Robert Harris: Lustrum

Everyone had assumed that if Caesar remarried it would be to Servilia, who had been his mistress for several years, and whose husband, the former consul, Junius Silanus, had recently died. Indeed, around this time, such a marriage was rumoured actually to have taken place, when Servilia attended a dinner wearing a pearl that she announced the consul had given her, and which was worth sixty thousand gold pieces. But no: the very next week, Caesar took as his bride the daughter of Lucius Calpurnius Piso – a long, thin, plain girl of twenty, of whom no one had ever heard. After some deliberation, Cicero decided not to send his wedding gift round to Caesar by courier, but to hand it to him personally. Again it was a dish of silver with engraved initials; again it was in a sandalwood box; and again I was charged with looking after it. I duly waited with it outside the senate until the session was over, and when Caesar and Cicero strolled out together I took it over to them.

'This is just a small gift from Terentia and me to you and Calpurnia,' said Cicero, taking it out of my hands and giving it to Caesar, 'to wish you both a long and happy marriage.'

'Thank you,' said Caesar, 'that is thoughtful of you,' and without looking at it he passed the box to one of his attendants. 'Perhaps,' he added, 'while you're in this generous mood, you could also give us your vote.'

'My vote?'

'Yes, my wife's father is standing for the consulship.'

'Ah,' said Cicero, a look of comprehension spreading across his face, 'now it all makes sense. Frankly, I had wondered why you were marrying Calpurnia.'

'Rather than Servilia?' Caesar smiled and shrugged. 'That's politics.'

'And how is Servilia?'

'She understands.' Caesar seemed about to move on, then checked himself, as if he had just remembered something. 'Incidentally, what are you planning to do about our mutual friend Clodius?'

'I never give him a moment's thought,' replied Cicero. (This was a lie, of course: in truth he thought of little else.)

'That's wise,' nodded Caesar. 'He isn't worth the waste of one's mental processes. Still, I wonder what he will do when he becomes tribune.'

'I expect he will bring a prosecution against me.'

'That shouldn't worry you. You could beat him in any court in Rome.'

'He must know that too. Therefore I expect he will choose ground more favourable to him. A special court of some kind – one that ensures I am judged by the whole of the Roman people on the Field of Mars.'

'That would be harder for you.'

'I have armed myself with the facts and stand ready to defend myself. Besides, I seem to remember I beat you on the Field of Mars, when you brought a charge against Rabirius.'

'Don't bring that up! I still bear the scars!' Caesar's sharp and mirthless laughter stopped as abruptly as it had started. 'Listen, Cicero, if he does become a threat, never forget that I would stand ready to help you.'

Obviously taken aback by the offer, Cicero enquired, 'Really? How?'

'With this combined command I shall be heavily involved in military campaigning. I'll need a legate to handle civil administration in Gaul. You would fill the post ideally. You wouldn't actually have to spend much time there – you could come back to Rome as often as you liked. But if I put you on my staff, it would give you immunity from prosecution. Think about it. Now, if you will excuse me?' And with a polite nod he moved off to deal with the dozen or so other senators who were clamouring for a word with him.

Cicero watched him go with amazement. 'That's a handsome offer,' he said, 'very handsome indeed. We must send him a letter saying we'll bear it in mind, just so we have it on the record.'

That was what we did. And when Caesar replied the same day confirming that the legateship was Cicero's if he wanted it, Cicero for the first time began to feel more confident.

That year's elections were held later than usual, thanks to Bibulus's repeated intercessions claiming that the auguries were unfavourable. But the evil day could not be postponed for ever, and in October Clodius achieved his heart's ambition and topped the poll for tribune of the plebs. Cicero spared himself the torment of going down to the Field of Mars to listen to the result. In any case he did not need to: we could hear the roars of excitement without leaving the house.

On the tenth day of December, Clodius was sworn in as tribune. Again Cicero kept to his library. But the cheers were such that we could not escape them even with the doors closed and the windows shuttered, and presently word came up from the forum that Clodius had already posted details of his proposed legislation on the walls of the Temple of Saturn. 'He's not wasting his time,' said Cicero with a grim expression. 'Very well, Tiro. Go down and find out what fate Little Miss Beauty has in mind for us.'

My state of mind as I descended the steps to the forum was, as you can imagine, one of great trepidation. The meeting was over, but small groups of people stood around discussing what they had just heard. There was an excited atmosphere, as if they had all witnessed some spectacular event and needed to share their impressions with one another. I went over to the Temple of Saturn and had to shoulder my way through the crowds to see what all the fuss was about. Four bills had been pinned up. I took out my stylus and wax tablet. One was designed to stop any consul in the future behaving like Bibulus, by restricting the ancient right to proclaim unfavourable auguries. The second reduced the censors' powers to remove senators. The third allowed neighbourhood clubs to resume meeting (such associations had been banned by the senate six years previously for rowdy behaviour). And the fourth – the one that obviously had got everyone talking – entitled every citizen, for the first time in Rome's history, to a free monthly dole of bread.

I copied down the gist of each bill and hurried home to Cicero to report on their contents. He had his secret consular history unrolled on the table in front of him, and was ready to begin work on his defence. When I told him what Clodius was proposing, he sat back in his chair, thoroughly mystified. 'So, no word about me at all?'

'None.'

'Don't tell me he's planning to leave me alone after all his threatening talk.'

'Perhaps he's not as confident as he pretends.'

'Read me those bills again.' I did as he asked, and he listened with his eyes half closed, concentrating on every word. 'This is all very popular stuff,' he observed when I had finished. 'Free bread for life. A party on every street corner. No wonder it has gone down well.' He thought for a while. 'Do you know what he expects me to do, Tiro?'

'No.'

'He expects me to oppose these laws, merely because he is the one who has put them forward. He wants me to, in fact. Then he can turn round and say, “Look at Cicero, the friend of the rich! He thinks it is fine for senators to eat well and make merry, but woe betide the poor if they ask for a bit of bread and a chance to relax after their hard day's work!” You see? He plans to lure me into opposing him, then drag me before the plebs on the Field of Mars and accuse me of acting like a king. Well damn him! I shan't give him the satisfaction. I'll show him I can play a cleverer game than that.'

I am still not sure, if Cicero had set his mind to it, how much of Clodius's legislation he could have stopped. He had a tame tribune, Ninnius Quadratus, ready to use a veto on his behalf, and plenty of respectable citizens in the senate and among the equestrians would have come to his aid. These were the men who believed that free bread would make the poor dependent on the state and rot their morals. It would cost the treasury one hundred million sesterces a year and make the state itself dependent on revenues from abroad. They also thought that neighbourhood clubs fostered immoral pursuits, and that the organising of communal activities was best left to the official religious cults. In all this they may well have been right. But Cicero was more flexible. He recognised that times had changed. 'Pompey has flooded this republic with easy money,' he told me. 'That's what they forget. A hundred million is nothing to him. Either the poor will have their share or they will have our heads – and in Clodius they have found a leader.'