Robert Harris - Lustrum

'Are they warlike?'

'Very. If I could hint to them that their petition might be looked at favourably, I'm sure they'd be willing to do something in return…'

After he had gone, Cicero said to me: 'You disapprove?'

'It's not my place to pass judgement, Consul.'

'Oh, but you do disapprove! I can see it in your face! You think it's somehow dishonourable to lay a trap. But shall I tell you what's dishonourable, Tiro? What's dishonourable is to go on living in a city that you are secretly plotting to destroy! If Sura has no treasonous intentions, he will send those Gauls packing. But if he agrees to consider their proposals, I shall have him, and then I shall take him personally to the gates of the city and fling him out, and let Celer and his armies finish him off. And no one can say there is anything dishonourable about that!'

He spoke with such vehemence he almost convinced me.

The trial of the consul-elect, Licinius Murena, on a charge of electoral corruption, began on the Ides of November and was scheduled to last two weeks. Servius and Cato led for the prosecution; Hortensius, Cicero and Crassus for the defence. It was a huge affair, staged in the forum, the jury alone numbering nine hundred. These jurors were made up of equal proportions of senators, knights and respectable citizens; there were too many members for the jury to be rigged, which was the intention behind having such a large number, but it also made it hard to tell which way they would vote. The prosecution certainly laid out a formidable case. Servius had plenty of evidence of Murena's bribery, which he presented in his dry legal manner, and he went on at great length about Cicero's betrayal of their friendship by appearing for the accused. Cato took the stoic line and inveighed against the rottenness of an age in which office could be bought by feasts and games. 'Did you not,' he thundered at Murena, 'seek supreme power, supreme authority, the very government of the state, by pandering to men's senses, bewitching their minds and plying them with pleasures? Did you think you were asking a gang of spoilt youths for a job as a pimp or the Roman people for world dominion?'

Murena was not at all happy with this, and had to be calmed throughout by young Clodius, his campaign manager, who sat beside him day after day and tried to keep his spirits up with witty remarks. As for his defence counsel – well, Murena could hardly have hoped for better. Hortensius, still bruised from his mauling during the trial of Rabirius, was determined to show he could still command a court, and he had a great deal of sport at Servius's expense. Crassus, it was true, was not much of an advocate, but his mere presence on the defence's bench carried weight in itself. As for Cicero, he was being kept in reserve for the final day of the trial, when he was due to make the summing-up to the jury.

Throughout the hearing he sat on the rostra, reading and writing, and only occasionally looking up and pretending to be shocked or amused by what had just been said. I squatted behind him, handing him documents and receiving instructions. Little of this was to do with the case, for as well as having to attend the court each day, Cicero was now in sole charge of Rome, and was sunk up to his ears in administration. From the entire length of Italy came reports of disturbances: in the heel and in the toe, in the knee and in the thigh. Celer had his hands full arresting malcontents in Picenum. There were even rumours that Catilina might be about to take the ultimate step and recruit slaves to the rebel army in return for emancipation – if that happened, the whole country would soon be in flames. More troops had to be levied and Cicero persuaded Hybrida to take command of a new army. He did this partly to show a united front, but chiefly to get Hybrida out of the city, for he was still not entirely convinced of his colleague's loyalty and did not want him in Rome if Sura and the other conspirators decided to make their move. It seemed to me madness to give an entire army to a man he did not trust, but Cicero was no fool. He appointed a senator with almost thirty years' military experience, M. Petreius, as Hybrida's second in command, and gave Petreius sealed orders that were only to be opened in the event that the army looked likely to have to fight.

As the winter arrived, the republic seemed to be on the brink of collapse. At a public assembly, Metellus Nepos made a violent attack on Cicero's consulship, accusing him of every possible crime and folly – dictatorship, weakness, rashness, cowardice, complacency, incompetence. 'How long,' he demanded, 'must the people of Rome be denied the services of the one man who could deliver them from this miserable situation – Gnaeus Pompey, so rightly surnamed “the Great”?' Cicero did not attend the assembly but was given a full report of what was said.

Just before the end of Murena's trial – I think it must have been the first day of December – Cicero received an early-morning visit from Sanga. The senator came in with his little eyes shining, as well they might, because he brought momentous news. The Gauls had done as he had requested and had approached Sura's freedman, Umbrenus, in the forum. Their conversation had been entirely friendly and natural. The Gauls had bemoaned their lot, cursed the senate, and declared that they agreed with the words of Catilina: death was preferable to living in this condition of slavery. Pricking up his ears, Umbrenus had suggested they continue their discussion somewhere more private, and had taken them to the home of Decimus Brutus, which was close by. Brutus himself – an aristocrat who had been consul some fourteen years previously – had nothing to do with the conspiracy and was away from Rome, but his wife, a clever and sinuous woman, was one of Catilina's many amours, and it was she who suggested they should make common cause. Umbrenus went off to fetch one of the leaders of the plot, and returned with the knight Capito, who swore the Gauls to secrecy and said that the uprising in the city would be starting any day now. As soon as Catilina and the rebels were close to Rome, the newly elected tribune Bestia would call a public assembly and demand that Cicero be arrested. This would be the signal for a general uprising. Capito and a fellow knight, Statilius, at the head of a large body of arsonists, would start fires in twelve locations. In the ensuing panic the young senator Cethegus would lead the death squad that had volunteered to murder Cicero; others would assassinate the various victims allotted to them; many young men would kill their fathers; the senate house would be stormed.

'And how did the Gauls respond?' asked Cicero.

'As instructed, they asked for a list of men who supported the conspiracy,' replied Sanga, 'so they could gauge its chances of success.' He produced a wax tablet, crammed with names written in tiny letters. 'Sura,' he read, 'Longinus, Bestia, Sulla-'

'We know all this,' interrupted Cicero, but Sanga held up his finger.

'-Caesar, Hybrida, Crassus, Nepos-'

'But this is a fantasy, surely?' Cicero took the tablet from Sanga's hand and scanned the list. 'They want to make themselves sound stronger than they are.'

'That I can't judge. I can only tell you that those were the names Capito provided.'

'A consul, the chief priest, a tribune and the richest man in Rome, who has already denounced the conspiracy? I don't believe it.' Nevertheless, Cicero threw the tablet to me. 'Copy them out,' he ordered, and then he shook his head. 'Well, well – be careful of what questions you ask, for fear of what answers you may receive.' It was one of his favourite maxims from the law courts.

'What should I tell the Gauls to do next?' asked Sanga.

'If that list is correct, I should advise them to join the conspiracy! When exactly did this meeting take place?'