Lustrum

by Robert Harris

  'If you saw lightning, Augur,' replied the chicken-keeper, 'lightning there must have been.'

  'Right then, lightning it was, and on the left side, too. Write it down, boy. Congratulations, Cicero – a propitious omen. We'll be on our way.' But Cicero seemed not to have heard. He was sitting motionless in his chair, staring straight ahead. Celer put his hand on his shoulder as he passed. 'My cousin Quintus Metellus sends his regards, by the way, along with a gentle reminder that he's still outside the city waiting for that triumph you promised him in return for his vote. So is Licinius Lucullus, come to that. Don't forget, they've hundreds of veterans they can call on. If this thing comes to civil war – as it well may – they're the ones who can come in and restore order.'

  'Thank you, Celer. Bringing soldiers into Rome – that's certainly the way to avoid civil war.'

  The remark was meant to be sarcastic, but sarcasm bounces off the Celers of this world like a child's arrow off armour. He left Cicero's roof with his self-importance quite undented. I asked Cicero if there was anything I could get him. 'Yes,' he said gloomily, 'a new speech. Leave me alone for a while.' I did as he asked and went downstairs, trying not to think about the task that now confronted him: speaking extempore to six hundred senators on a complicated bill he had only just seen, with the certainty that whatever he said was bound to infuriate one faction or the other. It was enough to turn my stomach liquid.

  The house was filling quickly, not just with clients of Cicero's but with well-wishers walking in off the street. Cicero had ordered that no expense be spared on his inauguration, and whenever Terentia raised her concerns about the cost, he would always answer with a smile, 'Macedonia will pay.' So everyone who turned up was presented on arrival with a gift of figs and honey. Atticus, who was a leader of the Order of Knights, had brought a large detachment of Cicero's equestrian supporters; these, together with Cicero's closest colleagues in the senate, marshalled by Quintus, were all being given mulled wine in the tablinum. Servius was not among them. I managed to tell both Atticus and Quintus that the populists' bill had been posted, and that it was bad.

  Meanwhile the hired flautists were also enjoying the household's food and drink, as were the percussionists and dancers, the agents from the precincts and the tribal headquarters, and of course the officials who came with the consulship: the scribes, summoners, copyists and criers from the treasury, along with the twelve lictors provided by the senate to ensure the consul's protection. All that was missing from the show was its leading actor, and as time went on it became harder and harder for me to explain his absence, for everyone by this time had heard of the bill and wanted to know what Cicero was planning to say about it. I could only reply that he was still taking the auspices and would be down directly. Terentia, decked out in her new jewels, hissed at me that I had better take control of the situation before the house was entirely stripped bare, and so I hit on the ruse of sending two slaves up to the roof to fetch the curule chair, with instructions to tell Cicero that the symbol of his authority was required to lead the procession – an excuse that also had the merit of being true.

  This did the trick, and shortly afterwards Cicero descended – divested, I was glad to see, of his rabbit-fur hat. His appearance provoked a raucous cheer from the packed crowd, many of whom were now very merry on his mulled wine. Cicero handed me back the wax tablets on which the bill was written. 'Bring them with you,' he whispered. Then he climbed on to a chair, gave the company a cordial wave and asked all those present who were on the staff of the treasury to raise their hands. About two dozen did so; astonishing as it now seems, this was the total number of men who at that time administered the Roman empire from its centre.

  'Gentlemen,' he said, resting his hand on my shoulder, 'this is Tiro, who has been my chief private secretary since before I was a senator. You are to regard an order from him as an order from me, and all business that it is to be discussed with me may also be raised with him. I prefer written to oral reports. I rise early and work late. I won't tolerate bribes, or corruption in any form, or gossip. If you make a mistake, don't be afraid to tell me, but do it quickly. Remember that, and we shall get along well enough. And now: to business!'

  After this little speech, which left me blushing, the lictors were handed their new rods along with a purse of money for each man, and finally Cicero's curule chair was brought down from the roof and displayed to the crowd. It drew gasps and a round of applause all to itself, as well it might, for it was carved from Numidian ivory, and had cost over a hundred thousand sesterces ('Macedonia will pay!'). Then everyone drank more wine – even little Marcus took some from an ivory beaker – the flute-players started up, and we went out into the street to begin the long walk across the city.

  It was still icy cold, but the sun was coming up, breaking over the rooftops in lines of gold, and the effect of the light on the snow was to give Rome a celestial radiance such as I had never seen before. The lictors led the parade; four of them carried aloft the curule chair on an open litter. Cicero walked beside Terentia. Tullia was behind him, accompanied by her fiancé, Frugi. Quintus carried Marcus on his shoulders, while on either side of the consular family marched the knights and the senators in gleaming white. The flutes piped, the drums beat, the dancers leaped. Citizens lined the streets and hung out of their windows to watch. There was much cheering and clapping, but also – to be honest – some booing, especially in the poorer parts of Subura, as we paraded along the Argiletum towards the forum. Cicero nodded from side to side, and occasionally raised his right hand in salute, but his expression was very grave, and I knew he must be turning over in his mind what lay ahead. In the period before a big speech a part of him was always unreachable. Occasionally I saw both Atticus and Quintus try to speak to him, but he shook his head, wishing to be left alone with his thoughts.

  When we reached the forum it was packed with crowds. We passed the rostra and the empty senate house and finally began our ascent of the Capitol. The smoke from the altar fires was curling above the temples. I could smell the saffron burning, and hear the lowing of the bulls awaiting sacrifice. As we neared the Arch of Scipio I looked back, and there was Rome – her hills and valleys, towers and temples, porticoes and houses all veiled white and sparkling with snow, like a bride in her gown awaiting her groom.

  We entered the Area Capitolina to find the remainder of the senate waiting for us, arrayed before the Temple of Jupiter. I was ushered along with Cicero's family and the rest of the household to the wooden stand that had been erected for spectators. A trumpet blast echoed off the walls, and the senators turned as one to watch as Cicero passed through their ranks – all those crafty faces, reddened by the cold, their covetous eyes studying the consul-elect: the men who had never won the consulship and knew they never would, the men who desired it and feared they might fail, and those who had held it once and still believed it was rightly theirs. Hybrida, Cicero's fellow consul, was already in position at the foot of the temple steps. Above the scene the great bronze roof looked molten in the brilliant winter sunshine. Without acknowledging one another, the two consuls-elect slowly mounted to the altar, where the chief priest, Metellus Pius, lay on a litter, too sick to get to his feet. Surrounding Pius were the six Vestal Virgins and the other fourteen pontiffs of the state religion. I could clearly make out Catulus, who had rebuilt the temple on behalf of the senate, and whose name appeared above the door ('greater than Jove', some wags called him in consequence). Next to him was Isauricus. I recognised also Scipio Nasica, Pius's adopted son; Junius Silanus, who was the husband of Servilia, the cleverest woman in Rome; and finally, standing slightly apart from the rest, incongruous in his priestly garments, I spotted the thin and broad-shouldered figure of Julius Caesar, but unfortunately I was too far away to read his expression.

  There was a long silence. The trumpet sounded again. A huge creamy bull with red ribbons tied to its horns was led towards the altar. Cicero pulled up the folds of his toga to shroud his head, and the
n in a loud voice recited from memory the state prayer. The instant he had finished, the attendant stationed behind the bull felled it with such a hammer blow that the crack echoed round the portico. The creature crashed on to its side and, as the attendants sawed open its stomach, the vision of the dead boy rose disconcertingly before my eyes. They had its entrails on the altar for inspection even before the wretched animal had died. There was a groan from the congregation, who interpreted the bull's thrashings as ill luck, but when the haruspices presented the liver to Cicero for his inspection, they declared it unusually propitious. Pius – who was quite blind in any case – nodded weakly in agreement, the innards were flung on the fire, and the ceremony was over. The trumpet wailed into the cold clear air for a final time, a gust of applause carried across the enclosed space, and Cicero was consul.

  The senate's first session of the new year was always held in the Temple of Jupiter, with the consul's chair placed on a dais directly beneath the great bronze statue of the Father of the Gods. No citizen, however eminent, was permitted entry to the senate unless he was a member. But because I had been charged by Cicero with making a shorthand record of proceedings – the first time this had ever been done – I was allowed to sit near him during debates. You may well imagine my feelings as I followed him up the wide aisle between the wooden benches. The white-robed senators poured in behind us, their animated speculation like the roar of an incoming tide. Who had read the populists' bill? Had anyone spoken to Caesar? What would Cicero say?

  As the new consul reached the dais, I turned to watch those figures I knew so well coming in to take their seats. To the right of the consular chair flowed the patrician faction – Catulus, Isauricus, Hortensius and the rest – while to the left headed those who supported the populists' cause, notably Caesar and Crassus. I searched for Rullus, in whose name the bill had been laid, and spotted him with the other tribunes. Until very recently he had been just another rich young dandy, but now he had taken to wearing the clothes of a poor man, and had grown a beard, to show his populist sympathies. Further along I saw Catilina fling himself down on one of the front benches reserved for praetorians, his powerful arms spread wide, his long legs outstretched. His expression was heavy with thought; no doubt he was reflecting that but for Cicero it would have been he in the consul's chair that day. His acolytes took their places behind him – men like the bankrupt gambler Curius, and the immensely fat Cassius Longinus, whose flab occupied the space of two normal senators.

  I was so interested in noting who was present and how they were behaving that I briefly took my eyes off Cicero, and when I looked around he had disappeared. I wondered if he might have gone outside to throw up, which he often did when he was nervous before a difficult speech. But when I went behind the dais I found him, hidden from view, standing at the back of the statue of Jupiter, engaged in an intense discussion with Hybrida. He was staring deep into Hybrida's bloodshot blue eyes, his right hand gripping his colleague's shoulder, his left making forceful gestures. Hybrida was nodding slowly in response, as if dimly understanding something. Finally a slow smile spread across his face. Cicero released him and the two men shook hands, then they both stepped out from behind the statue. Hybrida went off to take his place, while Cicero brusquely asked if I had remembered the transcription of the bill. I replied that I had. 'Good,' he said. 'Then let us begin.'

  I found my place on a stool at the bottom of the dais, opened my tablet, pulled out my stylus, and prepared to take down what would be the first official shorthand record of a senate session. Two other clerks, trained by myself, were in position on either side of the chamber, to transcribe their own versions: afterwards we would compare notes so as to produce a complete summary. I still had no idea how Cicero was planning to handle the occasion. I knew he had been trying for days to craft a speech appealing for consensus, but that it had proved so hopelessly bland he had thrown away draft after draft in disgust. Nobody could be sure how he was going to react. The anticipation in the chamber was intense. When he mounted the dais, the chatter dropped away at once, and one could sense the entire senate leaning forward to hear what he had to say.

  'Gentlemen,' he began, in his usual quiet manner of opening a speech, 'it is the custom that magistrates elected to this great office should start with some expression of humility, recalling those ancestors of theirs who have also held the rank, and expressing the hope that they may prove worthy of their example. In my case such humility, I am pleased to say, is not possible.' That drew some laughter. 'I am a new man,' he proclaimed. 'I owe my elevation not to family, or to name, or to wealth, or to military renown, but to the people of Rome, and as long as I hold this office I will be the people's consul.'

  It was a wonderful instrument, that voice of Cicero's, with its rich tone and its hint of a stutter – an impediment that somehow made each word seem fought for and more precious – and his words resonated in the hush like a message from Jove. Tradition demanded that he should talk first about the army, and as the great carved eagles looked down from the roof, he lauded the exploits of Pompey and the Eastern legions in the most extravagant terms, knowing his words would be relayed by the fastest means possible to the great general, who would study them with keen interest. The senators stamped their feet and roared in prolonged approval, for every man present knew that Pompey was the most powerful man in the world and no one, not even his jealous enemies among the patricians, wanted to seem reluctant in his praise.

  'As Pompey upholds our republic abroad, so we must play our part here at home,' continued Cicero, 'resolute to protect its honour, wise in charting its course, just in pursuit of domestic harmony.' He paused. 'Now, you all know that this morning, before the sun had even risen, the bill of the tribune Servilius Rullus, for which we have been waiting so long, was finally posted in the forum. And the moment I heard of this, by my instructions, a number of copyists came running up all together, to bring an exact transcript of it to me.' He stretched down his arm and I passed him the three wax tablets. My hand was shaking, but his never wavered as he held them aloft. 'Here is the bill, and I earnestly assure you that I have examined it as carefully as is possible in the circumstances of today and in the time allowed me, and that I have reached a firm opinion.'

  He waited, and looked across the chamber – to Caesar in his place on the second bench, staring impassively at the consul, and to Catulus and the other patrician ex-consuls on the front bench opposite.

  'It is nothing less,' he said, 'than a dagger, pointed towards the body politic, that we are being invited to plunge into our own heart!'

  His words produced an immediate eruption – of shouted anger and dismissive gestures from the populists' benches and a low, masculine rumble of approval from the patricians'.

  'A dagger,' he repeated, 'with a long blade.' He licked his thumb and flicked open the first notebook. 'Clause one, page one, line one. The election of the ten commissioners …'

  In this way he cut straight through the posturing and sentiment to the nub of the issue, which was, as it always is, power. 'Who proposes the commission?' he asked. 'Rullus. Who determines who is to elect the commissioners? Rullus. Who summons the assembly to elect the commissioners? Rullus …' The patrician senators began joining in, chanting the unfortunate tribune's name after every question. 'Who declares the results?'

  'Rullus!' boomed the senate.

  'Who alone is guaranteed a place as a commissioner?'

  'Rullus!'

  'Who wrote the bill?'

  'Rullus!' And the house collapsed in tears of laughter at its own wit, while poor Rullus flushed pink and looked this way and that as if seeking somewhere to hide. Cicero must have gone on for half an hour in this fashion, clause by clause, quoting the bill and mocking it and shredding it, in such savage terms that the senators around Caesar and on the tribunes' bench began to look distinctly grim. To think that he had had only an hour or so to collect his thoughts was marvellous. He denounced it as an attack on Pompey – who could not st
and for election to the commission in absentia – and as an attempt to re-establish the kings in the guise of commissioners. He quoted freely from the bill – 'The ten commissioners shall settle any colonists they like in whatever towns and districts they choose, and assign them lands wherever they please' – and made its bland language sound like a call for tyranny.

  'What then? What kind of settlement will be made in those lands? What will be the method and arrangement of the whole affair? “Colonies will be settled there,” Rullus says. Where? Of what kind of men? In what places? Did you, Rullus, think that we should hand over to you, and to the real architects of your schemes' – and here he pointed directly at Caesar and Crassus – 'the whole of Italy unarmed, that you might strengthen it with garrisons, occupy it with colonies, and hold it bound and fettered by every kind of chain?'

  There were shouts of 'No!' and 'Never!' from the patrician benches. Cicero extended his hand and averted his gaze from it, in the classic gesture of rejection. 'Such things as these I will resist passionately and vigorously. Nor will I, while I am consul, allow men to set forth those plans against the state which they have long had in mind. I have decided to carry on my consulship in the only manner in which it can be conducted with dignity and freedom. I will never seek to obtain a province, any honours, any distinctions or advantage, nor anything that a tribune of the people can prevent me from obtaining.'

  He paused to emphasise his meaning. I had my head down, writing, but at that I looked up sharply. I will never seek to obtain a province. Had he really just said that? I could not believe it. As the implications of his words sank in, the senators began to murmur.