Lustrum

XVI

The whole of Rome now waited to see what Caesar would do. 'The only thing we can expect,' said Cicero, 'is that it will be unexpected.' And so it was. It took five months, but when Caesar made his move it was masterly.

One day towards the end of the year, in December, shortly before Caesar was due to be sworn in, Cicero received a visit from the eminent Spaniard Lucius Cornelius Balbus.

This remarkable creature was then forty years old. Born in Gades of Phoenician extraction, he was a trader, and very rich. His complexion was dark, his hair and beard as black as jet, his teeth and the whites of his eyes as bright as polished ivory. He had a very quick way of talking, and he laughed a lot, throwing back his small neat head in delight, so that the most boring men in Rome all fancied themselves great wits after a short time in his company. He had a particular gift for attaching himself to powerful figures – first to Pompey, under whom he served in Spain, and who arranged to make him a Roman citizen, and then to Caesar, who picked him up in Gades when he was governor, appointed him his chief engineer during his conquest of Lusitania, and then brought him back to Rome to run his errands. Balbus knew everyone, even if at first they did not know him, and he bustled in to see Cicero on that December morning with his hands held wide as if he were meeting his closest friend.

'My dear Cicero,' he said in his thickly accented Latin, 'how are you? You look as well as I have ever seen you – and I have never seen you looking anything other than well!'

'Then I suppose I am very much the same as ever.' Cicero gestured to Balbus to take a seat. 'And how is Caesar?'

'He is marvellous,' replied Balbus, 'completely marvellous. He asks me to give you his very warmest regards, and his absolute assurance that he is your greatest and most sincere friend in the world.'

'Time for us to start counting our spoons, then, Tiro,' said Cicero, and Balbus clapped his hands and pulled up his knees and literally rocked with laughter.

'Well, that is very funny – “count the spoons” indeed! I shall tell him you said that, and he will be most amused. The spoons!' He wiped his eyes and recovered his breath. 'Oh dear! But seriously, Cicero, when Caesar offers his friendship to a man, it is not an empty thing. He takes the view that deeds, not words, are what count in this world.'

Cicero had a mountain of legal documents to read. 'Balbus,' he said wearily, 'you have obviously come here to say something – so would you kindly just say it?'

'Of course. You are busy, I can see that. Forgive me.' He pressed his hand to his heart. 'Caesar wishes me to tell you that he and Pompey have reached an agreement. They intend to settle this question of land reform once and for all.'

Cicero gave me a quick look: it was exactly as he had predicted. To Balbus he said: 'On what terms is this to be settled?'

'The public lands in Campania will be divided between Pompey's demobbed legionaries and those among the Roman poor who wish to farm. The whole scheme will be administered by a commission of twenty. Caesar hopes very much to have your support.'

Cicero laughed in disbelief. 'But this is almost precisely the bill he tried to bring in at the start of my consulship and which I opposed!'

'There will be one great difference,' said Balbus with a grin. 'This is between us, please. Yes?' His eyebrows danced in delight. He ran his small pink tongue over the edges of his large white teeth. 'The official commission will be of twenty, but there will be an inner commission of just five magistrates who will take all the decisions. Caesar would be most honoured – most honoured indeed – if you would agree to join it.'

That caught Cicero off his guard. 'Would he indeed? And who would be the other four?'

'Apart from yourself, there would be Caesar, Pompey, one other still to be decided, and' – Balbus paused for effect, like a conjuror about to produce an exotic bird from an empty basket – 'and Crassus.'

Up to that point, Cicero had been treating the Spaniard with a kind of friendly disdain – as a joke figure: one of those self-important go-betweens who often crop up in politics. Now he gazed at him in wonder. ' Crassus? ' he repeated. 'But Crassus can barely abide to be in the same city as Pompey. How is he going to sit beside him on a committee of five?'

'Crassus is a dear friend of Caesar. And also Pompey is a dear friend of Caesar. So Caesar played the marriage-broker, in the interests of the state.'

'The interests of themselves more like! It will never work.'

'It most certainly will work. The three have met and agreed it. And against such an alliance, nothing else in Rome will stand.'

'If it has already been agreed, why am I needed?'

'As Father of the Nation, you have a unique authority.'

'So I am to be brought in at the last moment to provide a covering of respectability?'

'Not at all, not at all. You would be a full partner, absolutely. Caesar authorises me to say that no major decision in the running of the empire would be made without consulting you first.'

'So this inner commission would, in effect, act as the executive government of the state?'

'Precisely.'

'And how long would it exist?'

'I am sorry?'

'When will it dissolve?'

'It will never dissolve. It will be permanent.'

'But this is outrageous! There is no precedent in our history for such a body. It would be the first step on the road to a dictatorship!'

'My dear Cicero, really!'

'Our annual elections would become meaningless. The consuls would be puppets, the senate might as well not exist. This inner group would control the allocation of all land and taxes-'

'It would bring stability-'

'It would be a kleptocracy!'

'Are you actually rejecting Caesar's offer?'

'Tell your master I appreciate his consideration and I have no desire to be anything other than his friend, but this is not something I can countenance.'

'Well,' said Balbus, plainly shocked, 'he will be disappointed – indeed he will be sorrowful – and so will Pompey and Crassus. Obviously they would like your assurance that you will not oppose them.'

'I am sure they would!'

'Yes, they would. They desire no unpleasantness. But if opposition is offered, you must understand, it will have to be met.'

With great effort, Cicero controlled his temper. 'You can tell them I have struggled for more than a year on Pompey's behalf to secure a fair settlement for his veterans – in the teeth, I might add, of strenuous opposition from Crassus. You can tell them I won't go back on that. But I want no part of any secret deal to establish a government by cabal. It would make a mockery of everything I have ever stood for in my public life. You can see yourself out, I think.'

After Balbus had gone, Cicero sat silent in his library as I tiptoed around him arranging his correspondence into piles. 'Imagine,' he said eventually, 'sending that Mediterranean carpet salesman to offer me a fifth share of the republic at a knockdown price! Our Caesar fancies himself to be a great gentleman, but really he is the most awful vulgar crook.'

'There may be trouble,' I warned.

'Well then, let there be trouble. I am not afraid.' But clearly he was afraid, and suddenly here it was again, that quality I admired the most about him – his reluctant, nervous resolution in the end to do the right thing. Because he must have known that from this time on his position in Rome would start to become untenable. After another long period of reflection, he said: 'All the time that Spanish pimp was talking, I kept thinking of what Calliope says to me in my poetic autobiography. Do you recall her lines?' He closed his eyes and recited: 'Meantime the paths which you from earliest days did seek – Yes, and when consul too, as mood and virtue called – These hold, and foster still your fame and good men's praise.

'I have my faults, Tiro – you know them better than any man: no need to point them out – but I am not like Pompey, or Caesar or Crassus. Whatever I've done, whatever mistakes I've made, I've done for my country; and whatever they do, they do for themselves, even if it means helping a traitor like Catilina.' He gave a long sigh. He seemed almost surprised at his own principled stand. 'Well, there it all goes, I suppose – a peaceful old age, reconciliation with my enemies, power, money, popularity with the mob…' He folded his arms and contemplated his feet.

'It's a lot to throw away,' I said.

'It is a lot. Perhaps you should run after Balbus and tell him I've changed my mind.'

'Shall I?' My tone was eager – I was desperate for a quiet life – but Cicero did not seem to hear me. He continued to brood on history and heroism, and after a while I went back to arranging his correspondence.

I had thought that 'The Beast with Three Heads', as the triumvirate of Caesar, Pompey and Crassus came to be known, might renew its offer, but Cicero heard no more. The following week Caesar became consul and quickly laid his land bill before the senate. I was watching from the door with a large crowd of jostling spectators when he started asking the senior members for their opinions on the proposed law. He began with Pompey. Naturally the great man approved at once, and so did Crassus. Cicero was called on next, and with Caesar watching him keenly, and with many reservations, added his assent. Hortensius rejected it. Lucullus rejected it. Celer rejected it. And when eventually Caesar worked his way down the list of the great and the good and came to Cato, he too stated his disapproval. But instead of simply giving his view like the others and then sitting down, Cato continued with his denunciation, reaching far back into antiquity for precedents to argue that common land was held in trust for all the nation and was not to be parcelled out by unscrupulous 'here today and gone tomorrow' politicians for their own gain. After an hour it became clear he had no intention of resuming his place and was resorting to his old trick of talking out the day's business.

Caesar grew more and more irritated, tapping his foot impatiently. At last he stood. 'We have heard enough from you,' he said, interrupting Cato in mid-sentence. 'Sit down, you damned sanctimonious windbag, and let someone else speak.'

'Any senator has the right to talk for as long as he wishes,' retorted Cato. 'You should look up the laws of this house if you want to preside over it,' and so saying, he carried on talking.

'Sit down!' bellowed Caesar.

'I shall not be intimidated by you,' replied Cato, and he refused to yield the floor.

Have you ever seen a bird of prey tilt its head from one side to the other, as it detects a potential kill? Well, that was very much how Caesar looked at that instant. His avian profile bent first to the left and then to the right, and then he extended a long finger and beckoned to his chief lictor. He pointed to Cato. 'Remove him,' he rasped. The proximate lictor looked unwilling. 'I said,' repeated Caesar in a terrible voice, ' remove him!'

The terrified fellow did not need telling twice. Gathering half a dozen of his colleagues, he set off down the aisle towards Cato, who continued to speak even as the lictors clambered over the benches to seize him. Two men took hold of each of his arms and dragged him towards the door, and another picked up all his treasury accounts, while the senate watched in horror.

'What shall we do with him?' called the proximate lictor.

'Throw him in the Carcer,' commanded Caesar, 'and let him address his wisdom to the rats for a night or two.'

As Cato was bundled from the chamber, some senators began objecting to his treatment. The great stoic was carried directly past me, unresisting but continuing to shout out some obscure point about the Scantian forests. Celer rose from the front bench and hurried out after him, closely trailed by Lucullus, and then by Caesar's own consular colleague, Marcus Bibulus. I should think thirty or forty senators must have joined this demonstration. Caesar came down off his dais and tried to intercept a few of those departing. I remember him catching hold of the arm of old Petreius, the commander who had defeated Catilina's army at Pisae. 'Petreius!' he said. 'You are a soldier like me. Why are you leaving?'

'Because,' said Petreius, pulling himself free, 'I would rather be in prison with Cato than here with you!'

'Go then!' Caesar shouted after him. 'Go, all of you! But remember this: as long as I am consul, the will of the people will not be frustrated by procedural tricks and ancient customs! This bill will be placed before the people, whether you gentlemen like it or not, and it will be voted on by the end of the month.' He strode back up the aisle to his chair and glared around the chamber, defying anyone else to challenge his authority.

Cicero stayed uncomfortably in his place as the roll call resumed, and after the session was over he was intercepted outside the senate house by Hortensius, who demanded to know in a reproachful voice why he had not walked out with the others. 'Don't blame me for the mess you have landed us in,' replied Cicero. 'I warned you what would happen if you continued to treat Pompey with contempt.' Nevertheless, I could tell he was embarrassed, and as soon as he could he escaped to his home. 'I have contrived the worst of all worlds for myself,' he complained to me as we climbed the hill. 'I gain no benefit from supporting Caesar, yet I am denounced by his enemies as a turncoat. What a political genius I have turned out to be!'

In any normal year, Caesar would have either failed with his bill, or at the very least been obliged to compromise. His measure was opposed, first and foremost, by his fellow consul, M. Bibulus, a proud and irascible patrician whose misfortune throughout his career had been to hold office at the same time as Caesar, and who in consequence had been so entirely overshadowed that people usually forgot his name. 'I am tired of playing Pollux to his Castor,' he declared angrily, and he vowed that now he was consul it would be different. Also ranged against Caesar were no fewer than three tribunes: Ancharius, Calvinus and Fannius, each of whom wielded a veto. But Caesar was determined to get his way, whatever the price, and now began his deliberate destruction of the Roman constitution – an act for which I trust he will be cursed by humanity until the end of time.

First, he inserted into the bill a clause requiring every senator to swear an oath – on pain of death – that they would never try to repeal the law once it was on the statute book. Then he called a public assembly at which both Crassus and Pompey appeared. Cicero stood with the other senators and watched as Pompey, for the first time in his long career, was prevailed upon to issue a direct threat. 'This bill is just,' he declared. 'My men have shed their blood for Roman soil, and it is only right that when they return they should be given a share of that soil as their reward.'

'And what,' Caesar asked him disingenuously, 'if those who oppose this bill resort to violence?'

'If anyone comes with the sword, I shall bring my shield,' responded Pompey, before adding with menacing emphasis, 'and I shall also bring a sword of my own.'

The crowd roared in delight. Cicero could not bear to watch any more. He turned and pushed his way past his fellow senators and out of the public assembly.

Pompey's words were effectively a call to arms. Within days Rome began to fill with his veterans. He paid for them to come from all over Italy, and he put them up in tents outside the city, or in cheap lodgings around the town. They smuggled in illegal weapons, which they kept concealed, in anticipation of the last day in January, when the law was to be voted upon by the people. Senators who were known to oppose the legislation were jeered at in the street and their houses stoned.

The man who organised this intimidation on behalf of the Beast with Three Heads was the tribune P. Vatinius, who was known as the ugliest man in Rome. He had contracted scrofula as a boy, and his face and neck were covered in pendulous purplish-blue lumps. His hair was sparse and his legs were rickety, so that he walked with his knees wide apart, as if he had just dismounted after a long ride, or had soiled himself. Curiously, he also had great charm, and did not care at all what anyone said about him: he would always cap an enemy's joke about his appearance with a funnier one of his own. Pompey's men were devoted to him, and so were the plebs. He called many public meetings in support of Caesar's law, and on one occasion summoned the consul Bibulus to be cross-examined on the tribunes' platform. Bibulus was bad-tempered at the best of times, and Vatinius, knowing this, got his followers to lash together some wooden benches and run a bridge from the tribunes' platform straight up to the Carcer. When in due course under questioning Bibulus denounced the land bill in violent language – 'You will not have your law this year, not even if you all want it!' – Vatinius arrested him and had him paraded along the bridge to the jail, like a prisoner of the pirates being made to walk the plank.

Cicero watched much of this from his garden, huddled in a cloak against the January chill. He felt very wretched and tried to keep out of it. Besides, he soon had more pressing problems of his own.

One morning in the midst of these tumultuous events, I opened the door to find Antonius Hybrida waiting outside in the street. It was more than three years since I had last set eyes on him, and at first I did not recognise him. He had grown very stout on the meats and vines of Macedonia, and even more florid, as if he had been coated in an extra layer of mottled red fat. When I took him into the library, Cicero jumped as if he had seen a ghost, which in a sense he had, for this was his past come back to haunt him – and with a vengeance. At the start of his consulship, when the two men had concluded their deal, Cicero had given a written undertaking to Hybrida that if he was ever prosecuted, he would appear as his advocate: now his former colleague had come to collect on that promise. He had brought a slave with him who carried the indictment, and Hybrida passed it across to Cicero with a hand that trembled so violently, I thought he was having a seizure. Cicero took it over to the light to study it.

'When was this served?'

'Today.'

'You realise what this is, don't you?'

'No. That's why I've brought the wretched thing straight round to you. I never could get the hang of all this legal talk.'

'This is a writ for treason.' Cicero scanned the document with an expression of increasing puzzlement. 'Odd. I would have thought they would have come after you for corruption.'

'I say, Cicero, there's no chance of some wine, is there?'

'Just a moment. Let's try to keep our heads clear for business for a little while longer. It says here that you lost an army in Histria.'

'Only the infantry.'

'Only the infantry!' Cicero laughed. 'When was that?'

'A year ago.'

'Who is the prosecutor? Has he been appointed yet?'

'Yes, he was sworn in yesterday. He's that protege of yours – young Caelius Rufus.'

The news came as a complete shock. That Rufus had become completely estranged from his former mentor was no secret. But that he should choose as his first significant foray into public life the prosecution of Cicero's consular colleague – that was an act of real treachery. Cicero actually sat down, he was so taken aback. He said, 'I thought it was Pompey who was most determined to have you put on trial?'

'He is.'

'Then why is he letting Rufus cut his teeth on such an important case?'

'I don't know. What about that wine now?'

'Forget the damned wine for a minute.' Cicero rolled up the writ and sat tapping it against the palm of his hand. 'I don't like the sound of this. Rufus knows a lot about me. He could bring up all kinds of things.' He threw it back into Hybrida's lap. 'I think you should get someone else to defend you.'

'But I want you! You're the best. We had an agreement, remember? I would give you a share of the money and you would shield me from prosecution.'

'I agreed to defend you if ever you were charged with corruption. I never said anything about treason.'

'That's not true. You're breaking your word.'

'Look, Hybrida, I'll appear as a witness in your support, but this could be an ambush – laid by Caesar, probably, or Crassus – and I'd be a fool to walk straight into it.'

Hybrida's eyes, though now buried deep in his flesh, were still very blue, like sapphires pressed into a lump of red clay. 'People tell me you've come up in the world,' he said. 'Houses everywhere.'

Cicero made a weary gesture. 'Don't try to threaten me.'

'All this,' said Hybrida, pointing around the library. 'Very nice. Do people know how you got the money to pay for it?'

'I warn you: I could as readily appear as a witness for the prosecution as for the defence.'

But the threat sounded hollow, and Cicero must have known it, for he suddenly wiped his hand across his face, as if trying to expunge some disturbing vision.

'I think you should join me in that cup of wine,' said Hybrida, with deep satisfaction. 'Things always look better after a little drink.'

On the evening before the vote on Caesar's land bill, we could hear loud noises rising from the forum – hammering and sawing, drunken singing, cheers, cries, the breaking of pots. At dawn, a shroud of brown smoke hung over the area beyond the Temple of Castor where the voting was to take place.

Cicero dressed carefully and went down to the forum, accompanied by two guards, two members of his household staff – myself and another secretary – and half a dozen clients who wished to be seen with him. All the streets and alleys leading to the voting ground were crammed with citizens. Many, when they recognised Cicero, stood out of the way to let him through. But at least an equal number deliberately blocked his path and had to be pushed out of the way by his guards. It was a struggle for us to make progress, and by the time we found a spot with a view of the temple steps, Caesar was already speaking. It was impossible to hear more than a few words. A great press of bodies, thousands of them, stretched between us and him. The majority looked to be old soldiers who had been there all night, and who had lit fires to cook and keep themselves warm. 'These men are not attending this assembly,' Cicero observed, 'they are occupying it.'

After some time we became aware of scuffling in the direction of the Via Sacra, on the opposite side of the crowd to where we were standing, and the word quickly went round that Bibulus had arrived with the three tribunes who were intending to veto the bill. It was a tremendously brave action on their part. All around us men began pulling out from beneath their clothing knives and even swords. Bibulus and his supporters were clearly having difficulty reaching the temple steps. We could not see them; we could follow their progress only by the origin of the shouts and the line of flailing fists. The tribunes were felled early on and carried away, but somehow Bibulus – and behind him, Cato, who had been released from prison – did at last manage to reach his objective.

Shaking off the hands that were trying to restrain him, he climbed up on to the platform. His toga had been torn away, leaving his shoulder bare, and blood was running down his face. Caesar glanced at him briefly, and carried on speaking. The fury of the crowd was deafening. Bibulus pointed to the heavens and made a cutting gesture across his throat. He repeated this several times until his meaning was obvious – as consul, he had observed the heavens and was declaring that the auguries were un favourable and no public business could be transacted. Still Caesar ignored him. And then two stout fellows climbed on to the platform carrying a big half-barrel, of the sort used to collect rainwater. They hoisted it above Bibulus's head and tipped it over him. I guess the crowd must have been shitting into it all night, for it was brimful of noxious brown liquid, and Bibulus was completely drenched. He tried to back away, skidded, his legs shot out from under him and he fell heavily on his backside. For a moment he was too winded to move. But then he saw that another barrel was being carried up on to the platform, and he scrambled away – I did not blame him – to the derisive laughter of thousands of citizens. He and his followers escaped from the forum and eventually found sanctuary in the Temple of Jupiter the Protector – the same building from which Cicero by his oratory had driven Sergius Catilina.

Thus, in the most contemptible of circumstances, was carried on to the statute book Caesar's great land reform act, which awarded farms to twenty thousand of Pompey's veterans and afterwards to those among the urban poor who could show they had more than three children. Cicero did not stay for the voting, which was a foregone conclusion, but slunk back to his house, where – such was his depression – he shunned all company, even Terentia's.

The following day, Pompey's soldiers were back on the streets again. They had spent the night celebrating and now they had shifted their attention to the senate house, crowding into the forum, waiting to see if the senate would dare to challenge the legality of what had happened. They left a narrow gangway through their ranks, wide enough for three or four men to walk abreast, and I found it intimidating to pass among them beside Cicero, even though the greetings they called out were friendly enough: 'Come on, Cicero!' 'Cicero – don't forget us!' Inside, I had never seen a more dejected assembly. It was the first day of the new month, and Bibulus, who had a bandage around his forehead, was in the chair. He rose at once and demanded that the house condemn the disgraceful violence of the previous day. He further insisted that the law be declared invalid because the auguries had been unfavourable. But nobody was willing to take such a step – not with several hundred armed men outside. Confronted by their silence, Bibulus lost his temper.

'The government of this republic has become a travesty,' he shouted, 'and I shall take no further part in it! You have shown yourselves unworthy of the name of the Roman senate. I shall not summon you to meet on any day when I am consul. Stay in your homes, gentlemen, as I shall do, and look into your souls, and ask yourselves if you have played your parts with honour.'

Many of his listeners bowed their heads in shame. But Caesar, who was sitting between Pompey and Crassus, and who had been listening to this with a faint smile, immediately rose and said, 'Before Marcus Bibulus and his soul depart the chamber and this house is adjourned for a month, I would remind you gentlemen that this law obliges us all to swear an oath to uphold it. I therefore propose that we should go together now, as a body, to the Area Capitolina and take that oath, so that we may show publicly our unity with the people.'

Cato jumped up. He had his arm in a sling. 'This is an outrage!' he protested, no doubt stung to find the moral high ground temporarily taken from him by Bibulus. 'I shan't sign your illegal law!'

'And nor shall I,' echoed Celer, who had delayed setting out for Further Gaul in order to oppose Caesar. Several others called out the same – among them I noticed young Marcus Favonius, who was an acolyte of Cato's, and the ex-consul Lucius Gellius, who was well into his seventies.

'Then on your own heads be it,' said Caesar with a shrug. 'But remember: the penalty for refusing to comply with the law may be death.'

I had not expected Cicero to speak, but very slowly he got to his feet, and it was a tribute to his authority that the whole chamber was immediately stilled. 'I do not mind this man's law,' he said, staring directly at Caesar, 'although I deplore and condemn absolutely the methods by which he has forced it upon us. Nevertheless,' he continued, turning to the rest of the chamber, 'the law it is, and the people want it, and it requires us to take this oath. Therefore I say to Cato and to Celer, and to any other of my friends who contemplate making dead heroes of themselves: the people will not understand your action, for you cannot oppose illegality by illegality and hope to command respect. Hard times lie ahead, gentlemen, and although you may not feel you need Rome any more, Rome has need of you. Preserve yourselves for the battles yet to come rather than sacrificing yourselves uselessly in one that is already lost.'

It was a most effective speech, and when the senators filed out of the chamber, almost all of them followed the Father of the Nation towards the Capitol, where the oath was to be sworn. Once Pompey's soldiers saw what the senate intended to do, they cheered them loudly (Bibulus, Cato and Celer went up later, when no one was looking). The sacred stone of Jupiter, which had fallen from the heavens many centuries earlier, was fetched out from the great temple, and the senators lined up to place their hands on it and promise to obey the law. But Caesar, even though they were all doing what he wanted, was clearly troubled. I saw him go up to Cicero and take him to one side and speak to him with great seriousness. Afterwards I asked Cicero what he had said. 'He thanked me for my leadership in the senate,' Cicero replied, 'but said he did not care for the tone of my remarks, and hoped that I did not plan to cause him and Pompey and Crassus any trouble, for if I did he would be obliged to retaliate, and that would pain him. He had given me my chance, he said, to join his administration and I had rejected it, and now I must bear the consequences. How do you like that for a piece of effrontery?' He swore roundly, which was unusual for him, and added, 'Catulus was right: I should have beheaded that snake when I had the chance.'