The Dictator

by Robert Harris

  “Could I have a word?” he said gruffly.

  “Of course,” said Cicero. “Come inside, all of you. Come and have something to eat and drink, I insist.”

  Vibullius said, “I’ll come in. They’ll wait out here and make sure we’re not disturbed.” He moved very stiffly, a clay effigy come to life.

  Cicero said, “You look all in. How far have you ridden?”

  “From Luca.”

  “Luca?” repeated Cicero. “That must be three hundred miles!”

  “More like three hundred and fifty. We’ve been on the road a week.” As he lowered himself to a seat, he gave off a shower of dust. “There’s been a meeting concerning you, and I’ve been sent to inform you of its conclusions.” He glanced at me. “I need to speak in confidence.”

  Cicero, baffled and plainly wondering if he was dealing with a madman, said, “He’s my secretary. You can say all you have to say in front of him. What meeting?”

  “As you wish.” Vibullius tugged off his gloves, unbuckled the side of his breastplate, reached under the metal and pulled out a document, which he carefully unwrapped. “The reason I’ve come from Luca is because that’s where Pompey, Caesar and Crassus have been meeting.”

  Cicero frowned. “No, that’s impossible. Pompey is going to Sardinia—he told me so himself.”

  “A man can do both, can he not?” replied Vibullius affably. “He can go to Luca and then go to Sardinia. I can tell you in fact how it came about. After your little speech in the Senate, Crassus travelled up to see Caesar in Ravenna to tell him what you’d said. Then they both crossed Italy to intercept Pompey before he took ship at Pisa. The three of them spent several days together, discussing many matters—among them what’s to be done about you.”

  I felt suddenly queasy. Cicero was more robust: “There’s no need to be impertinent.”

  “And the gist of it is this: shut up, Marcus Tullius! Shut up in the Senate about Caesar’s laws. Shut up trying to cause trouble between the Three. Shut up about Crassus. Shut up generally, in fact.”

  “Have you finished?” asked Cicero calmly. “Do I need to remind you—you are a guest in my house?”

  “Not quite finished, no.” Vibullius paused and consulted his notes. “Also present for part of the conference was Sardinia’s governor, Appius Claudius. He was there to make certain undertakings on behalf of his brother, the upshot of which is that Pompey and Clodius are to be publicly reconciled.”

  “Reconciled?” repeated Cicero. Now he sounded uncertain.

  “In future they will stand together in the best interests of the commonwealth. Pompey wishes me to tell you that he’s very unhappy with you, Marcus Tullius: very unhappy. I am quoting his exact words now. He believes he demonstrated great loyalty to you in campaigning for your recall from exile, in the course of which he made certain personal undertakings about your future conduct to Caesar—undertakings, he reminds you, which you repeated to Caesar in writing, and have now broken. He feels let down. He feels embarrassed. He insists, as a test of friendship, that you withdraw your motion on Caesar’s land laws from the Senate, and that you do not pronounce on the issue again until you have consulted him in person.”

  “I only spoke as I did in Pompey’s interest—”

  “He would like you to write him a letter confirming that you will do as he asks.” Vibullius rolled up his document and tucked it away under his cuirass. “That’s the official part. What I am about to tell you next is strictly confidential. You understand what I’m saying?”

  Cicero made a weary gesture. He understood.

  “Pompey wishes you to appreciate the scale of the forces at work: that is why the others gave him permission to inform you. Later this year, both he and Crassus will put their names forward in the consular elections.”

  “They’ll lose.”

  “If the elections were to be held as usual in the summer, you might be right. But the elections will be postponed.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of violence in Rome.”

  “What violence?”

  “Clodius will provide the violence. As a result, the elections won’t take place until the winter, by which time the campaigning season in Gaul will be over and Caesar will be able to send thousands of his veterans to Rome to vote for his colleagues. Then they will be elected. At the end of their terms as consul, Pompey and Crassus will both take up proconsular commands—Pompey in Spain, Crassus in Syria. Instead of the usual one year, these commands will last for five years. Naturally, in the interests of fairness, Caesar’s proconsular command in Gaul will also be extended for another five years.”

  “This is quite unbelievable—”

  “And at the end of his extended term, Caesar will come back to Rome and be elected consul in his turn—Pompey and Crassus making sure their veterans are on hand to vote for him. Those are the terms of the Luca Accord. It is designed to last for seven years. Pompey has promised Caesar you will abide by it.”

  “And if I do not?”

  “He will no longer guarantee your safety.”

  “Seven years,” said Cicero with great contempt after Vibullius and his men had gone. “Nothing in politics can be planned in advance for seven years. Is Pompey entirely lacking in sense? Does he not see how this devils’ pact works entirely in Caesar’s favour? In effect, he promises to protect Caesar’s back until such time as Caesar has finished pillaging Gaul, whereupon the conqueror will return to Rome and take control of the whole republic—Pompey included.”

  He sat slumped on the terrace in despair. From the shore below came the lonely cries of seabirds as the oyster fishermen landed their catch. We knew now why the neighbourhood was so deserted. According to Vibullius, half the Senate had got wind of what was happening in Luca and more than a hundred had gone north to try to get their share of the spoils. They had forsaken the sun of Campania to bask in the warmest sun of all: power.

  “I am a fool,” said Cicero, “to be counting the waves down here while the future of the world is being decided at the other end of the country. Let’s face it, Tiro. I am a spent force. Every man has his season, and I have had mine.”

  Later in the day Terentia returned from her visit to the sibyl’s cave in Cumae. She noticed the dust on the carpets and the furniture and asked who had been in the house. Reluctantly Cicero described what had happened.

  Her eyes shone. She said excitedly, “How strange that you should tell me this! The sibyl prophesied this very outcome. She said that first Rome would be ruled by three, and then by two, and then by one, and then by none.”

  Even Cicero, who regarded the notion of a sibyl living in a jar and predicting the future as entirely fatuous, was impressed. “Three, two, one, none…Well, we know who the three are—that’s obvious. And I can guess who the one will be. But who will be the two? And what does she mean by none? Is that her way of predicting chaos? If so, I agree—that’s what will follow if we allow Caesar to tear up the constitution. But for the life of me I can’t see how I am to stop him.”

  “Why should you be the one to stop him?” demanded Terentia.

  “I don’t know. Who else is there?”

  “But why does it always fall to you to block Caesar’s ambitions when Pompey, the most powerful man in the state, will do nothing to assist you? Why is it your responsibility?”

  Cicero fell silent. Eventually he responded, “It’s a good question. Perhaps it’s just conceit on my part. But can I really, with honour, stand back and do nothing, when every instinct tells me the nation is heading for disaster?”

  “Yes!” she cried with passion. “Yes! Absolutely! Haven’t you suffered enough for your opposition to Caesar? Is there another man in the world who has endured more? Why not let others take up the fight? Surely you’ve earned the right to some peace at last?” Then quietly she added, “I am sure that I have.”

  Cicero did not answer for a long time. The truth, I suspect, is that from the moment he learnt about the Luca agreement, he kne
w in his heart that he could not continue opposing Caesar—not if he wanted to live. All he needed was for someone to put the issue to him bluntly, as Terentia had just done.

  Finally he sighed with a weariness I had never before heard. “You’re right, my wife. At least no one will ever be able to reproach me for not having seen Caesar for what he is, and for not trying to stop him. But you are right—I’m too old and tired to fight him any longer. My friends will understand and my enemies will denounce me whatever I do, so why should I care what they think? Why shouldn’t I enjoy some leisure at last down here in the sun with my family?”

  And he reached over and took her hand.

  —

  Nevertheless, he was ashamed of his capitulation. I know that, because although he wrote a long letter to Pompey in Sardinia setting out his change of heart—his “palinode,” he called it—he never let me see it and kept no copy. Nor did he show it to Atticus. At the same time he wrote to the consul Marcellinus announcing that he wished to withdraw his motion calling on the Senate to re-examine Caesar’s land laws. He offered no explanation; he did not need to; everyone recognised that the political firmament had shifted and the new alignment was against him.

  We returned to a Rome full of rumours. Few knew for sure what Pompey and Crassus were planning, but gradually word got around that they were intending to run on a joint ticket for the consulship, just as they had in the past, even though everyone knew they had always loathed one another. Some senators, however, were determined to fight back against the cynicism and arrogance of the Three. A debate was scheduled on the allocation of consular provinces, and one motion called for Caesar to be stripped of both Nearer and Further Gaul. Cicero knew that if he attended the chamber, he would be asked his views. He considered staying away. But then he reasoned that he would have to recant publicly sooner or later: he might as well get it over with. He began working on his speech.

  And then, on the eve of the debate, after more than two years away in Cyprus, Marcus Porcius Cato returned to Rome. He arrived in fine style, in a flotilla of treasure ships, sailing up the Tiber from Ostia, accompanied by his nephew, Brutus, a young man of whom great things were expected. The whole of the Senate, and all of the magistrates and priests, as well as most of the population, turned out to welcome Cato home. There was a landing stage with painted poles and ribbons where he was supposed to disembark and meet the consuls, but he sailed on past them, standing in the prow of a royal galley that had six banks of oars, his bony profile fixed straight ahead, wearing a shabby black tunic. The crowds at first gasped and groaned with disappointment at his high-handedness, but then his treasure started to be unloaded—ox wagon after ox wagon of it, seven thousand silver talents’ worth in all, that wound in procession from the Navalia all the way to the state treasury in the Temple of Saturn. With this one contribution, Cato transformed the finances of the nation—it was enough to provide free grain to the citizenry for five years—and the Senate went into immediate session to vote him an honorary praetorship, together with the right to wear a special purple-bordered toga.

  Called upon by Marcellinus to respond, Cato scornfully denounced what he called “these corrupt baubles”: “I have discharged the duty placed upon me by the Roman people—an assignment I never requested and would have preferred not to have undertaken. Now that it is done, I need no Eastern flattery or showy garments to puff myself up: the knowledge that I have performed my duty is reward enough for me, as it should be for any man.”

  He was back in the chamber for the next day’s debate on the provinces, as if he had never been away—sitting in his customary position, going through a set of the treasury’s accounts as he always did to make sure there was no waste in public expenditure. Only when Cicero rose to speak did he put them aside.

  It was quite late on in the session and most ex-consuls had already given their opinions. Even so, Cicero managed to spin out the suspense a little longer by devoting the first part of his speech to an attack on his old enemies Piso and Gabinius, governors of Macedonia and Syria respectively. Then the consul, Marcius Philippus, who was married to Caesar’s niece, and who was growing restless like many others, interrupted him to ask why he spent all his time attacking those two puppets when the man who had really instigated the campaign that led to his exile was Caesar. This gave Cicero precisely the opening he wanted. “Because,” he said, “I am taking account of the public welfare rather than my own grievances. It is this old and unfailing loyalty of mine to the republic which restores, reconciles and reinstates me in friendship with Gaius Caesar.

  “For me,” he went on, having to shout now to be heard above the jeers, “it is impossible not to be the friend of one who renders good service to the state. Under Caesar’s command we have fought a war in Gaul, whereas before we merely repelled attacks. Unlike his predecessors he believes the whole of Gaul should be brought under our rule. And so he has, with brilliant success, crushed in battle the fiercest and greatest tribes of Germania and Helvetia; the rest he has terrified, checked and subdued and taught to submit to the rule of the Roman people.

  “But the war is not yet won. If Caesar is removed, the embers may yet burst out again into flame. Therefore, as a senator—even as the man’s personal enemy, if you like—I must lay aside private grievances for the sake of the state, for how can I be the enemy of this man, whose dispatches, whose fame, whose envoys fill our ears every day with fresh names of races, peoples and places?”

  It was not his most convincing performance, and towards the end he rather tripped himself up by trying to pretend that he and Caesar had never really been enemies at all, a piece of sophistry that was greeted with derision. Still, he got through it. The motion to replace Caesar was defeated and at the end of the session, even though the most passionate anti-Caesareans—men like Ahenobarbus and Bibulus—pointedly turned their backs on him in contempt, Cicero walked towards the exit with his head unbowed. That was when Cato intercepted him. I was waiting by the door and was able to overhear their whole exchange.

  Cato: “I am beyond disappointed in you, Marcus Tullius. Your desertion has just cost us what may have been our last chance to stop a dictator.”

  Cicero: “Why should I want to stop a man who is winning victory after victory?”

  Cato: “But who is he winning these victories for? Is it for the republic or is it for himself? And when did it become national policy to conquer Gaul in any case? Has the Senate or the people ever authorised this war of his?”

  Cicero: “Then why don’t you put down a motion to end it?”

  Cato: “Perhaps I shall.”

  Cicero: “Yes—and see how far it gets you! Welcome home, incidentally.”

  But Cato was in no mood for such pleasantries and stamped off to talk to Bibulus and Ahenobarbus. From this time on it was he who led the opposition to Caesar, while Cicero retreated to his house on the Palatine, and to a quieter life.

  —

  There was nothing heroic in what Cicero had done. He realised his loss of face. Good night to principle, sincerity and honour! was how he summed it up in a letter to Atticus.

  Yet even after all these years, and even with the wisdom of hindsight, I do not see what else he could have done. It was easier for Cato to spit defiance at Caesar. He was from a rich and powerful family, and he did not have the constant threat of Clodius hanging over him.

  Everything now proceeded exactly as the Three had planned, and Cicero could not have stopped it even if he had sacrificed his life. First, Clodius and his ruffians disrupted the canvassing for the consular elections so that the campaign came to a stop. Then they threatened and intimidated the other candidates until they withdrew. Finally the elections had to be postponed. Only Ahenobarbus, with the support of Cato, had the courage to continue to stand for the consulship against Pompey and Crassus. Most of the Senate put on mourning in protest.

  That winter, for the first time, the city was filled with Caesar’s veterans—drinking, whoring and threatening any
who refused to salute the effigy of their leader when they set it up at crossroads. On the eve of the postponed poll, Cato and Ahenobarbus went down by torchlight to the voting pens to try to stake out their canvassing position. But they were attacked en route, either by Clodius’s men or Caesar’s and their torchbearer was killed. Cato was stabbed in his right arm, and although he entreated Ahenobarbus to stand firm, the candidate fled back to his house and barricaded the door and refused to come out. The next day Pompey and Crassus were elected consuls, and soon after that, as agreed at Luca, they made sure they were allotted the provinces they desired to govern at the end of their joint term of office: Spain for Pompey, Syria for Crassus, both commands awarded for five years instead of the normal one, with a further five-year extension for Caesar as proconsul in Gaul. Pompey never even left Rome, but governed Spain through his subordinates.

  Throughout all this, Cicero kept clear of politics. On the days when he had no engagements in the law courts, he stayed at home and supervised the schooling of his son and nephew in grammar, Greek and rhetoric. He dined quietly most evenings with Terentia. He composed poetry. He began to write a book on the history and practice of oratory.

  “I am still an exile,” he remarked to me, “only now my exile is in Rome.”

  Caesar quickly heard reports of Cicero’s about-face in the Senate and immediately sent him a letter of thanks. I recall Cicero’s surprise when it arrived, delivered by one of Caesar’s superbly swift and reliable military couriers. As I have explained, nearly all their correspondence has since been seized. But I remember the opening, because it was always the same: