Caesar

by Colleen McCullough

  "Disgraceful!" said Cicero to Terentia when he went home. "I sincerely hope that Magnus does something about it."

  "I'm sure he will," said Terentia absently; she had other things on her mind. "Tullia is determined, Marcus. She's going to divorce Crassipes at once."

  "Oh, why does everything have to happen at once? I can't even begin to think about starting negotiations with Nero until my case is finished! And it's important that I do start negotiating—I've heard that Nero is thinking of marrying one of the Claudia Pulchra troop."

  "One thing at a time," said Terentia with suspicious sweetness. "I don't think Tullia will be persuaded into another marriage hard on the heels of this one. Nor do I think that she likes Nero."

  Cicero glared. "She'll do as she's told!" he snapped.

  "She'll do as she wants!" snarled Terentia, sweetness gone. "She's not eighteen anymore, Cicero, she's twenty-five. You can't keep shoving her into loveless marriages tailored to suit your own social-climbing ambitions!"

  "I," said Cicero, marching off to his study dinnerless, "am going to write my speech in defense of Milo!"

  Rarely, in fact, did the consummate professional advocate Cicero devote the kind of time and care to a speech in someone's defense that he did to the speech he wrote for Milo. Even in early draft it ranked with his best. Necessary that it do so, as the other members of the defending team had agreed that they would donate all their time to Cicero. On him, therefore, rested the entire onus of speaking so well that the jury voted ABSOLVO. He toiled for some hours rather pleasurably, nibbling on a plate of olives, eggs and stuffed cucumbers, then retired to bed well satisfied with how the speech was shaping up.

  And went off to the Forum the next morning to discover that Pompey had dealt efficiently—if extremely—with the situation. A ring of soldiers stood around the area of open space in the lower Forum where Ahenobarbus had set up his court, and beyond those soldiers were patrols of soldiers moving incessantly; of a gang member there was no sign. Wonderful! thought Cicero, delighted. The proceedings could be conducted in absolute peace and quiet. Watch Marcus Marcellus destroy Schola now!

  If Marcus Marcellus did not quite destroy Schola, he certainly managed to twist his testimony into knots. For three days the witnesses gave their evidence and endured cross-examination; on the fourth day they swore their depositions, and the court watched eighty-one little wooden balls inscribed with eighty-one different names of senators or knights or tribuni aerarii. Including the name of Marcus Porcius Cato, working for the defense and possibly a juror as well.

  Cicero's speech was perfect; he had rarely done better work. For one thing, it was not often that his co-advocates so generously yielded their time to him. The prosecution would have two hours to sum up, then the defense three hours. A whole three hours all to himself! Oh, what a man could do with that! Cicero looked forward with immense enjoyment to an oratorical triumph.

  Walking home for a consular of Cicero's standing was always a parade. One's clients were there in droves; two or three of the fellows who collected Ciceronian witticisms hovered with wax tablets ready in case he uttered one; admirers clustered, talked, speculated about what he would say on the morrow. While he himself laughed, held forth, tried to think of some mot which would set the two or three collectors scribbling madly. Not a good time for the passing of a private message. Yet as Cicero started, puffing a little, up the Vestal Steps, someone brushed past him and slipped a note into his hand. How odd! Though why he didn't produce the note and read it then and there he didn't quite know. A feeling.

  Not until he was alone in his study did he open it, peruse it, sit down with wrinkled brow. It was from Pompey, and merely instructed him to present himself at Pompey's villa on the Campus Martius that evening. Unaccompanied, please. His steward informed him that dinner was ready; he ate it in solitude, not sorry that Terentia was annoyed with him. What could Pompey want? And why so furtive?

  The meal concluded, he started out for Pompey's villa by the shortest route, which took him nowhere near the Forum; he trotted down the Steps of Cacus into the Forum Boarium, and thus out to the Circus Flaminius, behind which lay Pompey's theater, hundred-pillared colonnade, senatorial meeting chamber, and villa. Which villa, he remembered with a smile, he had likened to a dinghy behind a yacht. Well, it was. Not small, just dwarfed.

  Pompey was alone, greeted Cicero cheerfully, mixed him an excellent white wine with special spring water.

  "All ready for tomorrow?" the Great Man asked, turned sideways on the couch so that he could see Cicero at its far end.

  "Never readier, Magnus. A beautiful speech!"

  "Guaranteed to get Milo off, eh?"

  "It will go a long way toward doing that, yes."

  "I see."

  For a long moment Pompey said nothing at all, just stared ahead past Cicero's shoulder to where the golden grapes given to him by Aristobulus the Jew stood on a console table. Then he turned his eyes to Cicero and looked at him intently.

  "I don't want that speech given," said Pompey.

  Cicero's jaw dropped. "What?" he asked stupidly.

  "I don't want that speech given."

  "But—but—I have to! I've been given the whole three hours allocated to the defense's summing-up!"

  Pompey got up and walked to the great closed doors which connected his study to the peristyle garden; they were of cast bronze and superbly paneled with scenes depicting the battle between the Lapiths and Centaurs. Copied from the Parthenon, of course, only those were marble bas-reliefs.

  He spoke to the left-hand door. "I don't want that speech given, Marcus," he said for the third time.

  "Why?"

  "In case it does get Milo off," said Pompey to a Centaur.

  Cicero's whole face was prickling; he felt sweat running down the back of his neck, became conscious that his hands were trembling. He licked his lips. "I would appreciate some sort of explanation, Magnus," he said with as much dignity as he could muster, and clenching his hands to still their shaking.

  "I would have thought," said Pompey casually to the vein-engorged hindquarters of the Centaur, "that it was obvious. If Milo gets off, he'll be a hero to at least half of Rome. That means he'll be elected consul next year. And Milo doesn't like me anymore. He'll prosecute me the moment I lay down my imperium, which is in three years' time. As a respected and vindicated consular, he'll have clout. I don't want to have to spend the rest of my life doing what Caesar will spend the rest of his life doing—dodging prosecution on maliciously manufactured charges of everything from treason to extortion. On the other hand, if Milo is convicted, he'll go into an irreversible exile. I'll be safe. And that's why."

  "But—but—Magnus, I can't!" Cicero gasped.

  "You can, Cicero. What's more, you will."

  Cicero's heart was behaving strangely, there was a webby mist before his eyes; he sat with them closed and drew a series of deep, strong breaths. Though he was a timid man, he was not at heart a coward. Once a sense of unfairness and injury entered into him, he could develop a surprising steeliness. And that crept into him now as he opened his eyes and stared at Pompey's podgy back, covered by a thin tunic. This was a warm room.

  "Pompeius, you're asking me to give of less than my best for a client," he said. "I do understand why, truly. But I cannot consent to rigging the race as if we were driving chariots at the circus! Milo is my friend. I'll do my best for him no matter what the outcome might be."

  Pompey transferred his gaze to a different Centaur; this one had a javelin wielded by a Lapith embedded in its human chest. "Do you like living, Cicero?" he asked conversationally.

  The trembling increased; Cicero had to wipe his brow with a fold of toga. "Yes, I like living," he whispered.

  "I imagined you did. After all, you haven't had a second consulship yet, and there's the censorship as well." The wounded Centaur was obviously interesting; Pompey bent forward to peer at the spot where the javelin entered. "It's up to you, Cicero. If you speak well enoug
h to get Milo off tomorrow, it's all over. Your next sleep will be permanent."

  Hand on one knob, Pompey tugged it, opened half the door, and went out. Cicero sat on the couch panting, lower lip held firmly in his teeth, knees vibrating. Time passed, he was not sure how much of it. But finally he put both hands on the couch and levered himself upright. His legs held. He extended a foot, began to walk. And kept on walking.

  It was only at the bottom of the Palatine that he fully understood what had just transpired. What Pompey had actually told him. That Publius Clodius had died at his behest; that Milo had been his tool; that the tool's usefulness was now blunted; and that if he, Marcus Tullius Cicero, did not do as he had been told, he would be as dead as Publius Clodius. Who would do it for Pompey? Sextus Cloelius? Oh, the world was full of Pompey's tools! But what did he want, this Pompeius from Picenum? And where in all of this was Caesar? Yes, he was there! Clodius could not be allowed to live to be praetor. They had decided it between them.

  In the darkness of his bedroom he began to weep. Terentia stirred, muttered, rolled onto her side. Cicero retreated, wrapped in a thick blanket, to the icy peristyle, and there wept as much for Pompey as for himself. The brisk, competent, oddly offhand seventeen-year-old he had met during Pompey Strabo's war against the Italians in Picenum had long, long gone. Had he known as far back as then that one day he would need the wretched youth Cicero as his tool? Was that why he had been so kind? Was that why he had saved the wretched youth Cicero's life? So that one day far in the future he could threaten to remove what he had preserved?

  At dawn Rome woke to bustle and hum, though all through the night the heavy wheeled carts drawn by oxen lumbered through the narrow streets delivering goods. Goods which at dawn were put on display or put to work in some factory or foundry, when Rome rose, yawning, to begin the serious business of making money.

  But on the fifth day of Milo's trial in Lucius Ahenobarbus's specially convened violence court, Rome cowered as the sun nudged upward into the sky. Pompey had literally closed the city. Within the Servian Walls no activity began; no snack bar opened its sliding doors onto the street to offer breakfast, no tavern rolled up its shutters, no bakery kindled the ovens, no stall was erected in any marketplace, no school set itself up in a quiet corner, no bank or brokerage firm tuned its abacuses, no purveyor of books or jewels opened his door, no slave or free man went to work, no crossroads college or club or brotherhood of any description met to while away the hours of a day off.

  The silence was stupendous. Every street leading to the Forum Romanum was cordoned off by sour, untalkative bands of soldiers, and within the Forum itself pila bristled above the waving plumes of the Syrian legion's helmets. Two thousand men garrisoned the Forum itself, three thousand more the city, on that freezing ninth day of April. Walking like somnambulants, the hundred-odd men and few women who were compelled to attend the trial of Milo assembled amid the echoes, shivering with cold, staring about twitchily.

  Pompey had already set up his tribunal outside the doors of the Treasury beneath the temple of Saturn, and there he sat dispensing fiscal justice while Ahenobarbus had his lictors collect the wooden balls from the vaults and brought out the lot jars. Mark Antony challenged the jurors for the prosecution, Marcus Marcellus for the defense; but when Cato's name was drawn, both sides nodded.

  It took two hours to choose the fifty-one men who sat to hear the summing-up. After which the prosecution spoke for two hours. The elder of the two Appius Claudiuses and Mark Antony (who had remained in Rome to act in this trial) each spoke for half an hour, and Publius Valerius Nepos for an hour. Good speeches, but not in Cicero's league.

  The jury leaned forward on its folding stools when Cicero walked forward to begin, his scroll in his hand; it was there merely for effect, he never referred to it. When Cicero gave an oration it seemed as if he were composing it as he went along, seamlessly, vividly, magically. Who could ever forget his speech against Gaius Verres, his defenses of Caelius, of Cluentius, of Roscius of Ameria? Murderers, blackguards, monsters, all grist for Cicero's undiscriminating mill. He had even made the vile Antonius Hybrida sound like every mother's ideal son.

  "Lucius Ahenobarbus, members of the jury, you see me here to represent the great and good Titus Annius Milo."

  Cicero paused, stared at the pleasurably expectant Milo, swallowed. "How strange it is to have an audience composed of soldiers! How much I miss the clangor of business as usual...." He stopped, swallowed. "But how wise of the consul Gnaeus Pompeius to make sure that nothing unseemly happened—happens...." He stopped, swallowed. "We are protected. We have nothing to fear, and least of all does my dear friend Milo have anything to fear...." He stopped, waved his scroll aimlessly, swallowed. "Publius Clodius was mad; he burned and plundered. Burned. Look at the places where our beloved Curia Hostilia, Basilica Porcia ..." He stopped, he frowned, he pushed the fingers of one hand into the sockets of his eyes. "Basilica Porcia—Basilica Porcia ..."

  By this, the silence was so profound that the chink of a pilum brushing against a scabbard sounded like a building crashing down; Milo was gaping at him, that loathesome cockroach Marcus Antonius was grinning, the rising sun was reflecting off the oily bald pate of Lucius Ahenobarbus the way it did off snowfields, blindingly—oh, what is the matter with my mind, why am I seeing that?

  He tried again. "Are we to exist in perpetual misery? No! We have not since the day Publius Clodius burned! On the day Publius Clodius died, we received a priceless gift! The patriot we see here before us simply defended himself, fought for his life. His sympathies have always been with true patriots, his anger directed against the gutter techniques of demagogues...." He stopped, swallowed. "Publius Clodius conspired to take the life of Milo. There can be no doubt of it, no doubt of it at all— no doubt at all—no doubt, no doubt... no—doubt..."

  Face twisted with worry, Caelius crossed to where Cicero stood alone. "Cicero, you're not well. Let me get you some wine," he said anxiously.

  The brown eyes staring at him were dazed; Caelius wondered if they even saw him.

  "Thank you, I am well," said Cicero, and tried again. "Milo does not deny that a fight broke out on the Via Appia, though he does deny that he instigated it. He does not deny that Clodius died, though he does deny that he killed Clodius. All of which is quite immaterial. Self-defense is not a crime. Never a crime. Crime is premeditated. That was Clodius. That was premeditation. Publius Clodius. Him. Not Milo. No, not Milo...."

  Caelius moved back to him. "Cicero, take some wine, please!"

  "No, I am well. Truly, I am well. Thank you.... Take the size of Milo's party. A carpentum. A wife. The eminent Quintus Fufius Calenus. Baggage. Servants galore. Is that the way a man plots to do murder? Clodius had no wife with him. Isn't that in itself suspicious? Clodius never moved without his wife. Clodius had no baggage. Clodius was unencumbersome—unencrumbed—unen—unencumbered...."

  Pompey was sitting on his tribunal hearing cases against the fiscus. Pretending the court of Ahenobarbus didn't exist. I never knew the man. Oh, Jupiter, he will kill me! He will kill me!

  "Milo is a sane man. If it happened the way the prosecution alleges it happened, then we are looking at a madman. But Milo is not mad. It was Clodius who was mad! Everyone knew Clodius was mad! Everyone!"

  He stopped, wiped the sweat out of his eyes. Fulvia swam before his gaze, sitting with her mother, Sempronia. Who was that standing with them? Oh, Curio. They were smiling, smiling, smiling. While Cicero died, died, died.

  "Died. Died. Clodius died. No one denies that. We all have to die. But no one wants to die. Clodius died. Clodius brought it on himself. Milo didn't kill him. Milo is—Milo is ..."

  For a hideous half hour Cicero battled on, stumbling, stopping, faltering, tripping over simple words. Until in the end, his vision filled by Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus dispensing fiscal justice outside Saturn, he stopped for the last time. Couldn't start again.

  No one on Milo's side was angry, even Milo. The shock wa
s too enormous, Cicero's health too suspect. Perhaps he had one of those frightful headaches with flashing lights? It wasn't his heart; he didn't have that grey look. Nor his stomach. What was the matter, with him? Was he having a stroke?

  Marcus Claudius Marcellus stepped forward. "Lucius Ahenobarbus, it is clear that Marcus Tullius cannot continue. And that is a tragedy, for we all agreed to give him our time. Not one of us has prepared an address. May I humbly ask this court and its jurors to remember the kind of oration Marcus Tullius has always given? Today he is ill; we will not hear that. But we can remember. And take to your hearts, members of the jury, an unspoken oration which would have shown you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, where the guilt in this sorry business lies. The defense rests its case."

  Ahenobarbus shifted in his chair. "Members of the jury, I require your votes," he said.

  The jury busied itself inscribing its little tablets with a letter: A for ABSOLVO, C for CONDEMNO. Ahenobarbus's lictors collected the tablets and Ahenobarbus counted them with witnesses peering over his shoulder.

  "CONDEMNO by thirty-eight votes to thirteen," Ahenobarbus announced in a level voice. "Titus Annius Milo, I will appoint a damages panel to assess your fine, but CONDEMNO carries a sentence of exile with it according to the lex Pompeia de vi. It is my duty to instruct you that you are interdicted against fire and water within five hundred miles of Rome. Be advised that three further charges have been laid against you. You will be tried in the court of Aulus Manlius Torquatus on charges of electoral bribery. You will be tried in the court of Marcus Favonius on charges of illegally associating with members of colleges banned under the lex Julia Marcia. And you will be tried in the court of Lucius Fabius on charges of violence under the lex Plautia de vi. Court closed."