Robert Harris - Lustrum

'They flaunt their wealth,' he murmured, 'and then they wonder why they are so hated. And if that is how stupendously rich Lucullus has become, who never actually defeated Mithradates, can you imagine the colossal wealth that Pompey must now possess?'

I could not imagine it, and nor did I wish to. It sickened me. Never before had the pointlessness of piling up treasure for its own sake been more apparent to me than it was on that warm blue morning as the house receded behind me.

Now that he had settled on his strategy, Cicero was eager to pursue it, and for that we needed to return to Rome. As far as he was concerned, the holiday was over. Reaching the seaside villa at Formiae at dusk, we rested overnight, and then set off again at first light. If Terentia was irritated by this neglect of her and the children, she did not show it. She knew he would travel quicker without them. We were back in Rome by the Ides of April, and Cicero at once set about making discreet contact with Murena. The governor was still in his province of Further Gaul, but it turned out he had sent back his lieutenant, Clodius, to start planning his election campaign. Cicero hummed and hawed about what to do, for he did not trust Clodius, and nor did he want to tip off his plans to Caesar and Catilina by going openly to the young man's house. Eventually he decided to approach him via his brother-in-law, the augur Metellus Celer, and this led to a memorable encounter.

Celer lived up on the Palatine Hill, on Victory Rise, close to the house of Catulus, in a street of fine residences overlooking the forum. Cicero reasoned that nobody would find it surprising to see a consul dropping by to visit a praetor. But when we entered the mansion, we discovered that its master was away for the day on a hunting trip. Only his wife was at home, and it was she who came out to greet us, accompanied by several maids. As far as I am aware, this was the first occasion on which Cicero met Clodia, and she made a striking impression on him of beauty and of cleverness. She was thirty or thereabouts, famous for her large brown eyes with long lashes – 'Lady Ox-Eyes', Cicero used to call her – which she employed to great effect, giving men flirtatious sidelong glances, or fixing them with beguiling and intimate stares. She had an expressive mouth and a caressing voice, pitched for gossip. Like her brother, she affected a fashionable 'urban' accent. But woe betide the man who tried to be too familiar with her – she was capable of turning in an instant into a true Claudian: haughty, ruthless, cruel. A rake named Vettius, who had tried to seduce her and failed, circulated quite a good pun about her: in triclinio Coa, in cubiculo nola ('a silky island in the dining room, a rocky fortress in bed'), with the result that two of her other admirers, M. Camurtius and M. Caesernius, took revenge on her behalf: they beat him up, and then, to make the punishment fit the crime, they buggered him half to death.

One would have thought this a world utterly alien to Cicero, and yet there was a part of his character – a quarter of him, let us say – that was irresistibly drawn to the rakish and the outrageous, even while the other three quarters thundered in the senate against loose morals. Perhaps it was the streak of the actor in him; he always loved the company of theatre people. He also liked men and women who were not boring, and no one could ever say that Clodia was that. At any rate, each expressed great pleasure at meeting the other, and when Clodia, with one of her wide-eyed sideways looks, asked in her breathy voice if there was anything – anything at all – she could do for Cicero in her husband's absence, he replied that actually there was: he would like to have a private word with her brother.

'Appius or Gaius?' she asked, assuming he must mean one of the older two, each of whom was as stern and humourless and ambitious as the other.

'Neither. I wanted to talk to Publius.'

'Publius! The wicked boy! You have picked my favourite.' She sent a slave at once to fetch him, no doubt from whichever gambling den or brothel was his current haunt, and while they awaited his arrival, she and Cicero strolled around the atrium, studying the death masks of Celer's consular ancestors. I withdrew quietly into the shadows and therefore I could not hear what they were saying, but I heard their laughter, and I realised that the source of their amusement was the frozen, waxy faces of generation after generation of Metelli – who were, it must be admitted, famed for their stupidity.

At length Clodius swept into the house, gave a low and (I thought) sarcastic bow to the consul, kissed his sister lovingly on the mouth, and then stood with his arm around her waist. He had been in Gaul for more than a year, but had not changed much. He was still as pretty as a woman, with thick golden curls, loose clothes, and a drooping way of looking at the world that was full of condescension. To this day I cannot decide whether he and Clodia really were lovers, or whether they simply enjoyed outraging respectable society. But I learnt afterwards that Clodius behaved this way with all three of his sisters in public, and certainly Lucullus had believed the rumours of incest.

Anyway, if Cicero was shocked, he did not show it. Smiling his apologies to Clodia, he asked if he might be allowed a word with her younger brother in private. 'Well, all right,' she replied with mock reluctance, 'but I am very jealous,' and after a final lingering, flirtatious handshake with the consul, she disappeared into the interior of the great house, leaving the three of us alone. Cicero and Clodius exchanged a few pleasantries about Further Gaul and the arduousness of the journey across the Alps, and then Cicero said, 'Now tell me, Clodius, is it true that your chief, Murena, is going to seek the consulship?'

'It is.'

'That's what I'd heard. It surprised me, I must confess. How do you think he can possibly win?'

'Easily. There are any number of ways.'

'Really? Give me one.'

'Obligation: the people still remember the generous games he staged before he was elected praetor.'

'Before he was elected praetor? My dear fellow, that was three years ago! In politics, three years is ancient history. Believe me, Murena is entirely forgotten here. Out of sight is out of mind, as far as Rome is concerned. I ask again: where do you propose to find the votes?'

Clodius maintained his smile. 'I believe many of the centuries will support him.'

'Why? The patricians will vote for Silanus and Servius. The populists will vote for Silanus and Catilina. Who will be left to vote for Murena?'

'Give us time, Consul. The new campaign hasn't even started yet.'

'The new campaign started the moment the old one ended. You should have been going around all year. And who will run this miraculous canvass?'

'I shall.'

' You? '

Cicero uttered the word with such derision I winced, and even Clodius's arrogance seemed briefly dented. 'I have some experience.'

'What experience? You're not even a member of the senate.'

'Well then, damn you! Why did you bother even coming to see me if you're so certain we're going to lose?'

His expression was one of such outrage, Cicero burst out laughing. 'Who said anything about losing? Did I? Young fellow,' he continued, putting his arm around Clodius's shoulders, 'I know a thing or two about winning elections, and I can tell you this: you have every chance of winning – just as long as you do exactly as I tell you. But you need to wake up before it's too late. That is why I wanted to see you.'

And so saying, he walked Clodius round and round the atrium and explained his plan, while I followed with my notebook open and took down his directions.

Cicero informed only the most trusted senators of his intention to propose a triumph for Lucullus – men like his brother Quintus; the former consul C. Piso; the praetors Pomptinus and Flaccus; friends such as Gallus, Marcellinus and the elder Frugi; and the patrician leaders Hortensius, Catulus and Isauricus. They in turn initiated others into the scheme. All were sworn to secrecy, told on which day to attend the chamber and requested above everything to keep together, whatever happened, until the house adjourned. Cicero did not tell Hybrida.