By the time I had finished examining the boxes and returned to Cicero's house, it was time to leave for the senate. The downstairs rooms were festooned with sweet-smelling flora, and numerous amphorae of wine were being carried in from the street. Clearly, whatever other mysteries it might entail, the ceremony of the Good Goddess was not abstemious. Terentia drew her husband to one side and embraced him. I could not hear what she said, and nor did I try to, but I did see her take his arm and grip it fiercely. Then we set off, surrounded by legionaries, with each conspirator escorted down to the Temple of Concordia by a man of consular rank. They were all very subdued now; even Cethegus had lost his arrogance. None of us knew what to expect. As we entered the forum, Cicero took Sura by the hand as a mark of respect, but the patrician appeared too dazed by events to notice. I was walking just behind them, carrying the box of letters. What was remarkable was not so much the size of the crowds – needless to say, almost the entire population had flocked to the forum to watch what was going on – but their complete silence.
The temple was ringed by armed men. The waiting senators looked on in amazement as they saw Cicero leading Sura. Once inside, the conspirators were locked into a small storeroom near the entrance, while Cicero went straight to the makeshift dais where his chair had been placed beneath the statue of Concordia. 'Gentlemen,' he began, 'earlier today, shortly before first light, the gallant praetors Lucius Flaccus and Gaius Pomptinus, acting on my orders, at the head of a large body of armed men, apprehended a group of riders on the Mulvian Bridge heading in the direction of Etruria…' Nobody whispered; nobody even coughed. It was a silence such as I had never heard before in the senate – fearful, ominous, oppressive. Occasionally I was able to glance up from my note-taking at Caesar and Crassus. Both men were leaning forward in their seats, concentrating on Cicero's every word. 'Thanks to the loyalty of our allies, the envoys of the Gauls, who were appalled by what was proposed, I had already received warning of the treasonous activities of some of our fellow citizens, and was able to take the necessary precautions…'
When the consul finished his account, which included a description of the plot to set fire to parts of the city and massacre many senators and other prominent figures, there was a kind of collective sigh or groan.
'The question now arises, gentlemen, of what we are supposed to do with these villains. I propose that as a first step we consider the evidence against the accused, and hear what they have to say for themselves. Send in the witnesses!'
The four Gauls entered first. They looked around them in wonder at the long rows of white-robed senators, whose appearance was such a dramatic contrast with their own. Titus Volturcius came in next, trembling so much he could hardly walk down the aisle. Once they were in position, Cicero called out to Flaccus, who was stationed at the entrance: 'Bring in the first of the prisoners!'
'Which do you wish to question first?' Flaccus shouted in reply.
'Whichever is to hand,' said Cicero grimly, and so it was that Cethegus, escorted by a pair of guards, was brought from the storeroom to the far end of the temple, where Cicero waited. Finding himself before an audience of his peers, the young senator recovered some of his old spirit. He almost sauntered down the aisle, and when the consul showed him the letters and asked him to identify which seal was his, he picked it up casually.
'This one is mine, I believe.'
'Give it to me.'
'If you insist,' said Cethegus, handing it over. 'I must say, I was always taught it was the height of bad manners for one gentleman to read another gentleman's mail.'
Cicero ignored him, broke open the letter and read it out loud: ' From Caius Cornelius Cethegus to Catugnatus, chief of the Allobroges – greetings! By this letter I give you my word that I and my companions will keep the promises we have made to your envoys, and that if your nation rises against your unjust oppressors in Rome, it will have no more loyal allies than us.'
On hearing this, the assembled senators let out a great bellow of outrage. Cicero held up his hand. 'Is this your writing?' he asked Cethegus.
The young senator, clearly taken aback by his reception, mumbled something I could not hear.
'Is this your writing?' repeated Cicero. 'Speak up!'
Cethegus hesitated, then said quietly, 'It is.'
'Well, young man, clearly we had different tutors, for I was always taught that the true height of bad manners was not reading another man's mail, but plotting treason with a foreign power! Now,' continued Cicero, consulting his notes, 'at your house this morning we discovered an armoury of a hundred swords and the same number of daggers. What do you have to say for yourself?'
'I'm a collector of weapons-' began Cethegus. He may have been trying to be witty; if he was, it was a foolish joke, and also his last. The rest of his words were lost in the angry protests that came from every corner of the temple.
'We've heard enough from you,' said Cicero. 'Your guilt is self-confessed. Take him away and bring in the next.'
Cethegus was led off, not quite so jaunty now, and Statilius was marched down the aisle. The same process was repeated: he identified his seal, the letter was broken open and read (the language was almost identical to that used by Cethegus), he confirmed that the handwriting was his; but when he was asked to explain himself, he claimed that the letter was not meant seriously.
'Not meant seriously?' repeated Cicero in wonder. 'An invitation to an alien tribe to slaughter Roman men, women and children – not meant seriously?' Statilius could only hang his head.
Capito's turn followed, with the same result, and then Caeparius made a dishevelled appearance. He was the one who had tried to escape at dawn, but he had been captured on his way to Apulia with messages for the rebel forces. His confession was the most abject of all. Finally there remained only Lentulus Sura to confront, and this was a moment of great drama, for you must remember that Sura was not only the urban praetor, and therefore the third most powerful magistrate in the state, but also a former consul: a man in his middle fifties of the most distinguished lineage and appearance. As he entered, he looked around with appealing eyes at colleagues he had sat with for a quarter of a century in the highest council of the state, but none would meet his gaze. With great reluctance he identified the last two letters, both of which bore his seal. The one to the Gauls was the same as those that had been read out earlier. The second was addressed to Catilina. Cicero broke it open.
' You will know who I am from the bearer of this message,' he read. ' Be a man. Remember how critical your position is. Consider what you must now do and enlist aid wherever you find it – even from the lowest of the low.' Cicero held out the letter to Sura. 'Your writing?'
'Yes,' replied Sura with great dignity, 'but there's nothing criminal about it.'
'This phrase, “the lowest of the low” – what do you mean by it?'
'Poor people – shepherds, tenant farmers and suchlike.'
'Isn't it rather a lordly way for a so-called champion of the poor to refer to our fellow citizens?' Cicero turned to Volturcius: 'You were supposed to convey this letter to Catilina at his headquarters, were you not?'
Volturcius lowered his eyes. 'I was.'
'What precisely does Sura mean by this phrase, “the lowest of the low”? Did he tell you?'
'Yes, he did, Consul. He means that Catilina should encourage an uprising of slaves.'
The roars of fury that greeted this revelation were almost physical in their force. To encourage an uprising of slaves so soon after the havoc wrought by Spartacus and his followers was worse even than making an alliance with the Gauls. 'Resign! Resign! Resign!' the senate chorused at the urban praetor. Several senators actually ran across the temple and began wrenching off Sura's purple-bordered toga. He fell to the ground and briefly disappeared in a crowd of assailants and guards. Large pieces of his toga were borne away, and very quickly he was reduced to his undergarments. His nose was bleeding, and his hair, normally oiled and coiffed, was standing on end. Cicero ca
lled out for a fresh tunic to be brought, and when one was found, he actually went down and helped Sura put it on.
After some kind of calm had been restored, Cicero took a vote on whether or not Sura should be stripped of his office. The senate roared back an overwhelming 'Aye!' which was of great significance, as it meant Sura was no longer immune from punishment. Dabbing at his nose, he was taken away, and the consul resumed his questioning of Volturcius: 'We have here five conspirators, fully revealed at last, unable any longer to hide from public gaze. To your certain knowledge, are there more?'
'There are.'
'And what are their names?'
'Autronius Paetus, Servius Sulla, Cassius Longinus, Marcus Laeca, Lucius Bestia.'
Everyone looked around the temple to see if any of the named men were present; none was.
'The familiar roll-call,' said Cicero. 'Does the house agree that these men should also be arrested?'
'Aye!' they chorused back.
Cicero turned back to Volturcius. 'And were there any others?'
'I did hear of others.'
'And their names?'
Volturcius hesitated and glanced nervously around the senate. 'Gaius Julius Caesar,' he said quietly, 'and Marcus Licinius Crassus.'
There were gasps and whistles of astonishment. Both Caesar and Crassus angrily shook their heads.
'But you have no actual evidence of their involvement?'
'No, Consul. It was only ever rumours.'
'Then strike their names from the record,' Cicero instructed me. 'We shall deal in evidence, gentlemen,' he said, having to raise his voice to be heard above the swelling murmur of excitement, 'evidence and not speculation!'
It was a while before he could continue. Caesar and Crassus continued to shake their heads and protest their innocence with exaggerated gestures to the men seated around them. Occasionally they turned to look at Cicero, but it was hard to read their expressions. The temple was gloomy even on a sunny day. But now the winter afternoon light was fading fast, and even faces quite close by were becoming difficult to see.
'I have a proposal!' shouted Cicero, clapping his hands to try to regain order. 'I have a proposal, gentlemen!' At last the noise began to die away. 'It's obvious that we cannot settle the fate of these men today. Therefore they must be kept guarded overnight until we can agree a course of action. To keep them all in the same place would invite a rescue attempt. Therefore what I propose is this. The prisoners should be separated and each entrusted to the custody of a different member of the senate, a man of praetorian rank. Does anyone have any objections to that?' There was silence. 'Very well.' Cicero squinted around the darkening temple. 'Who will volunteer for this duty?' Nobody raised his hand. 'Come now, gentlemen – there's no danger. Each prisoner will be guarded. Quintus Cornificius,' he said at last, pointing to a former praetor of impeccable reputation, 'will you be so good as to take charge of Cethegus?'
Cornificius glanced around, then got to his feet. 'If that is what you want, Consul,' he replied reluctantly.
'Spinther, will you take Sura?'
Spinther stood. 'Yes, Consul.'
'Terentius – would you house Caeparius?'
'If that is the will of the senate,' replied Terentius in a glum voice.
Cicero continued to peer around for more potential custodians, and finally his gaze alighted on Crassus. 'In which case,' he said, as if the idea had only just occurred to him, 'Crassus, what better way for you to prove your innocence – not to me, who requires no proof, but to that tiny number who might doubt it – than for you to take custody of Capito? And by the same token, Caesar – you are a praetor-elect – perhaps you will take Statilius into the residence of the chief priest?' Both Crassus and Caesar looked at him with their mouths agape. But what else could they do except nod their assent? They were in a trap. Refusal would have been tantamount to a confession of guilt; so would allowing their prisoners to escape. 'Then that is settled,' declared Cicero, 'and until we reconvene tomorrow, this house stands adjourned.'
'Just a moment, Consul!' came a sharp voice, and with a discernible cracking of his elderly knees, Catulus got to his feet. 'Gentlemen,' he said, 'before we depart to our homes for the night to ponder how we may vote tomorrow, I feel it necessary to recognise that one among us has been consistent in his policy, has been consistently attacked for it, and has also, as events have proved, been consistently wise. Therefore I wish to propose the following motion: In recognition of the fact that Marcus Tullius Cicero has saved Rome from burning, its citizens from massacre and Italy from war, this house decrees a three-day public thanksgiving at every shrine to all the immortal gods for having favoured us at such a time with such a consul.'
I was stunned. As for Cicero, he was quite overwhelmed. This was the first time in the history of the republic that a public thanksgiving had been proposed for anyone other than a victorious general. There was no need to put the motion to the vote. The house rose in acclamation. One man alone remained frozen in his seat, and that was Caesar.
XI
I come now to the crux of my story, that hinge around which Cicero's life, and the lives of so many of us, was to revolve for ever after – the decision about the fate of the prisoners.
Cicero left the senate with the applause, as it were, still ringing in his ears. The senators poured out after him, and he went immediately across the forum to the rostra to deliver a report to the people. Hundreds of citizens were still standing around in the chilly twilight, hoping to discover what was going on, and among them I noticed many friends and family of the accused. In particular I recognised young Mark Antony going from group to group, trying to rouse support for his stepfather, Sura.
The speech that Cicero afterwards had published was very different to the one he actually delivered – a matter I shall come to in due course. Far from singing his own praises, he gave an entirely matter-of-fact report, almost identical to the one he had just relayed to the senate. He told the crowd about the conspira tors' plot to set fire to the city and to murder the magistrates, about their desire to make a pact with the Gauls, and the ambush on the Mulvian Bridge. Then he described the opening of the letters and the reactions of the accused. The people listened in a silence that was either rapt or sullen depending on how one chose to interpret it. Only when Cicero announced that the senate had just voted a three-day national holiday to celebrate his achievement did they finally break into applause. Cicero mopped the sweat from his face and beamed and waved, but he must have known that the cheers were really for the holiday rather than for him. He finished by pointing to the large statue of Jupiter, which he had arranged to have put up quickly that morning. 'Surely the very fact that this statue was being erected when the conspirators and witnesses were taken on my orders through the forum to the Temple of Concordia is clear proof of the intervention of Jupiter, Best and Greatest? If I were to say that I foiled them entirely alone I would be taking too much credit for myself. It was Jupiter, the mighty Jupiter, who foiled them; it was Jupiter who secured the salvation of the Capitol, of these temples, of the whole city and of you all.'
The respectful applause that greeted this remark was no doubt intended for the deity rather than the speaker, but at least it meant that Cicero was able to leave the platform with a semblance of dignity. Wisely he did not linger. As soon as he came down the steps his bodyguard closed around him, and with the lictors clearing the way, we pushed and struggled across the forum in the direction of the Quirinal Hill. I mention this in order to show that the situation in Rome as night fell was very far from stable, and that Cicero was not nearly as sure of what he ought to do as he later pretended. He would have liked to have returned home and consulted Terentia, but as chance would have it, this was the one occasion in his entire life when he was not allowed to cross his own threshold: during the nocturnal rites of the Good Goddess, no member of the male sex was allowed under the same roof as the priestesses of the cult; even little Marcus had been sent away. Instead we had to climb t
he Via Salutaris to the house of Atticus, where it had been arranged that the consul would spend the evening.
Here it was, therefore, with armed guards ringing the house and with all manner of people – senators, knights, treasury officials, lictors, messengers – bustling in and out from the crowded atrium, that Cicero issued various orders to protect the city. He also sent a note to Terentia to inform her of what had happened. Then he retreated to the quiet of the library to try to decide what to do with the five conspirators. From the four corners of the room, freshly garlanded busts of Aristotle and Plato, Zeno and Epicurus gazed down on his deliberations, unperturbed.
'If I sanction the execution of the traitors, I shall be pursued by their supporters for the rest of my days – you saw how sullen that crowd was. On the other hand, if I let them simply go into exile, those same supporters will agitate constantly for their return; I shall never know safety, and this whole fever will quickly recur.' He gazed dejectedly at the head of Aristotle. 'The philosophy of the golden mean does not seem to fit this particular predicament.'
Exhausted, he sat on the edge of his chair, leaning forward, with his hands clasped behind the back of his neck, staring at the floor. He did not lack advice. His brother Quintus urged a hard line: the conspirators were so clearly guilty, the whole of Rome – the whole world, come to that – would think him a weakling if he didn't punish them with death. This was a time of war! The gentle Atticus's view was entirely the opposite: if Cicero had stood for anything throughout his political career, it was surely the rule of law. For centuries every citizen had had the right of appeal against arbitrary sentence. What else had the Verres case been about if not this? Civis Romanus sum! As for me, I am afraid that when my turn came to speak, I advocated the coward's way out. Cicero had only another twenty-six days in office. Why not lock the prisoners away somewhere and leave it to his successors to determine their fate? Both Quintus and Atticus threw up their hands at this, but Cicero could see the merits in it, and years later he told me that actually I had been right. 'But that is with hindsight,' he said, 'which is of course the irredeemable flaw of history. If you remember the circumstances of the time, with soldiers on the streets and armed bands congregating, and with rumours that Catilina might attack the city at any moment in an attempt to free his associates – how could I have avoided taking a stand?'
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