Lustrum (28 page)

The most extreme advice of all came from Catulus, who turned up late in the evening, just as Cicero was about to retire to bed, with a group of former consuls, including the two Lucullus brothers, Lepidus, Torquatus and the former governor of Nearer Gaul, C. Piso. They came to demand that Caesar be arrested.

'On what evidence?' asked Cicero, rising wearily to his feet to greet the delegation.

'Treason, of course,' replied Catulus. 'Do you have the least particle of doubt that he's had a hand in this business from the start?'

'None. But that's not the same as having evidence.'

'Then make the evidence,' said the senior Lucullus smoothly. 'All that's required is a more detailed statement from Volturcius implicating Caesar, and we shall have him at last.'

'I guarantee you a majority of the senate will vote to arrest him,' said Catulus. His companions murmured in agreement.

'And then what?'

'Execute him along with the others.'

'Execute the head of the state religion on a trumped-up charge? There'll be a civil war!'

Lucullus said, 'There's likely to be a civil war one day anyway, thanks to Caesar, but if you act now, you can prevent it. Remember your authority. You've just been granted a thanksgiving. Your prestige in the senate has never been higher.'

'I was not granted a thanksgiving in order to go round like a tyrant butchering my opponents!'

'No, you were granted it,' retorted Catulus, 'because I proposed it.'

'And you are so blinded with hatred for Caesar because he robbed you of the pontificate that you can no longer see straight!' I had never heard Cicero speak in such a way to one of the old patricians, and Catulus's whole body seemed to give a jerk, as if he had stepped on something sharp. 'Now listen to me,' the consul continued, pointing his finger. 'Listen to me, all of you. I have Caesar precisely where I want him. I have that Leviathan by the tail at last. If he lets his prisoner escape tonight, I agree – we can arrest him, because he will have given us proof of his guilt. But for that very reason he won't let him escape. He'll obey the will of the senate for a change. And I mean to make sure it's a habit he gets used to.'

'Until he does the same thing again,' said Piso, who had only recently survived an attempt by Caesar to have him exiled for corruption.

'Then we'll just have to outwit him again,' said Cicero. 'And again. And again. And we'll have to go on doing it for as long as is necessary. But I believe I have his measure now, and my handling of this crisis over the past year has shown that my judgement about such matters is not usually wrong.'

His visitors lapsed into silence. He was the man of the hour. His prestige was at its zenith. For once nobody felt able to contradict him, not even Lucullus. Eventually Piso said, 'And the conspirators?'

'That is for the senate to decide, not me.'

'They will look to you for a lead.'

'Then they will look in vain. Dear gods, have I not done enough?' Cicero shouted suddenly. 'I have exposed the conspiracy. I have
stopped Catilina from becoming consul. I have driven him from Rome. I have foiled an attempt to burn down half the city and massacre us in our homes. I have delivered the traitors into custody. Am I now supposed to shoulder all the opprobrium for killing them as well? It's time you gentlemen started playing your part.'

'What is it you want us to do?' asked Torquatus.

'Stand up in the senate tomorrow and say what you want done with the conspirators. Show a lead to the rest of them. Don't expect me to carry the whole burden any longer. I'll call you one by one. State your view – death it must be, I suppose: I can't see any way out of it – but state it loud and clear, so that at least when I go before the people I can say I am the instrument of the senate and not a dictator.'

'You can rely on us for that,' said Catulus, glancing around at the others. They all nodded in agreement. 'But you're wrong about Caesar. We'll never get a better chance than this to stop him. Think on it overnight, I urge you.'

After they had gone, certain grim contingencies needed to be faced. If the senate voted for the death penalty, when would the condemned men be killed, and how, and where, and by whom? There was no precedent for such an action. When was easy enough: immediately judgement was passed, to forestall a rescue. And by whom was also obvious: the public executioner would do the dispatching, to establish that they were common criminals. Where and how were harder. They could scarcely be flung from the Tarpeian Rock – that would invite a riot. Cicero consulted the head of his official bodyguard, the proximate lictor, who told him that the best place – because the most easy to protect – would be the execution chamber beneath the Carcer, which was conveniently next door to the Temple of Concordia. The space was too cramped and the light too poor for decapitation, he announced, so by a
process of elimination it was settled that the conspirators would have to be strangled. The lictor went off to make sure that the carnifex and his assistants would be standing by.

I could tell Cicero was upset by this conversation. He refused to eat, saying he had no appetite. He did consent to drink a little of Atticus's wine, from one of his exquisite Neapolitan glass beakers, but unfortunately his hand was shaking so much he dropped it, shattering the glass on the mosaic floor. After that had been cleared up Cicero decided he needed some fresh air. Atticus called for a slave to unlock the doors, and we stepped out from the library on to the narrow terrace. Down in the valley, the effect of the curfew was to make Rome seem as dark and fathomless as a lake. Only the Temple of Luna, lit up by torches on the slopes of the Palatine, was distinctly visible. It seemed to hover, suspended in the night, like some white-hulled vessel descended from the stars to inspect us. We leaned against the balustrade and vainly contemplated what we could not see.

Cicero sighed and said, more to himself than to any of us, 'I wonder what men will make of us a thousand years from now. Perhaps Caesar is right – this whole republic needs to be pulled down and built again. I tell you, I have grown to dislike these patricians as much as I dislike the mob – and they haven't the excuse of poverty or ignorance.' And then again, a few moments later: 'We have so much – our arts and learning, laws, treasure, slaves, the beauty of Italy, dominion over the entire earth – and yet why is it that some ineradicable impulse of the human mind always impels us to foul our own nest?' I surreptitiously made a note of both remarks.

That night I slept very badly, in a cubicle adjoining Cicero's room. The tramp of the sentries' boots as they patrolled the garden and their whispered voices intermingled with my dreams.
Seeing Lucullus had stirred a remembrance of Agathe, and I had a nightmare in which I asked him about her and he told me he had no idea whom I meant but that all his slaves in Misenum were dead. When I woke exhausted to the grey dawn, I had a heavy feeling of dread, as if a rock had been laid on my chest. I looked into Cicero's room, but his bed was empty. I found him sitting motionless in the library, with the shutters closed and only a small lamp beside him. He asked if it was dawn yet. He wanted to go home to speak with Terentia.

We left soon afterwards, escorted by a new detachment of bodyguards under the command of Clodius. Ever since the crisis began, this notorious reprobate had regularly volunteered to accompany the consul, and these demonstrations of his loyalty, matched by Cicero's stout defence of Murena, had strengthened the bond between them. I guess what drew Clodius to Cicero was the opportunity to learn the art of politics from a master – he intended to stand for the senate himself the following year – while Cicero was amused by Clodius's youthful indiscretions. At any rate, much as I distrusted him, I was glad to see him on duty that morning, for I knew he would lift the consul's mood with some distracting gossip. Sure enough, he started at once.

'Have you heard that Murena's getting married again?'

'Really?' said Cicero in surprise. 'To whom?'

'Sempronia.'

'Isn't Sempronia already married?'

'She's getting divorced. Murena will be her third husband.'

'Three husbands! What a hussy.'

They walked on a little further. 'She has a fifteen-year-old daughter from her first marriage,' said Clodius thoughtfully. 'Did you know that?'

'I did not.'

'I'm considering marrying the girl. What do you think?'

'So Murena would become your stepfather-in-law?'

'That's it.'

'Not a bad idea. He can help your career a lot.'

'She's also immensely rich. She's the heiress of the Gracchi estate.'

'Then what are you waiting for?' asked Cicero, and Clodius laughed.

By the time we reached Cicero's house, the female worshippers were emerging blearily into the cold morning, led by the Vestal Virgins. A crowd of bystanders had gathered to watch them go. Some, like Caesar's wife, Pompeia, looked very unsteady, and had to be supported by their maids. Others, including Caesar's mother, Aurelia, seemed entirely unmoved by whatever it was they had experienced. She swept past Cicero, stone-faced, without a glance in his direction, which suggested to me that she knew what had happened in the senate the previous afternoon. In fact an amazing number of the women coming out of the house had some connection with Caesar. In all I counted at least three of his former mistresses – Mucia, the wife of Pompey the Great; Postumia, the wife of Servius; and Lollia, who was married to Aulus Gabinius. Clodius looked on agog at this perfumed parade. Finally, Caesar's current and greatest amour, Servilia, the wife of the consul-elect, Silanus, stepped over the doorstep and into the street. She was not especially beautiful: her face was handsome – mannish, I suppose one would call it – but full of intelligence and strength of character. And it was typical of her that she, alone of all the wives of the senior magistrates, actually stopped to ask Cicero what he thought would happen that day.

'It will be for the senate to decide,' he replied guardedly.

'And what do you think their decision will be?'

'That is up to them.'

'But you will give them a lead?'

'If I do – forgive me – I shall announce it in the senate later rather than now on the street.'

'You don't trust me?'

'I do indeed, madam. But others may somehow get to hear of our conversation.'

'I don't know what you mean by that!' Her voice sounded offended but her piercing blue eyes shone with malicious humour.

'She is by far the cleverest of his women,' observed Cicero once she had moved on, 'even shrewder than his mother, and that's saying something. He'd do well to stick with her.'

The rooms of Cicero's house were still warm from the women's presence, the air moist with the scent of perfume and incense, of sandalwood and juniper. Female slaves were sweeping the floors and clearing away leftovers; on the altar in the atrium was a pile of white ash. Clodius made no attempt to hide his curiosity. He went round picking up objects and examining them and was obviously bursting to ask all manner of questions, especially when Terentia appeared. She was still wearing the robes of the high priestess, but even these were forbidden to the eyes of men, so she concealed them beneath a cloak that she kept tightly clasped at her throat. Her face was flushed; her voice was high and strange.

'There was a sign,' she announced, 'not an hour ago, from the Good Goddess herself!' Cicero looked dubious, but she was too enraptured to notice. 'I have received a special dispensation from the Vestal Virgins to inform you of what we saw. There,' she gestured dramatically, 'on the altar, the fire had entirely burned out. The ash was quite cold. But then a great bright flame shot up. It was the most extraordinary portent anyone could ever remember.'

'And what do they think it means, this portent?' enquired Cicero, clearly interested despite himself.

'It is a sign of favour, sent directly to your home on a day of great importance, to promise you safety and glory.'

'Is it indeed?'

'Be bold,' she said, taking his hand. 'Do the brave thing. You will be honoured for ever. And no harm will come to you. That is the message from the Good Goddess.'

I have often wondered in the years since whether this affected Cicero's judgement at all. True, he had repeatedly derided auguries and omens to me as childish nonsense. But then I have found that even the greatest sceptics,
in extremis
, will pray to every god in the firmament if they think it might help them. Certainly I could tell that Cicero was pleased. He kissed Terentia's hand and thanked her for her piety and concern for his interests. Then he went upstairs to prepare for the senate as news of the portent was spread, on his instructions, to the crowd in the street. Clodius, meanwhile, had found a woman's shift lying beneath one of the couches, and I watched him put it to his nose and inhale deeply.

On the orders of the consul, the prisoners were not brought to the senate but were left where they had been confined overnight. Cicero said this was for reasons of security, but in my opinion it was because he could not bear to look at their faces. Once again the session was held in the Temple of Concordia, and all the leading men of the republic attended except for Crassus, who sent word that he was ill. In reality he wished to avoid casting a vote either for or against the death penalty. He may also have been fearful of assault: there were plenty among the patricians
and the Order of Knights who thought he too should have been arrested. Caesar, however, turned up as cool as you please, his sharp wide shoulders pushing past the guards, ignoring their oaths and insults. He squeezed into his seat on the front bench, settled back and thrust out his legs far into the gangway. Cato's narrow skull was directly opposite him: his head was bent reading the treasury accounts as usual. It was very cold. The doors at the far end of the temple had been left wide open for the crowd of spectators, and a veritable gale was blowing down the aisle. Isauricus wore a pair of old grey mittens, there was much coughing and sneezing, and when Cicero stood to call the house to order, his breath billowed out like steam from a cooking pot.