Conspirata (5 page)

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 immense 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?'

'Rullus!' boomed the senate.

'Who alone is guaranteed a place as a commissioner?'

'
Rullus'

'Who wrote the bill?'

'Rullus!'
And the house collapsed in tears of laughter at its own wit, while poor Rullus flushed pink and looked this way and that as if seeking somewhere to hide. Cicero must have gone on for half an hour in this fashion, clause by clause, quoting the bill and mocking it and shredding it, in such savage terms that the senators around Caesar and on the tribunes' bench began to look distinctly grim. To think that he had had only an hour or so to collect his thoughts was marvellous. He denounced it as an attack on Pompey - who could not stand for election to the commission in absentia - and as an attempt to re-establish the kings in the guise of commissioners. He quoted freely from the bill - 'The ten commissioners shall settle any colonists they like in whatever towns and districts they choose, and assign them lands wherever they please' - and made its bland language sound like a call for tyranny.

'What then? What kind of settlement will be made in those lands? What will be the method and arrangement of the whole affair? "Colonies will be settled there," Rullus says. Where? Of what kind of men? In what places? Did you, Rullus, think that we should hand over to you, and to the real architects of your schemes' - and here he pointed directly at Caesar and Crassus - 'the whole of Italy unarmed, that you might strengthen it with garrisons, occupy it with colonies, and hold it bound and fettered by every kind of chain?'

There were shouts of 'No!' and 'Never!' from the patrician benches. Cicero extended his hand and averted his gaze from it, in the classic gesture of rejection. 'Such things as these

I will resist passionately and vigorously. Nor will I, while I am consul, allow men to set forth those plans against the state which they have long had in mind. I have decided to carry on my consulship in the only manner in which it can be conducted with dignity and freedom. I will never seek to obtain a province, any honours, any distinctions or advantage, nor anything that a tribune of the people can prevent me from obtaining.'

He paused to emphasise his meaning. I had my head down, writing, but at that I looked up sharply. I will never seek to obtain a province. Had he really just said that? I could not believe it. As the implications of his words sank in, the senators began to murmur.

'Yes,' said Cicero, over the swelling notes of disbelief, 'your consul, on this first of January, in a crowded senate, declares that, if the republic continues in its present state, and unless some danger arises that he cannot honourably avoid meeting, he will not accept the government of a province.'

I glanced across the aisle to where Quintus was sitting. He looked as if he had just swallowed a wasp. Macedonia - that shimmering prospect of wealth and luxury, of independence from a lifetime of drudgery in the law courts - was gone!

'Our republic has many hidden wounds,' declared Cicero, in the sombre tone he always used in peroration. 'Many wicked designs of evil citizens are being formed. Yet there is no external danger. No king, no people, no nation is to be feared. The evil is confined entirely within our gates. It is internal and domestic. It is the duty of each of us to remedy it to the best of our power. If you promise me your zeal in upholding the common dignity, I will certainly fulfil the most ardent wish of the republic - that the authority of this order, which existed in the time of    our ancestors, may now, after a long interval, be seen to be restored to the state.' And with that he sat down.

Well, it certainly was a memorable address, and accorded with Cicero's first law of rhetoric, that a speech must always contain at least one surprise. But the shocks were not over yet. It was the custom when the presiding consul had finished his opening remarks for him to call next upon his colleague to give his opinion. The loud applause of the majority, and the catcalls from the, benches around Catilina and Caesar, had barely died away, when Cicero shouted out, 'The house recognises Antonius Hybridal'

Hybrida, who was sitting on the front bench nearest Cicero, glanced sheepishly across at Caesar, then got to his feet. 'This bill that's been proposed by Rullus - from what I've seen of it

I have to say - in my opinion - given the state of the republic  it's really not such a good idea.' He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. 'So I'm against it,' he said, and sat down
abruptly
.

After a moment's silence a great noise poured out from the senate, made up of all kinds of emotions - derision, anger, pleasure, shock. It was clear that Cicero had just pulled off a remarkable political coup, for everyone had taken it as certain that Hybrida would support his allies the populists. Now he had reversed himself entirely, and his motivation could not be more obvious - with Cicero ruling himself out of the running for a province, Macedonia would be his after all! The patrician senators on the benches behind Hybrida were leaning forward and clapping him on the back in sarcastic congratulations, and he was squirming at their taunts and looking nervously across the aisle at his erstwhile friends. Catilina seemed stupefied, like a man turned to stone. As for Caesar, he simply leaned back and  folded his arms and studied the ceiling of the temple, shaking his head and smiling slightly, while the pandemonium continued.

The rest of the session was an anticlimax. Cicero worked his way down the list of praetors and then began calling the former consuls, asking each his opinion of Rullus's bill. They split exactly along factional lines. Cicero did not even call Caesar: he was still too junior, having not yet held imperium. The only really menacing note was struck by Catilina. 'You have called yourself the people's consul,' he sneered at Cicero, when at long last his turn came to speak. "Well, we shall see what the people have to say about that!' But the day belonged to the new consul, and when the light began to fade and he declared the session adjourned until after the Latin Festival, the patricians escorted him out of the temple and across the city to his home as if he were one of their own, rather than a despised 'new man'.

Cicero was in a great good humour as he stepped across the threshold, for nothing is more pleasing in politics than to catch your opponents off guard, and the defection of Hybrida was all that anyone could talk about. Quintus, however, was furious, and the moment the house was at last emptied of well-wishers, he turned on his brother with an anger I had never before witnessed. It was all the more embarrassing because Atticus and Terentia were also present.

'Why did you not consult any of us before giving away your province?' he demanded.

'What does it matter? The effect is what counts. You were sitting opposite them. Whom did you think looked sicker -Caesar or Crassus?'

But Quintus was not to be deflected. 'When was this decided?'

'To be honest, I've had it in mind ever since I drew the lot for Macedonia

At this, Quintus threw up his hands in exasperation. 'Do you mean to say that when we were talking to you last night, you'd already made up your mind?'

'More or less.'

'But why didn't you tell us?'

'First, because I knew you'd disagree. Second, because I thought there was still just a chance Caesar might produce a bill I could support. And third, because what I choose to do with my province is my business.'