Robert Harris - Lustrum

The following day, Pompey's soldiers were back on the streets again. They had spent the night celebrating and now they had shifted their attention to the senate house, crowding into the forum, waiting to see if the senate would dare to challenge the legality of what had happened. They left a narrow gangway through their ranks, wide enough for three or four men to walk abreast, and I found it intimidating to pass among them beside Cicero, even though the greetings they called out were friendly enough: 'Come on, Cicero!' 'Cicero – don't forget us!' Inside, I had never seen a more dejected assembly. It was the first day of the new month, and Bibulus, who had a bandage around his forehead, was in the chair. He rose at once and demanded that the house condemn the disgraceful violence of the previous day. He further insisted that the law be declared invalid because the auguries had been unfavourable. But nobody was willing to take such a step – not with several hundred armed men outside. Confronted by their silence, Bibulus lost his temper.

'The government of this republic has become a travesty,' he shouted, 'and I shall take no further part in it! You have shown yourselves unworthy of the name of the Roman senate. I shall not summon you to meet on any day when I am consul. Stay in your homes, gentlemen, as I shall do, and look into your souls, and ask yourselves if you have played your parts with honour.'

Many of his listeners bowed their heads in shame. But Caesar, who was sitting between Pompey and Crassus, and who had been listening to this with a faint smile, immediately rose and said, 'Before Marcus Bibulus and his soul depart the chamber and this house is adjourned for a month, I would remind you gentlemen that this law obliges us all to swear an oath to uphold it. I therefore propose that we should go together now, as a body, to the Area Capitolina and take that oath, so that we may show publicly our unity with the people.'

Cato jumped up. He had his arm in a sling. 'This is an outrage!' he protested, no doubt stung to find the moral high ground temporarily taken from him by Bibulus. 'I shan't sign your illegal law!'

'And nor shall I,' echoed Celer, who had delayed setting out for Further Gaul in order to oppose Caesar. Several others called out the same – among them I noticed young Marcus Favonius, who was an acolyte of Cato's, and the ex-consul Lucius Gellius, who was well into his seventies.

'Then on your own heads be it,' said Caesar with a shrug. 'But remember: the penalty for refusing to comply with the law may be death.'

I had not expected Cicero to speak, but very slowly he got to his feet, and it was a tribute to his authority that the whole chamber was immediately stilled. 'I do not mind this man's law,' he said, staring directly at Caesar, 'although I deplore and condemn absolutely the methods by which he has forced it upon us. Nevertheless,' he continued, turning to the rest of the chamber, 'the law it is, and the people want it, and it requires us to take this oath. Therefore I say to Cato and to Celer, and to any other of my friends who contemplate making dead heroes of themselves: the people will not understand your action, for you cannot oppose illegality by illegality and hope to command respect. Hard times lie ahead, gentlemen, and although you may not feel you need Rome any more, Rome has need of you. Preserve yourselves for the battles yet to come rather than sacrificing yourselves uselessly in one that is already lost.'

It was a most effective speech, and when the senators filed out of the chamber, almost all of them followed the Father of the Nation towards the Capitol, where the oath was to be sworn. Once Pompey's soldiers saw what the senate intended to do, they cheered them loudly (Bibulus, Cato and Celer went up later, when no one was looking). The sacred stone of Jupiter, which had fallen from the heavens many centuries earlier, was fetched out from the great temple, and the senators lined up to place their hands on it and promise to obey the law. But Caesar, even though they were all doing what he wanted, was clearly troubled. I saw him go up to Cicero and take him to one side and speak to him with great seriousness. Afterwards I asked Cicero what he had said. 'He thanked me for my leadership in the senate,' Cicero replied, 'but said he did not care for the tone of my remarks, and hoped that I did not plan to cause him and Pompey and Crassus any trouble, for if I did he would be obliged to retaliate, and that would pain him. He had given me my chance, he said, to join his administration and I had rejected it, and now I must bear the consequences. How do you like that for a piece of effrontery?' He swore roundly, which was unusual for him, and added, 'Catulus was right: I should have beheaded that snake when I had the chance.'

Despite his resentment, Cicero kept out of public life for the whole of the next month – an easy matter, as it turned out, as the senate did not meet. Bibulus locked himself away in his house and refused to move, whereupon Caesar declared that he would govern through assemblies of the people, which Vatinius, as tribune, would summon on his behalf. Bibulus retaliated by letting it be known that he was perpetually on his roof, studying the auguries, and that they were consistently unfavourable – thus no official business could legally be transacted. Caesar responded by organising noisy demonstrations in the street outside Bibulus's home, and by continuing to pass his laws via the public assemblies regardless of what his colleague said. (Cicero wittily remarked that Rome seemed to be living under the joint consulship of Julius and Caesar.) It sounded legitimate when one put it that way – governing through the people: what could be fairer? – but really 'the people' were the mob, controlled by Vatinius, and any who opposed what Caesar wanted were quickly silenced. Rome had become a dictatorship in all but name, and most respectable senators were appalled. But with Pompey and Crassus supporting Caesar, few dared speak out against him.

Cicero would have preferred to stay in his library and continue to avoid trouble. But in the midst of all this turmoil, towards the end of March, he was obliged to go down to the treason tribunal in the forum to defend Hybrida. To his huge embarrassment, the hearing was scheduled to be held in the comitium itself, just outside the senate house. The curved steps of the rostra, rising like the seats of an amphitheatre, had been cordoned off to form the court, and a large crowd was already clustered around it, eager to see what possible defence the famous orator could come up with for a client who was so manifestly guilty. 'Well, Tiro,' Cicero said to me under his breath as I opened the document case and handed him his notes, 'here is the proof that the gods have a sense of humour – that I should have to appear in this place, as the advocate for this rogue!' He turned and smiled at Hybrida, who was himself at that moment climbing laboriously up on to the platform. 'Good morning to you, Hybrida. I trust you have avoided the wine at breakfast, as you promised? We shall need to keep clear wits about us today.'

'Of course,' replied Hybrida. But it was obvious from the way he stumbled on the steps, as well as from his slurred speech, that he had not been as abstemious as he claimed.

Apart from me and his usual team of clerks, Cicero had also brought along his son-in-law, Frugi, to act as his junior. Rufus, in contrast, appeared alone, and the moment I saw him striding across the comitium towards us, with only one secretary in attendance, I felt what little confidence I had evaporate. Rufus was not yet twenty-three and had just completed a year in Africa on the staff of the governor. A youth had gone out, a man had returned, and I reckoned the contrast between this tall and sunburnt prosecutor and the fleshy, ruined Hybrida was worth a dozen jury votes even before the trial had started. Nor did Cicero come well out of the comparison. He was twice the age of Rufus, and when he went over to his opponent to shake his hand and wish him good luck, he appeared stooped and care-worn. It was like a tableau on the wall of the baths: Juventus versus Senex, with sixty jurymen arrayed in tiers behind them, and the praetor, the haughty Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus, seated between them in the judge's chair.