Yet again I almost told him what I had witnessed in Pompey’s house; and yet again I thought the better of it.
IT WAS ON a clear autumn morning that Cicero bade a tearful goodbye to Terentia, Tullia and little Marcus, and we left the city to begin his great campaign tour of the north. Quintus, as usual, remained behind to nurse his brother’s political interests, while Frugi was entrusted with the legal casework. As for young Caelius, this became the occasion of his finally leaving Cicero and going to the household of Crassus to complete his internship.
We travelled in a convoy of three four-wheeled carriages, pulled by teams of mules – one carriage for Cicero to sleep in, another specially fitted out as an office, and a third full of luggage and documents; other, smaller vehicles trailed behind for the use of the senator’s retinue of secretaries, valets, muleteers, cooks, and heaven knows who else, including several thick-set men who acted as bodyguards. We left by the Fontinalian Gate, with no one to see us off. In those days, the hills to the north of Rome were still pine-clad, apart from the one on which Lucullus was just completing his notorious palace. The patrician general had now come back from the East, but was unable to enter the city proper without forfeiting his military imperium and with it his right to a triumph. So he was lingering out here amid his spoils of war, waiting for his aristocratic cronies to assemble a majority in the senate to vote him triumphator, but the supporters of Pompey, among them Cicero, kept blocking it. Mind you, even Cicero glanced up from his letters long enough to take a look at this colossal structure, the roof of which was just visible over the treetops, and I secretly hoped that we might catch a glimpse of the great man himself, but of course he was nowhere to be seen. (Incidentally, Quintus Metellus, the sole survivor of the three Metelli brothers, had also recently returned from Crete, and was also holed up outside the city in anticipation of a triumph which, again, the ever-jealous Pompey would not allow. The plight of Lucullus and Metellus was a source of endless amusement to Cicero: ‘A traffic jam of generals,’ he called them, ‘all trying to get into Rome through the Triumphal Gate!’) At the Mulvian Bridge we paused while Cicero dashed off a final note of farewell to Terentia. Then we crossed the swollen waters of the Tiber and turned north on to the Flaminian Way.
We made extremely good time on that first day, and shortly before nightfall we reached Ocriculum, about thirty miles north of the city. Here we were met by a prominent local citizen who had agreed to give Cicero hospitality, and the following morning the senator went into the forum to begin his canvass. The secret of effective electioneering lies in the quality of the staff work done in advance, and here Cicero was very fortunate to have attached to his campaign two professional agents, Ranunculus and Filum, who travelled ahead of the candidate to ensure that a decent crowd of supporters would always be waiting in each town when we arrived. There was nothing about the electoral map of Italy which these two rascals did not know: who among the local knights would be offended if Cicero did not stop to pay his respects, and who should be avoided; which were the most important tribes and centuries in each particular district, and which were most likely to come his way; what were the issues which most concerned the citizens, and what were the promises they expected in return for their votes. They had no other topic of conversation except politics, yet Cicero could sit with them late into the night swapping facts and stories, as happily as he could converse with a philosopher or a wit.
I would not weary you with all the details of the campaign, even if I could remember them. Dear gods! What a heap of ash most political careers amount to, when one really stops to consider them! I used to be able to name every consul for the past one hundred years, and most praetors for the past forty. Now, they have almost entirely faded out of my memory, quenched like lights at midnight around the Bay of Naples. Little wonder that the towns and crowds of Cicero’s consular campaign have all merged into one generalised impression of hands shaken, stories listened to, bores endured, petitions received, jokes told, undertakings given, and local worthies smoothed and flattered. The name of Cicero was famous by this time, even outside Rome, and people turned out to see him en masse, especially in the larger towns where law was practised, for the speeches he had prepared for the prosecution of Verres – even those he had not delivered – had been extensively copied and circulated. He was a hero to both the lower classes and the respectable knights, who saw him as a champion against the rapacity and snobbery of the aristocracy. For this reason, there were not many grand houses which opened their doors to him, and we had to endure taunts and even occasionally missiles whenever we passed close to the estates of one or other of the great patricians.
We pressed on up the Flaminian Way, devoting a day to each of the decent-sized towns – Narnia, Carsulae, Mevania, Fulginiae, Nuceria, Tadinae and Cales – before finally reaching the Adriatic coast about two weeks after leaving Rome. It was some years since I had gazed upon the sea, and when that line of glittering blue appeared above the dust and scrub I felt as thrilled as a child. The afternoon was cloudless and balmy, a straggler left behind by a distant summer which had long since retreated. On impulse, Cicero ordered that the wagons be halted so that we could all walk on the beach. How odd the things which do lodge in one’s mind, for although I cannot now recall much of the serious politics, I can still remember every detail of that hour-long interlude – the smell of the seaweed and the taste of salt spray on my lips, the warmth of the sun on my cheeks, the rattle of the shingle as the waves broke and the hiss as they receded, and Cicero laughing as he tried to demonstrate how Demosthenes was supposed to have improved his elocution by rehearsing his speeches with a mouth full of pebbles.
A few days later, at Ariminum, we picked up the Aemilian Way and swung west, away from the sea, and into the province of Nearer Gaul. Here we could feel the nip of winter coming on. The black and purple mountains of the Apenninus rose sheer to our left, while to our right, the Po delta stretched grey and flat to the horizon. I had a curious sensation that we were mere insects, creeping along the foot of a wall at the edge of some great room. The passionate political issue in Nearer Gaul at that time was the franchise. Those who lived to the south of the River Po had been given the vote; those who lived to the north had not. The populists, led by Pompey and Caesar, favoured extending citizenship across the river, all the way to the Alps; the aristocrats, whose spokesman was Catulus, suspected a plot further to dilute their power, and opposed it. Cicero, naturally, was in favour of widening the franchise to the greatest extent possible, and this was the issue he campaigned on.
They had never seen a consular candidate up here before, and in every little town crowds of several hundred would turn out to listen to him. Cicero usually spoke from the back of one of the wagons, and gave the same speech at every stop, so that after a while I could move my lips in synchronicity with his. He denounced as nonsense the logic which said that a man who lived on one side of a stretch of water was a Roman and that his cousin on the other was a barbarian, even though they both spoke Latin. ‘Rome is not merely a matter of geography,’ he would proclaim. ‘Rome is not defined by rivers, or mountains, or even seas; Rome is not a question of blood, or race, or religion; Rome is an ideal. Rome is the highest embodiment of liberty and law that mankind has yet achieved in the ten thousand years since our ancestors came down from those mountains and learned how to live as communities under the rule of law.’ So if his listeners had the vote, he would conclude, they must be sure to use it on behalf of those who had not, for that was their fragment of civilisation, their special gift, as precious as the secret of fire. Every man should see Rome once before he died. They should go next summer, when the travelling was easy, and cast their ballots on the Field of Mars, and if anyone asked them why they had come so far, ‘You can tell them Marcus Cicero sent you!’ Then he would jump down, and pass among the crowd while they were still applauding, doling out handfuls of chickpeas from a sack carried by one of his attendants, and I would make sure I was just behind him,
to catch his instructions and write down names.
I learned much about Cicero while he was out campaigning. Indeed, I would say that despite all the years we had spent together I never really knew him until I saw him in one of those small towns south of the Po – Faventia, say, or Claterna – with the late autumn light just starting to fade, and a cold wind blowing off the mountains, and the lamps being lit in the little shops along the main street, and the upturned faces of the local farmers gazing in awe at this famous senator on the back of his wagon, with his three fingers outstretched, pointing towards the glory of Rome. I realised then that, for all his sophistication, he was really still one of them – a man from a small provincial town with an idealised dream of the republic and what it meant to be a citizen, which burned all the fiercer within him because he, too, was an outsider.
For the next two months Cicero devoted himself entirely to the electors of Nearer Gaul, especially those around the provincial capital of Placentia, which actually lies on the banks of the Po and where whole families were divided by the vexed question of citizenship. He was given great assistance in his campaigning by the governor, Piso – that same Piso, curiously enough, who had threatened Pompey with the fate of Romulus if he pressed ahead with his desire for the special command. But Piso was a pragmatist, and besides, his family had commercial interests beyond the Po. He was thus in favour of extending the vote; he even gave Cicero a special commission on his staff, to enable him to travel more freely. We spent the festival of Saturnalia at Piso’s headquarters, imprisoned by snow, and I could see the governor becoming more and more charmed by Cicero’s manners and wit, to the extent that one evening, after plenty of wine, he clapped him on the shoulder and declared, ‘Cicero, you are a good fellow after all. A better fellow and a better patriot than I realised. Speaking for myself, I would be willing to see you as consul. It is only a pity it will never happen.’
Cicero looked taken aback. ‘And why are you so sure of that?’
‘Because the aristocrats will never stand for it, and they control too many votes.’
‘It is true they have great influence,’ conceded Cicero. ‘But I have the support of Pompey.’
Piso roared with laughter. ‘And much good may it do you! He is lording it around at the other end of the world, and besides – haven’t you noticed? – he never stirs for anyone except himself. Do you know who I would watch out for if I were you?’
‘Catilina?’
‘Yes, him too. But the one who should really worry you is Antonius Hybrida.’
‘But the man is a halfwit!’
‘Cicero, you disappoint me. Since when has idiocy been a bar to advancement in politics? You take it from me – Hybrida is the man the aristocrats will rally around, and then you and Catilina will be left to fight it out for second place, and do not look to Pompey for help.’
Cicero smiled and affected unconcern, but Piso’s remarks had obviously struck home, and as soon as the snowfall melted we set off back to Rome at maximum speed.
WE REACHED THE city in the middle of January, and to begin with all seemed well. Cicero resumed his hectic round of advocacy in the courts, and his campaign team once again met weekly under the supervision of Quintus, who assured him his support was holding firm. We were minus young Caelius, but his absence was more than made up for by the addition of Cicero’s oldest and closest friend, Atticus, who had returned to live in Rome after an absence in Greece of some twenty years.
I must tell you a little about Atticus, whose importance in Cicero’s life I have so far only hinted at, and who was about to become extremely significant indeed. Already rich, he had recently inherited a fine house on the Quirinal Hill together with twenty million in cash from his uncle, Quintus Caecilius, one of the most loathed and misanthropic money-lenders in Rome, and it says much about Atticus that he alone remained on reasonable terms with this repulsive old man right up to his death. Some might have suspected opportunism, but the truth was that Atticus, because of his philosophy, had made it a principle never to fall out with anyone. He was a devoted follower of the teachings of Epicurus – ‘that pleasure is the beginning and end of living happily’ – although I hasten to add that he was an Epicurean not in the commonly misunderstood sense, as a seeker after luxury, but in the true meaning, as a pursuer of what the Greeks call ataraxia, or freedom from disturbance. He consequently avoided arguments and unpleasantness of any kind (needless to say, he was unmarried) and desired only to contemplate philosophy by day and dine by night with his cultured friends. He believed that all mankind should have similar aims, and was baffled that they did not: he tended to forget, as Cicero occasionally reminded him, that not everyone had inherited a fortune. He never for an instant contemplated undertaking anything as upsetting or dangerous as a political career, yet at the same time, as an insurance against future mishap, he had taken pains to cultivate every aristocrat who passed through Athens – which, over two decades, was a lot – by drawing up their family trees, and presenting them as gifts, beautifully illustrated by his slaves. He was also extremely shrewd with money. In short, there can never have been anyone quite so worldly in their pursuit of unworldliness as Titus Pomponius Atticus.
He was three years older than Cicero, who stood somewhat in awe of him, not only because of his wealth but also because of his social connections, for if there is one man guaranteed to enjoy an automatic entrée into smart society it is a rich and witty bachelor in his middle forties with an unfeigned interest in the genealogy of his host and hostess. This made him invaluable as a source of political intelligence, and it was from Atticus that Cicero now began to realise how formidable was the opposition to his candidacy. First, Atticus heard over dinner from his great friend Servilia – the half-sister of Cato – that Antonius Hybrida was definitely running for the consulship. A few weeks after that, Atticus reported a comment of Hortensius (another of his acquaintances) to the effect that Hybrida and Catilina were planning to run on a joint ticket. This was a serious blow, and although Cicero tried to make light of it – ‘Oh well, a target that is double the size is twice as easy to hit’ – nevertheless I could see that he was shaken, for he had no running-mate of his own, and no serious prospect at this stage of finding one.
But the really bad news came just after the senatorial recess in the late spring. Atticus sent a message that he needed to see the Cicero brothers urgently, so when the courts had closed for the day all three of us made our way up to his house. This was a perfect bachelor set-up, built on a promontory next to the Temple of Salus – not large, but with the most wonderful views across the city, especially from the library, which Atticus had made the centrepiece of the house. There were busts of the great philosophers around the walls, and many little cushioned benches to sit on, for Atticus’s rule was that while he would never lend a book, any of his friends were free whenever they liked to come up and read or even make their own copies. And it was here, beneath a head of Aristotle, that we found Atticus reclining that afternoon, dressed in the loose white tunic of a Greek, and reading, if I remember rightly, a volume of Kyriai doxai, the principal doctrines of Epicurus.
He came straight to the point. ‘I was at dinner last night on the Palatine, at the home of Metellus Celer and the Lady Clodia, and among the other guests was our former consul, no less an aristocrat than’ – he blew on an imaginary trumpet – ‘Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura.’
‘By heavens,’ said Cicero with a smile, ‘the company you keep!’
‘Did you know that Lentulus is trying to make a comeback, by standing for a praetorship this summer?’
‘Is he really?’ Cicero frowned and rubbed his forehead. ‘He is of course a great friend of Catilina. I suppose they must be in alliance. See how the gang of rascals grows?’
‘Oh yes, it is quite a political movement – he, and Catilina and Hybrida, and I got the impression there were others, but he would not give me their names. At one point, he produced a piece of paper with the prediction of some oracl
e written upon it, that he would be the third of the Cornelii to rule as dictator in Rome.’
‘Old Sleepy-Head? Dictator? I trust you laughed in his face.’
‘No, I did not,’ replied Atticus. ‘I took him very seriously. You ought to try it some time, Cicero, instead of just delivering one of your crushing witticisms which simply shuts everybody up. No, I encouraged him to ramble on, and he drank more of Celer’s excellent wine, and I listened more, and he drank more, and eventually he swore me to secrecy and he told me his great secret.’
‘Which is?’ said Cicero, leaning forward in his seat, for he knew that Atticus would not have summoned us for nothing.
‘They are being backed by Crassus.’
There was a silence.
‘Crassus is voting for them?’ asked Cicero, which I think was the first time I had ever heard him say something seriously stupid: I ascribe it to the shock.
‘No,’ said Atticus irritably. ‘He is backing them. You know what I mean. Financing them. Buying them the whole election, according to Lentulus.’
Cicero seemed temporarily deprived of the power of speech. After another long pause it was Quintus who spoke up. ‘I do not believe it. Lentulus must have been well in his cups to make such a ridiculous boast. What possible reason would Crassus have for wanting to see such men in power?’
‘To spite me,’ said Cicero, recovering his voice.
‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed Quintus angrily. (Why was he so angry? I suppose because he was frightened that the story was true, in which case he would look a fool, especially in the light of all the assurances he had given his brother that the campaign was in the bag.) ‘Absolute nonsense!’ he repeated, although with slightly less certainty. ‘We already know that Crassus is investing heavily in Caesar’s future. How much would it cost him in addition to buy two consulships and a praetorship? You are talking not just about a million, but four million, five million. He hates you, Marcus, everyone knows it. But does he hate you so much more than he loves his money? I doubt it.’
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