Imperium

Roll V

THAT NIGHT, for the first and last time in all my years in his service, Cicero drank too much. I could hear him arguing over dinner with Terentia-not one of their normal, witty, icily courteous disputes, but a row which echoed throughout the small house, as she berated him for his stupidity in ever trusting such a dishonorable gang: Piceneans, all of them, not even proper Romans! “But then of course, you are not a proper Roman, either”-a dig at Cicero’s lowly provincial origins which invariably got under his skin. Ominously, I did not hear what he said back to her-it was delivered in such a quiet, malevolent tone-but whatever it was, it must have been devastating, for Terentia, who was not a woman easily shaken, ran from the dining room in tears and disappeared upstairs.

I thought it best to leave him well alone. But an hour later I heard a crash, and when I went in Cicero was on his feet and swaying slightly, staring at a broken plate. The front of his tunic was stained with wine. “I really do not feel well,” he said.

I got him up to his room by hooking his arm over my shoulder-not an easy procedure, as he was heavier than I-laid him on his bed, and unlaced his shoes. “Divorce,” he muttered into his pillow, “that is the answer, Tiro-divorce, and if I have to leave the Senate because I can’t afford it-well, so what? Nobody would miss me. Just another ‘new man’ who came to nothing. Oh, dear, Tiro!” I managed to get his chamber pot in front of him just before he was sick. Head down, he addressed his own vomit. “We shall go to Athens, my dear fellow, and live with Atticus and study philosophy and no one here will miss us-” these last few words ran together into a self-pitying burble of slurred syllables which no shorthand symbol of mine could ever have reconstructed. I set the pot beside him and blew out the lamp. He was snoring even before I reached the door, but I confess I went to bed that night with a troubled heart.

And yet, the next morning, I was woken at exactly the usual predawn hour by the sound of him going through his exercises-a little more slowly than usual, perhaps, but then it was awfully early, for this was the height of summer, and he can hardly have had more than a few hours’ sleep. Such was the nature of the man. Failure was the fuel of his ambition. Each time he suffered a humiliation-be it as an advocate in his early days when his constitution failed him, or on his return from Sicily, or now, with Pompey’s offhand treatment-the fire in him was temporarily banked, but only that it might flare up again even more fiercely. “It is perseverance,” he used to say, “and not genius that takes a man to the top. Rome is full of unrecognized geniuses. Only perseverance enables you to move forward in the world.” I heard him preparing for another day of struggle in the Roman Forum and felt the old, familiar rhythm of the house reassert itself.

I dressed. I lit the lamps. I told the porter to open the front door. I checked the callers. Then I went into Cicero’s study and gave him his list of clients. No mention was ever made, either then or in the future, of what had happened the previous night, and I suspect this helped draw us even closer. To be sure, he looked a little green, and he had to screw up his eyes to focus on the names, but otherwise he was entirely normal. “Sthenius!” he groaned, when he saw who was waiting, as usual, in the tablinum. “May the gods have mercy upon us!”

“He is not alone,” I warned him. “He has brought two more Sicilians with him.”

“You mean to say he is multiplying?” He coughed to clear his throat. “Right. Let us have him in first and get rid of him once and for all.”

As in some curious recurring dream from which one cannot wake, I found myself yet again conducting Sthenius of Thermae into Cicero’s presence. His companions he introduced as Heraclius of Syracuse and Epicrates of Bidis. Both were old men, dressed, like Sthenius, in the dark garb of mourning, with uncut hair and beards.

“Now listen, Sthenius,” said Cicero sternly, after he had shaken hands with the grim-looking trio, “this has got to stop.”

But Sthenius was in his own strange and private kingdom, into which outside sounds seldom penetrated: the land of the obsessive litigant. “I am most grateful to you, senator. Firstly, now that I have obtained the court records from Syracuse,” he said, pulling a piece of paper from his leather bag and thrusting it into Cicero’s hands, “you can see what the monster has done. This is what was written before the verdict of the tribunes. And this,” he said, giving him another, “is what was written afterwards.”

With a sigh, Cicero held the two documents side by side and squinted at them. “So what is this? This is the official record of your trial for treason, in which I see it is written that you were present during the hearing. Well, we know that is nonsense. And here”-his words began to slow as he realized the implications-“…here it says that you were not present.” He looked up, his bleary eyes starting to clear. “So Verres is falsifying the proceedings of his own court, and then he is falsifying his own falsification?”

“Exactly!” said Sthenius. “When he realized you had produced me before the tribunes, and that all of Rome knew I could hardly have been in Syracuse on the first day of December, he had to obliterate the record of his lie. But the first document was already on its way to me.”

“Well, well,” said Cicero, continuing to scrutinize the papers, “perhaps he is more worried than we thought. And I see it also says here that you had a defense attorney representing you that day: ‘Gaius Claudius, son of Gaius Claudius, of the Palatine tribe.’ You are a fortunate man, to have your very own Roman lawyer. Who is he?”

“He is Verres’s business manager.”

Cicero studied Sthenius for a moment or two. “What else do you have in that bag of yours?” he said.

Out it all came then, tipped over the study floor on that hot summer’s morning: letters, names, scraps of official records, scribbled notes of gossip and rumors-seven months’ angry labor by three desperate men, for it transpired that Heraclius and Epicrates had also been swindled by Verres out of their estates, one worth sixty thousand, the other thirty. In both cases, Verres had abused his office to bring false accusations and secure illegal verdicts. Both had been robbed at around the same time as Sthenius. Both had been, until then, the leading men in their communities. Both had been obliged to flee the island penniless and seek refuge in Rome. Hearing of Sthenius’s appearance before the tribunes, they had sought him out and proposed cooperation.

“As single victims, they were weak,” said Cicero years later, reminiscing about the case, “but when they joined in common cause, they found they had a network of contacts which spread across the entire island: Thermae in the north, Bidis in the south, Syracuse in the east. These were men sagacious by nature, shrewd by experience, accomplished by education, and their fellow-countrymen had opened up the secrets of their suffering to them, as they would never have done to a Roman senator.”

Outwardly Cicero still seemed the calm advocate. But as the sun grew stronger and I blew out the lamps, and as he picked up one document after another, I could sense his gathering excitement. Here was the sworn affidavit of Dio of Halaesa, from whom Verres had first demanded a bribe of ten thousand to bring in a not-guilty verdict, and then had stolen all his horses, tapestries, and gold and silver plate. Here were the written testimonies of priests whose temples had been robbed-a bronze Apollo, signed in silver by the sculptor Myron, and presented by Scipio a century and a half earlier, stolen from the shrine of Aesculapius at Agrigentum; a statue of Ceres carried away from Catina, and of Victory from Henna; the sacking of the ancient shrine of Juno in Melita. Here was the evidence of farmers in Herbita and Agyrium, threatened with being flogged to death unless they paid protection money to Verres’s agents. Here was the story of the wretched Sopater of Tyndaris, seized in midwinter by Verres’s lictors and bound naked to an equestrian statue in full view of the entire community, until he and his fellow citizens agreed to hand over a valuable municipal bronze of Mercury that stood in the local gymnasium. “It is not a province Verres is running down there,” murmured Cicero in wonder, “it is a fully fledged criminal state.” There were a dozen more of these grim stories.

With the agreement of the three Sicilians, I bundled the papers together and locked them in the senator’s strongbox. “It is vital, gentlemen, that not a word of this leaks out,” Cicero told them. “By all means continue to collect statements and witnesses, but please do it discreetly. Verres has used violence and intimidation many times before, and you can be sure he will use them again to protect himself. We need to take the rascal unawares.”

“Does that mean,” asked Sthenius, hardly daring to hope, “that you will help us?”

Cicero looked at him but did not answer.

LATER THAT DAY, when he returned from the law courts, the senator made up his quarrel with his wife. He dispatched young Sositheus down to the old flower market in the Forum Boarium, in front of the Temple of Portunus, to buy a bouquet of fragrant summer blooms. These he then gave to little Tullia, telling her solemnly that he had a vital task for her. She was to take them in to her mother and announce they had come for her from a rough provincial admirer. (“Have you got that, Tulliola? ‘A rough provincial admirer.’”) She disappeared very self-importantly into Terentia’s chamber, and I guess they must have done the trick, for that evening, when-at Cicero’s insistence-the couches were carried up to the roof and the family dined beneath the summer stars, the flowers had a place of honor at the center of the table.

I know this because, as the meal was ending, I was unexpectedly sent for by Cicero. It was a still night, without a flicker of wind to disturb the candles, and the nighttime sounds of Rome down in the valley mingled with the scent of the flowers in the warm June air-snatches of music, voices, the call of the watchmen along the Argiletum, the distant barking of the guard dogs set loose in the precincts of the Capitoline Triad. Lucius and Quintus were still laughing at some joke of Cicero’s, and even Terentia could not quite hide her amusement as she flicked her napkin at her husband and scolded him that that was quite enough. (Pomponia, thankfully, was away visiting her brother in Athens.)

“Ah,” said Cicero, looking around, “now here is Tiro, the master politician of us all, which means I can proceed to make my little declaration. I thought it appropriate that he should be present to hear this as well. I have decided to stand for election as aedile.”

“Oh, very good!” said Quintus, who thought it was all still part of Cicero’s joke. Then he stopped laughing and said in a puzzled way, “But that is not funny.”

“It will be if I win.”

“But you cannot win. You heard what Pompey said. He doesn’t want you to be a candidate.”

“It is not for Pompey to decide who is to be a candidate. We are free citizens, free to make our own choices. I choose to run for aedile.”

“There is no sense in running and losing, Marcus. That is the sort of pointlessly heroic gesture Lucius here believes in.”

“Let us drink to pointless heroism,” said Lucius, raising his glass.

“But we cannot win against Pompey’s opposition,” persisted Quintus. “And what is the point of incurring Pompey’s enmity?”

To which Terentia retorted: “After yesterday, one might better ask, What is the point of incurring Pompey’s friendship?”

“Terentia is right,” said Cicero. “Yesterday has taught me a lesson. Let us say I wait a year or two, hanging on Pompey’s every word in the hope of favor, running errands for him. We have all seen men like that in the Senate-growing older, waiting for half promises to be fulfilled. They are hollowed out by it. And before they even know it, their moment has passed and they have nothing left with which to bargain. I would sooner clear out of politics right now than let that happen to me. If you want power, there is a time when you have to seize it. This is my time.”

“But how is this to be accomplished?”

“By prosecuting Gaius Verres for extortion.”

So there it was. I had known he would do it since early morning, and so, I am sure, had he, but he had wanted to take his time about it-to try on the decision, as it were, and see how it fitted him. And it fitted him very well. I had never seen him more determined. He looked like a man who believed he had the force of history running through him. Nobody spoke.

“Come on!” he said with a smile. “Why the long faces? I have not lost yet! And I do not believe I shall lose, either. I had a visit from the Sicilians this morning. They have gathered the most damning testimony against Verres, have they not, Tiro? We have it under lock and key downstairs. And when we do win-think of it! I defeat Hortensius in open court, and all this ‘second-best advocate’ nonsense is finished forever. I assume the rank of the man I convict, according to the traditional rights of the victorious prosecutor, which means I become a praetorian overnight-so no more jumping up and down on the bank benches in the Senate, hoping to be called. And I place myself so firmly before the gaze of the Roman people that my election as aedile is assured. But the best thing of all is that I do it-I, Cicero-and I do it without owing favors to anyone, least of all Pompey the Great.”

“But what if we lose?” said Quintus, finding his voice at last. “We are defense attorneys. We never prosecute. You have said it yourself a hundred times: defenders win friends; prosecutors just make enemies. If you don’t bring Verres down, there is a good chance he will eventually be elected consul. Then he will never rest until you are destroyed.”

“That is true,” conceded Cicero. “If you are going to kill a dangerous animal, you had better make sure you do it with the first thrust. But then-do you not see? This way I can win everything as well. Rank, fame, office, dignity, authority, independence, a base of clients in Rome and Sicily. It opens my way clear through to becoming consul.”

This was the first time I had heard him mention his great ambition, and it was a measure of his renewed confidence that he felt able to utter the word at last. Consul. For every man in public life, this was the apotheosis. The very years themselves were distinguished from one another on all official documents and foundation stones by the names of the presiding consuls. It was the nearest thing below heaven to immortality. How many nights and days must he have thought of it, dreamed of it, nursed it, since his gawky adolescence? Sometimes it is foolish to articulate an ambition too early-exposing it prematurely to the laughter and skepticism of the world can destroy it before it is even properly born. But sometimes the opposite occurs, and the very act of mentioning a thing makes it suddenly seem possible, even plausible. That was how it was that night. When Cicero pronounced the word consul, he planted it in the ground like a standard for us all to admire. And for a moment we glimpsed the brilliant, starry future through his eyes, and saw that he was right: that if he took down Verres, he had a chance; that he might just-with luck-go all the way to the summit.

THERE WAS MUCH to be done over the following months, and as usual a great deal of the work fell upon me. First, I drew up a large chart of the electorate for the aedileship. At that time, this consisted of the entire Roman citizenry, divided into their thirty-five tribes. Cicero himself belonged to the Cornelia, Servius to the Lemonia, Pompey to the Clustumina, Verres to the Romilia, and so forth. A citizen cast his ballot on the Field of Mars as a member of his tribe, and the results of each tribe’s vote were then read out by the magistrates. The four candidates who secured the votes of the greatest number of tribes were duly declared the winners.

There were several advantages for Cicero in this particular electoral college. For one thing-unlike the system for choosing praetors and consuls-each man’s vote, whatever his wealth, counted equally, and as Cicero’s strongest support was among the men of business and the teeming poor, the aristocrats would find it harder to block him. For another, it was a relatively easy electorate to canvass. Each tribe had its own headquarters somewhere in Rome, a building large enough to lay on a show or a dinner. I went back through our files and compiled a list of every man Cicero had ever defended or helped over the past six years, arranged according to his tribe. These men were then contacted and asked to make sure that the senator was invited to speak at any forthcoming tribal event. It is surely amazing how many favors there are to be called in after six years of relentless advocacy and advice. Cicero’s campaign schedule was soon filled with engagements, and his working day became even longer. After the courts or the Senate had adjourned, he would hurry home, quickly bathe and change, and then rush out again to give one of his rousing addresses. His slogan was “Justice and Reform.”

Quintus, as usual, acted as Cicero’s campaign manager, while cousin Lucius was entrusted with organizing the case against Verres. The governor was due to return from his province at the end of the year. The moment he entered the city, he would lose his imperium, and with it his immunity from prosecution. Cicero was determined to strike at the first opportunity, and, if possible, give him no time to dispose of evidence or intimidate witnesses. For this reason, to avoid arousing suspicion, the Sicilians stopped coming to the house, and Lucius became the conduit between Cicero and his clients, meeting them in secret at different locations across the city. He was in many respects very similar to Cicero. He was almost the same age, clever and amusing, a gifted philosopher. The two had grown up together in Arpinum, been schooled together in Rome, and traveled together in the East. But there was one huge difference: Lucius entirely lacked worldly ambition. He lived alone, in a small house full of books, and did nothing all day except read and think-a most dangerous occupation for a man, which in my experience leads invariably to dyspepsia and melancholy. But oddly enough, despite his solitary disposition, he soon came to relish leaving his study every day and was so enraged by Verres’s wickedness that his zeal to bring him to justice eventually exceeded even Cicero’s. “We shall make a lawyer of you yet, cousin,” Cicero remarked admiringly, after he had produced yet another set of damning affidavits. I thus came to know Lucius much better, and the more I saw of him, the more I liked him.

Toward the end of December an incident occurred which finally brought together, and in dramatic fashion, all these separate strands of Cicero’s life. I opened the door one dark morning to find, standing at the head of the usual queue, the man we had recently seen in the tribunes’ basilica acting as defense attorney for his great-grandfather’s pillar-Marcus Porcius Cato. He was alone, without a slave to attend him, and looked as though he had slept out in the street all night. (I suppose he might have done, come to think of it, although Cato’s appearance was usually dishevelled-like that of a holy man or mystic-so that it was hard to tell). Naturally Cicero was intrigued to discover why a man of such eminent birth should have turned up on his doorstep, for Cato, bizarre as he appeared, dwelt at the very heart of the old republican aristocracy, connected by blood and marriage to a webwork of Servilii, Lepidii, and Aemilii. Indeed, such was Cicero’s pleasure at having such a highborn visitor, he went out to the tablinum himself to welcome him and conducted him into the study personally. This was the sort of client he had long dreamed of finding in his net one morning.

I settled myself in the corner to take notes, and young Cato, never a man for small talk, came straight to the point. He was in need of a good advocate, he said, and he had liked the way Cicero had handled himself before the tribunes, for it was a monstrous thing when any man such as Verres considered himself above the ancient laws. To put it briefly: he was engaged to be married to his cousin, Aemilia Lepida, a charming girl of eighteen whose young life had already been blighted by tragedy. At the age of thirteen, she had been humiliatingly jilted by her fiancé, the haughty young aristocrat Scipio Nasica. At fourteen, her mother had died. At fifteen, her father had died. At sixteen, her brother had died, leaving her completely alone.

“The poor girl,” said Cicero. “So I take it, if she is your cousin, that she must be the daughter of the consul of six years ago, Aemilius Lepidus Livianus? He was, I believe, the brother of your late mother, Livia?” (Like many supposed radicals, Cicero had a surprisingly thorough knowledge of the aristocracy.)

“That is correct.”

“Why, then, I congratulate you, Cato, on a most brilliant match. With the blood of those three families in her veins, and with her nearest relatives all dead, she must be the richest heiress in Rome.”

“She is,” said Cato bitterly. “And that is the trouble. Scipio Nasica, her former suitor, who has just come back from Spain after fighting in the army of Pompey-the-so-called-Great, has found out how rich she has become now that her father and brother are gone, and he has reclaimed her as his own.”

“But surely it is for the young lady herself to decide?”

“She has,” said Cato. “She has decided on him.”

“Ah,” replied Cicero, sitting back in his chair, “in that case, you may be in some difficulties. Presumably, if she was orphaned at fifteen, she must have had a guardian appointed. You could always talk to him. He is probably in a position to forbid the marriage. Who is he?”

“That would be me.”

“You? You are the guardian of the woman you want to marry?”

“I am. I’m her closest male relative.”

Cicero rested his chin in his hand and scrutinized his prospective new client-the ragged hair, the filthy bare feet, the tunic unchanged for weeks. “So what do you wish me to do?”

“I want you to bring legal proceedings against Scipio, and against Lepida if necessary, and put a stop to this whole thing.”

“These proceedings-would they be brought by you in your role as rejected suitor, or as the girl’s guardian?”

“Either.” Cato shrugged. “Both.”

Cicero scratched his ear. “My experience of young women,” he said carefully, “is as limited as my faith in the rule of law is boundless. But even I, Cato, even I have to say that I doubt whether the best way to a girl’s heart is through litigation.”

“A girl’s heart?” repeated Cato. “What has a girl’s heart got to do with anything? This is a matter of principle.”

And money, one would have added, if he had been any other man. But Cato had that most luxurious prerogative of the very rich: little interest in money. He had inherited plenty and gave it away without even noticing. No: it was principle that always motivated Cato-the relentless desire never to compromise on principle.

“We would have to go to the embezzlement court,” said Cicero, “and lay charges of breach of promise. We would have to prove the existence of a prior contract between you and the Lady Lepida, and that she was therefore a cheat and a liar. We would have to prove that Scipio was a double-dealing, money-grubbing knave. I would have to put them both on the witness stand and tear them to pieces.”

“Do it,” said Cato, with a gleam in his eye.

“And at the end of all that, we would probably still lose, for juries love nothing more than star-crossed lovers, save perhaps for orphans-and she is both-and you would have been made the laughingstock of Rome.”

“What do I care what people think of me?” said Cato scornfully.

“And even if we win-well, imagine it. You might end up having to drag Lepida kicking and screaming from the court through the streets of Rome, back to her new marital home. It would be the scandal of the year.”

“So this is what we have descended to, is it?” demanded Cato bitterly. “The honest man is to step aside so that the rascal triumphs? And this is Roman justice?” He leapt to his feet. “I need a lawyer with steel in his bones, and if I cannot find anyone to help me, then I swear I shall lay the prosecution myself.”

“Sit down, Cato,” said Cicero gently, and when Cato did not move, he repeated it: “Sit, Cato, and I shall tell you something about the law.” Cato hesitated, frowned, and sat, but only on the edge of his chair, so that he could leap up again at the first hint that he should moderate his convictions. “A word of advice, if I may, from a man ten years your senior. You must not take everything head-on. Very often the best and most important cases never even come to court. This looks to me like one of them. Let me see what I can do.”

“And if you fail?”

“Then you can proceed however you like.”

After he had gone, Cicero said to me: “That young man seeks opportunities to test his principles as readily as a drunk picks fights in a bar.” Nevertheless, Cato had agreed to let Cicero approach Scipio on his behalf, and I could tell that Cicero relished the opportunity this would give him to scrutinize the aristocracy at first hand. There was literally no man in Rome with grander lineage than Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Cornelius Scipio Nasica-Nasica meaning “pointed nose,” which he carried very firmly in the air-for he was not only the natural son of a Scipio but the adopted son of Metellus Pius, pontifex maximus, and the titular head of the Metelli clan. Father and adopted son were currently on Pius’s immense country estate at Tibur. They were expected to enter the city on the twenty-ninth day of December, riding behind Pompey in his triumph. Cicero decided to arrange a meeting for the thirtieth.

The twenty-ninth duly arrived, and what a day it was! Rome had not seen such a spectacle since the days of Sulla. As I waited by the Triumphal Gate it seemed that everyone had turned out to line the route. First to pass through the gate from the Field of Mars was the entire body of the Senate, including Cicero, walking on foot, led by the consuls and the other magistrates. Then the trumpeters, sounding the fanfares. Then the carriages and litters laden with the spoils of the Spanish war-gold and silver, coin and bullion, weapons, statues, pictures, vases, furniture, precious stones, and tapestries-and wooden models of the cities Pompey had conquered and sacked, and placards with their names, and the names of all the famous men he had killed in battle. Then the massive, plodding white bulls, destined for sacrifice, with gilded horns hung with ribbons and floral garlands, driven by the slaughtering priests. Then trudging elephants-the heraldic symbol of the Metelli-and lumbering oxcarts bearing cages containing the wild beasts of the Spanish mountains, roaring and tearing at their bars in rage. Then the arms and insignia of the beaten rebels, and then the prisoners themselves, the defeated followers of Sertorius and Perperna, shuffling in chains. Then the crowns and tributes of the allies, borne by the ambassadors of a score of nations. Then the twelve lictors of the imperator, their rods and axes wreathed in laurel. And now at last, to a tumult of applause from the vast crowd, the four white horses of the imperator’s chariot came trotting through the gate, and there was Pompey himself, in the barrel-shaped, gem-encrusted chariot of the triumphator. He wore a gold-embroidered robe with a flowered tunic. In his right hand he held a laurel bough and in his left a scepter. There was a wreath of Delphic laurel on his head, and his handsome face and muscled body had been painted with red lead, for on this day he truly was the embodiment of Jupiter. Standing beside him was his eight-year-old son, the golden-curled Gnaeus, and behind him a public slave to whisper in his ear that he was only human and all this would pass. Behind the chariot, riding on a black warhorse, came old Metellus Pius, his leg tightly bandaged, evidence of a wound incurred in battle. Next to him was Scipio, his adopted son-a handsome young fellow of twenty-four: no wonder, I thought, that Lepida preferred him to Cato-and then the legionary commanders, including Aulus Gabinius, followed by all the knights and cavalry, armor glinting in the pale December sun. And finally the legions of Pompey’s infantry, in full marching order, thousands upon thousands of sunburnt veterans, the crash of their tramping boots seeming to shake the very earth, roaring at the top of their voices “Io Triumphe!” and chanting hymns to the gods and singing filthy songs about their commander in chief, as they were traditionally permitted to do in this, the hour of his glory.

It took half the morning for them all to pass, the procession winding through the streets toward the Forum, where, according to tradition, as Pompey ascended the steps of the Capitol to sacrifice before the Temple of Jupiter, his most eminent prisoners were lowered into the depths of the Carcer and garroted-for what could be more fitting than that the day which ended the military authority of the conqueror should also end the lives of the conquered? I could hear the distant cheering inside the city but spared myself that sight, and hung around the Triumphal Gate with the dwindling crowd to see the entry of Crassus for his ovation. He made the best of it, marching with his sons beside him, but despite the efforts of his agents to whip up some enthusiasm, it was a poor show after Pompey’s dazzling pageant. I am sure he must have resented it mightily, picking his way between the horse shit and elephant dung left behind by his consular colleague. He did not even have many prisoners to parade, the poor fellow, having slaughtered almost all of them along the Appian Way.

The following day, Cicero set out for the house of Scipio, with myself in attendance, carrying a document case-a favorite trick of his to try to intimidate the opposition. We had no evidence; I had simply filled it with old receipts. Scipio’s residence was on the Via Sacra, fronted by shops, although naturally these were not your average shops, but exclusive jewelers, who kept their wares behind metal grilles. Our arrival was expected, Cicero having sent notice of his intention to visit, and we were shown immediately by a liveried footman into Scipio’s atrium. This has been described as “one of the wonders of Rome,” and indeed it was, even at that time. Scipio could trace his line back for at least eleven generations, nine of which had produced consuls. The walls around us were lined with the wax masks of the Scipiones, some of them centuries old, yellowed with smoke and grime (later, Scipio’s adoption by Pius was to bring a further six consular masks crowding into the atrium); and they exuded that thin, dry compound of dust and incense which to me is the smell of antiquity. Cicero went around studying the labels. The oldest mask was three hundred and twenty-five years old. But naturally, it was that of Scipio Africanus, conqueror of Hannibal, that fascinated him the most. It was a noble, sensitive face-smooth, unlined, ethereal, more like the representation of a soul than of flesh and blood. “Prosecuted, of course, by the great-grandfather of our present client,” sighed Cicero after studying it. “Contrariness runs thick in the blood of the Catos.”

The footman returned, and we followed him through into the tablinum. There, young Scipio lounged on a couch surrounded by a jumble of precious objects-statues, busts, antiques, rolls of carpet, and the like. It looked like the burial chamber of some Eastern potentate. He did not stand when Cicero entered (an insult to a senator), nor did he invite him to sit, but merely asked him in a drawling voice to state his business. This Cicero proceeded to do, firmly but courteously, informing him that Cato’s case was legally watertight, given that Cato was both formally betrothed to the young lady, and also her guardian. He gestured to the document case, which I held before me like a serving boy with a tray, and ran through the precedents, concluding by saying that Cato was resolved to bring an action in the embezzlement court, and would also seek a motion obsignandi gratia, preventing the young lady from having further contact with person or persons material to the case. There was only one sure way of avoiding this humiliation, and that was for Scipio to give up his suit immediately.

“He really is a crackpot, isn’t he?” said Scipio languidly, and lay back on his couch with his hands behind his head, smiling at the painted ceiling.

“Is that your only answer?” said Cicero.

“No,” said Scipio, “this is my only answer. Lepida!” And at that, a demure young woman appeared from behind a screen, where she had obviously been listening, and moved gracefully across the floor to stand beside the couch. She slipped her hand into his. “This is my wife. We were married yesterday evening. What you see around you are the wedding gifts of our friends. Pompey the Great came directly from sacrificing on the Capitol to be a witness.”

“Jupiter himself could have been a witness,” retorted Cicero, “but that would not suffice to make the ceremony legal.” Still, I could see by the way his shoulders slumped slightly that the fight had gone out of him. Possession, as the jurists say, is nine-tenths of the law, and Scipio not merely had the possession, but obviously the eager acquiescence, of his new bride. “Well,” Cicero said, looking around at the wedding presents, “on my behalf, I suppose, if not that of my client, I offer you congratulations. Perhaps my wedding gift to you should be to persuade Cato to recognize reality.”

“That,” said Scipio, “would be the rarest gift ever bestowed.”

“My cousin is a good man at heart,” said Lepida. “Will you convey my best wishes, and my hopes that one day we shall be reconciled?”

“Of course,” said Cicero with a gentlemanly bow, and he was just turning to go when he stopped abruptly. “Now that is a pretty piece. That is a very pretty piece.”

It was a bronze statue of a naked Apollo, perhaps half the size of a man, playing on a lyre-a sublime depiction of graceful masculinity, arrested in mid-dance, with every hair of his head and string of his instrument perfectly delineated. Worked into his thigh in tiny silver letters was the name of the sculptor: Myron.

“Oh, that,” said Scipio, very offhand, “that was apparently given to some temple by my illustrious ancestor, Scipio Africanus. Why? Do you know it?”

“If I am not mistaken, it is from the shrine of Aesculapius at Agrigentum.”

“That is the place,” said Scipio. “In Sicily. Verres got it off the priests there and gave it to me last night.”

IN THIS WAY Cicero learned that Gaius Verres had returned to Rome and was already spreading the tentacles of his corruption across the city. “Villain!” exclaimed Cicero as he walked away down the hill. He clenched and unclenched his fists in impotent fury. “Villain, villain, villain!” It was fair to assume that if Verres had given a Myron to young Scipio, then Hortensius, the Metellus brothers, and all his other prominent allies in the Senate would have received even heftier bribes-and it was precisely from among such men that the jury at any future trial would be drawn. A secondary blow was the discovery that Pompey had been present at Scipio’s wedding feast along with Verres and the leading aristocrats. Pompey had always had strong links with Sicily-as a young general he had restored order on the island, and had even stayed overnight in the house of Sthenius. Cicero had looked to him, if not exactly for support-he had learned his lesson there-then at least for benign neutrality. But Cicero saw the awful possibility that if he went ahead with the prosecution he might have every powerful faction in Rome united against him.

But there was no time to ponder the implications of that now. Cato had insisted on hearing the results of Cicero’s interview immediately and was waiting for him at the house of his half sister, Servilia, which was also on the Via Sacra, only a few doors down from Scipio’s residence. As we entered, three young girls-none, I would guess, more than five years old-came running out into the atrium, followed by their mother. This was the first occasion, I believe, on which Cicero met Servilia, who was later to become the most formidable of Rome’s many formidable women. She was nearly thirty, about five years older than Cato, handsome but not at all pretty. By her late first husband, Marcus Brutus, she had given birth to a son when she was still only fifteen; by her second, the feeble Junius Silanus, she had produced these three daughters in quick succession. Cicero greeted them as if he had not a care in the world, squatting on his haunches to talk to them while Servilia looked on. She insisted that they meet every caller, and so become familiar with adult ways, for they were her great hope for the future, and she wished them to be sophisticated.

A nurse came and took the girls away, and Servilia showed us through to the tablinum. Here Cato was waiting with Antipater the Tyrian, a Stoic philosopher who seldom left his side. Cato took the news of Lepida’s marriage as badly as one would have predicted, stamping around and swearing, which reminds me of another of Cicero’s witticisms-that Cato was always the perfect Stoic, as long as nothing went wrong.

“Do calm yourself, Cato,” said Servilia after a while. “It is perfectly obvious the matter is finished, and you might as well get used to it. You did not love her-you do not know what love is. You do not need her money-you have plenty of your own. She is a drippy little thing. You can find a hundred better.”

“She asked me to bring you her best wishes,” said Cicero, which provoked another outpouring of abuse from Cato.

“I shall not put up with it!” he shouted.

“Yes you will,” said Servilia. She pointed at Antipater, who quailed. “You tell him, philosopher. My brother thinks his fine principles are all the product of his intellect, when they are simply girlish emotions tricked out by false philosophers as manly points of honor.” And then, to Cicero again: “If he had had more experience of the female sex, Senator, he would see how foolish he is being. But you have never even lain with a woman, have you, Cato?”

Cicero looked embarrassed, for he always had the equestrian class’s slight prudishness about sexual matters and was unused to the free ways of the aristocrats.

“I believe it weakens the male essence and dulls the power of thought,” said Cato sulkily, producing such a shriek of laughter from his sister that his face turned as red as Pompey’s had been painted the previous day, and he stamped out of the room, trailing his Stoic after him.

“I apologize,” said Servilia, turning to Cicero. “Sometimes I almost think he is slow-witted. But then, when he does get hold of a thing, he will never let go of it, which is a quality of sorts, I suppose. He praised your speech to the tribunes about Verres. He made you sound a very dangerous fellow. I rather like dangerous fellows. We should meet again.” She held out her hand to bid Cicero good-bye. He took it, and it seemed to me that she held it rather longer than politeness dictated. “Would you be willing to take advice from a woman?”

“From you,” said Cicero, eventually retrieving his hand, “of course.”

“My other brother, Caepio-my full brother, that is-is betrothed to the daughter of Hortensius. He told me that Hortensius was speaking of you the other day-that he suspects you plan to prosecute Verres, and has some scheme in mind to frustrate you. I know no more than that.”

“And in the unlikely event that I was planning such a prosecution,” said Cicero, with a smile, “what would be your advice?”

“That is simple,” replied Servilia, with the utmost seriousness. “Drop it.”