make it my business to put Hirtius on the vacant plinth.’

He took Octavian’s letter with him to the Senate that morning, intending to read it aloud, to deliver ‘the eulogy to end all eulogies’ and to propose a state funeral for Hirtius. It was a measure of his buoyant spirits that he could take the loss of a consul so lightly. On the steps of the Temple of Concordia he met the urban praetor, who was also just arriving. Senators were streaming in to take their places. The auspices were being taken. Cornutus was grinning. He said, ‘I surmise by your expression that you too have heard the news of Antony’s final defeat?’

‘I am in raptures. Now we must make sure the villain doesn’t escape.’

‘Oh, take it from an old soldier – we have more than enough men to cut him off. A pity, though, that it cost us the life of a consul.’

‘Indeed – a wretched business.’ Side by side the two men began to climb the steps towards the entrance. Cicero said, ‘I thought I would deliver a eulogy, if that is all right by you.’

‘Of course, although Calenus has already asked me if he might say something.’

‘Calenus! What business is it of his?’

Cornutus stopped and turned to Cicero. He looked surprised. ‘Well, because Pansa was his son-in-law …’

‘What are you talking about? You’ve got it the wrong way round. Pansa isn’t dead; it’s Hirtius who has died.’

‘No, no. It’s Pansa, I assure you. I received a message from Decimus last night. Look.’ And he gave the dispatch to Cicero. ‘He says that once the siege was lifted, he set off directly for Bononia to consult with Pansa on how they should best pursue Antony, only to discover that he had succumbed to the wounds he received in the first battle.’

Cicero refused to believe it. Only when he read Decimus’s letter did he have to concede there was no doubt. ‘But Hirtius is dead as well – killed while storming Antony’s camp. I have a letter here from young Caesar confirming that he has taken custody of the body.’

‘Both consuls are dead?’

‘It’s unimaginable.’ Cicero appeared so dazed by the news, I thought he might topple backwards down the steps. ‘In the entire existence of the republic, only eight consuls have died during their year in office. Eight – in nearly five hundred years! And now we lose two in the same week!’

Some of the passing senators had stopped to look at them. Conscious that they were being overheard, Cicero drew Cornutus to one side and spoke to him in a quiet, urgent voice. ‘This is a dark moment, but we must live through it. Nothing can be allowed to impede our pursuit and destruction of Antony. That is the alpha and omega of our policy. There are plenty of our colleagues who will try to exploit this tragedy to create mischief.’

‘Yes, but who will command our forces in the absence of the consuls?’

Cicero made a sound that was something between a groan and a sigh and put his hand to his brow. What a mess this made of all his careful planning, of all his delicate balancing of power! ‘Well, I suppose there’s no alternative. It will have to be Decimus. He’s the senior in age and experience, and he’s the governor of Nearer Gaul.’

‘What about Octavian?’

‘Leave Octavian to me. But we will need to vote him the most extraordinary thanks and honours if we’re to keep him in our camp.’

‘Is it wise to make him up to be so mighty? One day he’ll turn on us, I’m sure of it.’

‘Perhaps he will. But we can deal with him later. He can be raised, praised and erased.’

It was the sort of cynical remark Cicero often made for effect: a play on words; a knowing joke, nothing more. Cornutus said, ‘Very good, I must remember that – raised, praised, erased.’ Then the two discussed how best to break the news to the Senate, what motions should be proposed and how the votes should be taken, and after that they proceeded into the temple.

‘The nation has sustained a triumph and a tragedy in the same breath,’ Cicero told the silent Senate. ‘A mortal danger has been lifted but only at a mortal price. The news has just been received that we have won a second and decisive victory at Mutina. Antony is in flight with his few remaining followers, to where we do not know – to the north, to the mountains, to the gates of hell itself for all we care!’ (My notes record cheers at this point.) ‘But gentlemen, I have to tell you: Hirtius is dead. Pansa is dead.’ (Gasps, cries, protests.) ‘The gods demanded a sacrifice in expiation for our weakness and our folly over recent months and years, and our two gallant consuls have paid it in full measure. In due course their earthly remains will be returned to the city. We will lay them to rest with solemn honours. We will build a great monument to their valour that men will gaze upon for a thousand years. But we will honour them best by finishing the task they so nearly completed and extirpating Antony once and for all. (Applause.)

‘I propose that in the light of the loss of our consuls at Mutina, and mindful of the need to prosecute the war to its end, Decimus Junius Albinus be appointed commander-in-chief of the Senate’s armies in the field and that Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus should be his deputy in all matters; and that in recognition of their brilliant generalship, heroism and success, the name of Decimus Junius Albinus should be added to the Roman calendar to mark his birthday for eternity, and that Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus should be awarded the honour of an ovation as soon as it is convenient for him to come to Rome to receive it.’

The ensuing debate was full of mischief. As Cicero wrote to Brutus, That day I realised that gratitude has considerably fewer votes in the Senate than spite. Isauricus, as jealous of Octavian as he had been of Antony, objected to the idea of awarding him an ovation, which would allow him to parade with his legions through Rome. In the end Cicero was only able to carry his proposal by agreeing to give Decimus the even greater honour of a triumph. A commission of ten men was set up to settle the remuneration, in cash and land, of all the soldiers: the idea was to draw them away from Octavian, reduce their bounty and put them on the payroll of the Senate. To add insult to this injury, neither Octavian nor Decimus was invited to join the commission. Calenus, dressed in mourning, also demanded that his son-in-law’s doctor, Glyco, be arrested and examined under torture if necessary to determine whether Pansa’s death was murder: ‘Remember we were assured to begin with that his injuries were not serious, but now we can see that certain persons stand to gain greatly by his removal’ – an obvious reference to Octavian.

All in all it was a bad day’s work, and Cicero had to sit down that night and explain to Octavian what had happened.

I am sending you by the same courier the resolutions that have today been agreed by the Senate. I hope you will accept the logic of our placing you and your soldiers under the command of Decimus, just as you were previously subordinate to the consuls. The Commission of Ten is a bit of nonsense I shall try to have rescinded: give me time. You should have been there, my dear friend, to hear the encomia! The rafters rang with praise of your daring and loyalty, and I am glad to say that you will be the youngest commander in the history of the republic to be granted the distinction of an ovation. Press on with your pursuit of Antony, and keep that place in your heart for me that I keep in mine for you.

After that there was silence.

For a long time Cicero heard nothing from the theatre of operations. That was not surprising. It was remote, inhospitable country. He comforted himself by imagining Antony with his lonely band of followers struggling along the inaccessible narrow mountain passes while Decimus raced to try to cut him off. It was not until the thirteenth day of May that news arrived from Decimus – and then, as is often the way with these things, not one but three dispatches arrived all at once. I took them straight to Cicero in his study; he opened the document case greedily and read them aloud in order. The first was dated the twenty-ninth of April and put Cicero on his guard at once: I shall try to ensure that Antony is unable to maintain himself in Italy. I shall be after him immediately.

‘Immediately?’ said Cicero, checking again the date at the head of the letter. ‘What is he talking about? He’s already writing eight days after Antony fled Mutina …’

The next dispatch was written a week later, when Decimus was finally on the march:

The reasons, my dear Cicero, why I was unable to pursue Antony at once are these. I had no cavalry, no pack animals. I did not know of Hirtius’s death. I did not trust Caesar until I had met and talked to him. So the first day passed. Early on the next I had a message from Pansa summoning me to Bononia. As I was on my way, I received the report of his death. I hastened back to my own apology for an army. It is most sadly reduced and in very bad shape through lack of all the necessities. Antony got two days’ start of me and made far longer marches as the pursued than I as the pursuer, for he went helter-skelter, while I moved in regular order. Wherever he went he opened up the slave barracks and carried off the men, stopping nowhere until he reached Vada. He seems to have made up a pretty sizeable body. He may go to Lepidus.

If Caesar had listened to me and crossed the Apennines I should have put Antony in so tight a corner that he would have been finished by lack of supplies rather than cold steel. But there is no giving orders to Caesar, nor by Caesar to his army – both very bad things. What alarms me is how this situation can be straightened out. I cannot any longer feed my men.

The third letter was written a day after the second and dispatched from the foothills of the Alps: Antony is on the march. He is going to Lepidus. Please look to future action in Rome. You will counter the world’s malice towards me if you can.

‘He has let him get away,’ said Cicero, resting his head in his hand and reading the letters through again. ‘He has let him get away! And now he says that Octavian can’t or won’t obey him as commander-in-chief. Well, this is a pretty mess!’

He wrote a letter at once for the courier to take back to Decimus:

From what you write, the flames of war, so far from having been extinguished, seem to be blazing higher. We understood that Antony had fled in despair with a few unarmed and demoralised followers. If in fact his condition is such that a clash with him will be a dangerous matter, I do not regard him as having fled from Mutina at all but as having shifted the war to another theatre.

The next day, the funeral cortege of Hirtius and Pansa reached Rome, escorted by an honour guard of cavalry sent by Octavian. It passed through the streets to the Forum at dusk, watched by hushed and sombre crowds. At the base of the rostra the Senate, all in black togas, waited by torchlight to receive it. Cornutus gave a eulogy that Cicero had written for him, and then the vast assembly walked behind the biers to the Field of Mars, where the pyres had been prepared. As a mark of patriotic respect the undertakers, actors and musicians refused to take any payment; Cicero joked that when an undertaker won’t take your money, you know you are a hero. But beneath his public show of bravado, in private he was profoundly troubled. As the torches were put to the base of the pyres, and the flames shot up, Cicero’s face in the firelight looked old and hollowed with worry.

Almost as worrying as the fact that Antony had escaped was that Octavian either would not or could not obey Decimus’s order. Cicero wrote to him, pleading with him to abide by the Senate’s edict and place himself and his legions under the governor’s command: Let any differences be sorted out after victory has been attained; believe me, the surest way to achieve the highest honour in the state will be to play the fullest part now in destroying its greatest enemy. Ominously, he received no reply.

Then Decimus wrote again:

Labeo Segulius tells me that he has been with Octavian and that a good deal of talk about you took place. Octavian to be sure made no complaints about you, he says, except for a remark which he attributed to you: ‘The young man should be raised, praised and erased.’ He added that he had no intention of letting himself be erased. As for the veterans, they are grumbling viciously about you and you are in danger from them. They mean to terrorise you and replace you with the young man.

I had long warned Cicero that his fondness for making puns and amusing asides would one day land him in trouble. But he couldn’t help himself. He had always enjoyed a reputation as a caustic wit, and as he grew older he had only to open his mouth and people would flock around him, eager to laugh. The attention flattered him and served to inspire him to make ever more cutting remarks. His dry observations were quickly repeated; sometimes phrases were attributed to him he had never even uttered: indeed, I have compiled a whole book of these apocrypha. Caesar used to delight in his barbs, even when he was himself the target – for example, when as dictator he changed the calendar and someone enquired whether the Dog Star would still rise on the same date, Cicero replied, ‘It will do as it is told.’ Caesar was said to have roared with laughter. But his adopted son, whatever his other merits, was deficient when it came to a sense of humour, and for once Cicero took my advice and wrote a letter of apology.

I gather that confounded fool Segulius is going round telling all and sundry about some joke I am supposed to have made, and that now word of it has reached your ears. I cannot remember making the remark but I shall not disown it, for it sounds the sort of thing I might have said – lightly delivered, meant for the moment, not fit to be examined as a serious statement of policy. I know I do not need to tell you how fond I am of you, how zealously I guard your interests, how determined I am that you should play the leading part in our affairs in the years to come; but if I have caused offence, I am truly sorry.

His letter drew this response:

From G. Caesar to Cicero.

My feelings for you are unchanged. No apology is needed, although if it pleases you to make one, naturally I accept it. Unfortunately my supporters are not so easy-going. They warn me every day that I am a fool to put my faith in you and in the Senate. Your unguarded remark was catnip to them. Really – that Senate edict! How could I have been expected to place myself under the command of the man who lured my father to his death? My relations with Decimus are civil but we never can be friends, and my men, who are my father’s veterans, will never follow him. There is only one circumstance, they say, that would make them fight for the Senate without reservation: if I am made consul. Is that impossible? Both consulships are vacant after all, and if I can be pro-praetor at nineteen, why not consul?

This letter made Cicero blanch. He wrote back at once to say that, divinely inspired though Octavian was, the Senate would never agree to a man not yet even twenty becoming consul. Octavian replied equally swiftly:

My youth, it seems, is not an impediment to my leading an army on the field of battle but it is to my becoming consul. If age is the only issue, could I not have as a consular colleague someone who is as old as I am young, and whose political wisdom and experience would make up for my lack of it?

Cicero showed the letter to Atticus. ‘What do you make of this? Is he suggesting what I think he is?’

‘I’m sure that’s what he’s implying. Would you do it?’

‘I can’t pretend the honour would be meaningless to me – very few men have been consul twice; that would mean immortal glory, and I’m doing the job in all but name in any case. But the price! We’ve already had to confront one Caesar with an army at his back demanding an illegal consulship, and we ended up fighting a war to try to stop him. Do we now have to confront another, and this time tamely surrender to him? How would it look to the Senate, and to Brutus and Cassius? Who is planting these ideas in the young man’s head?’

‘Perhaps he doesn’t need anyone to plant them there,’ Atticus replied. ‘Perhaps they arise quite spontaneously.’

Cicero made no reply. The possibility did not bear contemplating.

Two weeks later, Cicero received a letter from Lepidus, who was encamped with his seven legions at Pons Argenteus in southern Gaul. After he had read it, he leaned forwards and rested his head on his desk. With one hand he pushed the letter towards me.

We have long been friends but I have no doubt that in the present violent and unexpected political crisis my enemies have brought you false and unworthy reports about me, designed to give your patriotic heart no small disquiet. I have one earnest request to make of you, dear Cicero. If previously my life and endeavour, my diligence and good faith in the conduct of public affairs have to your knowledge been worthy of the name I bear, I beg you to expect equal or greater things in time to come, as your kindness places me further and further in your debt.

‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Why are you so upset?’

Cicero sighed and sat up straight. To my alarm I saw that he had tears in his eyes. ‘Because it means he intends to join forces with Antony and is providing himself with an alibi in advance. His duplicity is so clumsy it’s almost endearing.’

He was right of course. On that very day, the thirtieth of May, when Cicero was receiving Lepidus’s false assurances, Antony himself – long-haired and bearded after almost forty days on the run – was arriving on the riverbank opposite Lepidus’s camp. He waded chest-deep through the water wearing a dark cloak, went up to the palisade and began talking to the legionaries. Many recognised him from the Gallic and the civil wars; they flocked to hear him. The next day he brought all his forces over the river and Lepidus’s men welcomed them with outstretched arms. They tore down their fortifications and let Antony stroll unarmed into the camp. He treated Lepidus with the greatest respect, called him by the title ‘Father’ and insisted that if he joined his cause he would retain the rank and honours of a general. The soldiers cheered. Lepidus agreed.

Or that at least was the story they cooked up together. Cicero was sure they had been partners from the start and that their rendezvous had been arranged in advance. It simply made Lepidus seem less of the traitor he was if he could pretend he had bowed to force majeure.

It took nine days for Lepidus’s dispatch announcing this shattering turn of events to reach the Senate, although panicky rumours ran ahead of his messenger. Cornutus read it out in the Temple of Concordia:

I call on gods and men to witness how my heart and mind have ever been disposed towards the commonwealth and freedom. Of this I should shortly have given you proof, had not Fortune wrested the decision out of my hands. My entire army, faithful to its inveterate tendency to conserve Roman lives and the general peace, has mutinied; and, truth to tell has compelled me to join them. I beg and implore you, do not treat the compassion shown by myself and my army in a conflict between fellow countrymen as a crime.

When the urban praetor finished reading, there was a great collective sigh, a groan almost, as if the whole chamber had been holding its breath in the hope that the rumours would turn out not to be true. Cornutus gestured to Cicero to open the debate. In the ensuing silence as Cicero rose to his feet one could feel an almost childlike yearning for reassurance. But Cicero had none to offer.

‘This news from Gaul, which we have long suspected and dreaded, comes as no surprise, gentlemen. The only shock is the impudence of Lepidus in taking us all to be idiots. He begs us, he implores us, he entreats us – this creature! No, not even that: these bitter, squalid dregs of a noble line that merely assume the form of a human being! – he begs us not to regard his treachery as a crime. The cowardice of the fellow! I would have more respect for him if he came right out and told the truth: that he sees an opportunity to further his monstrous ambitions and has found a fellow thief to be his partner in crime. I propose that he be declared a public enemy forthwith and that all his property and estates be confiscated to help us pay for the fresh legions we shall require to replace those he has stolen from the state.’

This drew loud applause.

‘But it will take us a while to raise new forces, and in the meantime we must face the salutary fact that our strategic situation is perilous in the extreme. If the fires of rebellion in Gaul spread to Plancus’s four legions – and I fear we must brace ourselves for that possibility – we may have the best part of sixty thousand men ranged against us.’

Cicero had decided beforehand that he would not try to disguise the extent of the crisis. Silence gave way to murmurs of alarm.

‘We should not despair,’ he continued, ‘not least because we have that number of soldiers ourselves, assembled by the noble and gallant Brutus and Cassius – but they are in Macedonia; they are in Syria; they are in Greece; they are not in Italy. We also have one legion of new recruits in Latium, and the two African legions that are even now at sea and on their way home to defend the capital. And then there are the armies of Decimus and Caesar – although the one is enfeebled and the other truculent.

‘We have every chance, in other words. But there is no time to be lost.

‘I propose that this Senate orders Brutus and Cassius immediately to send back to Italy sufficient forces to enable us to defend Rome; that we intensify our levies to raise new legions; and that we impose an emergency tax on property of one per cent to enable us to purchase arms and equipment. If we do all of this, and if we draw strength from the spirit of our ancestors and the justice of our cause, it remains my confident belief that liberty will triumph in the end.’

He delivered his closing remarks with all his usual force and vigour. But when he sat down, there was scant applause. The dreadful stench of likely defeat hung in the air, as acrid as burning pitch.

Isauricus rose next. Hitherto this haughty and ambitious patrician had been the staunchest senatorial opponent of the presumptuous Octavian. He had denounced his elevation to a special praetorship; he had even tried to deny him the relatively modest honour of an ovation. But now he delivered a paean of praise to the young Caesar that amazed everyone. ‘If Rome is to be defended against Antony’s ambitions, backed up now by the forces of Lepidus, then I have come to believe that Caesar is the man upon whom we must chiefly rely. His is the name that can conjure armies from thin air and make them march and fight. His is the shrewdness that can bring us peace. As a symbol of my faith in him, I have to tell you, gentlemen, that I have lately offered him the hand of my daughter in marriage, and I am gratified to be able to tell you he has accepted.’

Cicero twitched suddenly in his seat as if he had been caught by some invisible hook. But Isauricus hadn’t finished yet: ‘To bind this excellent young man to our cause still further, and to encourage his men to fight against Mark Antony, I propose the following motion: that in view of the grave military situation created by the treachery of Lepidus, and mindful of the service he has already rendered to the republic, the constitution be so amended that Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus may be permitted to stand for the office of consul in absentia.’

Afterwards Cicero cursed himself for not having seen this coming. It was obvious, once one stopped to think about it, that if Octavian could not persuade Cicero to stand for the consulship as his partner, then he would ask someone else. But occasionally even the shrewdest statesman misses the obvious, and now Cicero found himself in an awkward spot. He had to assume that Octavian had already done a deal with his putative father-in-law. Should he accept it with good grace or should he oppose it? He had no time to think. All around him the benches were abuzz with speculation. Isauricus was sitting with his arms folded, looking very pleased with the sensation he had created. Cornutus called upon Cicero to respond to the proposition.

He stood slowly, adjusting his toga, glancing around, clearing his throat – all his familiar delaying tactics to purchase some time to think. ‘May I first of all congratulate the noble Isauricus on the excellent family connection he has just announced? I know the young man to be honourable, moderate, modest, sober, patriotic, valiant in war and of calm good judgement – everything in short that a son-in-law should be. He has had no stronger advocate in this Senate than I. His future career in the republic is both glittering and assured. He will be consul, I am sure. But whether he should be consul when he is not yet twenty and solely because he has an army is a different matter.

‘Gentlemen, we embarked upon this war with Antony for a principle: the principle that no man – however gifted, however powerful, however ambitious for glory – should be above the law. Whenever in the course of my thirty years in the service of the state we have yielded to temptation and ignored the law, often for what seemed at the time to be good reasons, we have slipped a little further toward the precipice. I helped to pass the special legislation that gave Pompey unprecedented powers to fight the war against the pirates. The war was a great success. But the most lasting consequence was not the defeat of the pirates: it was to create the precedent that enabled Caesar to rule Gaul for almost a decade and to grow too mighty for the state to contain him.

‘I do not say that the younger Caesar is like the elder. But I do say that if we make him consul, and in effect give him control of all our forces, then we will betray the very principle for which we fight: the principle that drew me back to Rome when I was on the point of sailing to Greece – that the Roman Republic, with its division of powers, its annual free elections for every magistracy, its law courts and its juries, its balance between Senate and people, its liberty of speech and thought, is mankind’s noblest creation, and I would sooner lie choking in my own blood upon the ground than betray the principle on which all this stands – that is, first and last and always, the rule of law.’

His remarks elicited warm applause and entirely set the course of the debate – so much so that Isauricus, with icy formality and a glare at Cicero, later withdrew his proposal and it was never voted upon.

I asked Cicero if he intended to write to Octavian to explain his stand. He shook his head. ‘My reasons are in my speech and he will have it in his hands soon enough – my enemies will see to that.’

In the days that followed he was as busy as he had ever been – writing to Brutus and Cassius to urge them to come to the aid of the tottering republic (the commonwealth is in the gravest peril because of the criminal folly of M. Lepidus), overseeing the tax inspectors as they set about raising revenue, touring the blacksmiths’ yards to cajole them into making more weapons, inspecting the newly raised legion with Cornutus, who had been appointed military defender of Rome. But he knew the cause was hopeless, especially when he saw Fulvia being carried openly in a litter across the Forum, accompanied by a large entourage.

‘I thought we were rid of that shrew, at least,’ he complained over dinner, ‘yet here she is, still in Rome and flaunting herself around, even though her husband has at last been declared a public enemy. Is it in any wonder we’re in such desperate straits? How is it possible, when all her property is supposed to have been seized?’

There was a pause and then Atticus said quietly, ‘I lent her some money.’

‘You?’ Cicero leaned across the table and peered at him as if he were some mysterious stranger. ‘Why on earth would you do that?’

‘I felt sorry for her.’

‘No you didn’t. You wanted to put Antony under an obligation to you. It’s insurance. You think we’re going to lose.’

Atticus did not deny it, and Cicero left the table.

At the end of that wretched month, ‘July’, reports reached the Senate that Octavian’s army had struck camp in Nearer Gaul, crossed the Rubicon, and was marching on Rome. Even though he had been half expecting it, the news still struck Cicero as a tremendous blow. He had given his word to the Roman people that if ‘the heaven-sent boy’ was given imperium, he would be a model citizen. Every imaginable evil chance has dogged us in this war, he lamented to Brutus. As I write, I am in great distress, because it hardly looks as though I can make good my promises in respect to the young man, boy almost, for whom I went bail to the republic. It was then he asked me if I thought he was honour-bound to kill himself, and for the first time I saw that he was not saying it for effect. I replied that I did not think it had come to that yet.

‘Perhaps not, but I must be ready. I don’t want these veterans of Caesar’s torturing me to death as they did Trebonius. The question is how to do it. I’m not sure I could face a blade – do you think posterity will reckon the less of me if I choose Socrates’s method and take hemlock instead?’

‘I am sure not.’

He asked me to acquire some of the poison on his behalf and I went to see his doctor that same day, who gave me a small jar. He did not ask why I wanted it; I suppose he knew. Despite the wax seal, I could smell its rank odour, like mouse droppings. ‘It’s made from the seeds,’ he explained, ‘the most poisonous part of the plant, which I have crushed into a powder. The smallest dose, no more than a pinch, swallowed with water, should do the trick.’

‘How long does it take to work?’

‘Three hours or thereabouts.’

‘Is it painful?’

‘It induces slow suffocation – what do you think?’

I put the jar into a box in my room, and placed the box inside a locked chest, as if by hiding it away, death itself could be postponed.

The next day, gangs of Octavian’s legionaries began to appear in the Forum. He had sent four hundred on ahead of his main army, with the aim of intimidating the Senate into granting him the consulship. Whenever they saw a senator, they surrounded him and jostled him and showed him their swords, although they never actually drew their weapons. Cornutus, as an old soldier, refused to be threatened. Determined to visit Cicero on the Palatine, the urban praetor pushed and shoved them back until they let him through. But he advised Cicero that on no account should he venture out himself unless he had a strong escort: ‘They hold you as much responsible for Caesar’s death as they do Decimus or Brutus.’

‘If only I had been responsible! Then we would have taken care of Antony at the same time and we wouldn’t be in the mess we are today.’

‘Well here is some better news for you: the African legions arrived last night, and we didn’t lose a single ship. Eight thousand men and a thousand cavalry are disembarking at Ostia even as I speak. That should be enough to hold off Octavian, at least until Brutus and Cassius send us help.’

‘But are they loyal?’

‘So their commanders assure me.’

‘Then bring them here as quickly as possible.’

The legions were only a day’s march from Rome. As they approached the city, Octavian’s men slipped away into the surrounding countryside. When the vanguard reached the salt warehouses, Cornutus ordered the column to parade through the Trigemina Gate and across the Forum Boarium in full view of the crowds in order to steady civilian morale. Then they took up position on the Janiculum. From these strategic heights they controlled the western approaches to Rome and could deploy rapidly to block any invading force. Cornutus asked Cicero if he would come out and inspire the men with a rousing speech. Cicero agreed, and he was carried out of the city gates in a litter accompanied by fifty legionaries on foot. I rode on a mule.

It was a hot, muggy day without a tremor of wind. We crossed the River Tiber over the Sublician Bridge and traipsed along a road of dried mud through the shanty towns that have for as long as I can remember filled the flat plain of the Vaticanum. It was notoriously malarial in the summer, and swarming with hostile insects. Cicero’s litter had the protection of a mosquito net but I did not, and the insects whined in my ears. The whole place stank of human filth. Children, pot-bellied with hunger watched us listlessly from the doorways of tumbling shacks, while all around them, disregarded and pecking away at the rubbish, were hundreds of the crows that nest in the nearby sacred grove. We passed through the gates of the Janiculum and went up the hill. The place was teeming with soldiers. They had pitched their tents wherever they could find some space.

On the flatter ground at the top of the slope Cornutus had drawn up four cohorts – almost two thousand men. They stood in lines in the heat. The light on their helmets dazzled as brightly as the sun, and I had to shield my eyes. When Cicero stepped out of his litter there was absolute silence. Cornutus conducted him to a low platform beside an altar. A sheep was sacrificed. Its guts were pulled out and examined by the haruspices and declared propitious: ‘There is no doubt of ultimate victory.’ The crows circled overhead. A priest read a prayer. Then Cicero spoke.

I cannot remember exactly what he said. All the usual words were there – liberty, ancestors, hearths and altars, laws and temples – but for once I listened without hearing. I was looking at the faces of the legionaries. They were sunburnt, lean, impassive. Some were chewing mastic. I saw the scene through their eyes. They had been recruited by Caesar to fight against King Juba and the army of Cato. They had slaughtered thousands and had been stuck in Africa ever since. They had travelled hundreds of miles crammed together in boats. They had been force-marched for a day. Now they were lined up in the heat in Rome and an old man was talking at them about liberty, ancestors, hearths and altars – and it meant nothing.

Cicero finished speaking. There was silence. Cornutus ordered them to give three cheers. The silence continued. Cicero stepped off the platform and got back into his litter and we returned down the hill, past the saucer-eyed starving children.

Cornutus came to see Cicero the following morning and told him that the African legions had mutinied overnight. It seemed that Octavian’s men had crept back from the countryside in the darkness, infiltrated the camps and promised the soldiers twice as much money as the Senate could afford to pay them. Meanwhile Octavian’s main army was reported to be moving south along the Via Flaminia and was barely a day’s march away.

‘What will you do now?’ Cicero asked him.

‘Kill myself,’ came the reply, and he did, that same evening, pressing the tip of his sword to his stomach and falling upon it heavily rather than surrender.

He was an honourable man and deserves to be remembered, not least because he was the only member of the Senate who took that course. When Octavian was close to the city, most of the leading patricians went out to meet him on the road to escort him into Rome. Cicero sat in his study with the shutters closed. The air was so close it was hard to breathe. I looked in from time to time but he did not seem to have moved. His noble head, staring straight ahead and silhouetted against the faint light from the window, was like a marble bust in a deserted temple. Finally he noticed me and asked where Octavian had set up his headquarters.

I replied that he had moved into the home of his mother and stepfather on the Quirinal.

‘Perhaps you could send a message to Philippus and ask him what he suggests I should do.’

I did as he requested and the courier returned with a scrawled reply that Cicero ought to go and talk to Octavian: ‘You will find him, I am sure, as I did, disposed to mercy.’

Wearily Cicero got to his feet. The big house, usually thronged with visitors, was empty. It felt as if no one had lived in it for a long time. In the late summer afternoon sun the silent public rooms glowed as if made of gold and amber.

We went together, in a pair of litters accompanied by a small escort, to the house of Philippus. Sentries guarded the street and the front door but they must have been given orders to let Cicero through, for they parted at once. As we crossed the threshold, Isauricus was just leaving. I had expected him, as Octavian’s future father-in-law, to give Cicero a smile of condescension or of triumph; instead he scowled at him and hurried past us.

Through the heavy open door we could see Octavian standing in a corner of the tablinum dictating a letter to a secretary. He beckoned to us to enter. He seemed in no hurry to finish. He was wearing a simple military tunic. His body armour, helmet and sword lay scattered on a couch where he had flung them. He looked like a young recruit. Finally he ended his dictation and sent the secretary away.

He scrutinised Cicero in an amused way that reminded me of his adopted father. ‘You are the last of my friends to greet me.’

‘Well, I imagined you would be busy.’

‘Ah, is that it?’ Octavian laughed, revealing those terrible teeth of his. ‘I was presuming that you disapproved of my actions.’

Cicero shrugged. ‘The world is as it is. I have given up the habit of approving and disapproving. What’s the point? Men do as they please, whatever I think.’

‘So what is it you want to do? Do you want to be consul?’

For the merest fraction of a moment Cicero’s face seemed to flood with pleasure and relief, but then he understood that Octavian was joking and immediately the light went out of it again. He grunted, ‘Now you’re toying with me.’

‘I am. Forgive me. My colleague as consul will be Quintus Pedius, an obscure relative of mine of whom you will never have heard, which is the whole point of him.’

‘So not Isauricus?’

‘No. There seems to have been some misunderstanding there. I shan’t be marrying his daughter either. I shall spend some time here settling matters and then I must go and confront Antony and Lepidus. You can leave Rome too if you like.’

‘I can?’

‘Yes, you can leave Rome. You can write philosophy. You can go anywhere you please in Italy. However, you cannot return to Rome in my absence, nor can you attend the Senate. You cannot write your memoirs or anything political. You cannot leave the country and go to Brutus or Cassius. Is that acceptable? Will you give me your word? I can assure you my men would not be so generous.’

Cicero bowed his head. ‘It is generous. It is acceptable. I give you my word. Thank you.’

‘In return I will guarantee your safety, in recognition of our past friendship.’ He picked up a letter to signal that the audience was at an end. ‘One last thing,’ he said as Cicero turned to leave. ‘It makes no difference, but I would like to know: was it a joke, or would you really have erased me?’

‘I believe I would have done exactly the same as you are doing now,’ replied Cicero.