The Dictator

by Robert Harris

  The next morning the weather was calmer, although when I walked through the trees and contemplated the huge expanse of grey sea with the lines of white waves running in to the shore, I felt utterly desolate. I wondered if this was a foolish plan and that we would do better to make directly for Brundisium, which at least was on the right side of Italy for a voyage east. But of course news of the proscriptions and the vast bounty for a severed head would race ahead of us, and nowhere would be safe. Cicero would never reach the harbour alive.

  I sent my driver off in the direction of Tusculum with a second letter for Cicero, saying that I had arrived “on the island”—I kept it vague in case the message fell into the wrong hands—and urging him to make all speed. Then I asked the boatman to go to Antium to see if he could charter a vessel to carry us down the coast. He looked at me as if I were mad to make such a request in winter, when the weather was so treacherous, but after some grumbling he went away, and came back the following day to say that he had procured a ten-oared boat with a sail that would be with us as soon as they could row the seven miles from Antium. After that there was really nothing I could do except wait.

  —

  The wooded islet of Astura was the place where Cicero had gone to ground after Tullia had died. He had found the absolute silence, except for the sounds of Nature, soothing; I found the opposite: they jangled my nerves, especially as day after day passed when nothing happened. I kept a regular lookout, but it wasn’t until late in the afternoon on the fifth day that there was a sudden eruption of activity on the shoreline. Two litters arrived through the trees accompanied by a retinue of slaves. The boatman rowed me over to take a look, and as we drew closer, I saw that on the beach stood Cicero and Quintus. When I hurried over the sand to greet them, I was shocked by their appearance. Neither had changed his clothes or shaved; both were red-eyed from crying. A light rain was falling. Drenched, they looked like a pair of indigent old men. Quintus, if anything, was in a worse state than Cicero. After a sorrowful greeting, he took one look at the boat I had hired, pulled up on to the beach, and announced he would not set foot in it for a moment.

  He turned to Cicero. “My dear brother, this is hopeless. I don’t know why I’ve let you drag me here, except that all my life I have done what you have told me. Look at us! Old men, we’re in failing health. The weather is poor. We have no money. We would be better off following Atticus’s example.”

  I asked, “Where is Atticus?”

  Cicero said, “He’s gone into hiding in Rome.” He started to cry. He made no attempt to disguise it. And then, as quickly as he had started, he stopped and continued speaking as if nothing had happened. “No, I’m sorry, Quintus, I can’t live in someone’s cellar, trembling every time there’s a knock at the door. Tiro’s plan is as good as any. Let’s see how far we can get.”

  Quintus said, “Then I’m afraid that we must part, and I shall pray to meet you again—if not in this life then the next.”

  They fell into one another’s arms and clung to each other tightly, then Quintus broke away. He embraced me. None of those watching the scene could restrain their tears. Certainly I was overcome by the sadness of it all. After that, Quintus climbed back into his litter and was borne away up the track and into the trees.

  It was too late for us to set off that day, and so we were rowed over to the villa. While Cicero dried himself at the fire, he explained that he had lingered for two days in Tusculum, unable to believe that Octavian had betrayed him, sure that there must have been some mistake. This much he had discovered: that Octavian had met Antony and Lepidus in Bononia, on an island in the middle of the river—just the three of them, with a couple of secretaries: they had left their bodyguards behind and had searched one another for concealed weapons—and that over the next three days, working from dawn till dusk, they had divided up the carcass of the republic between them, and to pay their armies had compiled a death list of two thousand wealthy men, including two hundred senators, whose property would be seized. “I am told by Atticus, who heard it from the consul Pedius, that each of the criminals, as a token of good faith, was required to mark for death someone who was precious to them. Thus Antony gave up his uncle, Lucius Caesar, even though he spoke in his defence in the Senate; Lepidus yielded his brother, Aemilius Paullus; and Octavian offered me—Antony insisted, although Pedius maintained the boy had been reluctant to agree.”

  “Do you believe it?”

  “Not particularly. I have looked into those pale grey soulless eyes of his once too often. He is no more affected by the death of a man than he is by the death of a fly.” He let out a sigh that seemed to shake his entire body. “Oh Tiro, I am so tired! To think that I, of all people, have been outwitted at the last by a young man who has barely started to shave! Do you have that poison I asked you to get?”

  “It’s in Tusculum.”

  “Well then, I can only pray to the immortal gods to allow me to die tonight in my sleep.”

  But he did not die. He woke depressed, and the next morning, when we were standing on the little quay waiting for the sailors to pick us up, he suddenly announced that he would not leave after all. Then when the boat came within earshot, one of the sailors shouted up to us that he had just seen a unit of legionaries on the road from Antium, heading in our direction, led by a military tribune. That immediately shook Cicero out of his lethargy. He held out his hand and the sailors helped him down into the boat.

  Our voyage quickly began to repeat the pattern of our first flight into exile. It was as if Mother Italy could not bear to allow her favourite son to leave her. We had gone about three miles, hugging close to the shore, when the grey sky began to fill with immense black clouds rolling in from the horizon. A wind got up, stirring the sea into steep waves, and our little boat seemed to rise almost to the perpendicular, only to crash down again, bow first, and saturate us with salt water. If anything, it was worse than before, because this time there was no shelter. Cicero and I sat huddled in hooded cloaks while the men tried to row us crosswise into the oncoming waves. The hull began to fill and the vessel became dangerously low. We all had to help bail, even Cicero, frantically scooping up the freezing water with our hands and tipping it over the side to stop ourselves sinking. Our limbs and faces were numb. We swallowed salt. The rain blinded us. Eventually, after rowing bravely for many hours, the sailors were exhausted, and told us they needed to rest. We rounded a rocky promontory and headed towards a cove, rowing as close to the beach as we could before we all had to jump out and wade ashore. Cicero sank in almost to his waist and four of the sailors had to carry him on to the land. They laid him down and went back to help their crewmates with the boat, hauling it right up on to the beach. They laid it on its side and propped it up using branches cut from the nearby myrtle trees, and with the sail and the mast they built a makeshift shelter. They even managed to light a fire, although the wood was wet, and the wind blew the smoke this way and that, choking us and making our eyes smart.

  Darkness soon came, and Cicero, who had not uttered a word of complaint, appeared to sleep. Thus ended the fifth day of December.

  I woke at dawn on the sixth after a fitful night to find calmer skies. My bones were chilled, my damp clothes stiff with salt and sand. I stood with difficulty and looked about me. Everyone was still asleep, except for Cicero. He had gone.

  I looked up and down the beach and peered out to sea, then turned to scan the trees. There was a small gap, which turned out to lead to a path, and I set off, calling his name. At the top of the path was a road. Cicero was lurching along it. I called to him again but he ignored me. He was making slow and unsteady progress in the direction from which we had come. I caught him up and fell in beside him and spoke to him with a calmness I did not feel.

  “We need to get back in the boat,” I said. “The slaves in the house may have told the legionaries where we are headed. They may not be far behind us. Where are you going?”

  “To Rome.” He did not look at me but kep
t on walking.

  “To do what?”

  “To kill myself on Octavian’s doorstep. He will die of shame.”

  “He won’t,” I said, and caught his arm, “because he has no shame, and the soldiers will torture you to death like they did Trebonius.”

  He glanced at me and stopped walking. “Do you think so?”

  “I know it.” I took him by the arm and tugged him gently. He did not resist but lowered his head and allowed me to lead him like a child back through the trees to the beach.

  —

  How melancholy it is to relive all of this! But I have no choice if I am to fulfil my promise to him and tell the story of his life.

  We put him back on to the boat and launched it once more into the waves. The day was grey and vast, as at the dawn of time. We rowed on for many hours, assisted by a breeze that filled the sail, and by the end of the afternoon had covered, by my reckoning, a further twenty-five miles or thereabouts. We passed the famous Temple of Apollo that stands a little above the sea on the headland at Caieta, and Cicero, who had been slumped, staring vacantly towards the shore, suddenly recognised it, sat up straight and said, “We are nearly at Formiae. I have a house here.”

  “I know you do.”

  “Let us put in here for the night.”

  “It’s too risky. You’re well known to have a villa at Formiae.”

  “I don’t care about that,” replied Cicero with something of his old firmness. “I want to sleep in my own bed.”

  And so we rowed towards the shore and tied up at the jetty that was built out into the sea a little way from the villa. As we moored, a great flock of crows rose cawing from the nearby trees as if in warning, and I asked Cicero at least to allow me to make sure his enemies weren’t lying in wait for him before he disembarked. He agreed, and I set off up the familiar path through the trees, accompanied by a couple of the sailors. The path led us to the Via Appia. By now it was almost dusk. The road was empty. I walked about fifty paces to where Cicero’s villa stood behind a pair of iron gates. I went up the drive and knocked firmly on the oak door, and after a short interval and a great noise of bolts drawn back, the porter appeared. He was startled to see me. I looked past his shoulder and asked if any strangers had come looking for the master. He assured me they had not. He was a good-hearted, simple fellow. I had known him for years, and I believed him.

  I said, “In that case, send four slaves with a litter down to the jetty to pick up the master and bring him to the villa, and meanwhile have a hot bath drawn for him and fresh clothes and food prepared, for he is in a poor state.”

  I also sent two other slaves with fast horses to keep a lookout along the Via Appia for this mysterious and ominous detachment of legionaries that seemed to be on our trail.

  Cicero was carried into the villa, and the gate and door were locked behind him.

  I saw little of him after that. As soon as he had had his bath, he took a little food and wine in his room and then retired to sleep.

  I slept myself—and very deeply, despite my anxieties, for such was my exhaustion—and the following morning had to be roughly woken by one of the slaves I had stationed along the Via Appia. He was out of breath and frightened. A force of thirty legionaries on foot, with a centurion and a tribune on horseback, was marching towards the house from the north-west. They were less than half an hour away.

  I ran to wake Cicero. He had the covers up to his chin and refused to stir, but I tore them off him anyway.

  “They are coming for you,” I said, bending over him. “They’re almost here. We have to move.”

  He smiled at me, and laid his hand on my cheek. “Let them come, old friend. I am not afraid.”

  I pleaded with him: “For my sake, if not for yours—for the sake of your friends and for Marcus—please move!”

  I think it was the mention of Marcus that did it. He sighed. “Very well, then. But it is quite pointless.”

  I withdrew to let him dress and ran around issuing orders—a litter to be ready immediately, the boat prepared to sail with the sailors at their oars, the gate and the door to be locked the moment we were out of the villa, the household slaves to vacate the premises and hide wherever they could.

  In my imagination I could hear the steady tramp of the legionaries’ boots becoming louder and louder…

  At length—far too great a length!—Cicero appeared looking as immaculate as if he were on his way to address the Senate. He walked through the villa saying goodbye to everyone. They were all in tears. He took a last look around as if saying farewell to the building and all his beloved possessions, and then climbed into the litter, closed the curtains so that no one could see his face, and we set off out of the gate. But instead of the slaves all making a run for it, they seized such weapons as they could find—rakes, brooms, pokers, kitchen knives—and insisted on coming with us, forming a homely rustic phalanx around the litter. We went the short distance along the road and turned down the path into the woods. Through the trees I could glimpse the sea shining in the morning sun. Escape seemed close. But then, at the bottom of the path, just before it opened out on to the beach, a dozen legionaries appeared.

  The slaves at the front of our little procession cried out in alarm, and those carrying the litter scrambled to turn it round. It swayed dangerously and Cicero was almost pitched to the ground. We struggled back the way we had come, only to discover that more soldiers were above us, blocking access to the road.

  We were trapped, outnumbered, doomed. Nevertheless, we determined to make a fight. The slaves set the litter down and surrounded it. Cicero drew back the curtain to see what was going on. He saw the soldiers advancing rapidly towards us and shouted to me: “No one is to fight!” Then to the slaves he said: “Everyone lay down your weapons! I am honoured by your devotion, but the only blood that needs to be shed here is mine.”

  The legionaries had their swords drawn. The military tribune leading them was a hirsute, swarthy-looking brute. Beneath the ridge of his helmet his eyebrows merged together to form a continuous thick black line. He called out, “Marcus Tullius Cicero, I have a warrant for your execution.”

  Cicero, still lying in his litter, his chin in his hand, looked him up and down very calmly. “I know you,” he said, “I’m sure of it. What’s your name?”

  The military tribune, plainly taken aback, said, “My name, if you must know it, is Caius Popillius Laenas, and yes, we do know one another: not that it will save you.”

  “Popillius,” murmured Cicero, “that’s it,” and then he turned to me. “Do you remember this man, Tiro? He was our client—that fifteen-year-old who murdered his father, right at the beginning of my career. He’d have been condemned to death for parricide if I hadn’t got him off—on condition he went into the army.” He laughed. “This is a kind of justice, I suppose.”

  I looked at Popillius and indeed I did remember him.

  Popillius said, “That’s enough talk. The verdict of the Constitutional Commission is that the death sentence should be carried out immediately.” He gestured to his soldiers to drag Cicero from his litter.

  “Wait,” said Cicero, “leave me where I am. I have it in mind to die this way,” and he propped himself up on his elbows like a defeated gladiator, threw back his head and offered his throat to the sky.

  “If that’s what you want,” said Popillius. He turned to his centurion. “Let’s get it over with.”

  The centurion took up his position. He braced his legs. He swung his sword. The blade flashed, and in that instant for Cicero the mystery that had plagued him all his life was solved, and liberty was extinguished from the earth.

  —

  Afterwards they cut off his head and hands and put them in a sack. They made us sit down and watch them while they did it. Then they marched away. I was told that Antony was so delighted with these extra trophies that he gave Popillius a bonus of a million sesterces. It is also said that Fulvia pierced Cicero’s tongue with a needle. I do not know. What
is certainly true is that on Antony’s orders the head that had delivered the Philippics and the hands that had written them were nailed up on the rostra, as a warning to others who might think of opposing the Triumvirate, and they stayed there for many years, until finally they rotted and fell away.

  After the killers had gone, we carried Cicero’s body down to the beach and built a pyre, and at dusk we burned it. Then I made my way south to my farm on the Bay of Naples.

  Little by little I learned more of what had happened.

  Quintus was soon afterwards captured with his son and put to death.

  Atticus emerged from hiding and was pardoned by Antony because of the help he had given Fulvia.

  And much, much later, Antony committed suicide together with his mistress Cleopatra after Octavian defeated them in battle. The boy is now the Emperor Augustus.

  But I have written enough.

  Many years have passed since the episodes I have recounted. At first I thought I would never recover from Cicero’s death. But time wipes out everything, even grief. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that grief is almost entirely a question of perspective. For the first few years I used to sigh and think, “Well, he would still be in his sixties now,” and then a decade later, with surprise, “My goodness, he would be seventy-five,” but nowadays I think, “Well, he would be long since dead in any case, so what does it matter how he died in comparison with how he lived?”

  My work is done. My book is finished. Soon I will die too.

  In the summer evenings I sit on the terrace with Agathe, my wife. She sews while I look at the stars. Always at such moments I think of Scipio’s dream of where dead statesmen dwell in On the Republic:

  I gazed in every direction and all appeared wonderfully beautiful. There were stars which we never see from earth, and they were all larger than we have ever imagined. The starry spheres were much greater than the earth; indeed the earth itself seemed to me so small that I was scornful of our empire, which covers only a single point, as it were, upon its surface.