Lustrum c-2, Page 2

  'Hey, you!' he shouted. 'Is that Cicero's house?'

  When I replied that it was, he called over his shoulder – 'This is the street!' – and lashed out at the slave nearest him with such force the poor fellow nearly stumbled. To get through the snow he had to pull his knees up high to his waist, and in this way he floundered on towards me. Behind him a second litter appeared, then a third, and a fourth. They drew up outside the house, and the instant they had set down their burdens the porters all sank down in the snow, collapsing over the shafts like exhausted rowers at their oars. I did not care for the look of this at all.

  'It may be Cicero's house,' I protested, 'but he is not receiving visitors.'

  'He will receive us!' came a familiar voice from inside the first litter, and a bony hand clawed back the curtain to reveal the leader of the patrician faction in the senate, Q. Lutatius Catulus. He was wrapped in animal skins right up to his pointed chin, giving him the appearance of a large and malevolent weasel.

  'Senator,' I said, bowing, 'I shall tell him you're here.'

  'And not just I,' said Catulus.

  I looked along the street. Clambering stiffly out of the next litter, and cursing his old soldier's bones, was the conqueror of Olympus and father of the senate, Vatia Isauricus, while nearby stood Cicero's great rival in the law courts, the patricians' favourite advocate, Q. Hortensius. He in turn was holding out his hand to a fourth senator, whose shrivelled, nut-brown, toothless face I could not place. He looked very decrepit. I guessed he must have stopped attending debates a long while ago.

  'Distinguished gentlemen,' I said, in my most unctuous manner, 'please follow me and I shall inform the consul-elect.'

  I whispered to the porter to show them into the tablinum and hurried towards Cicero's study. As I drew close, I could hear his voice in full declamatory flow – 'To the Roman people I say, enough!' – and when I opened the door I found him standing with his back to me, addressing my two junior secretaries, Sositheus and Laurea, his hand outstretched, his thumb and middle finger formed into a circle. 'And to you, Tiro,' he continued, without turning round, 'I say: not another damned interruption! What sign have the gods sent us now? A shower of frogs?'

  The secretaries sniggered. On the brink of achieving his life's ambition, he had put the perturbations of the previous day out of his mind and was in a great good humour.

  'There's a delegation from the senate to see you.'

  'Now that's what I call an ominous portent. Who's in it?'

  'Catulus, Isauricus, Hortensius, and another I don't recognise.'

  'The cream of the aristocracy? Here?' He gave me a sharp look over his shoulder. 'And in this weather? It must be the smallest house they've ever set foot in! What do they want?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Well, be sure you make a thorough note.' He gathered his toga around him and stuck out his chin. 'How do I look?'

  'Consular,' I assured him.

  He stepped over the discarded drafts of his speech and made his way into the tablinum. The porter had fetched chairs for our visitors but only one was seated – the trembling old senator I did not recognise. The others stood together, each with his own attendant close at hand, clearly uncomfortable at finding themselves on the premises of this low-born 'new man' they had so reluctantly backed for consul. Hortensius actually had a handkerchief pressed to his nose, as if Cicero's lack of breeding might be catching.

  'Catulus,' said Cicero affably, as he came into the room. 'Isauricus. Hortensius. I'm honoured.' He nodded to each of the former consuls, but when he reached the fourth senator I could see even his prodigious memory temporarily fail him. 'Rabirius,' he concluded after a brief struggle. 'Gaius Rabirius, isn't it?' He held out his hand but the old man did not react and Cicero smoothly turned the gesture into a sweeping indication of the room. 'Welcome to my home. This is a pleasure.'

  'There's no pleasure in it,' said Catulus.

  'It's an outrage,' said Hortensius.

  'It's war,' asserted Isauricus, 'that's what it is.'

  'Well, I'm very sorry to hear it,' replied Cicero pleasantly. He did not always take them seriously. Like many rich old men they tended to regard the slightest personal inconvenience as proof of the end of the world.

  Hortensius clicked his fingers, and his attendant handed Cicero a legal document with a heavy seal. 'Yesterday the Board of Tribunes served this writ on Rabirius.'

  At the mention of his name, Rabirius looked up. 'Can I go home?' he asked plaintively.

  'Later,' said Hortensius in a stern voice, and the old man bowed his head.

  'A writ on Rabirius?' repeated Cicero, looking at him with bemusement. 'And what conceivable crime is he capable of?' He read the writ aloud so I could make a note of it. '“The accused is herein charged with the murder of the tribune L. Saturninus and the violation of the sacred precincts of the senate house.”' He looked up in puzzlement. 'Saturninus? It must be – what? – forty years since he was killed.'

  'Thirty-six,' corrected Catulus.

  'And Catulus should know,' said Isauricus, 'because he was there. As was I.'

  Catulus spat out his name as if it were poison. 'Saturninus! What a rogue! Killing him wasn't a crime – it was a public service.' He gazed into the distance as if surveying some grand historical mural on the wall of a temple: The Murder of Saturninus in the Senate House. 'I see him as plainly as I see you, Cicero. A rabble-rousing tribune of the very worst kind. He murdered our candidate for consul and the senate declared him a public enemy. After that, even the plebs deserted him. But before we could lay our hands on him, he and some of his gang barricaded themselves up on the Capitol. So we blocked the water pipes! That was your idea, Vatia.'

  'It was.' The old general's eyes gleamed at the memory. 'I knew how to conduct a siege, even then.'

  'Of course they surrendered after a couple of days, and were lodged in the senate house till their trial. But we didn't trust them not to escape again, so we got up on the roof and tore off the tiles and pelted them. There was no hiding place. They ran to and fro squealing like rats in a ditch. By the time Saturninus stopped twitching, you could barely tell who he was.'

  'And Rabirius was with you both on the roof?' asked Cicero. Glancing up from my notes at the old man – his expression vacant, his head trembling slightly – it was impossible to imagine him involved in such an action.

  'Oh yes, he was there,' confirmed Isauricus. 'There must have been about thirty of us. Those were the days,' he added, bunching his fingers into a gnarled fist, 'when we still had some juice in us!'

  'The crucial point,' said Hortensius wearily – he was younger than his companions and obviously bored of hearing the same old story – 'is not whether Rabirius was there or not. It's the crime with which he is being charged.'

  'Which is what? Murder?'

  ' Perduellio.'

  I must confess I had never even heard of it, and Cicero had to spell it out for me. ' Perduellio,' he explained, 'is what the ancients called treason.' He turned to Hortensius. 'Why use such an obsolete law? Why not just prosecute him with treason, pure and simple, and have done with it?'

  'Because the sentence for treason is exile, whereas for perduellio it's death – and not by hanging, either.' Hortensius leaned forward to emphasise his words. 'If they find him guilty, Rabirius will be crucified.'

  'What is this place?' demanded Rabirius, getting to his feet. 'Where am I?'

  Catulus gently pressed him down into his seat. 'Calm yourself, Gaius. We're your friends.'

  'But no jury is going to find him guilty,' objected Cicero quietly. 'The poor fellow's clearly lost his brains.'

  ' Perduellio isn't heard before a jury. That's what's so cunning. It's heard before two judges, specially appointed for the purpose.'

  'Appointed by whom?'

  'Our new urban praetor, Lentulus Sura.'

  Cicero grimaced at the name. Sura was a former consul, a man of great ambition and boundless stupidity, two qualities which in politics of
ten go together.

  'And whom has Old Sleepy-Head chosen as judges? Do we know?'

  'Caesar is one. And Caesar is the other.'

  ' What?'

  'Gaius Julius Caesar and his cousin Lucius are to be selected to hear the case.'

  ' Caesar is behind this?'

  'Naturally the verdict is a foregone conclusion.'

  'But there must be a right of appeal,' insisted Cicero, now thoroughly alarmed. 'A Roman citizen cannot be executed without a proper trial.'

  'Oh yes,' said Hortensius bitterly. 'If Rabirius is found guilty, of course he has the right of appeal. But here's the catch. Not to a court – only to the entire people, drawn up in full assembly, on the Field of Mars.'

  'And what a spectacle that will be!' broke in Catulus. 'Can you imagine it? A Roman senator on trial for his life in front of the mob? They'll never vote to acquit him – it would rob them of their entertainment.'

  'It will mean civil war,' said Isauricus flatly, 'because we won't stand for it, Cicero. D'you hear us?'

  'I hear you,' he replied, his eyes rapidly scanning the writ. 'Which of the tribunes has laid the charge?' He found the name at the foot of the document. 'Labienus? He's one of Pompey's men. He's not normally a troublemaker. What's he playing at?'

  'Apparently his uncle was killed alongside Saturninus,' said Hortensius with great contempt, 'and his family honour demands vengeance. It's nonsense. The whole thing is just a pretext for Caesar and his gang to attack the senate.'

  'So what do you propose to do?' said Catulus. 'We voted for you, remember? Against the better judgement of some of us.'

  'What do you want me to do?'

  'What do you think? Fight for Rabirius's life! Denounce this wickedness in public, then join Hortensius as his defence counsel when the case comes before the people.'

  'Well, that would be a novelty,' said Cicero, eyeing his great rival, 'the two of us appearing together.'

  'The prospect is no more appealing to me than it is to you,' rejoined Hortensius coldly.

  'Now, now, Hortensius, don't take offence. I'd be honoured to act as your colleague in court. But let's not rush into their trap. Let's try to see if we can settle this matter without a trial.'

  'How can it be avoided?'

  'I'll go and talk to Caesar. Discover what he wants. See if we can reach a compromise.' At the mere mention of the word 'compromise', the three ex-consuls all started to object at once. Cicero held up his hands. 'He must want something. It will do us no harm at least to hear his terms. We owe it to the republic. We owe it to Rabirius.'

  'I want to go home,' said Rabirius plaintively. 'Please can I go home now?'

  Cicero and I left the house less than an hour later, the unfamiliar snow crunching and squeaking beneath our boots as we descended the empty street towards the city. Once again we went alone, which I now find remarkable to contemplate – this must have been one of the last occasions when Cicero was able to venture out in Rome without a bodyguard. He did however pull up the hood of his cloak to avoid being recognised. Even the busiest thoroughfares in daylight could not be counted safe that winter.

  'They will have to compromise,' he said. 'They may not like it, but they have no choice.' He suddenly swore, and kicked at the snow in his frustration. 'Is this what my consulship is going to consist of, Tiro? A year spent running back and forth between the patricians and the populists, trying to stop them tearing one another to pieces?' I could think of no hopeful reply, so we trudged on in silence.

  Caesar's home at this time stood some way beneath Cicero's, in Subura. The building had been in his family for at least a century and had no doubt been fine enough in its day. But by the time Caesar had come to inherit it, the neighbourhood was impoverished. Even the virginal snow, smudged with the soot of burned-out fires and dotted with human shit thrown from the tenement windows, somehow served only to emphasise the squalor of the narrow streets. Beggars held out trembling hands for money, but I had brought none with me. I recall urchins pelting an elderly, shrieking whore with snowballs, and twice we saw fingers and feet poking out from beneath the icy mounds that marked where some poor wretch had frozen to death in the night.

  And it was down here in Subura, like some great shark attended by shoals of minnows hoping for his scraps, that Caesar lurked and awaited his chance. His house was at the end of a street of shoemakers, flanked by two tottering apartment blocks, seven or eight storeys high. The frozen washing strung between them made it seem as though a pair of drunks with torn sleeves were embracing above his roof. Outside the entrance a dozen rough-looking fellows stamped their feet around an iron brazier. I felt their hungry, crafty eyes stripping the clothes from my back even as we waited to be admitted.

  'Those are the citizens who will be judging Rabirius,' muttered Cicero. 'The old fool doesn't stand a chance.'

  The steward took our cloaks and showed us into the atrium, then went to tell his master of Cicero's arrival, leaving us to inspect the death masks of Caesar's ancestors. Strangely, there were only three consuls in Caesar's direct line, a thin tally for a family that claimed to go back to the foundation of Rome and to have its origins in the womb of Venus. The goddess herself was represented by a small bronze. The statue was exquisite but scratched and shabby, as were the carpets, the frescoes, the faded tapestries and the furniture: all told a story of a proud family fallen on hard days. We had plenty of leisure to appreciate these heirlooms as time passed and still Caesar did not appear.

  'You can't help but admire the fellow,' said Cicero, after he had paced around the room three or four times. 'Here am I, about to become the pre-eminent man in Rome, while he hasn't even made it to praetor yet. But I am the one who must dance attendance on him!'

  After a while I became aware that we were being watched from behind a door by a solemn-faced girl of about ten who must have been Caesar's daughter, Julia. I smiled at her and she darted away. A little while later, Caesar's mother, Aurelia, emerged from the same room. Her narrow, dark-eyed, watchful face, like Caesar's, had something of the bird of prey about it, and she exuded a similar air of chilly cordiality. Cicero had been acquainted with her for many years. All three of her brothers, the Cottas, had been consul, and if Aurelia had been born a man, she would certainly have achieved the rank herself, for she was shrewder and braver than any of them. As it was, she had to content herself with furthering the career of her son, and when her eldest brother died she fixed it so that Caesar would take his place as one of the fifteen members of the College of Priests – a brilliant move, as I shall soon describe.

  'Forgive him, Cicero, for his rudeness,' she said. 'I've reminded him you're here, but you know how he is.' There was a footstep and we glanced behind us to see a woman in the passage leading to the door. No doubt she had hoped to slip past unnoticed, but one of her shoes must have come undone. Leaning against the wall to refasten it, her auburn hair awry, she glanced guiltily in our direction, and I do not know who was the more embarrassed: Postumia – which was the woman's name – or Cicero, for he knew her very well as the wife of his great friend the jurist and senator Servius Sulpicius. Indeed, she was due to have dinner with Cicero that very evening.

  He quickly turned his attention back to the bronze of Venus and pretended to be in the middle of a conversation – 'This is very fine: is it a Myron?' – and did not look up until she had gone.

  'That was tactfully done,' said Aurelia approvingly, then her expression darkened and she shook her head. 'I don't reproach my son for his liaisons – men will be men – but some of these modern women are shameless beyond belief.'

  'What are you two gossiping about?'

  It was a trick of Caesar's, in both war and peace, to appear unexpectedly from the rear, and at the sound of that flint-dry voice we all three turned. I can see him now, his large head looming skull-like in the dimming afternoon light. People ask me about him all the time: 'You met Caesar? What was he like? Tell us what he was like – the great god Caesar!' Well, I remember him mos
t as a curious combination of hard and soft – the muscles of a soldier within the loosely belted tunic of an effete dandy; the sharp sweat of the exercise yard laid over by the sweet scent of crocus oil; pitiless ambition sheathed in honeyed charm. 'Be wary of her, Cicero,' he continued, emerging from the shadows. 'She's twice the politician we are, aren't you, Mama?' He caught her by the waist from behind and kissed her beneath her ear.

  'Now stop that,' she said, freeing herself and pretending to be annoyed. 'I've played the hostess long enough. Where's your wife? It's not seemly for her to be out unaccompanied all the time. Send her to me the moment she returns.' She inclined her head graciously towards Cicero. 'My best wishes to you for tomorrow. It's a remarkable achievement to be the first in one's family to achieve the consulship.'

  Caesar watched her go admiringly. 'Seriously, Cicero,' he said, 'the women in this city are far more formidable than the men, your own wife being a fine example.'

  Was Caesar hinting by this remark that he desired to seduce Terentia? I doubt it. The most hostile tribe of Gaul would have been a less gruelling conquest. But I could see Cicero bridling. 'I'm not here to discuss the women of Rome,' he said, 'expert though you may be.'

  'Then why have you come?'

  Cicero nodded to me. I opened my document case and handed Caesar the writ.

  'Are you trying to corrupt me?' responded Caesar with a smile, handing it straight back to me. 'I can't discuss this. I'm to be a judge.'

  'I want you to acquit Rabirius of these charges.'

  Caesar chuckled in that mirthless way of his, and tucked a thin strand of hair behind his ear. 'No doubt you do.'

  'Now, Caesar,' said Cicero with an edge of impatience in his voice, 'let's speak plainly. Everyone knows that you and Crassus give the tribunes their orders. I doubt whether Labienus even knew the name of this wretched uncle of his until you put it into his head. As for Sura – he would have thought perduellio was a fish unless someone told him otherwise. This is yet another of your designs.'