Lustrum (13 page)

'You can suggest whatever you like,' interrupted Nepos rudely, 'but I shan't be carrying the message. I'm staying in Rome. Pompey has discharged me from military service, and it is my intention to canvass for election as tribune. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have other business to attend to.'

Isauricus swore as he watched the young officer swagger out of the chamber. 'He wouldn't have dared talk like that if his father had still been alive. What kind of generation have we bred?'

'And if that's how a puppy like Nepos speaks to us,' said Curio, 'imagine what his master will be like, with forty thousand legionaries behind him.'

'“The Warden of Land and Sea”', murmured Cicero. 'I suppose we should be grateful he's left us the air.' That drew some laughter. 'I wonder what pressing matter Nepos has to attend to that's more important than talking to us.' He beckoned me over, and whispered in my ear, 'Run after him, Tiro. See where he goes.'

I hurried down the aisle and reached the door in time to glimpse Nepos and his retinue of attendants heading across the forum in the direction of the rostra. It was around the eighth hour of the day, still busy, and amid the bustle of the city I had no trouble hiding myself – not that Nepos was the type of man much given to looking over his shoulder. His little entourage passed the Temple of Castor, and it was lucky I had moved up close behind it, because a little way up the Via Sacra they abruptly vanished, and I realised they had stepped into the official residence of the pontifex maximus.

My first impulse was to head back to Cicero and tell him, but then a shrewder instinct checked me. There was a row of shops opposite the great mansion, and I pretended to browse for
jewellery, all the time keeping an eye on Caesar's door. I saw his mother arrive in a litter, and then his wife leave by the same means, looking very young and beautiful. Various people went in and out, but no one I recognised. After about an hour the impatient shopkeeper announced that he wished to close, and he ushered me out on to the street just as the unmistakable bald head of Crassus emerged from a small carriage and darted through the doorway into Caesar's home. I lingered for a while but no one else appeared, and not wishing to push my luck any further, I slipped away to give Cicero the news.

He had left the senate house by this time, and I found him at home, working on his correspondence. 'Well, at least that clears up one mystery,' he said, when I described what I had seen. 'We now know where Caesar got the twenty million to buy his office. It didn't all come from Crassus. A lot of it must have come from the Warden of Land and Sea.' He tilted back in his chair and became very pensive, for, as he later observed, 'When the chief general in the state, the chief moneylender and the chief priest all start meeting together, the time has come for everyone else to be on their guard.'

It was around this time that Terentia began to play an important role in Cicero's consulship. People often wondered why Cicero was still married to her after fifteen years, for she was excessively pious and had little beauty and even less charm. But she had something rarer. She had character. She commanded respect, and increasingly as the years went on he sought her advice. She had no interest in philosophy or literature, no knowledge of history; not much learning of any sort, in fact. However, unburdened by education or natural delicacy, she did possess a
rare gift for seeing straight through to the heart of a thing, be it a problem or a person, and saying exactly what she thought.

To begin with, not wishing to alarm her, Cicero did not mention Catilina's oath to murder him. But it was typical of Terentia's shrewdness that she soon discovered it for herself. As a consul's wife she had supervision of the cult of the Good Goddess. I cannot tell you what this entailed, as everything to do with the goddess and her serpent-infested temple on the Aventine is closed to men. All I know is that one of Terentia's fellow priestesses, a patriotic woman of noble family, came to her one day in a tearful state and warned her that Cicero's life was in danger, and that he should be on his guard. She refused to say more. But naturally Terentia would not leave it at that, and by a combination of flattery, cajolery and threats which must have been worthy of her husband, she slowly extracted the truth. Having done so, she then forced the unfortunate woman to come back to the house and repeat her story to the consul.

I was working with Cicero in his study when Terentia threw open the door. She did not knock; she never did. Being both richer than Cicero and more nobly born, she tended not to show the customary deference of wife to husband. Instead, she simply announced: 'There is someone here you must see.'

'Not now,' he said, without looking up. 'Tell them to go away.'

But Terentia stood her ground. 'It's ——,' she said, and here she named the lady, whose identity I shall conceal, not for her sake (she is long dead) but for the honour of her descendants.

'And why should I see
her
?' grumbled Cicero, and for the first time he glanced up irritably at his wife. But then he noticed the grimness of her expression and his tone changed. 'What is it, woman? What's wrong?'

'You need to listen for yourself.' She stood aside to reveal a
matron of rare if fading beauty whose eyes were red and puffy from weeping. I made as if to leave, but Terentia ordered me very firmly to stay where I was. 'The slave is a highly skilled note-taker,' she explained to the visitor, 'and entirely discreet. If he so much as breathes a word to anyone, I can assure you I shall have him skinned alive.' And she gave me a look that left me in no doubt that she would do precisely that.

The subsequent meeting was almost as embarrassing for Cicero, who had a prudish streak, as it was for the lady, who was obliged, under prompting from Terentia, to confess that for several years she had been the mistress of Quintus Curius. He was a dissolute senator and friend of Catilina. Already expelled once from the senate for immorality and bankruptcy, he seemed certain to be thrown out again at the next census, and was in desperate straits.

'Curius has been in debt as long as I've known him,' explained the lady, 'but never as badly as now. His estate is mortgaged three times over. One moment he threatens to kill us both rather than endure the disgrace of bankruptcy, the next he boasts of all the fine things he's going to buy for me. Last night I laughed at him. I said, “How could
you
afford to buy
me
anything? It's
I
who has to give money to
you
!” I provoked him. We argued. Eventually he said, “By the end of the summer we shall have all the money we need.” That was when he told me of Catilina's plans.'

'Which are?'

She glanced down at her lap for a moment, then straightened herself and gazed steadily at Cicero. 'To murder you, and then to seize control of Rome. To cancel all debts, confiscate the property of the rich, and divide the magistracies and priesthoods among his followers.'

'Do you believe they mean it?'

'I do.'

Terentia interrupted. 'But she's left out the worst part! To bind them to him more closely, Catilina made them swear a blood oath on the body of a child. They slaughtered him like a lamb.'

'Yes,' confessed Cicero, 'I know,' and he held up his hand to forestall her protest. 'I'm sorry. I didn't know how seriously to take it. There seemed no point in upsetting you over nothing.' To the lady he said: 'You must give up the names of all those involved in this conspiracy.'

'No, I can't—'

'What's said can't be unsaid. I must have their names.'

She wept for a while. She must have known she was trapped. 'At least will you give me your word you'll protect Curius?'

'I can't promise that. I'll see what I can do. Come, madam: the names.'

It took her some time to speak, and when she did I could hardly hear her. 'Cornelius Cethegus,' she whispered. 'Cassius Longinus. Quintus Annius Chilo. Lentulus Sura and his freedman Umbrenus …' The names suddenly started to tumble out, as if by reciting them quickly she could shorten her ordeal. 'Autronius Paetus, Marcus Laeca, Lucius Bestia, Lucius Vargunteius—'

'Wait!' Cicero was gazing at her in astonishment. 'Did you just say Lentulus Sura – the urban praetor – and his freedman Umbrenus?'

'—Publius Sulla, and his brother Servius.' She stopped abruptly.

'And that is all?'

'Those are all the senators I've heard him mention. There are others outside the senate.'

Cicero turned to me. 'How many is that?'

'Ten,' I counted. 'Eleven, if you add Curius. Twelve, if you include Catilina.'

'
Twelve senators?
' I had seldom seen Cicero more flabbergasted. He blew out his cheeks and sat back in his chair as if he had been struck. He let out a long breath. 'But men like the Sulla brothers and Sura don't even have the excuse of bankruptcy! This is just treason, plain and simple!' Suddenly he was too agitated to sit still. He jumped to his feet and started pacing the narrow floor. 'Dear gods! What's going on?'

'You should have them arrested,' said Terentia.

'No doubt I should. But once I started down that path, even if I could do it – which I can't – where would it end? There are these twelve, and who knows how many more dozens beside? I can certainly think of plenty of others who might be involved. There's Caesar, for a start – where does he stand in all this? He backed Catilina for the consulship last year and we know he's close to Sura – it was Sura, remember, who allowed the prosecution of Rabirius. And Crassus – what about him? I wouldn't put anything past him! And Labienus – he's Pompey's tribune – is Pompey involved?'

Back and forth, back and forth he went.

'They can't
all
be plotting to kill you, Cicero,' Terentia pointed out, 'otherwise you'd have been dead long ago.'

'They may not plot together, but they all see an opportunity in chaos. Some are willing to kill to bring chaos about, and others just desire to stand back and watch chaos take hold. They are like boys with fire, and Caesar is the worst of the lot. It's a kind of madness – there's madness in the state.' He went on in this style for some time, his eyes, as it were, turned inward, his imagination aflame with prophetic visions of Rome in ruins, the Tiber red with blood, the forum strewn with hacked-off heads, which he laid out for us in graphic detail. 'I must prevent it. I have to stop it. There must be a means of stopping it …'

Throughout all this, the lady who had brought him the information sat watching him in wonder. At length he halted in front of her, bent low and clasped her hands. 'Madam, it can't have been an easy thing for you to come to my wife with this tale, but thank Providence you did! It's not just me, it is Rome herself who stands for ever in your debt.'

'But what am I to do now?' she wept. Terentia gave her a handkerchief and she dabbed at her eyes. 'I can't go back to Curius after this.'

'You have to,' said Cicero. 'You're the only source I have.'

'If Catilina discovers I've betrayed his plans to you, he'll kill me.'

'He'll never know.'

'And my husband? My children? What do I say to them? To have consorted with another man is bad enough – but with a traitor?'

'If they knew your motives, they'd understand. Look upon this as your atonement. It's vital you act as if nothing has happened. Find out all you can from Curius. Draw him out. Encourage him, if necessary. But you mustn't risk coming here again – that's far too dangerous. Pass on what you learn to Terentia. You two can easily meet and talk together privately in the precincts of the temple without arousing suspicion.'

She was naturally reluctant to enmesh herself in such a net of betrayal. But Cicero could persuade anyone to do anything if he set his mind to it. And when, without promising actual immunity to Curius, he made it clear that he would do all he could to show leniency to her lover, she surrendered. Thus the lady went away to act as his spy, and Cicero began to lay his plans.

At the beginning of April, the senate rose for the spring recess. The lictors once again returned to Hybrida, and Cicero decided it would be safer if he took his family out of Rome to stay by the sea. We slipped away at first light, whilst most of the other magistrates were preparing to attend the theatre, and set off south along the Via Appia, accompanied by a bodyguard of knights. I suppose there must have been thirty of us in all. Cicero reclined on cushions in his open carriage, alternately being read to by Sositheus and dictating letters to me. Little Marcus rode on a mule with a slave walking beside him. Terentia and Tullia each had a litter to herself, carried by porters armed with concealed knives. Each time a group of men passed us on the road, I feared it might be a gang of assassins, and by the time we reached the edge of the Pontine Marshes at twilight, after a hard day's travelling, my nerves were fairly well shredded. We put up for the night at Tres Tabernae, and the croaking of the marsh frogs and the stench of stagnant water and the incessant whine of the mosquitoes robbed me of all rest.

The next morning we resumed our journey by barge. Cicero sat enthroned in the prow, his eyes closed, his face tilted towards the warm spring sun. After the noise of the busy highway, the silence of the canal was profound, the only sound the steady
clop of the horses' hoofs on the towpath. It was most unlike Cicero not to work. At the next stop a pouch of official dispatches awaited us, but when I tried to give it to him he waved me away. It was the same story when we reached his villa at Formiae. He had bought this place a couple of years earlier – a handsome house on the coastline, facing out to the Mediterranean Sea, with a wide terrace where he usually wrote, or practised his speeches. But for the whole of our first week in residence he did little except play with the children, taking them fishing for mackerel, and jumping the waves on the little beach beneath the low stone wall. Given the gravity of his problems, I was puzzled at the time by his behaviour. Now I realise, of course, that he
was
working, only in the way that a poet works: he was clearing his mind, and hoping for inspiration.