Imperium:

by Robert Harris

  ‘Honourable members, compared to the stirring accounts of our men in arms to which we have lately listened, I fear what I say will sound small indeed.’ And now his voice rose. ‘But if the moment has come when this noble house no longer has ears for the pleas of an innocent man, then all those courageous deeds are worthless, and our soldiers bleed in vain.’ There was a murmur of agreement from the benches beside him. ‘This morning there came into my home just such an innocent man, whose treatment by one of our number has been so shameful, so monstrous and so cruel that the gods themselves must weep to hear of it. I refer to the honourable Sthenius of Thermae, recently resident in the miserable, misgoverned, misappropriated province of Sicily.’

  At the word ‘Sicily’, Hortensius, who had been sprawling on the front bench nearest the consul, twitched slightly. Without taking his eyes from Cicero he turned and began whispering to Quintus, the eldest of the Metellus brothers, who promptly leaned behind him and beckoned to Marcus, the junior of the fraternal trio. Marcus squatted on his haunches to receive his instructions, then, after a brief bow to the presiding consul, came hurrying down the aisle towards me. For a moment I thought I was about to be struck – they were tough, swaggering fellows, those Metelli – but he did not even look at me. He lifted the rope, ducked under it, pushed through the crowd and disappeared.

  Cicero, meanwhile, was hitting his stride. After our return from Molon, with the precept ‘Delivery, delivery, delivery’ carved into his mind, he had spent many hours at the theatre, studying the methods of the actors, and had developed a considerable talent for mime and mimicry. Using only the smallest touch of voice or gesture, he could, as it were, populate his speeches with the characters to whom he referred. He treated the senate that afternoon to a command performance: the swaggering arrogance of Verres was contrasted with the quiet dignity of Sthenius, the long-suffering Sicilians shrank before the vileness of the public executioner, Sextius. Sthenius himself could hardly believe what he was witnessing. He had been in the city but a day, and here he was, the subject of a debate in the Roman senate itself. Hortensius, meanwhile, kept glancing towards the door, and as Cicero began to work towards his peroration – ‘Sthenius seeks our protection, not merely from a thief, but from the very man who is supposed to punish thieves!’ – he finally sprang to his feet. Under the rules of the senate, a serving praetor always took precedence over a humble member of the pedarii, and Cicero had no choice but to give way.

  ‘Senators,’ boomed Hortensius, ‘we have sat through this long enough! This is surely one of the most flagrant pieces of opportunism ever seen in this noble house! A vague motion is placed before us, which now turns out to relate to one man only. No notice is given to us about what is to be discussed. We have no means of verifying whether what we are hearing is true. Gaius Verres, a senior member of this order, is being defamed with no opportunity to defend himself. I move that this sitting be suspended immediately!’

  Hortensius sat to a patter of applause from the aristocrats. Cicero stood. His face was perfectly straight.

  ‘The senator seems not to have read the motion,’ he said, in mock puzzlement. ‘Where is there any mention here of Gaius Verres? Gentlemen, I am not asking this house to vote on Gaius Verres. It would not be fair to judge Gaius Verres in his absence. Gaius Verres is not here to defend himself. And now that we have established that principle, will Hortensius please extend it to my client, and agree that he should not be tried in his absence either? Or is there to be one law for the aristocrats and another for the rest of us?’

  That raised the temperature well enough and set the pedarii around Cicero and the crowd at the door roaring with delight. I felt someone pushing roughly behind me and Marcus Metellus shouldered his way back into the chamber and walked quickly up the aisle towards Hortensius. Cicero watched his progress, at first with an expression of puzzlement, and then with one of realisation. He quickly held up his hand for silence. ‘Very well. Since Hortensius objects to the vagueness of the original motion, let us reframe it so that there can be no doubt. I propose an amendment: That whereas Sthenius has been prosecuted in his absence, it is agreed that no trial of him in his absence shall take place, and that if any such trial has already taken place, it shall be invalid. And I say: let us vote on it now, and in the highest traditions of the Roman senate save an innocent man from the dreadful punishment of crucifixion!’

  To mingled cheers and cat-calls, Cicero sat and Gellius rose. ‘The motion has been put,’ declared the consul. ‘Does any other member wish to speak?’

  Hortensius, the Metellus brothers and a few others of their party, such as Scribonius Curio, Sergius Catilina and Aemilius Alba, were in a huddle around the front bench, and it briefly seemed that the house would move straight to a division, which would have suited Cicero perfectly. But when the aristocrats finally settled back in their places, the bony figure of Catulus was revealed to be still on his feet. ‘I believe I shall speak,’ he said. ‘Yes, I believe I shall have something to say.’ Catulus was as hard and heartless as flint – the great-great-great-great-great-grandson (I believe that is the correct number of greats) of that Catulus who had triumphed over Hamilcar in the First Punic War – and a full two centuries of history were distilled into his vinegary old voice. ‘I shall speak,’ he repeated, ‘and what I shall say first is that that young man’ – pointing at Cicero – ‘knows nothing whatsoever about “the highest traditions of the Roman senate”, for if he did he would realise that no senator ever attacks another, except to his face. It shows a lack of breeding. I look at him there, all clever and eager in his place, and do you know what I think, gentlemen? I think of the wisdom of the old saying: “An ounce of heredity is worth a pound of merit”!’

  Now it was the aristocrats who were rocking with laughter. Catilina, of whom I shall have much more to say later, pointed at Cicero, and then drew his finger across his throat. Cicero flushed pink but kept his self-control. He even managed a thin smile. Catulus turned with delight to the benches behind him, and I caught a glimpse of his grinning profile, sharp and beak-nosed, like a head on a coin. He swivelled back to face the chamber. ‘When I first entered this house, in the consulship of Claudius Pulcher and Marcus Perperna …’ His voice settled into a confident drone.

  Cicero caught my eye. He mouthed something, glanced up at the windows, then gestured with his head towards the door. I understood at once what he meant, and as I pushed my way back through the spectators and into the forum, I realised that Marcus Metellus must have been dispatched on exactly the same errand. In those days, when time-keeping was cruder than it is now, the last hour of the day’s business was deemed to begin when the sun dropped west of the Maenian Column. I guessed that must be about to happen, and sure enough, the clerk responsible for making the observation was already on his way to tell the consul. It was against the law for the senate to sit after sunset. Clearly, Hortensius and his friends were planning to talk out the remainder of the session, preventing Cicero’s motion from being put to the vote. By the time I had quickly confirmed the sun’s position for myself, run back across the forum and wriggled my way through the crowd to the threshold of the chamber, Gellius was making the announcement: ‘The last hour!’

  Cicero was instantly on his feet, wanting to make a point of order, but Gellius would not take it, and the floor was still with Catulus. On and on Catulus went, giving an interminable history of provincial government, virtually from the time since the she-wolf suckled Romulus. (Catulus’s father, also a consul, had famously died by shutting himself up in a sealed room, kindling a charcoal fire, and suffocating himself with the fumes: Cicero used to say he must have done it to avoid listening to another speech by his son.) When he did eventually reach some sort of conclusion, he promptly yielded the floor to Quintus Metellus. Again Cicero rose, but again he was defeated by the seniority rule. Metellus had praetorian rank, and unless he chose to give way, which naturally he did not, Cicero had no right of speech. For a time Cicero stood his groun
d, against a swelling roar of protest, but the men on either side of him – one of whom was Servius, his lawyer friend, who had his interests at heart and could see he was in danger of making a fool of himself – pulled at his toga, and finally he surrendered and sat down.

  It was forbidden to light a lamp or a brazier inside the chamber. As the gloom deepened, the cold sharpened and the white shapes of the senators, motionless in the November dusk, became like a parliament of ghosts. After Metellus had droned on for an eternity, and sat down in favour of Hortensius – a man who could talk on anything for hours – everyone knew the debate was over, and very soon afterwards Gellius dissolved the house. He limped down the aisle, an old man in search of his dinner, preceded by four lictors carrying his curule chair. Once he had passed through the doors, the senators streamed out after him and Sthenius and I retreated a short distance into the forum to wait for Cicero. Gradually the crowd around us dwindled. The Sicilian kept asking me what was happening, but I felt it wiser to say nothing, and we stood in silence. I pictured Cicero sitting alone on the back benches, waiting for the chamber to empty so that he could leave without having to speak to anyone, for I feared he had badly lost face. But to my surprise he strolled out chatting with Hortensius and another, older senator, whom I did not recognise. They talked for a while on the steps of the senate house, shook hands and parted.

  ‘Do you know who that was?’ asked Cicero, coming over to us. Far from being cast down, he appeared highly amused. ‘That was Verres’s father. He has promised to write to his son, urging him to drop the prosecution, if we agree not to bring the matter back to the senate.’

  Poor Sthenius was so relieved, I thought he might die from gratitude. He dropped to his knees and began kissing the senator’s hands. Cicero made a sour face and gently raised him to his feet. ‘Really, my dear Sthenius, save your thanks until I have actually achieved something. He has only promised to write, that is all. It is not a guarantee.’

  Sthenius said, ‘But you will accept the offer?’

  Cicero shrugged. ‘What choice do we have? Even if I re-table the motion, they will only talk it out again.’

  I could not resist asking why, in that case, Hortensius was bothering to offer a deal at all.

  Cicero nodded slowly. ‘Now that is a good question.’ There was a mist rising from the Tiber, and the lamps in the shops along the Argiletum shone yellow and gauzy. He sniffed the damp air. ‘I suppose it can only be because he is embarrassed. Which in his case, of course, takes quite a lot. Yet it seems that even he would prefer not to be associated too publicly with such a flagrant criminal as Verres. So he is trying to settle the matter quietly. I wonder how much his retainer is from Verres: it must be an enormous sum.’

  ‘Hortensius was not the only one who came to Verres’s defence,’ I reminded him.

  ‘No.’ Cicero glanced back at the senate house, and I could see that something had just occurred to him. ‘They are all in it together, aren’t they? The Metellus brothers are true aristocrats – they would never lift a finger to help anyone apart from themselves, unless it was for money. As for Catulus, the man is frantic for gold. He has undertaken so much building on the Capitol over the past ten years, it is almost more of a shrine to him than it is to Jupiter. I estimate we must have been looking at half a million in bribes this afternoon, Tiro. A few Delian bronzes – however fine, Sthenius, forgive me – would not be sufficient to buy that kind of protection. What is Verres up to down there in Sicily?’ He suddenly began working his signet ring over his knuckle. ‘Take this to the National Archive, Tiro, and show it to one of the clerks. Demand in my name to see all the official accounts submitted to the senate by Gaius Verres.’

  My face must have registered my dismay. ‘But the National Archive is run by Catulus’s people. He is sure to hear word of what you are doing.’

  ‘That cannot be helped.’

  ‘But what am I looking for?’

  ‘Anything interesting. You will know it when you see it. Go quickly, while there is still some light.’ He put his arm round the shoulders of the Sicilian. ‘As for you, Sthenius – you will come to dinner with me tonight, I hope? It is only family, but I am sure my wife will be delighted to meet you.’

  I rather doubted that, but naturally it was not my place to say so.

  THE NATIONAL ARCHIVE, which was then barely six years old, loomed over the forum even more massively than it does today, for back then it had less competition. I climbed that great flight of steps up to the first gallery, and by the time I found an attendant my heart was racing. I showed him the seal, and demanded, on behalf of Senator Cicero, to see Verres’s accounts. At first he claimed never to have heard of Cicero, and besides, the building was closing. But then I pointed in the direction of the Carcer and told him firmly that if he did not desire to spend a month in chains in the state prison for impeding official business, he had better fetch those records now. (One lesson I had learned from Cicero was how to hide my nerves.) He scowled a bit and thought about it, then told me to follow him.

  The Archive was Catulus’s domain, a temple to him and his clan. Above the vaults was his inscription – Q. Lutatius Catulus, son of Quintus, grandson of Quintus, consul, by a decree of the Senate, commissioned the erection of this National Archive, and approved it satisfactory – and beside the entrance stood his life-size statue, looking somewhat more youthful and heroic than he had appeared in the senate that afternoon. Most of the attendants were either his slaves or his freedmen, and wore his emblem, a little dog, sewn on to their tunics. I shall tell you the kind of man Catulus was. He blamed the suicide of his father on the populist praetor Gratidianus – a distant relative of Cicero – and after the victory of the aristocrats in the civil war between Marius and Sulla he took the opportunity for revenge. His young protégé, Sergius Catilina, at his behest, seized Gratidianus, and whipped him through the streets to the Catulus family tomb. There, his arms and legs were broken, his ears and nose cut off, his tongue pulled out of his mouth and severed, and his eyes gouged out. In this ghastly condition his head was then lopped off, and Catilina bore it in triumph to Catulus, who was waiting in the forum. Do you wonder now why I was nervous as I waited for the vaults to be opened?

  The senatorial records were kept in fireproof strong-rooms, built to withstand a lightning strike, tunnelled into the rock of the Capitol, and when the slaves swung back the big bronze door I had a glimpse of thousands upon thousands of rolled papyri, receding into the shadows of the sacred hill. Five hundred years of history were encompassed in that one small space: half a millennium of magistracies and governorships, proconsular decrees and judicial rulings, from Lusitania to Macedonia, from Africa to Gaul, and most of them made in the names of the same few families: the Aemilii, the Claudii, the Cornelii, the Lutatii, the Metelli, the Servilii. This was what gave Catulus and his kind the confidence to look down upon such provincial equestrians as Cicero.

  They kept me waiting in an antechamber while they searched for Verres’s records, and eventually brought out to me a single document case containing perhaps a dozen rolls. From the labels on the ends I saw that these were all, with one exception, accounts from his time as urban praetor. The exception was a flimsy piece of papyrus, barely worth the trouble of unrolling, covering his work as a junior magistrate twelve years previously, at the time of the war between Sulla and Marius, and on which was written just three sentences: I received 2,235,417 sesterces. I expended on wages, grain, payments to legates, the proquaestor, the praetorian cohort 1,635,417 sesterces. I left 600,000 at Ariminum. Remembering the scores of rolls of meticulous accounts which Cicero’s term as a junior magistrate on Sicily had generated, all of which I had written out for him, I could barely refrain from laughing.

  ‘Is this all there is?’

  The attendant assured me it was.

  ‘But where are the accounts from his time in Sicily?’

  ‘They have not yet been submitted to the treasury.’

  ‘Not yet submitte
d? He has been governor for almost two years!’

  The fellow looked at me blankly, and I could see that there was no point in wasting any more time with him. I copied out the three lines relating to Verres’s junior magistracy and went out into the evening.

  While I had been in the National Archive, darkness had fallen over Rome. In Cicero’s house the family had already gone into dinner. But the master had left instructions with the steward, Eros, that I was to be shown straight into the dining room the moment I returned. I found Cicero lying on a couch beside Terentia. His brother, Quintus, was also there, with his wife, Pomponia. The third couch was occupied by Cicero’s cousin Lucius and the hapless Sthenius, still clad in his dirty mourning clothes and squirming with unease. I could sense the strained atmosphere as soon as I entered, although Cicero was in good spirits. He always liked a dinner party. It was not the quality of the food and drink which mattered to him, but the company and the conversation. Quintus and Lucius, along with Atticus, were the three men he loved most.

  ‘Well?’ he said to me. I told him what had happened and showed him my copy of Verres’s quaestorian accounts. He scanned it, grunted, and tossed the wax tablet across the table. ‘Look at that, Quintus. The villain is too lazy even to lie adequately. Six hundred thousand – what a nice round sum, not a penny either side of it – and where does he leave it? Why, in a town which is then conveniently occupied by the opposition’s army, so the loss can be blamed on them! And no accounts submitted from Sicily for two years? I am obliged to you, Sthenius, for bringing this rogue to my attention.’

  ‘Oh yes, so obliged,’ said Terentia, with savage sweetness. ‘So obliged – for setting us at war with half the decent families in Rome. But presumably we can socialise with Sicilians from now on, so that will be all right. Where did you say you came from again?’