Imperium:

by Robert Harris

  Cicero followed his patron’s fantastic progress with mixed feelings (‘Pompeiopolis! Dear gods, the vulgarity of it!’), not least because he knew that the more swollen with success Pompey became, the longer the shadow he would cast over his own career. Meticulous planning and overwhelming numerical superiority: these were Pompey’s favourite tactics, both on the battlefield and in Rome, and as soon as phase one of his campaign – the destruction of the pirates – was completed, phase two began in the forum, when Gabinius started agitating to have the command of the Eastern legions stripped from Lucullus and awarded to Pompey. He used the same trick as before, employing his powers as tribune to summon witnesses to the rostra, who gave the people a sorry picture of the war against Mithradates. Some of the legions, unpaid for years, had simply refused to leave their winter camp. The poverty of these ordinary fighting men Gabinius contrasted with the immense wealth of their aristocratic commander, who had shipped back so much booty from the campaign that he had bought an entire hill just outside the gates of Rome and was building a great palace there, with all the state rooms named after the gods. Gabinius subpoenaed Lucullus’s architects and had them brought to the rostra, where he forced them to show to the people all their plans and models. Lucullus’s name from that time on became a synonym for outrageous luxury, and the angry citizens burned his effigy in the forum.

  In December, Gabinius and Cornelius stood down as tribunes, and a new creature of Pompey’s, the tribune-elect, Caius Manilius, took over the safeguarding of his interests in the popular assemblies. He immediately proposed a law granting command of the war against Mithradates to Pompey, along with the government of the provinces of Asia, Cilicia and Bithynia – the latter two held by Lucullus. Any thin hopes that Cicero might have entertained of lying low on the issue were destroyed when Gabinius came to see him bearing a message from Pompey. This briskly conveyed the general’s good wishes, along with his hopes that Cicero would support the lex Manilia ‘in all its provisions’, not only behind the scenes but also in public, from the rostra.

  ‘“In all its provisions”,’ repeated Gabinius, with a smirk. ‘You know what that means.’

  ‘I presume it means the clause which appoints you to the command of the legions on the Euphrates, thus giving you legal immunity from prosecution now that your term as tribune has expired.’

  ‘You have it.’ Gabinius grinned and did a passable impersonation of Pompey, drawing himself up and puffing out his cheeks: ‘“Is he not clever, gentlemen? Did I not tell you he was clever?”’

  ‘Calm youself, Gabinius,’ said Cicero wearily. ‘I assure you there is no one I would rather see heading off to the Euphrates than you.’

  It is dangerous in politics to find oneself a great man’s whipping boy. Yet this was the role in which Cicero was now becoming trapped. Men who would never have dared directly to insult or criticise Pompey could instead land blows on his lawyer-surrogate with impunity, knowing that everyone would guess their real target. But there was no escaping a direct order from the commander-in-chief, and so this became the occasion of Cicero’s first speech from the rostra. He took immense trouble over it, dictating it to me several days beforehand, and then showing it to Quintus and Frugi for their comments. From Terentia he prudently withheld it, for he knew he would have to send a copy to Pompey and it was therefore necessary for him to ladle on the flattery. (I see from the manuscript, for example, that Pompey’s ‘superhuman genius as a commander’ was amended at Quintus’s suggestion to ‘Pompey’s superhuman and unbelievable genius as a commander’.) He hit upon a brilliant slogan to sum up Pompey’s success – ‘one law, one man, one year’ – and fretted over the rest of the speech for hours, conscious that if he failed on the rostra, his career would be set back and his enemies would say he did not have the common touch to move the plebs of Rome. When the morning came to deliver it, he was physically sick with nerves, retching again and again into the latrine while I stood next to him with a towel. He was so white and drawn that I actually wondered if he would have the legs to get all the way down to the forum. But it was his belief that a great performer, however experienced, must always be frightened before going on stage – ‘the nerves should be as taut as bowstrings if the arrows are to fly’ – and by the time we reached the back of the rostra he was ready. Needless to say, he was carrying no notes. We heard Manilius announce his name and the applause begin. It was a beautiful morning, clear and bright; the crowd was huge. He adjusted his sleeves, drew himself erect, and slowly ascended into the noise and light.

  Catulus and Hortensius once again were the leaders of the opposition to Pompey, but they had devised no new arguments since the lex Gabinia, and Cicero had some sport with them. ‘What is Hortensius saying?’ he teased. ‘That if one man is to be put in supreme command, the right man is Pompey, but that supreme command ought not to be given to one man? That line of reasoning is now out of date, refuted not so much by words as by events. For it was you, Hortensius, who denounced that courageous man Gabinius for introducing a law to appoint a single commander against the pirates. Now I ask you in Heaven’s name – if on that occasion the Roman people had thought more of your opinion than of their own welfare and their true interests, should we today be in possession of our present glory and our worldwide empire?’ By the same token, if Pompey wanted Gabinius as one of his legionary commanders, he should have him, for no man had done more, apart from Pompey, to defeat the pirates. ‘Speaking for myself,’ he concluded, ‘whatever devotion, wisdom, energy or talent I possess, whatever I can achieve by virtue of the praetorship which you have conferred upon me, I dedicate to the support of this law. And I call on all the gods to witness – most especially the guardians of this hallowed spot who see clearly into the hearts of all who enter upon public life – that I am acting not as a favour to Pompey, nor in the hope of gaining favour from him, but solely in the cause of my country.’ He left the rostra to respectful applause. The law was passed, Lucullus was stripped of his command and Gabinius was given his legateship. As for Cicero, he had surmounted another obstacle in his progress to the consulship, but was more hated than ever by the aristocrats.

  Later, he had a letter from Varro, describing Pompey’s reaction at the moment when he received the news that he now had complete control of Rome’s forces in the East. As his officers crowded round him at his headquarters in Ephesus to congratulate him, he frowned, struck himself on the thigh, and said (‘in a weary voice’, according to Varro): ‘How sad it makes me, this constant succession of labours! Really I would rather be one of those people whom no one has heard about, if I am never to have any relief from military service, and never to be able to escape from being envied so that I can live quietly in the country with my wife.’ Such playacting was hard to stomach, especially when the whole world knew how much he had desired the command.

  THE PRAETORSHIP BROUGHT an elevation in Cicero’s station. Now he had six lictors to guard him whenever he left the house. He did not care for them at all. They were rough fellows, hired for their strength and easy cruelty: if a Roman citizen was sentenced to be punished, they were the ones who carried it out, and they were adept at floggings and beheadings. Because their posts were permanent, some had been used to power for years, and they rather looked down on the magistrates they guarded as mere transitory politicians, here today and gone tomorrow. Cicero hated it when they cleared the crowds out of his way too roughly, or ordered passers-by to remove their headgear or dismount in the presence of a praetor, for the people being so humiliated were his voters. He instructed the lictors to show more politeness, and for a time they would, but they soon snapped back into their old ways. The chief of them, the proximus lictor, who was supposed to stand at Cicero’s side at all times, was particularly obnoxious. I forget his name now, but he was always bringing Cicero tittle-tattle of what the other praetors were up to, gleaned from his fellow lictors, not realising that this made him deeply suspect in the eyes of Cicero, who was well aware that gossip is a trade,
and that reports of his own actions would be being offered as currency in return. ‘These people,’ Cicero complained to me one morning, ‘are a warning of what happens to any state which has a permanent staff of officials. They begin as our servants and end up imagining themselves our masters!’

  My own status rose with his. I discovered that to be known as the confidential secretary of a praetor, even if one was a slave, was to enjoy an unaccustomed civility from those one met. Cicero told me beforehand that I could expect to be offered money to use my influence on behalf of petitioners, and when I insisted hotly that I would never accept a bribe, he cut me off. ‘No, Tiro, you should have some money of your own. Why not? I ask only that you tell me who has paid you, and that you make it clear to whoever approaches you that my judgements are not to be bought, and that I will decide things on their merits. Aside from that, I trust you to use your own discretion.’ This conversation meant a great deal to me. I had always hoped that eventually Cicero would grant me my freedom; permitting me to have some savings of my own I saw as a preparation for that day. The amounts which came in were small – fifty or a hundred here and there – and in return I might be required to bring a document to the praetor’s attention, or draft a letter of introduction for him to sign. The money I kept in a small purse, hidden behind a loose brick in the wall of my cubicle.

  As praetor, Cicero was expected to take in promising pupils from good families to study law with him, and in May, after the senate recess, a new young intern of sixteen joined his chambers. This was Marcus Caelius Rufus from Interamnia, the son of a wealthy banker and prominent election official of the Velina tribe. Cicero agreed, largely as a political favour, to supervise the boy’s training for two years, at the end of which it was fixed that he would move on to complete his apprenticeship in another household – that of Crassus, as it happened, for Crassus was a business associate of Caelius’s father, and the banker was anxious that his heir should learn how to manage a fortune. The father was a ghastly money-lending type, short and furtive, who seemed to regard his son as an investment which was failing to show an adequate yield. ‘He needs to be beaten regularly,’ he announced, just before he brought him in to meet Cicero. ‘He is clever enough, but wayward and dissolute. You have my permission to whip him as much as you like.’ Cicero looked askance at this, having never whipped anyone in his life, but fortunately as it turned out he got on very well with young Caelius, who was as dissimilar to his father as it was possible to imagine. He was tall and handsome and quick-witted, with an indifference towards money and business which Cicero found amusing; I less so, for it generally fell to me to do all the humdrum tasks which were Caelius’s responsibility, and which he shirked. But still, I must concede, looking back, that he had charm.

  I shall not dwell on the details of Cicero’s praetorship. This is not a textbook about the law, and I can sense your eagerness for me to get on to the climax of my story – the election for the consulship itself. Suffice it to say that Cicero was considered a fair and honest judge, and that the work was easily within his competence. If he encountered a particularly awkward point of jurisprudence, and needed a second opinion, he would either consult his old friend and fellow pupil of Molon, Servius Sulpicius, or go over to see the distinguished praetor of the election court, Aquilius Gallus, in his mansion on the Viminal Hill. The biggest case over which he had to preside was that of Caius Licinius Macer, a kinsman and supporter of Crassus, who was impeached for his actions as governor of Macedonia. The hearing dragged on for weeks, and at the end of it Cicero summed up very fairly, except that he could not resist one joke. The nub of the prosecution case was that Macer had taken half a million in illegal payments. Macer at first denied it. The prosecution then produced proof that the exact same sum had been paid into a money-lending company which he controlled. Macer abruptly changed his story and claimed that, yes, he remembered the payments, but thought that they were legal. ‘Now, it may be,’ said Cicero to the jury, as he was directing them on points of evidence, ‘that the defendant believed this.’ He left a pause just long enough for some of them to start laughing, whereupon he put on a mock-stern face. ‘No, no, he may have believed it. In which case’ – another pause – ‘you may reasonably conclude perhaps that he was too stupid to be a Roman governor.’ I had sat in sufficient courts by then to know from the gale of laughter that Cicero had just convicted the man as surely as if he had been the prosecuting counsel. But Macer – who was not stupid at all, but on the contrary, very clever: so clever that he thought everyone else a fool – did not see the danger, and actually left the tribunal while the jury was balloting in order to go home and change and have a haircut, in anticipation of his victory celebration that night. While he was absent, the jury convicted him, and he was just leaving his house to return to the court when Crassus intercepted him on his doorstep and told him what had happened. Some say he dropped dead on the spot from shock, others that he went straight back indoors and killed himself to spare his son the humiliation of his exile. Either way, he died, and Crassus – as if he needed one – had a whole new reason for hating Cicero.

  THE GAMES OF Apollo on the sixth day of July traditionally marked the start of the election season, although in truth it always seemed to be election season in those days. No sooner had one campaign come to an end than the candidates began anticipating the start of the next. Cicero joked that the business of governing the state was merely something to occupy the time between polling days. And perhaps this is one of the things that killed the republic: it gorged itself to death on votes. At any rate, the responsibility for honouring Apollo with a programme of public entertainment always fell to the urban praetor, which in this particular year was Antonius Hybrida.

  Nobody had been expecting much, or indeed anything at all, for Hybrida was known to have drunk and gambled away all his money. So it was a vast surprise when he staged not only a series of wonderful theatrical productions, but also lavish spectacles in the Circus Maximus, with a full programme of twelve chariot races, athletic competitions and a wild-beast hunt involving panthers and all manner of exotic animals. I did not attend, but Cicero gave me a full account when he came home that evening. Indeed, he could talk of nothing else. He flung himself down on one of the couches in the empty dining room – Terentia was in the country with Tullia – and described the parade into the Circus: the charioteers and the near-naked athletes (the boxers, the wrestlers, the runners, the javelin throwers and the discus men), the flute players and the lyre players, the dancers dressed as Bacchanalians and satyrs, the incense burners, the bulls and the goats and the heifers with their gilded horns plodding to sacrifice, the cages of wild beasts and the gladiators … He seemed dizzy with it. ‘How much must it have all cost? That is what I kept asking myself. Hybrida must be banking on making it all back when he goes out to his province. You should have heard the cheers they gave to him when he entered and when he left! Well, I see nothing for it, Tiro. Unbelievable as it seems, we shall have to amend the list. Come.’

  We went together into the study and I opened the strongbox and pulled out all the papers relating to Cicero’s consular campaign. There were many secret lists in there – lists of backers, of donors, of supporters he had yet to win over, of towns and regions where he was strong and where he was weak. The key list, however, was of the men he had identified as possible rivals, together with a summary of all the information known about them, pro and anti. Galba was at the top of it, with Gallus next to him, and then Cornificius, and finally Palicanus. Now Cicero took my pen and carefully, in his neat and tiny writing, added a fifth, whose name he had never expected to see there: Antonius Hybrida.

  AND THEN, A few days later, something happened which was to change Cicero’s fortunes and the future of the state entirely, although he did not realise it at the time. I am reminded of one of those harmless-looking specks which one occasionally hears about, that a man discovers on his skin one morning, and thinks little of, only to see it gradually swell over the
following months into an enormous tumour. The speck in this instance was a message, received out of the blue, summoning Cicero to see the pontifex maximus, Metellus Pius. Cicero was mightily intrigued by this, since Pius, who was very old (sixty-four, at least) and grand, had never previously deigned even to speak to him, let alone demand his company. Accordingly, we set off at once, with the lictors clearing our way.

  In those days, the official residence of the head of the state religion was on the Via Sacra, next to the House of the Vestal Virgins, and I remember that Cicero was pleased to be seen entering the premises, for this really was the sacred heart of Rome, and not many men ever got the chance to cross the threshold. We were shown to a staircase and conducted along a gallery which looked down into the garden of the vestals’ residence. I secretly hoped to catch a glimpse of one of those six mysterious white-clad maidens, but the garden was deserted, and it was not possible to linger as the bow-legged figure of Pius was already waiting for us impatiently at the end of the gallery, tapping his foot, with a couple of priests on either side of him. He had been a soldier all his life and had the cracked and roughened look of something made of leather which has been left outside for years and only lately brought indoors. There was no handshake for Cicero, no invitation to be seated, no preliminaries of any sort. Pius merely said immediately, in his hoarse voice, ‘Praetor, I need to talk to you about Sergius Catilina.’

  At the mere mention of the name, Cicero stiffened, for Catilina was the man who had tortured to death his distant cousin, the populist politician Gratidianus, by breaking his limbs and gouging out his eyes and tongue. A jagged streak of violent madness ran through Catilina, like lightning across his brain. At one moment he could be charming, cultured, friendly; then a man would make some seemingly innocuous remark, or he would catch another looking at him in a way he thought disrespectful, and he would lose all self-restraint. During the proscriptions of Sulla, when death lists were posted in the forum, Catilina had been one of the most proficient killers with the hammer and knife – percussores, as they were known – and had made a lot of money out of the estates of those he executed. His own brother-in-law was among the men he had murdered. Yet he had an undeniable charisma, and for each person he repulsed by his savagery, he attracted two or three more by his equally reckless displays of generosity. He was also sexually licentious. Seven years previously, he had been prosecuted for having sexual relations with a vestal virgin – none other, in fact, than Terentia’s half-sister, Fabia. This was a capital offence, not only for him but for her, and if he had been found guilty she would have suffered the traditional punishment for a vestal virgin who broke her sacred vows of chastity – burial alive in the tiny chamber reserved for the purpose beside the Colline Gate. But the aristocrats, led by Catulus, had rallied around Catilina and secured his acquittal, and his political career had continued uninterrupted. He had been praetor the year before last, and had then gone out to govern Africa, thus missing the turmoil surrounding the lex Gabinia. He had only just returned.