Lustrum c-2

by Robert Harris

  'So it is your firm opinion that Catilina could win the consulship?'

  'It is. Silanus will take the first place and he the second.'

  'Well then, we have to stop him.'

  'I agree.'

  'So what do you propose?'

  'That is why I've come. I'd like you to stage your triumph just before the consular elections.'

  'Why?'

  'For the purpose of your procession, I assume you plan to bring into Rome several thousand of your veterans from all across Italy?'

  'Naturally.'

  'Whom you will entertain lavishly, and reward generously out of the spoils of your victory?'

  'Of course.'

  'And who will therefore listen to your advice about whom to support in the consular elections?'

  'I would like to think so.'

  'In which case, I know just the candidate they should vote for.'

  'I thought you might,' said Lucullus with a cynical smile. 'You have in mind your great ally Servius.'

  'Oh no. Not him. The poor fool doesn't stand a chance. No, I'm thinking of your old legate – and their former comrade-in-arms – Lucius Murena.'

  Accustomed though I was to the twists and turns of Cicero's stratagems, it had never crossed my mind that he might abandon Servius so readily. For a moment I could not believe what I had just heard. Lucullus looked equally surprised. 'I thought Servius was one of your closest friends?'

  'This is the Roman republic, not a coterie of friends. My heart certainly urges me to vote for Servius. But my head tells me he can't beat Catilina. Whereas Murena, with your backing, might just be able to manage it.'

  Lucullus frowned. 'I have a problem with Murena. His closest lieutenant in Gaul is that depraved monster, my former brother-in-law – a man whose name is so disgusting to me I refuse to pollute my mouth by even uttering it.'

  'Well then, let me utter it for you. Clodius is not a man I have any great liking for myself. But in politics one cannot always pick and choose one's enemies, let alone one's friends. To save the republic, I must abandon an old and dear companion. To save the republic, you must embrace the ally of your bitterest foe.' He leaned across the table, and added softly, 'Such is politics, Imperator, and if ever the day comes when we lack the stomach for such work, we should get out of public life and stick to breeding fish!'

  For a moment I feared he had gone too far. Lucullus threw down his napkin and swore that he would not be blackmailed into betraying his principles. But as usual Cicero had judged his man well. He let Lucullus rant on for a while, and when he had finished he made no response, but simply gazed across the bay and sipped his wine. The silence seemed to go on for a very long time. The moon above the water cast a path of shimmering silver. Finally, in a voice leaden with suppressed anger, Lucullus said that he supposed Murena might make a decent enough consul if he was willing to take advice, whereupon Cicero promised to lay the issue of his triumph before the senate as soon as the recess ended.

  Neither man having much appetite left for further conversation, we all retired early to our rooms. I had not long been in mine when I heard a gentle knocking at the door. I opened it, and there stood Agathe. She came in without a word. I assumed she had been sent by Lucullus's steward, and told her it was not necessary, but as she climbed into my bed she assured me it was of her own volition, and so I joined her. We talked between caresses, and she told me something of herself – of how her parents, now dead, had been led back as slaves from the East as part of Lucullus's war booty, and how she could just vaguely remember the village in Greece where they had lived. She had worked in the kitchens, and now she looked after the imperator's guests. In due course, as her looks faded, she would return to the kitchens, if she was lucky; if not, it would be the fields, and an early death. She talked about all this without any self-pity, as one might describe the life of a horse or a dog. Cato called himself a stoic, I thought, but this girl really was one, smiling at her fate and armoured against despair by her dignity. I said as much to her, and she laughed.

  'Come, Tiro,' she said, holding up her arms and beckoning me to her, 'no more solemn words. Here is my philosophy: enjoy such brief ecstasy as the gods permit us, for it is only in these moments that men and women are truly not alone.'

  When I awoke with the dawn she had gone.

  Do I surprise you, reader? I remember I surprised myself. After so many years of chastity, I had ceased even to imagine such things and was content to leave them to the poets: 'What life is there, what delight, without golden Aphrodite?' Knowing the words was one thing; I never expected to know their meaning.

  I had hoped we might stay for one more night at least, but the next morning Cicero announced that we were leaving. Secrecy was absolutely vital to his plans, and the longer he lingered in Misenum, the more he feared his presence would become known. So after a final brief conference with Lucullus, we set off back in the closed carriage. As we descended towards the coastal road, I stared back at the house over my shoulder. There were many slaves to be seen, working in the gardens and moving beneath the various parts of the great villa, preparing it for another perfect spring day. Cicero was also looking back.

  'They flaunt their wealth,' he murmured, 'and then they wonder why they are so hated. And if that is how stupendously rich Lucullus has become, who never actually defeated Mithradates, can you imagine the colossal wealth that Pompey must now possess?'

  I could not imagine it, and nor did I wish to. It sickened me. Never before had the pointlessness of piling up treasure for its own sake been more apparent to me than it was on that warm blue morning as the house receded behind me.

  Now that he had settled on his strategy, Cicero was eager to pursue it, and for that we needed to return to Rome. As far as he was concerned, the holiday was over. Reaching the seaside villa at Formiae at dusk, we rested overnight, and then set off again at first light. If Terentia was irritated by this neglect of her and the children, she did not show it. She knew he would travel quicker without them. We were back in Rome by the Ides of April, and Cicero at once set about making discreet contact with Murena. The governor was still in his province of Further Gaul, but it turned out he had sent back his lieutenant, Clodius, to start planning his election campaign. Cicero hummed and hawed about what to do, for he did not trust Clodius, and nor did he want to tip off his plans to Caesar and Catilina by going openly to the young man's house. Eventually he decided to approach him via his brother-in-law, the augur Metellus Celer, and this led to a memorable encounter.

  Celer lived up on the Palatine Hill, on Victory Rise, close to the house of Catulus, in a street of fine residences overlooking the forum. Cicero reasoned that nobody would find it surprising to see a consul dropping by to visit a praetor. But when we entered the mansion, we discovered that its master was away for the day on a hunting trip. Only his wife was at home, and it was she who came out to greet us, accompanied by several maids. As far as I am aware, this was the first occasion on which Cicero met Clodia, and she made a striking impression on him of beauty and of cleverness. She was thirty or thereabouts, famous for her large brown eyes with long lashes – 'Lady Ox-Eyes', Cicero used to call her – which she employed to great effect, giving men flirtatious sidelong glances, or fixing them with beguiling and intimate stares. She had an expressive mouth and a caressing voice, pitched for gossip. Like her brother, she affected a fashionable 'urban' accent. But woe betide the man who tried to be too familiar with her – she was capable of turning in an instant into a true Claudian: haughty, ruthless, cruel. A rake named Vettius, who had tried to seduce her and failed, circulated quite a good pun about her: in triclinio Coa, in cubiculo nola ('a silky island in the dining room, a rocky fortress in bed'), with the result that two of her other admirers, M. Camurtius and M. Caesernius, took revenge on her behalf: they beat him up, and then, to make the punishment fit the crime, they buggered him half to death.

  One would have thought this a world utterly alien to Cicero, and yet there was a part
of his character – a quarter of him, let us say – that was irresistibly drawn to the rakish and the outrageous, even while the other three quarters thundered in the senate against loose morals. Perhaps it was the streak of the actor in him; he always loved the company of theatre people. He also liked men and women who were not boring, and no one could ever say that Clodia was that. At any rate, each expressed great pleasure at meeting the other, and when Clodia, with one of her wide-eyed sideways looks, asked in her breathy voice if there was anything – anything at all – she could do for Cicero in her husband's absence, he replied that actually there was: he would like to have a private word with her brother.

  'Appius or Gaius?' she asked, assuming he must mean one of the older two, each of whom was as stern and humourless and ambitious as the other.

  'Neither. I wanted to talk to Publius.'

  'Publius! The wicked boy! You have picked my favourite.' She sent a slave at once to fetch him, no doubt from whichever gambling den or brothel was his current haunt, and while they awaited his arrival, she and Cicero strolled around the atrium, studying the death masks of Celer's consular ancestors. I withdrew quietly into the shadows and therefore I could not hear what they were saying, but I heard their laughter, and I realised that the source of their amusement was the frozen, waxy faces of generation after generation of Metelli – who were, it must be admitted, famed for their stupidity.

  At length Clodius swept into the house, gave a low and (I thought) sarcastic bow to the consul, kissed his sister lovingly on the mouth, and then stood with his arm around her waist. He had been in Gaul for more than a year, but had not changed much. He was still as pretty as a woman, with thick golden curls, loose clothes, and a drooping way of looking at the world that was full of condescension. To this day I cannot decide whether he and Clodia really were lovers, or whether they simply enjoyed outraging respectable society. But I learnt afterwards that Clodius behaved this way with all three of his sisters in public, and certainly Lucullus had believed the rumours of incest.

  Anyway, if Cicero was shocked, he did not show it. Smiling his apologies to Clodia, he asked if he might be allowed a word with her younger brother in private. 'Well, all right,' she replied with mock reluctance, 'but I am very jealous,' and after a final lingering, flirtatious handshake with the consul, she disappeared into the interior of the great house, leaving the three of us alone. Cicero and Clodius exchanged a few pleasantries about Further Gaul and the arduousness of the journey across the Alps, and then Cicero said, 'Now tell me, Clodius, is it true that your chief, Murena, is going to seek the consulship?'

  'It is.'

  'That's what I'd heard. It surprised me, I must confess. How do you think he can possibly win?'

  'Easily. There are any number of ways.'

  'Really? Give me one.'

  'Obligation: the people still remember the generous games he staged before he was elected praetor.'

  'Before he was elected praetor? My dear fellow, that was three years ago! In politics, three years is ancient history. Believe me, Murena is entirely forgotten here. Out of sight is out of mind, as far as Rome is concerned. I ask again: where do you propose to find the votes?'

  Clodius maintained his smile. 'I believe many of the centuries will support him.'

  'Why? The patricians will vote for Silanus and Servius. The populists will vote for Silanus and Catilina. Who will be left to vote for Murena?'

  'Give us time, Consul. The new campaign hasn't even started yet.'

  'The new campaign started the moment the old one ended. You should have been going around all year. And who will run this miraculous canvass?'

  'I shall.'

  ' You? '

  Cicero uttered the word with such derision I winced, and even Clodius's arrogance seemed briefly dented. 'I have some experience.'

  'What experience? You're not even a member of the senate.'

  'Well then, damn you! Why did you bother even coming to see me if you're so certain we're going to lose?'

  His expression was one of such outrage, Cicero burst out laughing. 'Who said anything about losing? Did I? Young fellow,' he continued, putting his arm around Clodius's shoulders, 'I know a thing or two about winning elections, and I can tell you this: you have every chance of winning – just as long as you do exactly as I tell you. But you need to wake up before it's too late. That is why I wanted to see you.'

  And so saying, he walked Clodius round and round the atrium and explained his plan, while I followed with my notebook open and took down his directions.

  VII

  Cicero informed only the most trusted senators of his intention to propose a triumph for Lucullus – men like his brother Quintus; the former consul C. Piso; the praetors Pomptinus and Flaccus; friends such as Gallus, Marcellinus and the elder Frugi; and the patrician leaders Hortensius, Catulus and Isauricus. They in turn initiated others into the scheme. All were sworn to secrecy, told on which day to attend the chamber and requested above everything to keep together, whatever happened, until the house adjourned. Cicero did not tell Hybrida.

  On the appointed date the senate house was unusually crowded. Elderly nobles who had not attended for many years were present, and I could see that Caesar scented danger of some kind, for he had a habit at such moments of almost literally sniffing the air, tilting his head back slightly and peering around him suspiciously (he did exactly that, I remember, moments before he was murdered). But Cicero had arranged the whole thing masterfully. A very tedious bill was at that time making its way on to the statute book, restricting the right of senators to claim expenses for unofficial trips to the provinces. This is precisely the sort of self-interested legislation that excites every elected bore in politics, and Cicero had lined up an entire bench of them and promised each he could speak for as long as he liked. The moment he read out the order of business some senators groaned and rose to leave, and after about an hour of listening to Q. Cornificius – a very dreary speaker at the best of times – attendance was thinning fast. Some of our side pretended to go, but actually lingered in the streets close to the senate house. Eventually even Caesar could stand it no longer and departed, together with Catilina.

  Cicero waited a little longer, then stood and announced that he had received a new motion that he would like to place before the house. He called on Lucullus's brother Marcus to speak, who thereupon read out a letter from the great general requesting that the senate grant him a triumph before the consular elections. Cicero declared that Lucullus had waited long enough for his just reward and he would now put the matter to a vote. By this time the patrician benches had filled up again with those who had been lurking nearby, whilst on the populists' side there was hardly anyone to be seen. Messengers ran off to fetch Caesar. Meanwhile, all who favoured a triumph for Lucullus moved to stand around his brother, and after heads had been counted, Cicero duly declared that the motion had been passed by 120 to 16 and that the house should stand adjourned. He hurried down the aisle, preceded by his lictors, just as Caesar and Catilina arrived at the door. They obviously realised that they had been ambushed and had lost something significant, but it would take them an hour or two to work out exactly what. For now they could only stand aside and let the consul's procession pass. It was a delicious moment, and Cicero relived it again and again over dinner that night.

  The trouble really started the following day in the senate. Belatedly the populists' benches were packed, and it was a rowdy house. Crassus, Catilina and Caesar had by this time worked out what Cicero was up to, and one after the other they rose to demand that the vote be taken again. But Cicero would not be intimidated. He ruled that there had been a proper quorum, Lucullus deserved his triumph, and the people were in need of a spectacle to cheer them up: as far as he was concerned, the issue was closed. Catilina, however, refused to sit down, and continued to demand a re-vote. Calmly Cicero tried to move on to the bill about travel expenses. As the uproar continued I thought the session might have to be suspended. But Catilina st
ill had not entirely given up hope of winning power by the ballot box rather than the sword, and he recognised that the consul was right in one respect at least: the urban masses always enjoyed a triumph, and would not understand why they had been promised the pleasure one day only to be deprived of it the next. At the last moment he threw himself heavily back on to the front bench, sweeping his arm dismissively at the chair in a gesture of anger and disgust. Thus it was settled: Lucullus would have his day of glory in Rome.

  That night Servius came to see Cicero. He brusquely rejected the offer of a drink and demanded to know if the rumours were true.

  'What rumours?'

  'The rumours that you've abandoned me and are supporting Murena.'

  'Of course they're not true. I'll vote for you, and shall say as much to anyone who asks me.'

  'Then why have you arranged to ruin my chances by filling the city with Murena's old legionaries in the week of the poll?'

  'The question of when Lucullus holds his triumph is entirely a matter for him' – an answer that, while true in a strictly legal sense, was grossly misleading in every other. 'Are you sure you won't have a drink?'

  'Do you really think I'm such a fool as that?' Servius's stooped frame was quivering with emotion. 'It's bribery, plain and simple. And I give you fair warning, Consul: I intend to lay a bill before the senate making it illegal for candidates, or their surrogates, to hold either banquets or games just before an election.'

  'Listen, Servius, may I give you some advice? Money, feasting, entertainment – these have always been a part of an election campaign, and always will be. You can't just sit around waiting for the voters to come to you. You need to put on a show. Make sure you go everywhere in a big crowd of supporters. Spread a little money around. You can afford it.'