Conspirata (33 page)

'You think the censors will believe you?'

'Why wouldn't they?'

A shrine to Venus a quarter of a mile long? They might think you're taking your piety to extreme lengths ’

But Pompey was in no mood for teasing, especially not by

Cicero. All at once his generous mouth shrank into a pout. His lips quivered. He was famous for his short temper, and for the first time I witnessed just how quickly he could lose it. This city!' he cried. 'It's so full of little men -just jealouslittle men! Here I am, proposing to donate to the Roman people the most marvellous building in the history of the world, and what thanks do I receive? None.None!' He kicked over one of the trestles. I was reminded of little Marcus in his nursery after he had been made to put away his games. 'And speaking of little men,' he said menacingly, 'why hasn't the senate given me any of the legislation I asked for? Where's the bill to ratify my settlements in the East? And the land for my veterans - what's become of that?'

'These things take time

'I thought we had an understanding: I would support you in the matter of Hybrida, and you would secure my legislation for me in the senate. Well, I've done my part. Where's yours?'

'It is not an easy matter. I can hardly carry these bills on my own. I'm only one of six hundred senators, and unfortunately you have plenty of opponents among the rest.' 'Who? Name them!'

'You know who they are better than I. Celer won't forgive you for divorcing his sister. Lucullus is still resentful that you took over his command in the East. Crassus has always been your rival. Cato feels that you act like a king—'

'Cato! Don't mention that man's name in my presence! It's entirely thanks to Cato that I have no wife!' The roar of Pompey's voice was carrying through the house, and I noticed that some of his attendants had crept up to the door and were standing watching. 'I put off raising this with you until after my triumph, in the hope that you'd have made some progress. But now I am

back in Rome and I demand that I am given the respect I'm due! Do you hear me? I demand it!'

'Of course I hear you. I should imagine the dead can hear you. And I shall endeavour to serve your interests, as your friend, as I always have.'

Always? Are you sure of that?'

'Name me one occasion when I was not loyal to your interests.'

'What about Catilina? You could have brought me home then to defend the republic'

And you should thank me I didn't, for I spared you the odium of shedding Roman blood.'

'I could have dealt with him like that!' Pompey snapped his fingers.

'But only after he had murdered the entire leadership of the senate, including me. Or perhaps you would have preferred that?'

'Of course not.'

'Because you know that was his intention? We found weapons stored within the city for that very purpose.'

Pompey glared at him, and this time Cicero stared him out: indeed, it was Pompey who turned away first. 'Well, I know nothing about any weapons,' he muttered. 'I can't argue with you, Cicero. I never could. You've always been too nimble-witted for me. The truth is, I'm more used to army life than politics.' He forced a smile. 'I suppose I must learn that I can no longer simply issue a command and expect the world to obey it. "Let arms to toga yield, laurels to words" - isn't that your line? "O, happy Rome, born in my consulship" - there, you see? There's another. You can tell what a student I have become of your work.'

Pompey was not normally a man for poetry, and it was immediately clear to me that the fact that he could recite these lines

from Cicero's consular epic - which had just started to be read all over Rome - was proof that he was dangerously jealous. Still, he somehow managed to bring himself to pat Cicero on the arm, and his courtiers exhaled with relief. They drifted away from the entrance, and gradually the sounds of the house resumed, whereupon Pompey - whose bonhomie could be as abrupt and disconcerting as his rages - suddenly announced that they should drink some wine. It was brought in by a very beautiful woman, whose name, I discovered afterwards, was Flora. She was one of the most famous courtesans in Rome and was living under Pompey's roof while he was between wives. She always wore a scarf around her neck, to conceal, she said, the bite marks Pompey inflicted when he was making love. She poured the wine demurely and then withdrew, while Pompey showed us Alexander's cloak, which had, he said, been found in Mithradates's private apartments. It looked very new to me, and I could see that Cicero was having difficulty keeping a straight face. Imagine,' he said in a hushed voice, feeling the material with great reverence, 'three hundred years old, and yet it looks as though it was made less than a decade ago.'

It has magical properties,' said Pompey. As long as I keep it by me, I am told no harm can befall me.' He became very serious as he showed Cicero to the door. 'Speak to Celer, will you, and the others, on my behalf? I promised my veterans that I would give them land, and Pompey the Great can't be seen to go back on his word.'

'I'll do everything I can.'

'I'd prefer to work through the senate, but if I have to find my friends elsewhere, I shall. You can tell them I said that.'

As we walked home, Cicero said, 'Did you hear him? "I know nothing about any weapons"! Our Pharaoh may be a great general, but he is a terrible liar.'

'What are you going to do?'

"What else can I do? Support him, of course. I don't like it when he says he might try to find his friends elsewhere. At all costs I must try to keep him out of the arms of Caesar.'

And so Cicero put aside his distaste and his suspicions and did the rounds on Pompey's behalf, just as he had done years before when he was merely a rising senator. It was yet another lesson to me in politics - an occupation that, if it is to be pursued successfully, demands the most extraordinary reserves of self-discipline, a quality that the naive often mistake for hypocrisy.

First, Cicero invited Lucullus to dinner and spent several fruitless hours trying to persuade him to abandon his opposition to Pompey's bills; but Lucullus would never forgive The Pharaoh for taking all the credit for the defeat of Mithradates, and flatly refused to co-operate. Next, Cicero tried Hortensius, and received the same response. He even went to see Crassus, who, despite clearly wishing to destroy his visitor, nevertheless received him very civilly. He sat back in his chair with the tips of his fingers pressed together and his eyes half closed, listening to Cicero's appeal and relishing every word.

'So,' he summarised, 'Pompey fears he will lose face if his bills don't pass, and he asks me to set aside past enmities and give him my support, for the sake of the republic?'

'That's it.'

'Well, I have not forgotten the way he tried to take the credit for defeating Spartacus - a victory that was entirely mine - and you can tell him that I would not raise a hand to help him even if my life depended on it. How is your new house, by the way?'

'Very fine, thank you.'

After that Cicero decided to approach Metellus Celer, who was now consul-elect. It took him a while to summon up the nerve to go next door: this would be the first time he had stepped over the threshold since Clodius committed his outrage at the Good Goddess ceremony. In fact, like Crassus, Celer could not have been friendlier. The prospect of power suited him - he had been bred for it, like a racehorse - and he too listened judiciously as Cicero made out his case.

«I no more care for Pompey's hauteur than you do,' concluded Cicero, .'but the fact remains that he is by far the most powerful man in the world, and it will be a disaster if he ends up alienated from the senate. But that is what will happen if we don't try to give him his legislation.'

'You think he will retaliate?'

'He says he will have no option except to find his friends elsewhere, which obviously means the tribunes or, even worse, Caesar. And if he follows that route, we'll have popular assemblies, vetoes, riots, paralysis, the people and the senate at one another's throats - in short, a disaster.'

'That's a grim picture, I agree,' said Celer, 'but I'm afraid I cannot help you.'

'Even for the sake of the country?'

'By divorcing my sister in such a public fashion, Pompey humiliated her. He also insulted me, my brother and all my family. I've learned what sort of man he is: utterly untrustworthy, interested only in himself. You should beware of him, Cicero.'

'You have good cause for grievance, no one can doubt that. But think what magnanimity it would show if you were able to say in your inaugural address that for the good of the nation Pompey should be accommodated.'

'It would not show magnanimity. It would show weakness.

The Metelli may not be the oldest family in Rome, or the grandest, but we have become the most successful, and we have done it by never yielding an inch to our enemies. Do you know that creature we have as our heraldic symbol?'

'The elephant?'

'The elephant, that's right. We have it because our ancestors beat the Carthaginians, but also because an elephant is the animal our family most resembles. It is massive, it moves slowly, it never forgets, and it always prevails.'

'Yes, and it is also quite stupid, and therefore easily caught.'

'Maybe,' agreed Celer, with a twitch of annoyance. 'But then you set too great a store by cleverness, in my opinion,' and he stood to signal that the interview was over.

He led us into the atrium with its huge display of consular death masks, and as we crossed the marbled floor he gestured to his ancestors, as if all those massed bland, dead faces proved his point more eloquently than any words. We had just reached the entrance hall when Clodia appeared with her maids. I have no idea whether this was coincidental or deliberate, but I suspect the latter, for she was very elaborately coiffed and made up, considering the hour of the morning: 'In full night-time battle rig,' as Cicero said afterwards. He bowed his head to her.

'Cicero,' she responded, 'you have become a stranger to me.'

'True, alas, but not by choice.'

Celer said, 'I was told you two had become great friends while I was away I'm glad to see you speaking again.' When I heard those words, and the casual way he uttered them, I knew at once that he had no idea of his wife's reputation. He possessed that curious innocence about the civilian world which I have noticed in many professional soldiers.

'You are well, I trust, Clodia?' enquired Cicero politely.

'I am prospering.' She looked at him from under her long lashes. And so is my brother in Sicily - despite your efforts.'

She flashed him a smile that was as warm as a blade and swept on, leaving the faintest wash of perfume in her wake. Celer shrugged and said, "Well, there it is. I wish she talked to you as much as she does to this damned poet who's always trailing round after her. But she's very loyal to Clodius.'

And does he still plan to become a plebeian?' asked Cicero. 'I wouldn't have thought having a pleb in the family would have gone down at all well with your illustrious ancestors.'

'It will never happen.' Celer checked to see that Clodia was out of earshot. 'Between you and me, I think the fellow is an absolute disgrace.'

This exchange, at least, cheered Cicero, but otherwise all his politicking had come to nothing, and the following day, as a last resort, he went to see Cato. The stoic lived in a fine but artfully neglected house on the Aventine, which smelled of stale food and unwashed clothes and offered nothing to sit on except hard wooden chairs. The walls were undecorated. There were no carpets. Through an open door I caught a glimpse of two plain and solemn teenage girls at work on their sewing, and I wondered if those were the daughters or nieces Pompey had wanted to marry. How different Rome would have been if only Cato had consented to the match! We were shown by a limping porter into a small and gloomy chamber, where Cato conducted his official business beneath a bust of Zeno. Once again Cicero laid out the case for making a compromise with Pompey, but Cato, like the others before him, would have none of it.

'He has too much power as it is,' said Cato, repeating his familiar complaint. 'If we let his veterans form colonies

throughout Italy, he'll have a standing army at his beck and call. And why in the name of heaven should we be expected to confirm all his treaties without examining them one by one? Are we the supreme governing body of the Roman republic or little girls to be told where to sit and what to do?'

'True,' said Cicero, 'but we have to face reality. When I went to see him, he could not have made his intentions plainer: if we won't work with him, he'll get a tribune to lay the legislation he wants before a popular assembly, and that will mean endless conflict. Or, worse, he'll throw in his lot with Caesar when he gets back from Spain.'

'What are you afraid of? Conflict can be healthy. Nothing good comes except through struggle.'

'There's nothing good about a struggle between people and senate, believe me. It will be like Clodius's trial, only worse.'

Ah!' Cato's fanatical eyes widened. 'You are confusing separate issues there. Clodius was acquitted not because of the mob but because of a bribed jury. And there's an obvious remedy for jury-bribing, which I intend to pursue.'

'What do you mean by that?'

'I intend to lay a bill before the house that will remove from all jurors who are not senators their traditional immunity to prosecution for bribery.'

Cicero clutched his hair. 'You can't dothatl'

'Why not?'

'Because it will look like an attack by the senate on the people!'

'It's no such thing. It's an attack by the senate on dishonesty and corruption.'

'Maybe so, but in politics, how things look is often more important than what they are.'

'Then politics needs to change.'

At least, I beg you, don't do it now - not on top of everything else ’

'It's never too soon to right a wrong ’

'Now listen to me, Cato. Your integrity may be second to none, but it obliterates your good sense, and if you carry on like this, your noble intentions will destroy our country ’