Dictator

V

The next morning, Cicero went to call on Bestia, taking me with him. The old rogue had a house on the Palatine. His expression when Cicero was shown in was comical in its astonishment. He had with him his son Atratinus, a clever lad who had only just donned the toga of manhood and was eager to begin his career. When Cicero announced that he wished to discuss his impending prosecution, Bestia naturally assumed he was about to receive another writ and grew quite menacing. It was only thanks to the intervention of the boy, who was in awe of Cicero, that he was persuaded to sit down and listen to what his distinguished visitor had to say.

Cicero said, ‘I have come here to offer my services in your defence.’

Bestia gaped at him. ‘And why in the name of the gods would you do that?’

‘I have undertaken later in the month to appear on behalf of Publius Sestius. Is it true that you saved his life during the fighting in the Forum when I was in exile?’

‘I did.’

‘Well then, Bestia, chance for once throws us on the same side. If I appear for you, I can describe the incident at great length and that will help me lay the ground for Sestius’s defence, which will be heard by the same court. Who are your other advocates?’

‘Herennius Balbus to open, and then my son here to follow.’

‘Good. Then with your agreement I’ll speak third and do the winding-up – my usual preference. I’ll put on a good show, don’t worry. We should have the whole thing wrapped up in a day or two.’

Bestia by this time had moved from an attitude of deep suspicion to one of hardly being able to believe his luck that the greatest advocate in Rome was willing to speak on his behalf. And when Cicero strolled into court a couple of days later, his appearance provoked gasps of surprise. Rufus in particular was stunned. The very fact that Cicero, of all people – whom Bestia had once plotted to murder – should now appear as his supporter more or less guaranteed his acquittal. And so it proved. Cicero made an eloquent speech, the jury voted, and Bestia was found not guilty.

As the court was rising, Rufus came over to Cicero. For once his normal charm was gone. He had been counting on an easy victory; instead his career had been checked. He said bitterly, ‘Well I hope you’re satisfied, although such a triumph brings you nothing but dishonour.’

‘My dear Rufus,’ replied Cicero, ‘have you learnt nothing? There is no more honour in a legal dispute than there is in a wrestling match.’

‘What I’ve learnt, Cicero, is that you still bear me a grudge and will stop at nothing to gain revenge on your enemies.’

‘Oh my dear, poor boy, I don’t regard you as my enemy. You’re not important enough. I have bigger fish to catch.’

That really infuriated Rufus. He said, ‘Well, you can tell your client that as he insists on continuing as a candidate, I shall bring a second charge against him tomorrow – and the next time you rise in his defence, if you dare, I give you fair warning: I shall be waiting for you!’

He was as good as his word: very soon afterwards, Bestia and his son brought the new writ round to show Cicero. Bestia said hopefully, ‘You’ll defend me again, I hope?’

‘Oh no, that would be very foolish. One can’t spring the same surprise twice. No, I’m afraid I can’t be your advocate again.’

‘So what’s to be done?’

‘Well, I can tell you what I’d do in your place.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘I’d lay a counter-suit against him.’

‘For what?’

‘Political violence. That takes precedence over bribery cases. Therefore you’ll have the advantage of putting him on trial first, before he can get you into court.’

Bestia conferred with his son. ‘We like the sound of it,’ he announced. ‘But can we really make a case against him? Has he actually committed political violence?’

‘Of course,’ said Cicero. ‘Didn’t you hear? He was involved in the murder of several of those Egyptian envoys. Ask around town,’ he continued. ‘You’ll find lots of people willing to tell tales. There’s one man in particular you should go to see, although of course you never heard the name from me: you’ll understand why the moment I say it. You should talk to Clodius, or better still to that sister of his. I hear Rufus used to be her lover, and when his ardour cooled, he tried to get rid of her with poison. You know what that family is like – they love their vengeance. You should offer to let them join your suit. With the Claudii beside you, you’ll be unbeatable. But remember – you never got any of this from me.’

I had worked very closely with Cicero for many years. I had grown used to his clever tricks. I did not think him capable of surprising me any more. That day proved me wrong.

Bestia thanked him profusely, swore to be discreet and went off full of purpose. A few days later, a notice to prosecute was posted in the Forum: he and Clodius had combined forces to charge Rufus with both the attacks on the Alexandrian envoys and the attempted murder of Clodia. The news caused a sensation. Almost everyone believed that Rufus would be found guilty and sentenced to exile for life, and that the career of Rome’s youngest senator was over.

When I showed him the list of charges, Cicero said, ‘Oh dear. Poor Rufus. He must be feeling very wretched. I think we should visit him and cheer him up.’

And so we set off to find the house that Rufus was renting. Cicero, who at the age of fifty was starting to feel stiff in his limbs on cold winter mornings, rode in a litter, while I walked alongside him. Rufus turned out to be lodging on the second floor of an apartment block in the less fashionable part of the Esquiline, not far from the gate where the undertakers ply their trade. The place was gloomy even at midday, and Cicero had to ask the slaves to light candles. In the dim light we discovered their master in a drunken sleep, curled up beneath a pile of blankets on a couch. He groaned and rolled over and begged to be left alone, but Cicero dragged away his covers and told him to get up on his feet.

‘What’s the point? I’m finished!’

‘You’re not finished. Quite the contrary: we have that woman exactly where we want her.’

‘We?’ repeated Rufus, squinting up at Cicero through bloodshot eyes. ‘When you say “we”, does that imply you’re on my side?’

‘Not merely on your side, my dear Rufus. I am going to be your advocate!’

‘Wait,’ said Rufus. He touched his hand gently to his forehead, as if checking it was still intact. ‘Wait a moment – did you plan all this?’

‘Consider yourself to have been given a political education. And now let us agree that the slate is wiped clean between us, and concentrate on beating our common enemy.’ Rufus began to swear. Cicero listened for a while, then interrupted him. ‘Come, Rufus. This is a good bargain for us both. You’ll get that harpy off your back once and for all, and I’ll satisfy the honour of my wife.’

Cicero held out his hand. At first Rufus recoiled. He pouted and shook his head and muttered. But then he must have realised he had no choice. At any rate, eventually he extended his own hand, Cicero shook it warmly, and with that the trap he had laid for Clodia snapped shut.

The trial was scheduled to take place at the start of April, which meant it would coincide with the opening of the Festival of the Great Mother, with its famous parade of castrated holy men. Even so, there was no doubting which would be the greater attraction, especially when Cicero’s name was announced as one of Rufus’s advocates. The others were to be Rufus himself, and Crassus, in whose household Rufus had also served an internship as a young man. I am certain Crassus would have preferred not to have performed this service for his former protege, especially given the presence of Cicero on the bench beside him, but the rules of patronage placed him under a heavy obligation. On the other side once again were young Atratinus and Herennius Balbus – both furious at Cicero’s duplicity, not that he cared a fig for their opinion – and Clodius, representing the interests of his sister. No doubt he too would have preferred to be at the Great Mother’s festivities, which he, as aedile, was supposed to oversee, but he could hardly have backed out of the trial when his family’s honour was at stake.

I cherish my memories of Cicero at this time, in the weeks before Rufus’s trial. He seemed once again to hold all the threads of life in his hands, just as he had in his prime. He was active in the courts and in the Senate. He went out to dinner with his friends. He even moved back in to the house on the Palatine. True, it was not entirely finished. The place still reeked of lime and paint; workmen trailed mud in from the garden. But Cicero was so delighted to be back in his own home, he did not care. His furniture and books were fetched out of storage, the household gods were placed on the altar, and Terentia was summoned back from Tusculum with Tullia and Marcus.

Terentia entered the house cautiously and moved between the rooms with her nose wrinkled in distaste at the pungent smell of fresh plaster. She had never much cared for the place from the start, and was not about to change her opinion now. But Cicero persuaded her to stay: ‘That woman who caused you so much pain will never harm you again. She may have laid a hand on you. But I promise you: I shall flay her alive.’

He also, to his great delight, after two years’ separation, heard that Atticus had at last returned from Epirus. The moment he reached the city gates, he came straight round to inspect Cicero’s rebuilt house. Unlike Quintus, Atticus had not changed at all. His smile was still as constant, his charm as thickly laid-on – ‘Tiro, my dear fellow, thank you so much for taking care of my oldest friend so devotedly’ – his figure as trim, his silvery hair as sleek and well cut. The only difference was that now he trailed a shy young woman at least thirty years his junior, whom he introduced to Cicero … as his fiancee! I thought Cicero might faint with shock. Her name was Pilia. She was of an obscure family, with no money and no particular beauty either – just a quiet, homely country girl. But Atticus was besotted. At first Cicero was greatly put out. ‘It’s ridiculous,’ he grumbled to me when the couple had gone. ‘He’s three years older even than I am! Is it a wife he’s after or a nurse?’ I suspect he was mostly offended because Atticus had never mentioned her before, and worried that she might disrupt the easy intimacy of their friendship. But Atticus was so obviously happy, and Pilia so modest and cheerful, that Cicero soon came round to her, and sometimes I saw him glancing at her in an almost wistful way, especially when Terentia was being shrewish.

Pilia quickly became a close friend and confidante of Tullia. They were the same age and of similar temperaments, and I often saw them walking together, holding hands. Tullia had been a widow by this time for a year and encouraged by Pilia now declared herself ready to take a new husband. Cicero made enquiries about a suitable match and soon came up with Furius Crassipes – a young, rich, good-looking aristocrat, of an ancient but undistinguished family, eager for a career as a senator. He had also recently inherited a handsome house and a park just beyond the city walls. Tullia asked me for my opinion.

I said, ‘What I think doesn’t matter. The question is: do you like him?’

‘I think I do.’

‘Do you think you do or are you sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Then that is enough.’

In truth I thought Crassipes was more in love with the idea of Cicero as a father-in-law than Tullia as a wife. But I kept this view to myself. A wedding date was fixed.

Who knows the secrets of another’s marriage? Certainly not I. Cicero, for example, had long complained to me of Terentia’s peevishness, of her obsession with money, of her superstition and her coldness and her rude tongue. And yet the whole of this elaborate legal spectacle he had contrived to be enacted in the centre of Rome was for her – his means of making amends for all the wrongs she had suffered because of the failure of his career. For the first time in their long marriage, he laid at her feet the greatest gift he had to offer her: his oratory.

Not that she wanted to listen to it, mind you. She had hardly ever heard him speak in public, and never in the law courts, and had no desire to start now. It took considerable amounts of Cicero’s eloquence simply to persuade her to leave the house and come down to the Forum on the morning he was due to speak.

By this time the trial was in its second day. The prosecution had already laid out its case, Rufus and Crassus had responded, and only Cicero’s address remained to be heard. He had sat through the other speeches with barely concealed impatience; the details of the case were irrelevant to him and the advocates bored him. Atratinus, in his disconcertingly piping voice, had portrayed Rufus as a libertine, addicted to pleasure, sunk in debt, ‘a pretty-boy Jason in perpetual search of a golden fleece’ who had been paid by Ptolemy to intimidate the Alexandrian envoys and arrange the murder of Dio. Clodius had spoken next and described how his sister, ‘this chaste and distinguished widow’, had been tricked by Rufus into giving him gold out of the goodness of her heart – money she had thought was to finance public entertainment but which he had used to bribe Dio’s assassins – and how Rufus had then provided poison to her slaves to kill her and so cover his traces. Crassus, in his plodding way, and Rufus, with typical verve, had rebutted each of the charges. But the balance of opinion was that the prosecution had made its case and that the young reprobate was likely to be found guilty. This was the state of play when Cicero arrived in the Forum.

I conducted Terentia to her seat while he made his way through the thousands of spectators and went up the steps of the temple to the court. Seventy-five jurors had been empanelled. Beside them sat the praetor Domitius Calvinus with his lictors and scribes. To the left was the prosecution, with their witnesses arrayed behind them. And there in the front row, modestly attired but very much the centre of attention, was Clodia. She was almost forty but still beautiful, a grande dame with those famous huge dark eyes of hers that could invite intimacy one moment and threaten murder the next. She was known to be excessively close to Clodius – so much so that they had often been accused of incest. I saw her head turn very slightly to follow Cicero as he walked across to his place. Her expression was one of disdainful indifference. But she must have wondered what was coming.

Cicero adjusted the folds of his toga. He had no notes. A hush fell over the vast throng. He glanced across to where Terentia was sitting. Then he turned to the jury. ‘Gentlemen, anyone who doesn’t know our laws and customs might wonder why we are here, during a public festival, when all the other courts are suspended, to judge a young man of hard work and brilliant intellect – especially when it turns out he is being attacked by a person he once prosecuted, and by the wealth of a courtesan.’

At that, a great roar went rolling around the Forum, like the sound the crowd makes at the start of the games when a famous gladiator makes his first thrust. This was what they had come to see! Clodia stared straight ahead as if she had been turned to marble. I am sure that she and Clodius would never have brought their prosecution if they had thought there was a chance of Cicero being against them; but there was no escape now.

Having laid down a marker of what was to come, Cicero then proceeded to build his case. He conjured a picture of Rufus that was unrecognisable to those of us who knew him – of a sober, hard-working servant of the commonwealth whose main misfortune was to be ‘born not unhandsome’, and thus to have come to the attention of Clodia, ‘the Medea of the Palatine’, into whose neighbourhood he had moved. He stood behind the seated Rufus and clasped his hand on his shoulder. ‘His change of residence has been for this young man the cause of all his misfortunes and of all the gossip, for Clodia is a woman not only of noble birth but of notoriety, of whom I will say no more than what is necessary to refute the charges.’

He paused to allow the sense of anticipation to build. ‘Now, as many of you will know, I am on terms of great personal enmity with this woman’s husband …’ He stopped and snapped his fingers in exasperation. ‘I meant to say brother: I always make that mistake.’

His timing was perfect, and to this day even people who otherwise know nothing of Cicero still quote that joke. Almost everyone in Rome had felt the arrogance of the Claudii at some point down the years; to see them ridiculed was irresistible. Its effect not just on the audience but on the jury and even the praetor was wonderful to behold.

Terentia turned to me in puzzlement. ‘Why is everyone laughing?’

I did not know what to reply.

When order was restored, Cicero continued, with menacing friendliness: ‘Well, I am truly sorry to have to make this woman an enemy, especially as she is every other man’s friend. So let me first ask her whether she prefers me to deal with her severely, in the old-fashioned manner, or mildly, in the modern way?’

And then, to her evident horror, Cicero actually started walking across the court towards her. He was smiling, hand extended, inviting her to choose – the tiger playing with its prey. He halted barely a pace away from her.

‘If she prefers the old method, then I must call up from the dead one of those full-bearded men of antiquity to rebuke her …’

I have often pondered what Clodia should have done at this point. On reflection I believe her best course would have been to laugh along with Cicero – to try to win over the sympathy of the crowd by some piece of pantomime that would have shown she was entering into the spirit of the joke. But she was a Claudian. Never before had anyone dared openly to laugh at her, let alone the common people in the Forum. She was outraged, probably panicking, and so she responded in the worst way possible: she turned her back on Cicero like a sulky child.

He shrugged. ‘Very well, let me call up a member of her own family – to be specific, Appius Claudius the Blind. He will feel the least sorrow since he won’t be able to see her. If he were to appear, this is what he would say …’

And now Cicero addressed her in a ghostly voice, his eyes closed, his arms raised straight out in front of him; even Clodius started laughing. ‘Oh woman, what hast thou to do with Rufus, this stripling who is young enough to be thy son? Why hast thou been either so intimate with him as to give him gold, or caused such jealousy as to warrant the administering of poison? Why was Rufus so closely connected with thee? Is he a kinsman? A relative by marriage? A friend of thine late husband? None of these! What else could it have been then between you two except reckless passion? O woe! Was it for this that I brought water to Rome, that thou mightest use it after thy incestuous debauches? Was it for this that I built the Appian Way, that thou mightest frequent it with a train of other women’s husbands?’

With that, the ghost of old Appius Claudius evaporated and Cicero addressed Clodia’s turned back in his normal voice. ‘But if you prefer a more congenial relative, let us speak to you in the voice of your youngest brother over there, who loves you most dearly – who, as a boy, in fact, being of a nervous disposition and prey to night terrors, always used to get into bed with his big sister. Imagine him saying to you’ – and now Cicero perfectly imitated Clodius’s fashionable slouching stance and plebeian drawl – ‘what’s there to worry about, sister? So what if you fancied some young fellow. He was handsome. He was tall. You couldn’t get enough of him. You knew you were old enough to be his mother. But you were rich. So you bought him things to purchase his affection. It didn’t last long. He called you a hag. Well, forget him – just find yourself another one, or two, or ten. After all, that’s what you usually do.’

Clodius was no longer laughing. He looked at Cicero as if he would like to clamber over the benches of the court and strangle him. But the audience were laughing right enough. I glanced around and saw men and women with tears running down their cheeks. Empathy is the essence of the orator’s art. Cicero had that immense crowd entirely on his side, and after he had made them laugh with him, it was easy for him to make them share his outrage as he moved in for the kill.

‘I am now forgetting, Clodia, the wrongs you have done me; I am putting aside the memory of what I have suffered; I pass over your cruel actions towards my family during my absence; but I ask you this: if a woman without a husband opens her house to all men’s desires, and publicly leads the life of a courtesan; if she is in the habit of attending dinner parties with men who are perfect strangers; if she does this in Rome, in her park outside the city walls, and amid all those crowds on the Bay of Naples; if her embraces and caresses, her beach parties, her water parties, her dinner parties, proclaim her to be not only a courtesan, but also a shameless and wanton courtesan – if she does all that and a young man should be discovered consorting with this woman, should he be considered the corrupter or the corrupted, the seducer or the seduced?

‘This whole charge arises from a hostile, infamous, merciless, crime-stained, lust-stained house. An unstable and angry wanton of a woman has forged this accusation. Gentlemen of the jury: do not allow Marcus Caelius Rufus to be sacrificed to her lust. If you restore Rufus in safety to me, to his family, to the state, you will find in him one pledged, devoted and bound to you and to your children; and it is you above all, gentlemen, who will reap the rich and lasting fruits of all his exertions and labours.’

And with that it was over. For a moment Cicero stood there – one hand stretched towards the jury, the other towards Rufus – and there was silence. Then some great subterranean force seemed to rise from beneath the Forum, and an instant later the air began to tremble as several thousand pairs of feet stamped the ground and the crowd roared their approval. Someone started pointing repeatedly at Clodia and shouting, ‘Whore! Whore! Whore!’ and very quickly the chant was taken up all around us, the arms flashing out again and again: ‘Whore! Whore! Whore!’

Clodia looked out blank-faced with incredulity across this sea of hatred. She didn’t seem to notice that her brother had moved across the court and was standing beside her. But then he grasped her elbow and that seemed to jolt her out of her reverie. She glanced up at him, and finally, after some gentle coaxing, she allowed herself to be led off the platform and out of sight and into an obscurity from which it is fair to say she never again emerged as long as she lived.

Thus did Cicero exact his revenge on Clodia and reclaim his place as the dominant voice in Rome. It is hardly necessary to add that Rufus was acquitted and that Clodius’s loathing of Cicero was redoubled. ‘One day,’ he hissed, ‘you will hear a sound behind you, and when you turn, I shall be there, I promise you.’ Cicero laughed at the crudeness of the threat, knowing he was too popular for Clodius to dare to attack him – at least for now. As for Terentia, although she deplored the vulgarity of Cicero’s jokes and was appalled by the rudeness of the mob, nevertheless she was pleased by the utter social annihilation of her enemy, and as she and Cicero walked home, she took his arm – the first time I had witnessed such a public gesture of affection for years.

The following day, when Cicero went down the hill to attend a meeting of the Senate, he was mobbed both by the ordinary people and by the scores of senators waiting outside the chamber for the session to begin. As he received the congratulations of his peers, he looked exactly as he had done in his days of power, and I could see that he was quite intoxicated by his reception. As it happened, this was the Senate’s final meeting before it rose for its annual vacation, and there was a febrile mood in the air. After the haruspices had ruled the heavens propitious, and just as the senators started to file in for the start of the debate, Cicero beckoned me over and pointed on the order paper to the main subject to be discussed that day: the grant of forty million sesterces from the treasury to Pompey, to finance his grain purchases.

‘This could be interesting.’ He nodded to the figure of Crassus, just then stalking in to the chamber, wearing a grim expression. ‘I had a word with him about it yesterday. First Egypt, now this – he’s in a rage at Pompey’s megalomania. The thieves are at one another’s throats, Tiro: there could be an opportunity for mischief here.’

‘Be careful,’ I warned him.

‘Oh dear, yes: “Be careful!”’ he mocked, and tapped me on the head with the rolled-up order paper. ‘Well, I have a little power after yesterday, and you know what I always say: power is for using.’

With that he went off cheerfully into the Senate building.

I had not been intending to stay for the session, having much work to do in preparing Cicero’s speech of the previous day for publication. But now I changed my mind and went and stood at the doorway. The presiding consul was Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus, a patriotic aristocrat of the old sort – hostile to Clodius, supportive of Cicero and suspicious of Pompey. He made sure to call a series of speakers who all denounced the granting of such a huge sum to Pompey. As one pointed out, there was no money available in any case, every spare copper being swallowed up implementing Caesar’s law that gave the Campanian lands to Pompey’s veterans and the urban poor. The house grew rowdy. Pompey’s supporters heckled his opponents. His opponents shouted back. (Pompey himself was not allowed to be present, as the grain commission conveyed imperium – a power that barred its holders from entering the Senate.) Crassus looked gratified with the way things were going. Finally, Cicero indicated that he wished to speak, and the house became quiet as senators leaned forwards to hear what he had to say.

‘Honourable members,’ he said, ‘will recall that it was on my proposal that Pompey was given this grain commission in the first place, so I am hardly going to oppose it now. We cannot order a man to do a job one day, and then deny him the means with which to accomplish it the next.’ Pompey’s supporters murmured loud assent. Cicero held up his hand. ‘However, as has been eloquently pointed out, our resources are finite. The treasury cannot pay for everything. We cannot be expected to buy grain all over the world to feed our citizens for nothing and at the same time give free farms to soldiers and plebs. When Caesar passed his law, even he, with all his great powers of foresight, can hardly have imagined that a day was coming – and coming very soon – when veterans and the urban poor would have no need of farms to grow grain, because the grain would simply be given to them for nothing.’

‘Oh!’ shouted the benches of the aristocrats in delight. ‘Oh! Oh!’ And they pointed at Crassus, who, along with Pompey and Caesar, was one of the architects of the land laws. Crassus was staring hard at Cicero, although his face was impassive and it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

‘Would it not be prudent,’ continued Cicero, ‘in the light of changing circumstances, for this noble house to look again at the legislation passed during the consulship of Caesar? Now is obviously not the right occasion to discuss it fully, complex as the question is, and conscious as I am that the house is eager to rise for the recess. I would therefore propose that the issue be placed on the order paper at the first available opportunity when we reconvene.’

‘I second that!’ shouted Domitius Ahenobarbus, a patrician who was married to Cato’s sister, and who hated Caesar so much he had recently called for him to be stripped of his command in Gaul.

Several dozen other aristocrats also jumped up clamouring to add their support. Pompey’s men seemed too confused to react: after all, the main thrust of Cicero’s speech had seemed to be in support of their chief. It was indeed a tidy piece of mischief that Cicero had wrought, and when he sat down and glanced along the aisle in my direction, I almost fancy he winked at me. The consul held a whispered conference with his scribes and then announced that in view of the obvious support for Cicero’s motion, the issue would be debated on the Ides of May. With that the house was adjourned and the senators started moving towards the exit – none quicker than Crassus, who almost knocked me flying in his eagerness to get away.

Cicero, too, was determined to have a holiday, feeling he deserved one after seven months of non-stop strain and labour, and he had in mind the ideal destination. A wealthy tax farmer for whom he had done much legal work had lately died, leaving Cicero some property in his will – a small villa on the Bay of Naples, at Cumae, between the sea and the Lucrine Lake. (In those days, I should add, it was illegal to accept direct payment for one’s services as an advocate, but permissible to receive legacies; the rule was not always strictly observed.) Cicero had never seen the place but had heard that it enjoyed one of the loveliest aspects in the region. He proposed to Terentia that they should travel to inspect it together, and she agreed, although when she discovered I was to be included in the party, she plunged into another of her sulks.

‘I know how it will be,’ I overheard her complaining to Cicero. ‘I shall be left alone all day while you are closeted with your official wife!’

He made some soothing reply to the effect that no such thing would happen, and I was careful to keep out of her way.

On the eve of our departure, Cicero gave a dinner for his future son-in-law, Crassipes, who happened to mention that Crassus, to whom he was very close, had left Rome in a hurry the previous day, telling no one where he was going. Cicero said, ‘No doubt he’s heard of some elderly widow in a remote spot who is at death’s door and who might be persuaded to part with her property cheaply.’

Everyone laughed apart from Crassipes, who looked very prim. ‘I am sure he is simply taking a vacation, like everyone else.’

‘Crassus doesn’t take holidays – there’s no profit in them.’ Then Cicero raised his cup and proposed a toast to Crassipes and Tullia. ‘May their union be long and happy and blessed with many children – for preference I should like three at least.’

‘Father!’ exclaimed Tullia. She laughed and blushed and looked away.

‘What?’ asked Cicero, with an air of innocence. ‘I have the grey hairs and now I need the grandchildren to go with them.’

He rose from the table early. Before he left for the south he wanted to see Pompey. In particular he wanted to plead the case for Quintus to be allowed to relinquish his legateship and return home from Sardinia. He travelled to Pompey’s in a litter but ordered the porters to go slowly so that I could walk alongside and we could have some conversation. It was getting dark. We had to travel a mile or so, beyond the city walls, to the Pincian hill, where Pompey had his new suburban villa – or palace would be a better word for it – looking down on his vast complex of temples and theatres then nearing completion on the Field of Mars.

The great man was dining alone with his wife, and we had to wait for them to finish. In the vestibule a team of slaves was busy transferring piles of luggage to half a dozen wagons drawn up in the courtyard – so many trunks of clothes and boxes of tableware and carpets and furniture and even statues that it looked as if Pompey were planning to set up a new home somewhere. Eventually the couple appeared and Pompey presented Julia to Cicero, who in turn presented me to her.

‘I remember you,’ she said to me, although I’m sure she didn’t. She was only seventeen but very gracious. She possessed her father’s exquisite manners, and also something of his piercing way of looking at one, so that I had a sudden, disconcerting memory of Caesar’s naked hairless torso reclining on the massage table at his headquarters in Mutina: I had to shut my eyes to banish it.

She left almost at once, pleading the need to get a good night’s sleep before her travels the next day. Pompey kissed her hand – he was famously devoted to her – and took us through into his study. This was a vast room the size of a house, crammed with trophies from his many campaigns, including what he insisted was the cloak of Alexander the Great. He sat on a couch made out of a stuffed crocodile, which he said Ptolemy had given him, and invited Cicero to take the seat opposite.

Cicero said, ‘You look as though you are embarking on a military expedition.’

‘That’s what comes of travelling with one’s wife.’

‘Might I ask where you’re going?’

‘Sardinia.’

‘Ah,’ said Cicero, ‘that’s a coincidence. I wanted to ask you about Sardinia.’ And he proceeded to make an eloquent case for his brother to be allowed home, citing three reasons in particular – the length of time he had been away, his need to spend time with his son (who was turning into a troubled boy) and his preference for military rather than civil command.

Pompey heard him out, stroking his chin, reclining on his Egyptian crocodile. ‘If that’s what you want,’ he said. ‘Yes, he can come back. You’re right anyway – he isn’t much good at administration.’

‘Thank you. I’m obliged to you, as always.’

Pompey regarded Cicero with crafty eyes. ‘So I hear you caused a stir in the Senate the other day.’

‘Only on your behalf – I was simply trying to secure the funds for your commission.’

‘Yes, but by challenging Caesar’s laws.’ He wagged his finger in reproach. ‘That’s naughty of you.’

‘Caesar is not a god, infallible; his laws have not come down to us from Mount Olympus. Besides, if you’d been there and seen the pleasure Crassus was taking in all the attacks on you, I believe you would have wanted me to find some way to wipe the smile from his face. And by criticising Caesar, I certainly did that.’

Pompey brightened at once. ‘Oh well, I’m with you there!’

‘Believe me, Crassus’s ambition and disloyalty to you have been far more destabilising to the commonwealth than anything I have done.’

‘I agree entirely.’

‘In fact I’d suggest that if your alliance with Caesar is threatened by anyone, it’s him.’

‘How is that?’

‘Well, I don’t understand how Caesar can stand back and allow him to plot against you in this way, especially letting him employ Clodius. Surely as your father-in-law he owes his first duty to you? If Crassus carries on like this, he will sow much discord, I predict it now.’

‘He will.’ Pompey nodded. He looked crafty again. ‘You’re right, of course.’ He stood, and Cicero followed suit. He took Cicero’s hand in both his immense paws. ‘Thank you for coming to see me, my old friend. You have given me much food for thought during my voyage to Sardinia. We must write to one another often. Where exactly will you be?’

‘Cumae.’

‘Ah! I envy you. Cumae – the most beautiful spot in Italy.’

Cicero was well pleased with his night’s work. On the way home he said to me, ‘This triple alliance of theirs can’t last. It defies nature. All I have to do is keep chipping away at it, and sooner or later the whole rotten edifice will come crashing down.’

We left Rome at first light – Terentia, Tullia and Marcus all in the same carriage, along with Cicero, who was in great good humour – and made quick progress, stopping first for a night at Tusculum, which Cicero was glad to find habitable again, and then at the family estate in Arpinum, where we remained for a week. Finally from those cold high peaks of the Apennines we descended south to Campania.

With every mile the clouds of winter seemed to lift, the sky became bluer, the temperature warmer, the air more fragrant with the scent of pines and herbs, and when we joined the coastal road, the breeze off the sea was balmy. Cumae was then a much smaller and quieter town than it is today. At the Acropolis I gave a description of our destination and was directed by a priest to the eastern side of the Lucrine Lake, to a spot low in the hills, looking out across the lagoon and the narrow spit of land to the variegated blueness of the Mediterranean. The villa itself was small and dilapidated, with half a dozen elderly slaves to look after it. The wind blew through open walls; a section of the roof was missing. But it was worth every discomfort simply for the panorama. Down on the lake, little rowing boats moved among the oyster beds, while from the garden at the back there rose a majestic view of the lush green pyramid of Vesuvius. Cicero was enchanted, and set to work at once with the local builders, commissioning a great programme of renovation and redecoration. Marcus played on the beach with his tutor. Terentia sat on the terrace and sewed. Tullia read her Greek. It was a family holiday of a sort they had not taken for many years.

There was one puzzle, however. That whole stretch of coast from Cumae to Puteoli, then as now, was dotted with villas belonging to members of the Senate. Naturally Cicero assumed that once word spread he was in residence, he would begin to receive callers. But nobody came. At night he stood on the terrace and looked up and down the seashore and peered up into the hills and complained he could see hardly any lights. Where were the parties, the dinners? He patrolled the beach, a mile in either direction, and not once did he spot a senatorial toga.

‘Something must be happening,’ he said to Terentia. ‘Where are they all?’

‘I don’t know,’ she replied, ‘but speaking for myself, I am happy there is no one with whom you can discuss politics.’

The answer came on our fifth morning.

I was on the terrace answering Cicero’s correspondence when I noticed that a small group of horsemen had turned off the coastal road and were coming up the track towards the house. My immediate thought was Clodius! I stood to get a better view and saw to my dismay that the sun was glinting on helmets and breastplates. Five riders: soldiers.

Terentia and the children had gone off for the day to visit the sibyl who was said to live in a jar in a cave at Cumae. I ran inside to alert Cicero, and by the time I found him – he was choosing the colour scheme for the dining room – the horsemen were already clattering into the courtyard. Their leader dismounted and took off his helmet. He was a fearsome apparition: dust-rimed, like some harbinger of death. The whiteness of his nose and forehead was in contrast to the grime of the rest of his face. He looked as if he wore a mask. But I knew him. He was a senator, albeit not a very distinguished one – a member of that tame, dependable class of pedarii who never spoke but merely voted with their feet. Lucius Vibullius Rufus was his name. He was one of Pompey’s officers from Pompey’s home region of Picenum naturally.

‘Could I have a word?’ he said gruffly.

‘Of course,’ said Cicero ‘Come inside, all of you. Come and have something to eat and drink, I insist.’

Vibullius said, ‘I’ll come in. They’ll wait out here and make sure we’re not disturbed.’ He moved very stiffly, a clay effigy come to life.

Cicero said, ‘You look all in. How far have you ridden?’

‘From Luca.’

‘Luca?’ repeated Cicero. ‘That must be three hundred miles!’

‘More like three hundred and fifty. We’ve been on the road a week.’ As he lowered himself to a seat, he gave off a shower of dust. ‘There’s been a meeting concerning you, and I’ve been sent to inform you of its conclusions.’ He glanced at me. ‘I need to speak in confidence.’

Cicero, baffled and plainly wondering if he was dealing with a madman, said, ‘He’s my secretary. You can say all you have to say in front of him. What meeting?’

‘As you wish.’ Vibullius tugged off his gloves, unbuckled the side of his breastplate, reached under the metal and pulled out a document, which he carefully unwrapped. ‘The reason I’ve come from Luca is because that’s where Pompey, Caesar and Crassus have been meeting.’

Cicero frowned. ‘No, that’s impossible. Pompey is going to Sardinia – he told me so himself.’

‘A man can do both, can he not?’ replied Vibullius affably. ‘He can go to Luca and then go to Sardinia. I can tell you in fact how it came about. After your little speech in the Senate, Crassus travelled up to see Caesar in Ravenna to tell him what you’d said. Then they both crossed Italy to intercept Pompey before he took ship at Pisa. The three of them spent several days together, discussing many matters – among them what’s to be done about you.’

I felt suddenly queasy. Cicero was more robust: ‘There’s no need to be impertinent.’

‘And the gist of it is this: shut up, Marcus Tullius! Shut up in the Senate about Caesar’s laws. Shut up trying to cause trouble between the Three. Shut up about Crassus. Shut up generally, in fact.’

‘Have you finished?’ asked Cicero calmly. ‘Do I need to remind you – you are a guest in my house?’

‘Not quite finished, no.’ Vibullius paused and consulted his notes. ‘Also present for part of the conference was Sardinia’s governor, Appius Claudius. He was there to make certain undertakings on behalf of his brother, the upshot of which is that Pompey and Clodius are to be publicly reconciled.’

‘Reconciled?’ repeated Cicero. Now he sounded uncertain.

‘In future they will stand together in the best interests of the commonwealth. Pompey wishes me to tell you that he’s very unhappy with you, Marcus Tullius: very unhappy. I am quoting his exact words now. He believes he demonstrated great loyalty to you in campaigning for your recall from exile, in the course of which he made certain personal undertakings about your future conduct to Caesar – undertakings, he reminds you, which you repeated to Caesar in writing, and have now broken. He feels let down. He feels embarrassed. He insists, as a test of friendship, that you withdraw your motion on Caesar’s land laws from the Senate, and that you do not pronounce on the issue again until you have consulted him in person.’

‘I only spoke as I did in Pompey’s interest-’

‘He would like you to write him a letter confirming that you will do as he asks.’ Vibullius rolled up his document and tucked it away under his cuirass. ‘That’s the official part. What I am about to tell you next is strictly confidential. You understand what I’m saying?’

Cicero made a weary gesture. He understood.

‘Pompey wishes you to appreciate the scale of the forces at work: that is why the others gave him permission to inform you. Later this year, both he and Crassus will put their names forward in the consular elections.’

‘They’ll lose.’

‘If the elections were to be held as usual in the summer, you might be right. But the elections will be postponed.’

‘Why?’

‘Because of violence in Rome.’

‘What violence?’

‘Clodius will provide the violence. As a result, the elections won’t take place until the winter, by which time the campaigning season in Gaul will be over and Caesar will be able to send thousands of his veterans to Rome to vote for his colleagues. Then they will be elected. At the end of their terms as consul, Pompey and Crassus will both take up proconsular commands – Pompey in Spain, Crassus in Syria. Instead of the usual one year, these commands will last for five years. Naturally, in the interests of fairness, Caesar’s proconsular command in Gaul will also be extended for another five years.’

‘This is quite unbelievable-’

‘And at the end of his extended term, Caesar will come back to Rome and be elected consul in his turn – Pompey and Crassus making sure their veterans are on hand to vote for him. Those are the terms of the Luca Accord. It is designed to last for seven years. Pompey has promised Caesar you will abide by it.’

‘And if I do not?’

‘He will no longer guarantee your safety.’