The Dictator

by Robert Harris

  Cato said, “Listen to me, gentlemen. You know my views. When our republic was under threat, I believed it was our right and duty to compel every citizen, the lukewarm and the bad included, to support our cause and protect the state. But now the republic is lost…” He paused and looked around; no one challenged his assertion. “Now that our republic is lost,” he repeated quietly, “even I believe it would be senseless and cruel to compel any individual to share in its ruin. Let those who wish to continue the fight remain here, and we shall discuss our future strategy. Let those who wish to retire from the struggle depart from this assembly now—and let no man do them harm.”

  At first no one moved. And then very slowly Cicero rose to his feet. He nodded to Cato, whom he knew had saved his life, and then turned and walked out—out of the temple, out of the senatorial cause, out of the war and out of public life.

  —

  Cicero feared that if he stayed on the island he would be murdered—if not by Gnaeus then by one of his associates. Accordingly we left that same day. We could not sail back north again in case the coast had fallen into enemy hands. Instead we found ourselves drifting further south, until after several days we arrived in Patrae, the port where I had spent my illness. As soon as the ship docked, Cicero sent word by one of his lictors to his friend Curius to say that we were in the city, and without waiting for a reply, we hired litters and porters to transport us and our baggage to his house.

  I believe the lictor must have lost his way, or perhaps he was tempted by the bars of Patrae, for all six lictors in their boredom since our departure from Cilicia had fallen into the habit of drinking heavily. At any rate, we arrived at the villa before our messenger did, only to be told that Curius was away for two days on business, at which point we heard male conversation emanating from the interior. The voices sounded familiar. We glanced at one another, neither of us quite believing what we were hearing, then hurried past the steward and into the tablinum to discover Quintus, Marcus and Quintus Junior seated in a huddle. They turned to stare at us in amazement, and I sensed at once a certain embarrassment. I am fairly certain they must have been speaking ill of us—or rather of Cicero. This awkwardness, I should add, was over in an instant—Cicero never even noticed it—and we fell upon one another and kissed and embraced with the sincerest affection. I was shocked by how haggard they looked. There was something haunted about them, as there had been with the other survivors of Pharsalus, although they tried not to show it.

  Quintus said, “This is the most wonderful good fortune! We’d engaged a ship and were planning to set off for Corcyra tomorrow, having heard that the Senate was assembling there. And to think we might have missed you! What happened? Did the conference end earlier than expected?”

  Cicero said, “No, the conference is still going on, as far as I know.”

  “But you’re not with them?”

  “Let us discuss that later. First let us hear what happened to you.”

  They took it in turns to tell their story, like runners in a relay race handing on the baton—first the month-long march in pursuit of Caesar’s army and the occasional skirmishes along the way, and then at last the great confrontation at Pharsalus. On the eve of the battle Pompey had dreamed that he was in Rome entering the Temple of Venus the Victorious, and that the people were applauding him as he offered the goddess the spoils of war. He awoke content, thinking this a good omen, but then someone pointed out that Caesar claimed direct descent from Venus, and immediately he decided the meaning of the dream was the opposite of what he’d hoped. “From that moment on,” said Quintus, “he seemed resigned to losing and acted accordingly.” The Quinti had been in the second line and so had avoided the worst of the fighting. Marcus, though, had been in the middle of the struggle. He reckoned he had killed at least four of the enemy—one with his javelin, three with his sword—and had been confident of victory until the cohorts of Caesar’s Tenth Legion had seemed to rise up out of the ground before them. “Our units lost formation: it was a massacre, Father.” It had taken them the best part of a month, much of it spent living rough and dodging Caesar’s patrols, to escape to the western coast.

  “And Pompey?” asked Cicero. “Is there news of him?”

  “None,” replied Quintus, “but I believe I can guess where he went: east, to Lesbos. That’s where he sent Cornelia to await news of his victory. In defeat I’m certain he would have gone to her for consolation—you know what he’s like with his wives. Caesar must have guessed the same. He’s after him like a bounty hunter in pursuit of a runaway slave. My money is on Caesar in that particular race. And if he catches him, or kills him, what do you think that will mean for the war?”

  Cicero said, “Oh, the war will go on, it seems, whatever happens—but it will continue without me,” and then he told them what had happened at Corcyra. I am sure he did not mean to sound flippant. It was simply that he was happy to have found his family alive, and naturally that light-hearted mood coloured his remarks. But as he repeated, with some satisfaction, his quip about eagles and jackdaws, and mocked the very idea that he should take command of ‘this losing cause,’ and derided the bone-headedness of Gnaeus Pompey—“He makes even his father look intelligent”—I could see Quintus’s jaw beginning to work back and forth in irritation; even Marcus’s expression was clenched with disapproval.

  “So that’s it, then?” said Quintus in a cold, flat voice. “As far as this family is concerned, it’s over?”

  “Do you disagree?”

  “I feel I should have been consulted.”

  “How could I consult you? You weren’t there.”

  “No, I wasn’t. How could I have been? I was fighting in the war you encouraged me to join, and then I was trying to save my life, along with those of your son and your nephew!”

  Too late Cicero saw how casually he had spoken. “My dear brother, I assure you, your welfare—the welfare of all of you—has ever been uppermost in my mind.”

  “Spare me your casuistry, Marcus. Nothing is ever uppermost in your mind except yourself. Your honour, your career, your interests—so that while other men go off to die, you sit behind with the elderly and the womenfolk, polishing your speeches and your pointless witticisms!”

  “Please, Quintus—you are in danger of saying things you will regret.”

  “My only regret is that I didn’t say them years ago. So let me say them now, and you will do me the courtesy of sitting there and listening to me for once! My whole life has been lived as nothing more than an appendix to yours—I am no more important to you than poor Tiro here, whose health has been broken in your service; less important, actually, as I don’t have his skills as a note-taker. When I went out to Asia as governor, you tricked me into staying for two years rather than one, so that you could have access to my funds to pay off your debts. During your exile I almost died fighting Clodius in the streets of Rome, and my reward when you came home was to be packed off again, to Sardinia, to appease Pompey. And now here I am, thanks largely to you, on the losing side in a civil war, when it would have been perfectly honourable for me to have stood side by side with Caesar, who gave me command of a legion in Gaul…”

  There was more in this vein. Cicero endured it without comment or movement, apart from the occasional clenching and unclenching of his hands on the armrests of his chair. Marcus looked on, white with shock. Young Quintus smirked and nodded. As for me, I yearned to leave but couldn’t: some force seemed to have pinned my feet to the spot.

  Quintus worked himself up into such a pitch of fury that by the end he was breathless, his chest heaving as if he had shifted some heavy physical load. “Your action in abandoning the Senate’s cause without consulting me or considering my interests is the final selfish blow. Remember, my position wasn’t exquisitely ambiguous like yours: I fought at Pharsalus—I am a marked man. So I have no choice: I shall have to try to find Caesar, wherever he is, and plead for his pardon, and believe me, when I see him, I shall have something to tell hi
m about you.”

  With that he stalked out of the room, followed by his son; and then, after a short hesitation, Marcus left too. In the shocking silence that ensued, Cicero continued to sit immobile. Eventually I asked if there was anything I could fetch him, and when still he made no response, I wondered if he might have suffered a seizure. Then I heard footsteps. It was Marcus returning. He knelt beside the chair.

  “I have said goodbye to them, Father. I will stay with you.”

  Wordless for once, Cicero grasped his hand, and I withdrew to let them talk.

  —

  Cicero took to his bed and remained in his room for the next few days. He refused to see a doctor—“My heart is broken and no Greek quack can fix that”—and kept his door locked. I hoped that Quintus would return and the quarrel might be repaired, but he had meant what he said and had left the city. When Curius got back from his business trip, I explained what had happened as discreetly as I could, and he agreed with me and Marcus that the best course was for us to charter a ship and sail back to Italy while the weather was still fair. Such, then, was the grotesque paradox we had reached: that Cicero was likely to be safer in a country under Caesar’s control than he would be in Greece, where armed bands belonging to the republican cause were only too eager to strike down men perceived as traitors.

  As soon as his depression had lifted sufficiently for him to contemplate the future, Cicero approved this plan—“I’d rather die in Italy than here”—and when there was a decent southeasterly wind we embarked. The voyage was good, and after four days at sea we saw on the horizon the great lighthouse at Brundisium. It was a blessed sight. Cicero had been away from the mother country for a year and a half, I for more than three years.

  Fearful of his reception, Cicero remained in his cabin below decks while I went ashore with Marcus to find somewhere for us to stay. The best we could manage for that first night was a noisy inn near the waterfront, and we decided that the safest course would be for Cicero to come ashore at dusk wearing an ordinary toga belonging to Marcus rather than one of his own with the purple stripe of a senator. An additional complication was the presence, like the chorus in a tragedy, of his six lictors—for absurdly, although he was entirely powerless, he still technically possessed imperium as governor of Cilicia, and was reluctant even now to break the law by sending them away; nor would they leave him until they had been paid. So they too had to be disguised and their fasces wrapped in sacking and rooms hired for them.

  Cicero found this procedure so humiliating that after a sleepless night he resolved the next day to announce his presence to whoever was the most senior representative of Caesar in the town and accept whatever fate was decreed for him. He had me search through his correspondence for Dolabella’s letter guaranteeing his safety—Any concessions that you need from the commander-in-chief to safeguard your dignity you will obtain with the greatest ease from so kindly a man as Caesar—and I made sure I had it with me when I went to the military headquarters.

  The new commander of the region turned out to be Publius Vatinius, widely known as the ugliest man in Rome, and an old opponent of Cicero’s—indeed it was Vatinius, as tribune, who had first proposed the law awarding Caesar both the provinces of Gaul and an army for five years. He had fought with his old chief at the battle of Dyrrachium and returned to take control of the whole of southern Italy. But by a great stroke of good fortune Cicero had made up his quarrel with Vatinius at Caesar’s request several years before and had defended him in a prosecution for bribery. As soon as he learned of my arrival, I was shown straight into his presence and he greeted me most affably.

  Dear gods, he was ugly! His eyes were crossed, and his face and neck were covered in scrofulous growths the colour of birthmarks. But what did his looks matter? He barely even glanced at Dolabella’s letter before assuring me that it was an honour to welcome Cicero back to Italy, that he would protect his dignity as he was sure Caesar would wish, and that he would arrange for suitable accommodation to be provided while he awaited instructions from Rome.

  The latter phrase sounded ominous. “May I ask who will issue these instructions?”

  “Well indeed—that is a good question. We are still sorting out our administration. Caesar has been appointed dictator for a year by the Senate—our Senate, that is,” he added with a wink, “but he is still away chasing your former commander-in-chief, and so in his absence, power is vested in the Master of Horse.”

  “And who is that?”

  “Mark Antony.”

  My spirits sank further.

  That same day Vatinius sent a platoon of legionaries to escort us with our baggage to a house in a quiet district of the town. Cicero was carried all the way in a closed litter so that his presence remained a secret.

  It was a small villa, old, with thick walls and tiny windows. A sentry was posted outside. To begin with, Cicero was simply relieved to be back in Italy. Only gradually did he realise that he was in fact under house arrest. It was not so much that he was physically prevented from leaving the villa—he did not venture beyond the gate, so we never discovered what orders the guards had been given. Rather, Vatinius implied, when he came to check how Cicero was settling in, it would be dangerous for him to leave, and, worse, disrespectful towards Caesar’s hospitality. For the first time we tasted life under a dictatorship: there were no freedoms any more; no magistrates, no courts; one existed at the whim of the ruler.

  Cicero wrote to Mark Antony asking permission to return to Rome. But he did so without much hope. Although he and Antony had always been polite to one another, there was a long-standing enmity between them, born of the fact that Antony’s stepfather, P. Lentulus Sura, had been one of the five co-conspirators of Catilina that Cicero had had executed. Therefore it was no surprise when Antony refused Cicero’s request. Cicero’s fate, he said, was a matter for Caesar, and until Caesar made a ruling, he must stay in Brundisium.

  I would say that the months that followed were the worst of Cicero’s life—worse even than his first exile in Thessalonica. At least then there had still been a republic to fight for, there was honour in his struggle, and his family was united; now these supports had gone, and all was death, dishonour and discord. And so much death! So many old friends gone! One could almost smell it in the air. We had only been in Brundisium a few days when we were visited by C. Matius Calvena, a wealthy member of the equestrian order and a close associate of Caesar, who told us that both Milo and Caelius Rufus had died trying to stir up trouble together in Campania—Milo, at the head of a ragamuffin army of his old gladiators, had been killed in battle by one of Caesar’s lieutenants; Rufus had been put to death on the spot by some Spanish and Gallic horsemen he had been trying to bribe. The death of Rufus at the age of only thirty-four was a particular blow to Cicero, and he wept when he heard of it—which was more than he did when he learned of the fate of Pompey.

  Vatinius brought us the news of that himself, his hideous features especially composed for the occasion into a simulacrum of grief.

  Cicero said, “Is there any doubt?”

  “None whatever—I have a dispatch here from Caesar: he has seen his severed head.”

  Cicero blanched and sat down, and I pictured that massive head with its thick crest of hair and that bull neck: it must have taken some effort to hack it off, I thought, and been quite a sight for Caesar to behold.

  “Caesar wept when he was shown it,” Vatinius added, as if he had seen into my mind.

  Cicero said, “When did this happen?”

  “Two months ago.”

  Vatinius read aloud from Caesar’s account. It transpired that Pompey had done exactly as Quintus had predicted: he had fled from Pharsalus to Lesbos to seek solace with Cornelia; his youngest son, Sextus, was also with her. Together they had embarked in a trireme and sailed to Egypt, in the hope of persuading the Pharaoh to join his cause. He had anchored off the coast at Pelusium and sent word of his arrival. But the Egyptians had heard of the disaster at Pharsal
us and preferred to side with the winner. Rather than merely send Pompey away, they saw an opportunity to gain credit with Caesar by taking care of his enemy for him. Pompey was invited ashore for talks. A tender was sent to fetch him, containing Achillas, general of the Egyptian army, and several senior Roman officers who had served under Pompey and now commanded the Roman forces protecting the Pharaoh.

  Despite the entreaties of his wife and son, Pompey had boarded the tender. The assassins had waited until he was stepping ashore and then one of them, the military tribune Lucius Septimius, had run him through from behind with his sword. Achillas then drew his dagger and stabbed him, as did a second Roman officer, Salvius.

  “Caesar wishes it to be known that Pompey met his death bravely. According to witnesses, he drew his toga over his face with both hands and fell down upon the sand. He did not beg or plead but only groaned a little as they finished him off. The cries of Cornelia, who watched the murder, could be heard from the shore.

  “Caesar was only three days behind Pompey. When he arrived in Alexandria he was shown the head and Pompey’s signet ring on which is engraved a lion holding a sword in its paws; he encloses it with this letter as proof of the story. The body having already been burnt where it fell, Caesar has given orders for the ashes to be sent to Pompey’s widow.”

  Vatinius rolled up the letter and handed it to his aide.

  “My condolences,” he said, and saluted. “He was a fine soldier.”

  “But not fine enough,” said Cicero, after Vatinius had gone.

  Later he wrote to Atticus:

  As to Pompey’s end I never had any doubt, for all rulers and peoples had become so thoroughly persuaded of the hopelessness of his case that wherever he went I expected this to happen. I cannot but grieve for his fate. I knew him for a man of good character, clean life and serious principle.