Lustrum

by Robert Harris

  'Is that altogether wise?' I asked.

  'What do you mean?'

  I felt myself beginning to sweat. 'Well, after all, even Achilles needed his Homer. His story might not have had quite the same – what should one say? – epic resonance if he had told it from his own point of view.'

  'I solved that problem in bed last night. My plan is to tell my tale in the voices of the gods, each taking it in turn to recount my career to me as they welcome me as an immortal on to Mount Olympus.' He jumped up and cleared his throat. 'I'll show you what I mean.

  Torn from your studies in youth's early dawn, your country recalled you,

  Giving you place in the thick of the struggle for public preferment;

  Yet in seeking release from the worries and cares that oppress you,

  Time that the state leaves free you devote to us and to learning …'

  Dear heavens, it was terrible stuff! The gods must have wept to hear it. But when the mood seized him, Cicero could lay down hexameters as readily as a bricklayer could throw up a wall: three, four, even five hundred lines a day was nothing to him. He paced around the great open space of his library, acting out the roles of Jupiter and Minerva and Urania, the words pouring out of him so freely I had difficulty keeping up, even in shorthand. When eventually Sositheus tiptoed in and announced that Clodius was waiting outside, I must confess I was greatly relieved. By now it was quite late in the morning – the sixth hour at least – and Cicero was so seized by inspiration he almost sent his visitor packing. But he knew that Clodius would probably be bearing some choice morsel of gossip, and curiosity got the better of him. He told Sositheus to show him in, and Clodius duly strolled into the library, his golden curls elegantly coiffed, his goatee trimmed, his bronzed limbs trailing a scent of crocus oil. He was thirty by now, a married man, having wed the fifteen-year-old heiress Fulvia in the summer, at the same time as he was elected a magistrate. Not that married life detained him much. Her dowry had bought them a large house on the Palatine, and there she sat alone most evenings while he continued with his roistering ways in the taverns of Subura.

  'Tasty news,' announced Clodius. He held up a finger with a highly polished nail. 'But you mustn't tell a soul.'

  Cicero gestured to him to take a seat. 'You know how discreet I am.'

  'You will simply adore this,' said Clodius, settling himself down. 'This will make your day.'

  'I hope it lives up to its billing.'

  'It will.' Clodius tugged at his little beard with glee. 'The Warden of Land and Sea is divorcing.'

  Cicero had been lounging back in his chair with a half-smile on his face, his usual posture when gossiping with Clodius. But now he slowly straightened. 'Are you absolutely sure?'

  'I just heard it from your next-door neighbour, my darling sister – who sends her love, by the way – who received the news by special messenger from husband Celer last night. Apparently Pompey has written to Mucia telling her not to be in the house by the time he gets back to Rome.'

  'Which will be when?'

  'In a few weeks. His fleet is off Brundisium. He may even have landed by now.'

  Cicero let out a low whistle. 'So he's coming home at last. After six years I was beginning to think I'd never see him again.'

  'Hoping you'd never see him again, more like.'

  It was an impertinent remark, but Cicero was too preoccupied with Pompey's impending return to notice. 'If he's divorcing, that must mean he's remarrying. Does Clodia know who he has in mind?'

  'No, only that Mucia's out on her pretty little pink ear and the children go with Pompey, even though he hardly knows them. Her brothers are both up in arms, as you can imagine. Celer swears he's been betrayed. Nepos swears it even more. Clodia naturally finds it very funny. But still, what an insult, eh, after all they've done for him – to have their sister publicly cast aside for adultery.'

  'And was she an adulteress?'

  'Was she an adulteress?' Clodius gave a surprisingly high-pitched giggle. 'My dear Cicero, the bitch has been rolling around on her back waving her legs in the air ever since he left! Don't tell me you haven't had her? If so, you must be the only man in Rome who hasn't!'

  'Are you drunk?' demanded Cicero. He leaned across and sniffed at Clodius, then wrinkled his nose. 'You are, damn you. I suggest you go away and sober up, and mind your manners in future.'

  For a moment I thought Clodius might hit him. But then he smirked, and started wiggling his head from side to side derisively. 'Oh, I am a terrible man. A terrible, terrible man …'

  He looked so comical that Cicero forgot his anger and started laughing at him. 'Go on,' he said. 'Clear off, and take your mischief somewhere else.'

  That was Clodius before he changed: a moody boy – a moody, spoilt, charming boy. 'That fellow amuses me,' Cicero remarked after the young patrician had gone, 'but I can't say I really care for him. Still,' he added, 'I'll forgive any man a coarse remark who brings me such intriguing news.' From then on he was too preoccupied trying to work out all the implications of Pompey's homecoming and potential remarriage to resume dictating his poem. I was grateful to Clodius for that at least, and thought no more about his visit for the remainder of the day.

  A few hours later, Terentia came into the library to say goodbye to her husband. She was leaving to celebrate the Good Goddess's nocturnal rites. She would not be back until the morning. Relations between her and Cicero were cool. Despite the elegance of her private apartments on the upper floor, she still hated the house, especially the late-night comings and goings of Clodia's louche salon next door, and the proximity of the noisy crowds in the forum who gaped up at her whenever she went on to the terrace with her maids. To try to placate her, Cicero was going out of his way to be friendly.

  'And where is the Good Goddess to be worshipped tonight? If,' he added with a smile, 'a mere man can be entrusted with such sacred information?' (The ritual was always held in the house of a senior magistrate, whose wife was responsible for organising it; they took it in turns.)

  'At Caesar's house.'

  'Aurelia presiding?'

  'Pompeia.'

  'I wonder if Mucia will be there.'

  'I expect so. Why shouldn't she be?'

  'She might be too ashamed to show her face.'

  'Why?'

  'It seems Pompey is divorcing her.'

  'No?' Despite herself, Terentia was unable to conceal her interest. 'Where did you hear that?'

  'Clodius came round to tell me.'

  Immediately her lips compressed into a firm line of disapproval. 'Then it probably isn't true. You really ought to keep better company.'

  'I shall keep what company I like.'

  'No doubt, but do you really have to inflict it on the rest of us? It's bad enough living so close to the sister, without having the brother under our roof as well.'

  She turned without saying goodbye and stalked off across the marble floor. Cicero pulled a face at her narrow back. 'First the old house was too far away from everyone, now the new one is too close. You're lucky you're not married, Tiro.'

  I was tempted to reply that I had been given little choice in the matter.

  He had been invited weeks ago to dine that evening with Atticus. Quintus had also been asked, and so, curiously enough, had I: our host's plan was that the four of us should reassemble in exactly the same place and at exactly the same time as last year, and drink a toast in celebration of the fact that we, and Rome, had survived. Cicero and I turned up at his house as darkness fell. Quintus was already there. But although the food and the wine were good enough, and there was Pompey to gossip about, and the library was conducive to conversation, the occasion was not a success. Everyone seemed out of sorts. Cicero had been put into a bad mood by his encounter with Terentia and was perturbed at the thought of Pompey's return. Quintus, coming to the end of his term as praetor, was heavily in debt and apprehensive about what province he might draw in the forthcoming lottery. Even Atticus, whose Epicurean sensibilities wer
e normally unruffled by the outside world, was preoccupied with something. As usual, I took my mood from theirs, and only spoke when asked a question. We drank to the glorious fourth of December, but for once not even Cicero could bring himself to reminisce. Suddenly it did not seem appropriate to celebrate the deaths of five men, however villainous. The past fell like a clammy shadow across us, chilling all conversation. Finally Atticus said, 'I'm thinking of going back to Epirus.'

  For a moment or two nobody spoke.

  'When?' asked Cicero quietly.

  'Directly after Saturnalia.'

  'You're not thinking of going,' said Quintus with a nasty edge to his voice, 'you've already made up your mind. You're telling us.'

  Cicero said, 'Why do you want to go now?'

  Atticus played around with the stem of his glass. 'I came back to Rome two years ago to help you win the election. I've stayed ever since to support you. But now things seem to have settled down, I don't think you need me any more.'

  'I most certainly do,' insisted Cicero.

  'Besides, I have business interests over there I have to attend to.'

  'Ah,' said Quintus into his glass, 'business interests. Now we get to the bottom of it.'

  'What do you mean by that?' asked Atticus.

  'Nothing.'

  'No, please – say what's on your mind.'

  'Leave it, Quintus,' warned Cicero.

  'Only this,' said Quintus. 'That somehow Marcus and I seem to run all the dangers of public life, and shoulder all the hard work, while you are free to flit between your estates and attend to your business interests at will. You prosper through your connection with us, yet we seem permanently short of money. That's all.'

  'But you enjoy the rewards of a public career. You have fame and power and will be remembered by history, whereas I am a nobody.'

  'A nobody! A nobody who knows everybody!' Quintus took another drink. 'I don't suppose there's any chance of you taking your sister back with you to Epirus, is there?'

  'Quintus!' cried Cicero. 'If your marriage is unhappy,' said Atticus mildly, 'then I am sorry for you. But that is hardly my fault.'

  'And there we are again,' said Quintus. 'You've even managed to avoid marriage. I swear this fellow has the secret of life! Why don't you bear your share of domestic suffering like the rest of us?'

  'That's enough,' said Cicero, getting to his feet. 'We should leave you, Atticus, before any more words are uttered that aren't really meant. Quintus?' He held out his hand to his brother, who scowled and looked away. 'Quintus!' he repeated angrily, and thrust out his hand again. Quintus turned reluctantly and glanced up at him, and just for an instant I saw such a flash of hatred in his eyes it made me catch my breath. But then he threw aside his napkin and stood. He swayed a little and almost fell back on to the table, but I grabbed his arm and he recovered his balance. He lurched out of the library and we followed him into the atrium.

  Cicero had ordered a litter to take us home, but now he insisted that Quintus have it. 'You ride home, brother. We shall walk.' We helped him into the chair, and Cicero told the bearers to carry him to our old house on the Esquiline, next to the Temple of Tellus, into which Quintus had moved when Cicero moved out. Quintus was asleep even before the litter set off. As we watched him go, I reflected that it was no easy matter being the younger brother of a genius, and that all the choices in Quintus's life – his career, his home, even his wife – had been made in accordance with the demands of his brilliant, ambitious sibling, who could always talk him into anything.

  'He means no harm,' said Cicero to Atticus. 'He's worried about the future, that's all. Once the senate has decided which provinces are to be put into this year's ballot and he knows where he's going, he'll be happier.'

  'I'm sure you're right. But I fear he believes at least some of what he says. I hope he doesn't speak for you as well.'

  'My dearest friend, I am perfectly aware that our relationship has cost you far more than you have ever profited from it. We have simply chosen to tread different paths, that's all. I have sought public office while you have yearned for honourable independence, and who's to say which of us is right? But in every quality that really matters I put you second to no man, myself included. There now – are we clear?'

  'We are clear.'

  'And you will come and see me before you leave, and write to me often afterwards?'

  'I shall.'

  With that Cicero kissed him on the cheek and the two friends parted, Atticus retreating into his beautiful house with its books and treasures, while the former consul trudged down the hill towards the forum with his guards. On this question of the good life and how to lead it – purely theoretical in my own case, of course – my sympathies were all with Atticus. It seemed to me at the time – and still does now, only even more so – an act of madness for a man to pursue power when he could be sitting in the sunshine and reading a book. But then, even if I had been born into freedom, I know I would not have possessed that overweening force of ambition without which no city is created, no city destroyed.

  As chance would have it, our route home took us past the scenes of all Cicero's triumphs, and he fell very quiet as we walked, no doubt pondering his conversation with Atticus. We passed the locked and deserted senate house, where he had made such memorable speeches; the curving wall of the rostra, surmounted by its multitude of heroic statues, from which he had addressed the Roman people in their thousands; and finally the Temple of Castor, where he had presented his case to the extortion court in the long legal battle against Verres that had launched his career. The great public buildings and monuments, so quiet and massive in the darkness, nevertheless seemed to me that night as sub stantial as air. We heard voices in the distance, and occasional scuffling noises closer by, but it was only rats in the heaps of rubbish.

  We left the forum, and ahead of us were the myriad lights of the Palatine, tracing the shape of the hill – the yellow flickering of the torches and braziers on the terraces, the dim pinpricks of the candles and lamps in the windows amid the trees. Suddenly Cicero halted. 'Isn't that our house?' he asked, pointing to a long cluster of lights. I followed his outstretched arm and replied that I thought it was. 'But that's very odd,' he said. 'Most of the rooms seem to be lit. It looks as though Terentia is home.'

  We set off quickly up the hill. 'If Terentia has left the ceremony early,' said Cicero breathlessly over his shoulder, 'it won't be of her own volition. Something must have happened.' He almost ran along the street towards the house and hammered on the door. Inside, we found Terentia standing in the atrium surrounded by a cluster of maids and womenfolk, who seemed to twitter and scatter like birds at Cicero's approach. Once again she was wearing a cloak fastened tightly at the throat to conceal her sacred robes. 'Terentia?' he demanded, advancing towards her. 'What's wrong? Are you all right?'

  'I am well enough,' she replied, her voice cold and trembling with rage. 'It is Rome that is sick!'

  That so much harm could flow from so farcical an episode will doubtless strike future generations as absurd. In truth, it seemed absurd at the time: fits of public morality generally do. But human life is bizarre and unpredictable. Some joker cracks an egg, and from it hatches tragedy.

  The basic facts were simple. Terentia recounted them to Cicero that night, and the story was never seriously challenged. She had arrived at Caesar's residence to be greeted by Pompeia's maid, Abra – a girl of notoriously easy virtue, as befitted the character of her mistress, and of her master too, for that matter, although he of course was not on the premises at the time. Abra showed Terentia into the main part of the house, where Pompeia, the hostess for the evening, and the Vestal Virgins were already waiting, along with Caesar's mother, Aurelia. Within the hour, most of the senior wives of Rome were congregated in this spot and the ritual began. What exactly they were doing, Terentia would not say, only that most of the house was in darkness when suddenly they were interrupted by screams. They ran to discover the source and immediately came
across one of Aurelia's freed-women having a fit of hysterics. Between sobs she cried out that there was an intruder in the house. She had approached what she thought was a female musician, only to discover that the girl was actually a man in disguise! It was at this point that Terentia realised that Pompeia had disappeared.

  Aurelia at once took charge of the situation and ordered that all the holy things be covered and that the doors be locked and watched. Then she and some of the braver females, including Terentia, began a thorough search of the huge house. In due course, in Pompeia's bedroom, they found a veiled figure dressed in women's clothes, clutching a lyre and trying to hide behind a curtain. They chased him down the stairs and into the dining room, where he fell over a couch and his veil was snatched away. Nearly everyone recognised him. He had shaved off his small beard and had put on rouge, black eye make-up and lipstick, but that was hardly sufficent to disguise the well-known pretty-boy features of Publius Clodius Pulcher – 'Your friend Clodius,' as Terentia bitterly described him to Cicero.

  Clodius, who was plainly drunk, realising he was discovered, then jumped on to the dining table, pulled up his gown, exposing himself to all the assembled company, including the Vestal Virgins, and finally, while his audience was shrieking and swooning, ran out of the room and managed to escape from the house via a kitchen window. Only now did Pompeia appear, with Abra, whereupon Aurelia accused her daughter-in-law and her maid of collusion in this sacrilege. Both denied it tearfully, but the senior Vestal Virgin announced that their protests did not matter: a desecration had occurred, the sacred rites would have to be abandoned, and the devotees must all disperse to their homes at once.

  Such was Terentia's story, and Cicero listened to it with a mixture of incredulity, disgust and painfully suppressed amusement. Obviously he would have to take a stern moral line in public and in front of Terentia – it was shocking, he agreed with her absolutely – but secretly he also thought it one of the funniest things he had ever heard. In particular, the image of Clodius waving his private parts in the horrified faces of Rome's stuffiest matrons made him laugh until his eyes watered. But that was for the seclusion of his library. As far as the politics were concerned, he thought Clodius had finally shown himself to be an irredeem able idiot – 'he's thirty, in the name of heaven, not thirteen' – and that his career as a magistrate was finished before it had even started. He also suspected, gleefully, that Caesar might be in trouble as well: the scandal had happened in his house, it had involved his wife; it would not look good.