Imperium - Харрис Роберт - Страница 64

When Caelius rushed in to tell Cicero the following morning, the senator at first refused to believe him. All he knew of Clodius were the scandalous rumors, widely circulating, that he had slept with his own sister-indeed these rumors had lately taken on a more substantial form, and had been cited by Lucullus himself as one of the grounds on which he had divorced his wife. “What would such a creature be doing in the law courts,” scoffed Cicero, “except as a defendant?” But Caelius, in his cheeky way, retorted that if Cicero wanted proof of what he was saying, he need only pay a visit to the extortion court in the next hour or two, when Clodius was planning to submit his application to prosecute. Needless to say, this was a spectacle Cicero could not resist, and once he had seen his more important clients, he went down to his old haunt at the Temple of Castor, taking me and Caelius with him.

Already, in that mysterious way it does, news that something dramatic was about to happen had spread, and there was a crowd of a hundred or more hanging around the foot of the steps. The current praetor, a man named Orbius, afterwards governor of Asia, had just sat down in his curule chair and was looking around him, no doubt wondering what was up, when a group of six or seven smirking youths appeared, strolling from the direction of the Palatine, apparently without a care among them. They clearly fancied themselves the height of fashion, and I suppose they were, with their long hair and their little beards, and their thick, embroidered belts worn loosely around their waists. “By heavens, what a spectacle!” muttered Cicero as they pushed past us, trailing a fragrant wake of crocus oil and saffron unguents. “They look more like women than men!” One of their number detached himself from the rest and climbed the steps to the praetor. Midway up, he paused and turned to the crowd. He was, if I may express it vulgarly, “a pretty boy,” with long blond curls, thick, wet red lips, and a bronzed skin-a kind of young Apollo. But his voice when he spoke was surprisingly firm and masculine, marred only by his slangy, mock-plebeian accent, which rendered his family name as Clodius instead of Claudius: another of his fashionable affectations.

“I am Publius Clodius Pulcher, son of Appius Claudius Pulcher, consul, grandson of consuls in the direct line for the past eight generations, and I come this morning to lay charges in this court against Sergius Catilina for the crimes he lately committed in Africa.”

At the mention of Catilina’s name there was some muttering and whistling, and a big brute standing close to us shouted, “You want to watch your backside, girlie!”

But Clodius did not seem in the least concerned. “May my ancestors and the gods bless this undertaking, and bring it to a fruitful conclusion.” He trotted briskly up to Orbius and gave him the postulatus, all neatly bound up in a cylinder, with a seal and a red ribbon, while his supporters applauded noisily, Caelius among them, until Cicero silenced him with a look. “Run and find my brother,” he said to him. “Inform him of what has happened, and tell him we need to meet at once.”

“That is a job for a slave,” objected Caelius, with a pout, no doubt worried about losing face in front of his friends. “Surely Tiro here could go and fetch him?”

“Do as you are ordered,” snapped Cicero, “and while you are at it, find Frugi as well. And be grateful I have not yet told your father of the disreputable company you are keeping.” That made Caelius shift himself, and he disappeared out of the Forum toward the Temple of Ceres, where the plebeian aediles were normally to be found at that hour of the morning. “I have spoiled him,” Cicero said wearily, as we climbed the hill back to the house, “and do you know why? It is because he has charm, that most cursed of all the gifts, and I never can stop myself indulging someone with charm.”

As punishment, and also because he no longer fully trusted him, Cicero refused to let Caelius attend the day’s campaign meeting, but sent him off instead to write up a brief. He waited until he was out of the way before describing the morning’s events to Quintus and Frugi. Quintus was inclined to take a sanguine view, but Cicero was absolutely convinced that he would now have to fight Catilina for the consulship. “I have checked the calendar of the extortion court-you remember what that is like-and the truth is there is simply no chance of Catilina’s case being heard until July, which makes it impossible for him to be a consular candidate in this year. Therefore he comes inevitably into mine.” He suddenly pounded his fist on the desk and swore-a thing he rarely did. “I predicted exactly this outcome a year ago-Tiro is my witness.”

Quintus said, “Perhaps Catilina will be found guilty and sent into exile?”

“With that perfumed creature as his prosecutor? A man whom every slave in Rome knows to have been the lover of his own sister? No, no-you were right, Tiro. I should have taken down Catilina myself when I had the chance. He would have been easier to beat in court than he will be on the ballot.”

“Perhaps it is not too late,” I suggested. “Perhaps Clodius could be persuaded to yield the prosecution to you.”

“No, he will never do that,” said Cicero. “You had only to look at him-the arrogance of the fellow-a typical Claudian. This is his chance for glory, and he will not let it slip. You had better bring out our list of potential candidates, Tiro. We need to find ourselves a credible running mate-and quickly.”

In those days consular candidates usually submitted themselves to the electorate in pairs, for each citizen cast two votes for consul and it was obviously good tactics to form an alliance with a man who would complement one’s own strengths during the canvass. What Cicero needed to balance his ticket was someone with a distinguished name who had wide appeal among the aristocracy. In return, he could offer them his own popularity among the pedarii and the lower classes, and the support of the electoral machine which he had built up in Rome. He had always thought that this would be easy enough to arrange when the time came. But now, as we reviewed the names on the list, I saw why he was becoming so anxious. Palicanus would bring nothing to the ticket. Cornificius was an electoral no-hoper. Hybrida had only half a brain. That left Galba and Gallus. But Galba was so aristocratic, he would have nothing to do with Cicero, and Gallus-despite all Cicero’s pleadings-had said firmly that he had no interest in becoming consul.

“Can you believe it?” complained Cicero as we huddled around his desk, studying the list of likely runners. “I offer the man the greatest job in the world, and he has to give me nothing in return except to stand at my side for a day or two. Yet he still says he would prefer to concentrate on jurisprudence!” He took up his pen and crossed out Gallus’s name, then added Catilina’s to the bottom of the list. He tapped his pen beside it idly, underlined it, circled it, then glanced at each of us. “Of course, there is one other potential partner we have not mentioned.”

“And who is that?” asked Quintus.

“Catilina.”

“Marcus!”

“I am perfectly serious,” said Cicero. “Let’s think it through. Suppose, instead of attempting to prosecute him, I offer to defend him. If I secure his acquittal, he will be under an obligation to support me for consul. On the other hand, if he is found guilty and goes into exile-then that is the end of him. Either outcome is acceptable as far as I am concerned.”

“You would defend Catilina?” Quintus was well used to his brother, and it took a great deal to shock him, but on that day he was almost speechless.

“I would defend the blackest devil in hell if he was in need of an advocate. That is our system of law.” Cicero frowned and shook his head irritably. “But we went over all this with poor Lucius just before he died. Come on, brother-spare me the reproachful face! You wrote the book: ‘I am a new man. I seek the consulship. This is Rome.’ Those three things-they say it all. I am a new man, therefore there is no one to help me but myself, and you few friends. I seek the consulship, which is immortality-a prize worth fighting for, yes? And this is Rome-Rome-not some abstract place in a work of philosophy, but a city of glory built on a river of filth. So yes, I will defend Catilina, if that is what is necessary, and then I will break with him as soon as I can. And he would do the same to me. That is the world we live in.” Cicero sat back in his chair and raised his hands. “Rome.”