Robert Harris: Lustrum

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 then 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?'