Imperium

by Robert Harris

  “And who is that?” demanded Isauricus, pointing at me.

  “That is my secretary, Tiro,” said Cicero, “who recorded the meeting at the house of Crassus.”

  “Well, I for one do not believe a word of it,” replied Isauricus, brandishing the transcript at me. “No one could have written down all of this as it was uttered. It is beyond human capacity.”

  “Tiro has developed his own system of stenography,” explained Cicero. “Let him show you the actual records he made last night.”

  I pulled out the notebooks from my pocket and handed them around.

  “Remarkable,” said Hortensius, examining my script intently. “So these symbols substitute for sounds, do they? Or for entire words?”

  “Words mostly,” I replied, “and common phrases.”

  “Prove it,” said Catulus belligerently. “Take down what I say.” And giving me barely a moment to open a fresh notebook and take up my stylus, he went on rapidly, “If what I have read here is true, the state is threatened with civil war as a result of a criminal conspiracy. If what I have read is false, it is the wickedest forgery in our history. For my own part, I do not believe it is true, because I do not believe such a record could have been produced by a living hand. That Catilina is a hothead, we all know well enough, but he is a true and noble Roman, not a devious and ambitious outsider, and I will take his word over that of a new man—always! What is it you want from us, Cicero? You cannot seriously believe, after all that has happened between us, that I could possibly support you for the consulship? So what is it?”

  “Nothing,” replied Cicero pleasantly. “I came across some information which I thought might be of interest to you. I passed it along to Hortensius, that is all. You brought me out here, remember? I did not ask to come. I might more appropriately ask: What do you gentlemen want? Do you want to be trapped between Pompey and his armies in the East, and Crassus and Caesar and the urban mob in Italy, and gradually have the life squeezed out of you? Do you want to rely for your protection on the two men you are backing for consul—the one stupid, the other insane—who cannot even manage their own households, let alone the affairs of the nation? Is that what you want? Well, good then. I at least have an easy conscience. I have done my patriotic duty by alerting you to what is happening, even though you have never been any friends of mine. I also believe I have demonstrated by my courage in the Senate today my willingness to stand up to these criminals. No other candidate for consul has done it, or will in the future. I have made them my enemies and shown you what they are like. But from you, Catulus, and from all of you, I want nothing, and if all you wish to do is insult me, I bid you a good evening.”

  He spun around and began walking toward the door, with me in tow, and I guess that must have felt to him like the longest walk he ever took, because we had almost reached the shadowy antechamber—and with it, surely, the black void of political oblivion—when a voice (it was that of Lucullus himself) shouted out, “Read it back!” Cicero halted, and we both turned around. “Read it back,” repeated Lucullus. “What Catulus said just now.”

  Cicero nodded at me, and I fumbled for my notebook. “‘If what I have read here is true,’” I began, reciting in that flat, strange way of stenography being read back, “‘the state is threatened with civil war as a result of a criminal conspiracy if what I have read is false it is the wickedest forgery in our history for my own part I do not believe it is true because I do not believe such a record could have been produced by a living hand—’”

  “He could have memorized that,” objected Catulus. “It is all just a cheap trick, of the sort you might see done by a conjurer in the Forum.”

  “And the latter part,” persisted Lucullus. “Read out the last thing your master said.”

  I ran my finger down my notation. “‘—never been any friends of mine I also believe I have demonstrated by my courage in the Senate today my willingness to stand up to these criminals no other candidate for consul has done it or will in the future I have made them my enemies and shown you what they are like but from you Catulus and from all of you I want nothing and if all you wish to do is insult me I bid you a good evening.’”

  Isauricus whistled. Hortensius nodded and said something like, “I told you” or “I warned you”—I cannot remember exactly—to which Metellus responded, “Yes, well, I have to say, that is proof enough for me.” Catulus merely glared at me.

  “Come back, Cicero,” said Lucullus, beckoning to him. “I am satisfied. The record is genuine. Let us put aside for the time being the question of who needs whom the most, and start from the premise that each of us needs the other.”

  “I am still not convinced,” grumbled Catulus.

  “Then let me convince you with a single word,” said Hortensius impatiently. “Caesar. Caesar—with Crassus’s gold, two consuls and ten tribunes behind him!”

  “So really, we must talk with such people?” Catulus sighed. “Well, Cicero perhaps,” he conceded. “But we certainly do not need you,” he snapped, pointing at me, just as I was moving, as always, to follow my master. “I do not want that creature and his tricks within a mile of me, listening to what we say, and writing everything down in his damned untrustworthy way. If anything is to pass between us, it must never be divulged.”

  Cicero hesitated. “All right,” he said reluctantly, and he gave me an apologetic look. “Wait outside, Tiro.”

  I had no business to feel aggrieved. I was merely a slave, after all: an extra hand, a tool—a “creature,” as Catulus put it. But nevertheless I felt my humiliation keenly. I folded up my notebook and walked into the antechamber, and then kept on walking, through all those echoing, freshly stuccoed state rooms—Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter—as the slaves in their cushioned slippers moved silently with their glowing tapers among the gods, lighting the lamps and candelabra. I went out into the soft, warm dusk of the park, where the cicadas were singing, and for reasons which I cannot even now articulate I found that I was weeping, but I suppose I must have been very tired.

  IT WAS ALMOST DAWN when I awoke, stiff in my limbs and damp with cold from the dew. For a moment I had no idea where I was or how I had got there, but then I realized I was on a stone bench close to the front of the house, and that it was Cicero who had woken me. His face looming over me was grim. “We have finished here,” he said. “We must get back to the city quickly.” He glanced across to where the carriage was waiting and put his finger to his lips to warn me not to say anything in front of Hortensius’s steward. So it was in silence that we clambered into the carpentum, and as we left the park I remember turning for a final look at the great villa, the torches still burning along its terraces, but losing their sharpness now as the pale morning light came up; of the other aristocrats there was no sign.

  Cicero, conscious that in little more than two hours he would have to leave his house to go down to the Field of Mars for the election, kept urging the driver to make better speed, and those poor horses must have been whipped until their hides were raw. But we were lucky that the roads were empty, save for a few very early voters walking into town for the election, and we hurtled along at a great speed, reaching the Fontinalian Gate just as it was opening, and then rattled up the paved slopes of the Esquiline Hill faster than a man could sprint. Just before the Temple of Tellus Cicero told the driver to stop and let us out, so that we could walk the last part of the way—an order which puzzled me, until I realized that he wanted to avoid being seen by the crowd of his supporters which was already beginning to assemble in the street outside his front door. He strode on ahead of me in that way of his, with his hands clasped behind his back, still keeping his thoughts to himself, and I noticed that his once-brilliant white toga was stained with dirt. We went down the side of the house and through the little door at the back which the servants used, and there we bumped into Terentia’s business manager, the odious Philotimus, who was obviously on his way back from some nocturnal assignation with one of the slave girls. Cic
ero did not even see him, so preoccupied was he with what had happened and what was to come. His eyes were red with tiredness, his face and hair brown with dust from the journey. He told me to go and open up the door and let the people in. Then he went upstairs.

  Among the first across the threshold was Quintus, who naturally demanded to know what was happening. He and the others had waited for our return in Atticus’s library until nearly midnight, and he was furious and anxious in equal measure. This put me in an awkward spot, and I could only stammer that I would prefer it if he addressed his questions directly to his brother. To be honest, seeing Cicero and his bitterest enemies all together in such a setting now seemed so unreal to me, I could almost have believed I had dreamed it. Quintus was not satisfied, but fortunately I was saved further embarrassment by the sheer number of visitors pouring through the door. I escaped by pretending I had to check everything was ready in the tablinum, and from there I slipped into my little cubicle and rinsed my neck and face with tepid water from my basin.

  When I next saw Cicero, an hour later, he once again demonstrated those remarkable powers of recuperation which I have observed to be the distinguishing mark of all successful politicians. As I watched him come down the stairs in a freshly laundered white toga, his face washed and shaved and his hair combed and scented, I thought that no one could have guessed that he had not slept for the past two nights. The cramped house by this time was packed with his supporters. Cicero had the infant Marcus, whose first birthday it was, carefully balanced on his shoulders, and such a cheer went up when the two of them appeared, it must have shaken off several roof tiles: no wonder the poor child started crying. Cicero quickly lifted him down, lest this be seen as a bad omen for the day, and handed him to Terentia, who was standing behind him on the stairs. He smiled at her and said something, and at that moment I realized for the first time just how close they had become over the years, that what had started as a marriage of convenience was now a most formidable partnership. I could not hear what passed between them, and then he came down into the crowd.

  So many people had turned out it was hard for him to struggle through the tablinum to the atrium, where Quintus, Frugi, and Atticus were surrounded by a very decent showing of senators. Among those present to demonstrate their support were Cicero’s old friend Servius Sulpicius; Gallus, the renowned scholar of jurisprudence, who had refused to run himself; the elder Frugi, with whom he was forming a family connection; Marcellinus, who had supported him ever since the Verres trial; and all those senators he had represented in the courts, such as Cornelius, Fundanius, Orchivius, and also Fonteius, the corrupt ex-governor of Gaul. Indeed, as I struggled through the rooms after Cicero, it was as if the past ten years had all sprung back to life, so many half-forgotten courtroom struggles were represented there, even Popillius Laenas, whose nephew Cicero had rescued from a charge of parricide on the day Sthenius came to see us. The atmosphere was more akin to a family festival than an election day, and Cicero as ever was in his element on these occasions; I doubt if there was one supporter whose hand he did not shake, and with whom he did not establish a moment of rapport sufficient to leave the other man feeling he had been specially signaled out.

  Just before we left, Quintus pulled him to one side to ask, quite angrily as I recall, where on earth he had been all night—he had almost sent men out looking for him—to which Cicero, conscious of the people all around him, replied quietly that he would tell him later. But that only made Quintus more aggrieved. “Who do you think I am?” he demanded. “Your maid? Tell me now!” And so Cicero told him then very rapidly about the journey out to the palace of Lucullus and the presence there of Metellus and Catulus, as well as Hortensius and Isauricus.

  “The whole patrician gang!” whispered Quintus excitedly, his irritation entirely forgotten. “My gods, whoever would have thought it? And are they going to support us?”

  “We talked for hour after hour, but in the end, they would not commit themselves until they had spoken to the other great families,” replied Cicero, glancing nervously around, but the din was too great for him to be overheard. “Hortensius, I think, would have agreed on the spot. Catulus remains instinctively opposed. The others will do what self-interest dictates. We shall just have to wait and see.”

  Atticus, who had heard all this, said, “But they believed in the truth of the evidence you showed them?”

  “I think so, yes. Thanks to Tiro. But we can discuss all this later. Put on your bravest faces, gentlemen,” he said, gripping the hands of each of us in turn. “We have an election to win!”

  Seldom can a candidate have staged a more splendid show than Cicero did during his walk down to the Field of Mars, and for that much credit must go to Quintus. We made up a parade of three or four hundred, with musicians, young men carrying green boughs wound with ribbons, girls with rose petals, actor friends of Cicero’s from the theater, senators, knights, merchants, stall holders, regular spectators from the law courts, guild officers, legal clerks, representatives from the Roman communities in Sicily and Nearer Gaul. We set up a terrific noise of cheering and whistling as we came onto the campus and there was a great surge of voters toward us. It is always said of elections, in my experience, that whichever one is in progress at the time is the most significant there has ever been, and on that day, at least, it was arguably true, with the added excitement that no one knew how it would turn out, given the activity among the bribery agents, the sheer number of candidates, and the enmity between them following Cicero’s attack on Catilina and Hybrida in the Senate.

  We had anticipated trouble, and Quintus had taken the precaution of stationing some of our heftier supporters immediately behind and in front of his brother. As we approached the voting pens I felt increasingly worried, for I could see Catilina and his followers up ahead, waiting beside the returning officer’s tent. Some of these ruffians jeered us as we arrived at the enclosure, but Catilina himself, after a brief and contemptuous glance in Cicero’s direction, resumed talking to Hybrida. I muttered to young Frugi that I was surprised he did not at least put on a show of intimidation—that, after all, was his usual tactic—to which Frugi, who was no fool, responded, “He does not feel he needs to—he is so confident of victory.” His words filled me with unease.

  But then a very remarkable thing happened. Cicero and all the other senators seeking either the consulship or the praetorship—perhaps two dozen men—were standing in the small area reserved for the candidates, surrounded by a low sheep fence to separate them from their supporters. The presiding consul, Marcius Figulus, was talking to the augur, checking that all was propitious for the ballot to begin, when just at that moment Hortensius appeared, followed by a retinue of about twenty men. The crowd parted to let him through. He approached the fence and called to Cicero, who interrupted his conversation with one of the other candidates—Cornificius, I think it was—and went over to him. This in itself surprised people, for it was known that there was little love lost between the two old rivals, and there was a stir among the onlookers; Catilina and Hybrida certainly both turned to stare. For a moment or two, Cicero and Hortensius regarded each other, then simultaneously they nodded and reached out and slowly shook the hand of the other. No word was uttered, and with the handclasp still in place, Hortensius half turned to the men behind him and raised Cicero’s arm above his head. A great shout of applause, mingled with some boos and groans, broke out, for there was no doubt what the gesture meant: I certainly never expected to see anything like it. The aristocrats were supporting Cicero! Immediately, Hortensius’s attendants turned and disappeared into the throng, presumably to spread the word among the nobles’ agents in the centuries that they were to switch their support. I risked a look at Catilina and saw on his face an expression of puzzlement rather than anything else, for the incident, though obviously significant—people were still buzzing about it—was so fleeting that Hortensius was already walking away. An instant later, Figulus called to the candidates to follow him
to the platform so that the voting could begin.

  YOU CAN ALWAYS SPOT A FOOL, for he is the man who will tell you he knows who is going to win an election. But an election is a living thing—you might almost say, the most vigorously alive thing there is—with thousands upon thousands of brains and limbs and eyes and thoughts and desires, and it will wriggle and turn and run off in directions no one ever predicted, sometimes just for the joy of proving the wiseacres wrong. This much I learned on the Field of Mars that day, when the entrails were inspected, the skies were checked for suspicious flights of birds, the blessings of the gods were invoked, all epileptics were asked to leave the field (for in those days an attack of epilepsy, or morbus comitialis, automatically rendered proceedings void), a legion was deployed on the approaches to Rome to prevent a surprise attack, the list of candidates was read, the trumpets were sounded, the red flag was hoisted over the Janiculum Hill, and the Roman people began to cast their ballots.

  The honor of being the first of the 193 centuries to vote was decided by lot, and to be a member of this centuria praerogativa, as it was known, was considered a rare blessing, for its decision often set the pattern for what followed. Only the richest centuries were eligible for the draw, and I remember how I stood and watched as that year’s winners, a stalwart collection of merchants and bankers, filed self-importantly over the wooden bridge and disappeared behind the screens. Their ballots were quickly counted, and Figulus came to the front of his tribunal and announced that they had put Cicero in first place and Catilina second. At once a gasp went up, for all those fools I was speaking of had predicted it would be Catilina first and Hybrida second, and then the gasp quickly turned into cheers as Cicero’s supporters, realizing what had happened, began a noisy demonstration which spread across the Field of Mars. Cicero was standing under the awning beneath the consul’s platform. He permitted himself only the most fleeting of smiles, and then, such was the actor in the man, he composed his features into an expression of dignity and authority appropriate to a Roman consul. Catilina—who was as far away from Cicero as it was possible to get, with all the other candidates lined up between them—looked as if he had been struck in the face. Only Hybrida’s expression was blank—whether because he was drunk as usual or too stupid to realize what was happening I cannot say. As for Crassus and Caesar, they had been loitering and chatting together near to the place where the voters emerged after casting their ballots, and I could have laughed aloud as they looked at each other in disbelief. They held a hurried consultation and then darted off in different directions, no doubt to demand how the expenditure of twenty million sesterces had failed to secure the centuria praerogativa.