Lustrum

by Robert Harris

  '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 called 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 the 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?'

  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 th
ey 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.