Lustrum

by Robert Harris

  Rufus was called on first to lay out his case, and it was soon obvious that he had been a more attentive pupil in Cicero's chambers than any of us had realised. The burden of his prosecution was fivefold: first, that Hybrida had concentrated all his energies on extorting as much money as he could from Macedonia; second, that the revenue that should have gone to his army had been diverted into his own pocket; third, that he had neglected his duties as military commander during an expedition to the Black Sea to punish rebellious tribes; fourth, that he had demonstrated cowardice on the field of battle by fleeing from the enemy; and finally fifth, that as a result of his incompetence, the empire had lost the region around Histria on the Lower Danube. Rufus laid these charges with a mixture of moral outrage and malicious humour that was worthy of the Master at his best. I remember in particular his graphic account of Hybrida's dereliction of duty on the morning of the battle against the rebels. 'They found the man himself stretched out in a drunken stupor,' he said, walking around the back of Hybrida and gesturing to him as if he were an exhibit, 'snoring with all the force of his lungs, belching repeatedly, while the distinguished ladies who shared his quarters sprawled over every couch, and the other women were lying on the floor all around. Half dead with terror, and aware now of the enemy's approach, they tried to rouse up Hybrida; they shouted his name, and tried in vain to hoist him up by his neck; some whispered blandishments in his ear, one or two gave him an energetic slap. He recognised all their voices and their touch and tried to put his arms round the neck of whoever was nearest to him. He was too much aroused to sleep, and too drunk to stay awake; dazed and half asleep, he was thrown around in the arms of his centurions and his concubines.'

  And all this, mark you, delivered without a note. It was murderous enough for the defence by itself. But the prosecution's main witnesses – including several of Hybrida's army commanders, a pair of his mistresses, and his quartermaster – were even worse. At the end of the day Cicero congratulated Rufus on his performance, and that evening he frankly advised his gloomy client to sell his property in Rome for the best price he could get, and convert his assets into jewellery or anything portable that he could carry into exile. 'You must brace yourself for the worst.'

  I shall not describe all the details of the trial. Suffice it to say that even though Cicero tried every trick he knew to discredit Rufus's case, he barely left a scratch on it, and the witnesses Hybrida produced in his own defence were uniformly feeble – mostly his old drinking companions, or officials he had bribed to lie. By the end of the fourth day, the only question was: should Cicero call on Hybrida to testify, in the hope at least of eliciting some sympathy from the jury; or should Hybrida cut his losses, leave Rome quietly before the verdict, and thus spare himself the humiliation of being jeered out of the city? Cicero took Hybrida into his library to make a decision.

  'What do you think I should do?' asked Hybrida.

  'I would leave,' answered Cicero, who was desperate to put an end to his own ordeal. 'It's possible your testimony could make matters even worse. Why give Rufus the satisfaction?'

  Hybrida broke down. 'What did I ever do to that young man that he should seek to destroy me in such a fashion?' Tears of self-pity trickled down his plump cheeks.

  'Now, Hybrida, compose yourself and remember your illustrious ancestors.' Cicero reached across and patted his knee. 'Besides, it's nothing personal. He's simply a clever young man from the provinces, ambitious to rise in the world. In many ways, he reminds me of myself at that age. Unfortunately, you just happen to provide him with the best means of making his name – just as Verres did for me.'

  'Damn him,' said Hybrida suddenly, straightening his back. 'I shall testify.'

  'Are you certain you are up to it? Cross-examination can be a brutal business.'

  'You undertook to defend me,'said Hybrida, at last showing some of his old spirit, 'and I want to put up a defence, even if I lose.'

  'Very well,' said Cicero, doing his best to disguise his disappointment. 'In that case we must rehearse your testimony, and that will take us some time. Tiro, you had better bring the senator some wine.'

  'No,' said Hybrida firmly. 'No wine. Not tonight. I spent my entire career drunk; I shall at least end it sober.'

  And so we worked late into the night, practising what Cicero would ask and how Hybrida would respond. After that, Cicero played the part of Rufus, throwing the most unpleasant questions he could devise at his former colleague, and helping him frame the least incriminating answers. I was surprised by how quick on the uptake Hybrida was when he put his mind to it. The two men went to bed at midnight – Hybrida sleeping under Cicero's roof – and got up at dawn to resume their preparation. Afterwards, as we were walking down to the court with Hybrida and his attendants ahead of us, Cicero said, 'I begin to see why he rose so high in the first place. If only he could have shown such grip earlier, he would not now be facing ruin.'

  When we reached the comitium, Hybrida called out cheerfully, 'This is how it was in the time of our joint consulship, Cicero, when we stood shoulder to shoulder to save the republic!' The two men then went up on to the platform, where the court was waiting, and when Cicero announced that he would be calling Hybrida as his final witness, a stir of antici pation ran through the jury. I saw Rufus sit forward on his bench and whisper something in the ear of his secretary, and the man picked up his stylus.

  Hybrida was quickly sworn in, and Cicero took him through the questions they had rehearsed, beginning with his military experience under Sulla a quarter of a century before, and dwelling especially on his loyalty to the state at the time of Catilina's conspiracy.

  'You laid aside considerations of past friendship, did you not,' asked Cicero, 'to take command of the senate's legions that finally crushed the traitor?'

  'I did.'

  'And you sent back the monster's head to the senate as proof of your actions?'

  'I did.'

  'Mark that well, gentlemen,' said Cicero, addressing the jury. 'Is that the action of a traitor? Young Rufus over there supported Catilina – let him deny it – and then fled from Rome to avoid sharing in his fate. Yet now he has the nerve to come creeping back into the city and accuse of treason the very man who rescued us from ruin!' He turned back to Hybrida. 'After crushing Catilina, you relieved me of the burden of governing Macedonia, so that I could devote myself to extinguishing the last embers of the conspiracy?'

  'I did.'

  And so it went on, with Cicero leading his client through his testimony like a father leading a child by the hand. He prompted him to describe how he had raised revenue in Macedonia through entirely legal means, accounted for every penny, raised and equipped two legions, and led them on a hazardous expedition eastwards through the mountains to the Black Sea. He painted a terrifying picture of warlike tribes – Getians, Bastarns, Histrians – harrying the Roman column as it marched along the Danube valley.

  'The prosecution alleges that when you heard there was a large enemy force ahead, you split your force in two, taking the cavalry with you to safety and leaving the infantry undefended. Is that true?'

  'Not at all.'

  'You were in fact bravely pursuing the Histrian army, is that correct?'

  'That's right.'

  'And while you were away, the Bastarn forces crossed the Danube and attacked the infantry from the rear?'

  'True.'

  'And there was nothing you could do?'

  'I am afraid there was not.' Hybrida lowered his head and wiped his eyes, as Cicero had instructed him.

  'You must have lost many friends and comrades at the hands of the barbarians.'

  'I did. A great many.'

  After a long pause, during which there was complete silence in the court, Cicero turned to the jury. 'The fortunes of war, gentlemen,' he said, 'can be cruel and capricious. But that is not the same as treason.'

  As he resumed his seat there was prolonged applause, not only from the crowd but among the jury, and for the first tim
e I dared to hope that Cicero's skill as an advocate might once again have saved the day. Rufus smiled to himself and took a sip of wine and water before getting to his feet. He had an athlete's way of loosening his shoulders by linking his hands behind his head and rotating his upper torso from side to side. Watching him do it then, just before he started his cross-examination, the years seemed to fall away, and suddenly I remembered how Cicero used to send him running errands across the city and tease him for the looseness of his clothes and the length of his hair. And I recalled how the boy would steal money from me and stay out all night drinking and gambling, and yet how hard it was to feel angry with him for long. What pattern of ambition's twisting paths had brought us each to this place?

  Rufus sauntered over to the witness stand. He was entirely without nerves. He might have been meeting a friend at a tavern. 'Do you have a good memory, Antonius Hybrida?'

  'I do.'

  'Well then, I expect you remember a slave of yours who was murdered on the eve of your consulship.'

  A look of great mystification passed across Hybrida's face and he glanced across in puzzlement towards Cicero. 'I'm not sure that I do. One's had so many slaves over the years …'

  'But you must remember this slave?' persisted Rufus. 'A Smyrnan? Twelve years old or thereabouts? His body was dumped in the Tiber. Cicero was there when his remains were discovered. His throat had been cut and his intestines removed.'

  There was a gasp of horror around the court, and I felt my mouth go dry, not only at the memory of that poor lad, but at the realisation of where this chain of questioning might lead. Cicero saw it too. He jumped up in alarm and appealed to the praetor, 'This is irrelevant, surely? The death of a slave more than four years ago can have nothing to do with a lost battle on the shores of the Black Sea.'

  'Let the prosecutor ask his question,' ruled Clodianus, and then added philosophically: 'I have found in life that all sorts of things are often linked.'

  Hybrida was still looking hopelessly at Cicero. 'I believe perhaps I do remember something of the sort.'

  'I should hope so,' responded Rufus. 'It's not every day that a human sacrifice is performed in one's presence! Even for you, I would have thought, with all your abominations, that must have been a rarity.'

  'I know nothing about any human sacrifice,' muttered Hybrida.

  'Catilina did the killing, and then required you and others present to swear an oath.'

  'Did he?' Hybrida screwed up his face as if he were trying to remember some long-forgotten acquaintance. 'No, I don't think so. No, you are mistaken.'

  'Yes he did. You swore an oath on the blood of that slaughtered child to murder your own colleague as consul – the man who now sits beside you as your advocate!'

  These words produced a fresh sensation, and when the cries had died away, Cicero got up. 'Really, this is a pity,' he said, with a regretful shake of his head, 'a great pity, because my young friend was not doing a bad job as prosecutor up to this moment – he was my pupil once, gentlemen, so actually I flatter myself as well as him by conceding it. Unfortunately now he has gone and ruined his own case with an insane allegation. I fear I shall have to take him back to the classroom.'

  'I know it is true, Cicero,' retorted Rufus, smiling even more broadly, 'because you told me about it yourself.'

  For the barest flicker of an instant, Cicero hesitated, and I saw to my horror that he had forgotten his conversation with Rufus all those years ago. 'You ungrateful wretch,' he spluttered. 'I did no such thing.'

  'In the first week of your consulship,' said Rufus, 'two days after the Latin Festival you called me to your house and asked if Catilina had ever talked in my presence of killing you. You told me that Hybrida had confessed to swearing an oath with Catilina on a murdered boy to do precisely that. You asked me to keep my ears open.'

  'That is a complete lie!' shouted Cicero, but his bluster did little to dispel the effect of Rufus's cool and precise recollection.

  'This is the man you took into your confidence as consul,' continued Rufus, with deadly calmness, pointing at Hybrida. 'This is the man you foisted on the people of Macedonia as their governor – a man you knew to have taken part in a bestial murder, and who had desired your own death. And yet this is the man you defend today. Why?'

  'I don't have to answer your questions, boy.'

  Rufus strolled over to the jury. 'That is the question, gentlemen: why does Cicero, of all men, who made his reputation attacking corrupt provincial governors, now destroy his good name by defending this one?'

  Once again Cicero stretched out a hand to the praetor. 'Clodianus, I am asking you, for heaven's sake, to control your court. This is supposed to be a cross-examination of my client, not a speech about me.'

  'That is true, Rufus,' said the praetor. 'Your questions must relate to the case in hand.'

  'But they do. My case is that Cicero and Hybrida came to an agreement.'

  Cicero said, 'There is no proof of that.'

  'Yes there is,' retorted Rufus. 'Less than a year after you dispatched Hybrida to the long-suffering people of Macedonia, you bought yourself a new house – there!' He gestured to it, gleaming on the Palatine in the spring sunshine, and the jurymen all turned their heads to look. 'One much like it sold soon afterwards for fourteen million sesterces. Fourteen million! Ask yourselves, gentlemen: where did Cicero, who prided himself on his humble origins, acquire such a fortune, if not from the man he both blackmailed and protected, Antonius Hybrida? Is that not the truth,' he demanded, turning back to the accused, 'that you diverted part of the money you extorted from your province to your partner in crime in Rome?'

  'No, no,' protested Hybrida. 'I may have sent Cicero a gift or two from time to time, but that is all.' (This was the explanation they had agreed on the previous evening, in case Rufus had evidence of money passing between them.)

  'A gift?' repeated Rufus. With exaggerated slowness he looked once more at Cicero's house, raising his hand to protect his eyes from the sun. A woman with a parasol was strolling along the terrace, and I realised it must be Terentia. 'That is quite a gift!'

  Cicero sat very still. He watched Rufus closely. Several members of the jury were shaking their heads. From the audience in the comitium came the sound of jeering.

  'Gentlemen,' said Rufus, 'I believe I have made my case. I have shown how Hybrida lost a whole region from our empire by his treasonable negligence. I have proved his cowardice and incompetence. I have revealed how money that should have gone to the army went instead into his own coffers. The ghosts of his legionaries, abandoned by their chief and cruelly murdered by the barbarians, cry out to us for justice. This monster should never have been permitted to hold such a high position, and would not have done so without the collusion of his consular colleague. His career is soaked in blood and depravity – the murder of that child is but a small part of it. It is too late to bring the dead back to life, but let us at least remove this man and his stench from Rome. Let us send him into exile tonight.'

  Rufus sat down to prolonged applause. The praetor looked somewhat surprised, and asked if that was the conclusion of the prosecution's case. Rufus signalled that it was.

  'Well, well. I thought we had at least another day to go,' said Clodianus. He turned to Cicero. 'Do you wish to make your closing speech for the defence immediately, or would you prefer the court to adjourn overnight so that you can prepare your remarks?'

  Cicero was looking very flushed, and I knew at once that it would be a grave mistake for him to speak before he had had a chance to calm down. I was sitting in the space set aside for the clerks, just below the podium, and I actually rose and went up the couple of steps to plead with him to accept the adjournment. But he waved me aside before I could utter a word. There was a curious light in his eyes. I am not sure he even saw me.

  'Such lies,' he said with utter disgust. He rose to his feet. 'Such lies are best squashed dead at once, like cockroaches, and not left alive to breed overnight.'

 
The area in front of the court had been full before, but now people began to stream into the comitium from all across the forum. Cicero on his feet was one of the great sights of Rome, and no one wanted to miss it. Not one of the Three Heads of the Beast was present, but here and there in the crowd I could see their surrogates: Balbus for Caesar, Afranius for Pompey, Arrius for Crassus. I did not have time to look for anyone else: Cicero had started speaking and I had to take down his words.

  'I must confess,' he said, 'I had not much relished the prospect of coming down to this court to defend my old friend and colleague Antonius Hybrida, for such obligations as these are numerous and rest heavily on a man who has been in public life as long as I have. Yes, Rufus: “obligations” – that is a word you do not understand, otherwise you would not have addressed me in such a fashion. But now I welcome this duty – I relish it, I am glad for it – because it enables me to say something that has needed to be said for years. Yes, I made common cause with Hybrida, gentlemen – I do not deny it. I sought him out. I overlooked the differences in our styles of life and views. I overlooked many things, in fact, because I had no choice. If I was to save this republic I needed allies, and could not be too particular about where they came from.

  'Cast your minds back to that terrible time. Do you think that Catilina acted alone? Do you think that one man, however energetic and inspired in his depravity, could have proceeded as far as Catilina did – could have brought this city and our republic to the edge of destruction – if he had not had powerful supporters? And I do not mean that ragbag of bankrupt noblemen, gamblers, drunkards, perfumed youths and lay abouts who flocked around him – among whom, incidentally, our ambitious young prosecutor was once numbered.