Lustrum
Page 1
Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Praise for Lustrum
About the Author
Also by Robert Harris
Map
Author's Note
Part One Counsul
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Part Two Pater Patriae
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Glossary
Dramatis Personae
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Copyright © Robert Harris 2009
Robert Harris has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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To Peter
Praise for
Lustrum
'A historical thriller of rare ambition'
Boyd Tonkin, Books of the Year, Independent
'Not since Robert Graves has a novelist of equal power set to fictionalising ancient Rome'
Tom Holland, Daily Telegraph
'Wry, clever, thoughtful, with a terrific sense of timing and eye for character'
Dominic Sandbrook, Observer
'Deeply satisfying, impeccably researched and spectacularly topical … a thriller to die for … Harris brilliantly evokes Rome on the edge of political chaos through the eyes of Cicero's slave Tiro, who acts as his master's secretary … The pace never falters, and the politics are sharply relevant for today'
Geoffrey Wansell, Daily Mail
'Magnificent … Better than Robert Graves's Claudius novels'
Allan Massie, Standpoint
'Republican Rome, with all its grandeur and corruption, has rarely been made as vivid as it appears in Harris's book. The allure of power and the perils that attend it have seldom been so brilliantly anatomised in a thriller'
Nick Rennison, Sunday Times
'Harris has taken the DNA of Cicero's great speeches and animated them with utterly believable dialogue … Harris's greatest triumph is perhaps in the evocation of Roman politics, the constant bending of ancient principles before the realities of power, and in his depiction of what it was like to live in the city: the mud, the guttering lamps, the smell of the blood from the temples … I would take my hat off to Harris, if I hadn't already dashed it to the ground in jealous awe'
Boris Johnson, Mail on Sunday * * * * *
'Gripping … A compelling narrative, full of plots, murder, lust, fear, greed and corruption … No writer is better at creating excitement over political theatre'
Leo McKinstry, Daily Express
'Harris is the master. With Lustrum, [he] has surpassed himself. It is one of the most exciting thrillers I have ever read'
Peter Jones, Evening Standard
'Vivid, so beguiling … it conjures a trick often missed by historical novels: flavoursome facts give a sense not just of a place and time but of developing lives. Harris remembers that we all exist in our own past and in visions of our future as well as in the present … It is this concertinaing of history into a series of cogent, life-changing memories that gives Lustrum its concentrated excellence'
Bettany Hughes, The Times
'Dripping in detail it brings ancient Rome to vivid life, yet the political intrigue has echoes in today's ruling classes. And while the pace gallops along, the action is reined in just enough to crank the tension up'
News of the World * * * * *
'The thrilling pace of the narrative does not let up from start to finish. Lustrum is an utterly engrossing, suspense-filled read'
Ronan Sheehan, Irish Times
'A fascinating world, a world of subtle political machinations and fine oratory and nuanced debate, and complex legislation, and intrigue … Extremely absorbing'
Christina Patterson, Independent
'Robert Harris brings the cut-throat republic to life … He understands politics and how to dramatise them'
Richard T Kelly, Financial Times
'Harris has replaced John le Carré … stupendous plots, good characters and lightly applied erudition'
Sarah Sands, Books of the Year, New Statesman
'Lustrum is a serious piece of storytelling, enormously enjoyable to read, with an insider's political tone which makes the dedication much more than a matter of convention or duty'
Peter Stothard, Times Literary Supplement
'A fine achievement: a hefty, politically serious thriller that effortlessly reanimates the dusty quarrels of Roman government while casting ironic and instructive sidelight on those of our own'
Literary Review
About the Author
Robert Harris is the author of Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, Imperium and The Ghost, all of which were international bestsellers. He co-wrote the screenplay for the film of The Ghost, directed by Roman Polanski and starring Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan. His work has been translated into thirty-seven languages. He is married to Gill Hornby and they live with their four children in a village near Hungerford.
Also by Robert Harris
FICTION
Fatherland Enigma Archangel
Pompeii Imperium The Ghost
NON-FICTION
A Higher Form of Killing (with Jeremy Paxm
an)
Gotcha! The Making of Neil Kinnock
Selling Hitler Good and Faithful Servant
AUTHOR'S NOTE
A few years before the birth of Christ, a biography of the Roman orator and statesman Cicero was produced by his former secretary, Tiro.
That there was such a man as Tiro, and that he wrote such a work, is well-attested. 'Your services to me are beyond count,' Cicero once wrote to him, 'in my home and out of it, in Rome and abroad, in my studies and literary work …' He was three years younger than his master, born a slave, but long outlived him, surviving – according to Saint Jerome – until he reached his hundredth year. Tiro was the first man to record a speech in the senate verbatim, and his shorthand system, known as Notae Tironianae, was still in use in the Church in the sixth century; indeed some traces of it (the symbol '&', the abbreviations etc, NB, i.e., e.g.) survive to this day. He also wrote several treatises on the development of Latin. His multi-volume life of Cicero is referred to as a source by the first-century historian Asconius Pedianus in his commentary on Cicero's speeches; Plutarch cites it twice. But, like the rest of Tiro's literary output, the book disappeared amid the collapse of the Roman Empire.
What kind of work it might have been still occasionally intrigues scholars. In 1985, Elizabeth Rawson, Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, speculated that it would probably have been in the Hellenistic tradition of biography – a literary form 'written in an unpretentious, unrhetorical style; it might quote documents, but it liked apophthegms by its subject, and it could be gossipy and irresponsible … It delighted in a subject's idiosyncrasies … Such biography was written not for statesmen and generals, but for what the Romans called curiosi.'*
That is the spirit in which I have approached the recreation of Tiro's vanished work. Although an earlier volume, Imperium, described Cicero's rise to power, it is not necessary, I hope, to read one in order to follow the other. This is a novel not a work of history: wherever the demands of the two have clashed, I have unhesitatingly given in to the former. Still, I have tried as far as possible to make the fiction accord with the facts, and also to use Cicero's actual words – of which, thanks in large part to Tiro, we have so many. I would like to thank Mr Fergus Fleming for generously giving me the title Lustrum. Readers wishing to clarify the political terminology of the Roman republic, or who would like to refer to a list of characters mentioned in the text, will find a glossary and dramatis personae at the end of the book.
R.H.
*Elizabeth Rawson, Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic (London 1985), pp 229–30.
'We look on past ages with condescension, as a mere preparation for us … but what if we're only an after-glow of them?'
J. G. Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur
lustrum (1) in plur., the den or lair of a wild beast; (2) in plur., brothels; hence debauchery; (3) LIT., an expiatory sacrifice, esp. that offered every five years by the censors; TRANSF., a period of five years, a lustrum.
PART ONE
CONSUL
63 BC
O condicionem miseram non modo administrandae verum etiam
conservandae rei publicae!
The preservation of the republic no less than governing it
– what a thankless task it is!
Cicero, speech, 9 November 63 BC
I
Two days before the inauguration of Marcus Tullius Cicero as consul of Rome, the body of a child was pulled from the River Tiber, close to the boat sheds of the republican war fleet.
Such a discovery, though tragic, would not normally have warranted the attention of a consul-elect. But there was something so grotesque about this particular corpse, and so threatening to civic peace, that the magistrate responsible for keeping order in the city, C. Octavius, sent word to Cicero asking him to come at once.
Cicero at first was reluctant to go, pleading pressure of work. As the consular candidate who had topped the poll, it fell to him, rather than his colleague, to preside over the opening session of the senate, and he was writing his inaugural address. But I knew there was more to it than that. He had an unusual squeamishness about death. Even the killing of animals in the games disturbed him, and this weakness – for alas in politics a soft heart is always perceived as a weakness – had started to be noticed. His immediate instinct was to send me in his place.
'Of course I shall go,' I replied carefully. 'But …' I let my sentence trail away.
'But?' he said sharply. 'But what? You think it will look bad?'
I held my tongue and continued transcribing his speech. The silence lengthened.
'Oh, very well,' he groaned at last. He heaved himself to his feet. 'Octavius is a dull dog, but steady enough. He wouldn't summon me unless it was important. In any case I need to clear my head.'
It was late December and from a dark grey sky blew a wind that was quick enough and sharp enough to steal your breath. Outside in the street a dozen petitioners were huddled, hoping for a word, and as soon as they saw the consul-elect stepping through his front door they ran across the road towards him. 'Not now,' I said, pushing them back. 'Not today.' Cicero threw the edge of his cloak over his shoulder, tucked his chin down on to his chest and set off briskly down the hill.
We must have walked about a mile, I suppose, crossing the forum at an angle and leaving the city by the river gate. The waters of the Tiber were fast and high, flexed by yellowish-brown whirlpools and writhing currents. Up ahead, opposite Tiber Island, amid the wharfs and cranes of the Navalia, we could see a large crowd milling around. (You will get a sense of how long ago all this happened by the way – more than half a century – when I tell you that the Island was not yet linked by its bridges to either bank.) As we drew closer, many of the onlookers recognised Cicero, and there was a stir of curiosity as they parted to let us through. A cordon of legionaries from the marine barracks was protecting the scene. Octavius was waiting.
'My apologies for disturbing you,' said Octavius, shaking my master's hand. 'I know how busy you must be, so close to your inauguration.'
'My dear Octavius, it is a pleasure to see you at any time. You know my secretary, Tiro?'
Octavius glanced at me without interest. Although he is remembered today only as the father of Augustus, he was at this time aedile of the plebs and very much the coming man. He would probably have made consul himself had he not died prematurely of a fever some four years after this encounter. He led us out of the wind and into one of the great military boathouses, where the skeleton of a liburnian, stripped for repair, sat on huge wooden rollers. Next to it on the earth floor an object lay shrouded in sailcloth. Without pausing for ceremony, Octavius threw aside the material to show us the naked body of a boy.
He was about twelve, as I remember. His face was beautiful and serene, quite feminine in its delicacy, with traces of gold paint glinting on the nose and cheeks, and with a bit of red ribbon tied in his damp brown curls. His throat had been cut. His body had been slashed open all the way down to the groin and emptied of its organs. There was no blood, only that dark, elongated cavity, like a gutted fish, filled with river mud. How Cicero managed to contemplate the sight and maintain his composure, I do not know, but he swallowed hard and kept on looking. Eventually he said hoarsely, 'This is an outrage.'
'And that's not all,' said Octavius. He squatted on his haunches, took hold of the lad's skull between his hands and turned it to the left. As the head moved, the gaping wound in the neck opened and closed obscenely, as if it were a second mouth trying to whisper a warning to us. Octavius seemed entirely indifferent to this, but then of course he was a military man and no doubt used to such sights. He pulled back the hair to reveal a deep indentation just above the boy's right ear, and pressed his thumb into it. 'Do you see? It looks as if he was felled from behind. I'd say by a hammer.'
'His face painted. His hair beribboned. Felled from behind by a hammer,' repeated Cicero, his words slowing as he realised where his logic was leading him. 'Then his t
hroat cut. And finally his body … eviscerated.'
'Exactly,' said Octavius. 'His killers must have wanted to inspect his entrails. He was a sacrifice – a human sacrifice.'
At those words, in that cold, dim place, the hairs on the nape of my neck stirred and spiked, and I knew myself to be in the presence of Evil – Evil as a palpable force, as potent as lightning.
Cicero said, 'Are there any cults in the city you have heard of that might practise such an abomination?'
'None. There are always the Gauls, of course – they are said to do such things. But there aren't many of them in town at the moment, and those that are here are well behaved.'
'And who is the victim? Has anyone claimed him?'
'That's another reason I wanted you to come and see for yourself.' Octavius rolled the body over on to its stomach. 'There's a small owner's tattoo just above his backside, do you see? Those who dumped the body may have missed it. “C.Ant.M.f.C.n.” Caius Antonius, son of Marcus, grandson of Caius. There's a famous family for you! He was a slave of your consular colleague, Antonius Hybrida.' He stood and wiped his hands on the sailcloth, then casually threw the cover back over the body. 'What do you want to do?'
Cicero was staring at the pathetic bundle on the floor as if mesmerised. 'Who knows about this?'
'Nobody.'
'Hybrida?'
'No.'
'What about the crowd outside?'
'There's a rumour going round that there's been some kind of ritual killing. You above all know what crowds are like. They're saying it's a bad omen on the eve of your consulship.'
'They may be right.'
'It's been a hard winter. They could do with calming down. I thought we might send word to the College of Priests and ask them to perform some kind of ceremony of purification—'
'No, no,' said Cicero quickly, pulling his gaze away from the body. 'No priests. Priests will only make it worse.'
'So what shall we do?'