Imperium (28 page)

Nobody had been expecting much, or indeed anything at all, for Hybrida was known to have drunk and gambled away all his money. So it was a vast surprise when he staged not only a series of wonderful theatrical productions but also lavish spectacles in the Circus Maximus, with a full program of twelve chariot races, athletic competitions, and a wild-beast hunt involving panthers and all manner of exotic animals. I did not attend but Cicero gave me a full account when he came home that evening. Indeed, he could talk of nothing else. He flung himself down on one of the couches in the empty dining room—Terentia was in the country with Tullia—and described the parade into the Circus: the charioteers and the near-naked athletes (the boxers, the wrestlers, the runners, the javelin throwers and the discus men), the flute players and the lyre players, the dancers dressed as Bacchanalians and satyrs, the incense burners, the bulls and the goats and the heifers with their gilded horns plodding to sacrifice, and the cages of wild beasts, and the gladiators…. He seemed dizzy with it. “How much must it have all cost? That is what I kept asking myself. Hybrida must be banking on making it all back when he goes out to his province. You should have heard the cheers they gave to him when he entered and when he left! Well, I see nothing for it, Tiro. Unbelievable as it seems, we shall have to amend the list. Come.”

We went together into the study, where I opened the strongbox and pulled out all the papers relating to Cicero’s consular campaign. There were many secret lists in there—lists of backers, of donors, of supporters he had yet to win over, of towns and regions where he was strong and where he was weak. The key list, however, was of the men he had identified as possible rivals, together with a summary of all the information known about them, pro and anti. Galba was at the top of it, with Gallus next to him, and then Cornificius, and finally Palicanus. Now Cicero took my pen and carefully, in his neat and tiny writing, added a fifth, whose name he had never expected to see there: Antonius Hybrida.

AND THEN, a few days later, something happened which was to change Cicero’s fortunes and the future of the state entirely, although he did not realize it at the time. I am reminded of one of those harmless-looking specks which one occasionally hears about, that a man discovers on his skin one morning and thinks little of, only to see it gradually swell over the following months into an enormous tumor. The speck in this instance was a message, received out of the blue, summoning Cicero to see the
pontifex maximus,
Metellus Pius. Cicero was mightily intrigued by this, since Pius, who was very old (sixty-four, at least) and grand, had never previously deigned even to speak to him, let alone demand his company. Accordingly, we set off at once, with the lictors clearing our way.

In those days, the official residence of the head of the state religion was on the Via Sacra, next to the House of the Vestal Virgins, and I remember that Cicero was pleased to be seen entering the premises, for this really was the sacred heart of Rome, and not many men ever got the chance to cross the threshold. We were shown to a staircase and conducted along a gallery which looked down into the garden of the vestals’ residence. I secretly hoped to catch a glimpse of one of those six mysterious white-clad maidens, but the garden was deserted, and it was not possible to linger, as the bowlegged figure of Pius was already waiting for us impatiently at the end of the gallery, tapping his foot, with a couple of priests on either side of him. He had been a soldier all his life and had the cracked and roughened look of leather that has been left outside for years and only lately brought indoors. There was no handshake for Cicero, no invitation to be seated, no preliminaries of any sort. Without preamble he merely said, in his hoarse voice, “Praetor, I need to talk to you about Sergius Catilina.”

At the mere mention of the name, Cicero stiffened, for Catilina was the man who had tortured to death his distant cousin, the populist politician Gratidianus, by breaking his limbs and gouging out his eyes and tongue. A jagged streak of violent madness ran through Catilina like lightning across his brain. At one moment he could be charming, cultured, friendly; then a man would make some seemingly innocuous remark, or Catilina would catch another looking at him in a way he thought disrespectful, and he would lose all self-restraint. During the proscriptions of Sulla, when death lists were posted in the Forum, Catilina had been one of the most proficient killers with the hammer and knife—
percussores,
as they were known—and had made a lot of money out of the estates of those he executed. Among the men he had murdered was his own brother-inlaw. Yet he had an undeniable charisma, and for each person he repulsed by his savagery, he attracted two or three more by his equally reckless displays of generosity. Catilina was also sexually licentious. Seven years previous, he had been prosecuted for having sexual relations with a vestal virgin—none other, in fact, than Terentia’s half sister, Fabia. This was a capital offense, not only for him but also for her, and if he had been found guilty she would have suffered the traditional punishment for a vestal virgin who broke her sacred vows of chastity—burial alive in the tiny chamber reserved for the purpose beside the Colline Gate. But the aristocrats, led by Catulus, had rallied around Catilina and secured his acquittal, and his political career had continued uninterrupted. He had been praetor the year before last, and had then gone out to govern Africa, thus missing the turmoil surrounding the
lex Gabinia
. He had only just returned.

“My family,” continued Pius, “have been the chief patrons of Africa since my father governed the province half a century ago. The people there look to me for protection, and I have to tell you, praetor, I have never seen them more incensed by any man than they have been by Sergius Catilina. He has plundered that province from end to end—taxed them and murdered them, stolen their temple treasures and raped their wives and daughters. The Sergii!” he exclaimed in disgust, retching up a great gob of yellow phlegm into his mouth and spitting it onto the floor. “Descended from the Trojans, or so they boast, and not a decent one among them for two hundred years! And now they tell me you are the praetor responsible for bringing his type to book.” He looked Cicero up and down. “Amazing! I cannot say that I know who the hell you are, but there it is. So what are you going to do about it?”

Cicero was always cool when someone tried to insult him. He merely said, “Do the Africans have a case prepared?”

“They do. They already have a delegation in Rome seeking a suitable prosecutor. Who should they go to?”

“That is hardly a matter for me. I must remain the impartial president of the court.”

“Blah-blah. Spare me the lawyer’s talk. Privately. Man to man.” Pius beckoned Cicero to come closer. He had left most of his teeth behind on various battlefields and his breath whistled when he tried to whisper. “You know the courts these days better than I. Who could do it?”

“Frankly, it will not be easy,” said Cicero. “Catilina’s reputation for violence precedes him. It will take a brave man to lay a charge against such a brazen killer. And presumably he will be standing for the consulship next year. There is a powerful enemy in the making.”

“Consul?” Pius suddenly struck himself very hard on the chest. “Sergius Catilina will not be consul—not next year or any year—not as long as this old body has any life left in it! There must be someone in this city who is man enough to bring him to justice. And if not—well, I am not quite such a senile fool that I have forgotten how to fight in Rome. You just make sure, praetor,” he concluded, “that you leave enough time in your calendar to hear the case,” and he shuffled off down the corridor, grumbling to himself.

As he watched him go, Cicero frowned and shook his head. Not comprehending politics nearly as well as I should have done, even after thirteen years in his service, I was at a loss to understand why he should have found this conversation so troubling. But he certainly was shaken, and as soon as we were back on the Via Sacra, he drew me out of the keen hearing of the
proximus lictor
and said, “This is a serious development, Tiro. I should have seen this coming.” When I asked why it mattered to him whether Catilina was prosecuted or not, he replied, in a withering tone, “Because,
bird-brain,
it is illegal to stand for election if you have charges pending against you. Which means that if the Africans do find a champion, and if a charge is laid against Catilina, and if it drags on into next summer, he will be barred from standing for the consulship until the case is resolved. Which means that if by any chance he is acquitted,
I
shall have to fight him in
my
year.”

I doubt whether there was another senator in Rome who would have tried to peer so far into the future—who would have piled up so many
if
s and discerned a reason for alarm. Certainly, when he explained his anxiety to Quintus, his brother dismissed it with a laugh: “And
if
you were struck by lightning, Marcus, and
if
Metellus Pius were able to remember what day of the week it was…” But Cicero continued to fret, and he made discreet inquiries about the progress of the African delegation as they searched for a credible advocate. However, as he suspected, they were finding it hard going, despite the immense amount of evidence they had collected of Catilina’s wrong-doing, and the fact that Pius had carried a resolution in the Senate censuring the former governor. No one was anxious to take on such a dangerous opponent and risk being discovered floating facedown in the Tiber late one night. So, for the time being at least, the prosecution languished, and Cicero put the matter to the back of his mind. Unfortunately, it was not to remain there for long.

Roll XIV

AT THE END OF HIS TERM AS PRAETOR, Cicero was entitled to go abroad and govern a province for a year. This was the normal practice in the republic. It gave a man the opportunity to gain administrative experience, and also to replenish his coffers after the expense of running for office. Then he would come home, assess the political mood, and, if all seemed promising, stand for the consulship that summer. Antonius Hybrida, for example, who had obviously incurred tremendous financial liabilities from the cost of his Games of Apollo, went off to Cappadocia to see what he could steal. But Cicero waived his right to a province. For one thing, he did not want to put himself in a position where a trumped-up charge might be laid against him and he would find himself with a special prosecutor dogging his footsteps for months. For another, he was still haunted by that year he had spent as a magistrate in Sicily, and ever afterwards he had hated to be away from Rome for longer than a week or two. There can seldom have been a more urban creature than Cicero. It was from the bustle of the streets and the courts, the Senate and the Forum, that he drew his energy, and the prospect of a year of dreary provincial company, however lucrative, in Cilicia or Macedonia, was anathema to him.

Besides, he had committed himself to an immense amount of advocacy, starting with the defense of Caius Cornelius, Pompey’s former tribune, whom the aristocrats had charged with treason. No fewer than five of the great patrician senators—Hortensius, Catulus, Lepidus, Marcus Lucullus, and even old Metellus Pius—lined up to prosecute Cornelius for his part in advancing Pompey’s legislation, charging him with illegally ignoring the veto of a fellow tribune. Faced with such an onslaught, I was sure that he was bound to be sent into exile. Cornelius thought so, too, and had packed up his house and was ready to leave. But Cicero was always inspired by the sight of Hortensius and Catulus on the other side, and he rose to the occasion, making a most effective closing speech for the defense. “Are we really to be lectured,” he demanded, “on the traditional rights of the tribunes by five gentlemen, all of whom supported the legislation of Sulla abolishing exactly those rights? Did any of these illustrious figures step forward to support the gallant Gnaeus Pompey when, as the first act of his consulship, he restored the tribunes’ power of veto? Ask yourself, finally, this: is it really a newfound concern for the traditions of the tribunes which drags them from their fishponds and private porticoes into court? Or is it, rather, the product of certain other ‘traditions’ much dearer to their hearts—their tradition of self-interest and their traditional desire for revenge?”

There was more in a similar vein, and by the time he had finished, the five distinguished litigants (who had made the mistake of all sitting in a row) were looking half their previous size, especially Pius, who obviously found it hard to keep up, and who had his hand cupped to his ear and kept twisting in his seat as his tormentor prowled around the court. This was to be one of the old soldier’s last appearances in public before the long twilight of his illness descended upon him. After the jury had voted to acquit Cornelius of all the charges, Pius left the court to jeers and mocking laughter, wearing an expression of elderly bafflement which I fear nowadays I recognize all too well as the natural set of my own features. “Well,” said Cicero, with a certain satisfaction, as we prepared to walk home, “at any rate, I believe that now he knows who I am.”

I shall not mention every case which Cicero took on at this time because there were dozens, all part of his strategy to place as many influential men as possible under an obligation to support him at the consular election, and to keep his name constantly in the voters’ minds. He certainly chose his clients carefully, and four of them at least were senators: Fundanius, who controlled a big voting syndicate; Orchivius, who had been one of his colleagues as praetor; Gallius, who was planning to run for a praetorship; and Mucius Orestinus, charged with robbery, who was hoping to become tribune, and whose case tied up the practice for many days.

I believe that never before had any candidate approached the business of politics as exactly that—a business—and every week a meeting was convened in Cicero’s study to review the campaign’s progress. Participants came and went, but the inner core consisted of five: Cicero himself, Quintus, Frugi, myself, and Cicero’s legal apprentice, Caelius, who, although still very young (or perhaps because of it), was adept at picking up gossip around the city. Quintus was once again the campaign manager and insisted on presiding. He liked to suggest, by the occasional indulgent smile or raised eyebrow, that Cicero, genius though he was, could be something of an airy-fairy intellectual, and needed the blunt common sense of his brother to keep his feet on the earth; and Cicero, with a reasonably good grace, played along.

It would make an interesting study, if only I had the life left in me to write it: the story of brothers in politics. There were the Gracchi, of course, Tiberius and Caius, who devoted themselves to distributing wealth from the rich to the poor, and who both perished violently as a result. And then in my own time there were Marcus and Lucius Lucullus, patrician consuls in successive years, as well as any number of siblings from the Metellus and Marcellus clans. In a sphere of human activity in which friendships are transitory and alliances made to be broken, the knowledge that another man’s name is forever linked to yours, however the fates may play, must be a powerful source of strength. The relationship between the Ciceros, like that between most brothers, I expect, was a complicated mixture of fondness and resentment, jealousy and loyalty. Without Cicero, Quintus would have been a dull and competent officer in the army, and then a dull and competent farmer in Arpinum, whereas Cicero without Quintus would still have been Cicero. Knowing this, and knowing that his brother knew it, too, Cicero went out of his way to conciliate him, generously wrapping him in the glittering mantle of his fame.

Quintus spent a long time that winter compiling an
Election Handbook,
a distillation of his fraternal advice to Cicero, which he liked to quote from whenever possible, as if it were Plato’s
Republic
. “Consider what city this is,” it began, “what it is you seek, and who you are. Every day, when you go down to the Forum, repeat to yourself: ‘I am a new man. I seek the consulship. This is Rome.’” I can still recall some of the other little homilies it preached. “All things are full of deceit, snares, and treachery. Hold fast to the saying of Epicharmus, that the bone and sinew of wisdom is ‘Never trust rashly.’” “See to it that you show off both the variety and number of your friends.” “I am very anxious that you should always have a crowd about you.” “If someone asks you to do something, do not decline, even if you cannot do it.” “Lastly, see that your canvass is a fine show, brilliant, resplendent, and popular; and also, if it can be managed, that there should be scandalous talk about the crimes, lusts, and briberies of your competitors.”

Quintus was very proud of his
Handbook,
and many years later he actually had it published, much to the horror of Cicero, who believed that political mastery, like great art, depends for its effects on the concealment of all the cunning which lies behind it.

IN THE SPRING TERENTIA celebrated her thirtieth birthday and Cicero arranged a small dinner party in her honor. Quintus and Pomponia came, and Frugi and his parents, and fussy Servius Sulpicius and his unexpectedly pretty wife, Postumia; there must have been others, but the flow of time has washed them from my memory. The household was assembled briefly by Eros the steward to convey our good wishes, and I remember thinking, when Terentia appeared, that I had never seen her looking quite so fine, or in a more cheerful mood. Her short, dark curly hair was lustrous, her eyes bright, and her normally bony frame seemed fuller and softer. I said as much to her maid after the master and mistress had led their guests in to dinner, at which she glanced around to check that no one was observing us, linked her hands, and made a circular gesture outward over her stomach. At first I did not understand, which gave her a fit of the giggles, and it was only after she had run back upstairs, still laughing, that I realized what a fool I had been; and not just me, of course. A normal husband would surely have noticed the symptoms sooner, but Cicero was invariably up at dawn and back at dusk, and even then there was always a speech to write or a letter to be sent—the miracle was that he should have found time to perform his conjugal duties at all. Anyway, midway through the dinner, a loud shout of excitement, followed by applause, confirmed that Terentia had taken the opportunity of the celebration to announce her pregnancy.

Later that evening, Cicero came into the study with a wide smile. He acknowledged my congratulations with a bow. “She is certain it is a boy. Apparently, the Good Goddess has informed her of the fact, by means of certain supernatural signs understood only by women.” He rubbed his hands vigorously in anticipation; he really could not stop smiling. “Always a wonderful addition at election time, Tiro, a baby—suggestive of a virile candidate, and a respectable family man. Talk to Quintus about scheduling the infant’s campaign appearances.” He pointed to my notebook. “I am joking, you idiot!” he said, seeing my dumbstruck expression, and pretended to cuff my ear. But I am undecided who it says most about, him or me, that I am still not entirely convinced he
was
joking.

From this time on, Terentia became much stricter in her observance of religious rituals, and on the day following her birthday she made Cicero accompany her to the Temple of Juno on Capitol Hill, where she bought a small lamb for the priest to sacrifice, in gratitude for her pregnancy and marriage. Cicero was delighted to oblige her, for he was genuinely overjoyed at the prospect of another child, and besides he knew how much the voters lapped up these public displays of piety.

AND NOW I FEAR I must return to the growing tumor that was Sergius Catilina.

A few weeks after Cicero’s summons to see Metellus Pius, that year’s consular elections were held. But such was the flagrant use of bribery by the winning ticket, the result was swiftly annulled and in October the poll was held again. On this occasion Catilina submitted his name as a candidate. Pius swiftly put a stop to his chances—I suppose it must have been the last successful battle the old warrior fought—and the Senate ruled that only those whose names were on the original ballot would be permitted to stand. This drove Catilina into one of his furies, and he began hanging around the Forum with his violent friends, making all kinds of threats, which were taken sufficiently seriously by the Senate that they voted an armed bodyguard to the consuls. Not surprisingly, no one had been brave enough to come forward and take up the Africans’ case in the extortion court. I actually suggested it to Cicero one day, wondering if it might be a popular cause for him to espouse—after all, he had brought down Verres, and that had made him the most famous advocate in the world. But Cicero shook his head. “Compared to Catilina, Verres was a kitten. Besides, Verres was not a man anyone much liked, whereas Catilina undeniably has a following.”

“Why is he so popular?” I asked.

“Dangerous men always attract a following, although that is not what concerns me. If it were simply a question of the mob in the street, he would be less of a threat. It is the fact that he has widespread aristocratic support—Catulus certainly, which probably also means Hortensius.”

“I should have thought him much too uncouth for Hortensius.”

“Oh, Hortensius knows how to make use of a street fighter when the occasion demands it. Many a cultured house is protected by a savage dog. And Catilina is also a Sergius, do not forget, so they approve of him on snobbish grounds. The masses and the aristocracy: that is a potent combination in politics. Let us hope he can be stopped in the consular elections this summer. I am only grateful that the task does not look like falling to me.”

I thought at the time that this was the sort of remark which proves there are gods, because whenever, in their celestial orbits, they hear such complacency, it amuses them to show their power. Sure enough, it was not long afterwards that Caelius Rufus brought Cicero some disturbing news. Caelius by this time was seventeen, and, as his father had stated, quite ungovernable. He was tall and well built and could easily have passed for a man in his early twenties, with his deep voice and the small goatee beard which he and his fashionable friends liked to sport. He would slip out of the house when it was dark and Cicero was preoccupied with his work and everyone else was asleep; often he would not return until just before dawn. He knew that I had a little money put by and was always pestering me to advance him small loans; one evening, after I had refused yet again, I retired to my cubicle to discover that he had found my hiding place and taken everything I possessed. I spent a miserable, sleepless night, but when I confronted him the next morning and threatened to report him to Cicero, tears came into his eyes and he promised to pay me back. And, in fairness to him, he did, and with generous interest; so I changed my hiding place and never said a word about it.

He drank and whored around the city at night with a group of very disreputable young noblemen. One of them was Gaius Curio, a twenty-year-old whose father had been consul and a great supporter of Verres. Another was Mark Antony, the nephew of Hybrida, who I reckon must then have been eighteen. But the real leader of the gang, chiefly because he was the eldest and richest and could show the others ways of getting into mischief they had never even dreamed of, was Clodius Pulcher. He was in his middle twenties and had been away for eight years on military service in the East, getting into all sorts of scrapes, including leading a mutiny against Lucullus—who also happened to be his brother-in-law—and then being captured by the very pirates he was supposed to be fighting. But now he was back in Rome, and looking to make a name for himself, and one night he announced that he knew exactly how he was going to do it—it would be a lark, a dare, risky and amusing (these were his actual words, according to Caelius)—
he would prosecute Catilina
.