Imperium - Харрис Роберт - Страница 68

Everyone knew that the only man who could possibly have lent Caesar the money for the entire extravaganza was Crassus, and Cicero returned from the Roman Games in the same dejected manner that he had come back from Hybrida’s Games of Apollo. It was not that Caesar, six years his junior, was ever likely to run against him personally in an election, but rather that Crassus was clearly up to something, and he could not work out what. That night Cicero described to me a part of the entertainment. “Some poor wretch, a criminal, was led out naked into the center of the circus, armed with a wooden sword, and then they released a panther and a lion to attack him, which no doubt they had starved for weeks. The man put on a reasonable show, using the only advantage which he had-his brains-dashing this way and that, and for a while it looked as though he might succeed in making the beasts attack one another instead of him. The crowd was cheering him on. But then he tripped and the creatures tore him to pieces. And I looked to one side of me at Hortensius and the aristocrats, all laughing and applauding, and at Crassus and Caesar side by side on the other, and I thought to myself, Cicero: that man is you.”

His personal relations with Caesar were always cordial, not least because Caesar enjoyed his jokes, but he had never trusted him, and now that he suspected Caesar was in alliance with Crassus, he began to keep a greater distance. There is another story I should tell about Caesar. Around this time Palicanus came to call, seeking Cicero’s support for his own bid for the consulship. Oh, dear-poor Palicanus! He was a cautionary lesson in what can happen in politics if one becomes too dependent on the favor of a great man. He had been Pompey’s loyal tribune, and then his loyal praetor, but he had never been given his share of the spoils once Pompey had achieved his special commands, for the simple reason there was nothing left he could offer in return; he had been bled dry. I picture him, day after day sitting in his house, staring at his gigantic bust of Pompey, or dining alone beneath that mural of Pompey as Jupiter-truthfully, he had about as much chance of becoming consul as I did. But Cicero tried to let him down kindly and said that although he could not form an electoral alliance with him, he would at least try to do something for him in the future (of course, he never did). At the end of the interview, just as Palicanus was rising, Cicero, keen to end on a friendly note, asked to be remembered to his daughter, the blowsy Lollia, who was married to Gabinius.

“Oh, do not talk to me about that whore!” responded Palicanus. “You must have heard? The whole city is talking about it! She is being screwed every day by Caesar!”

Cicero assured him he had not heard.

“Caesar,” said Palicanus bitterly. “Now, there is a duplicitous bastard! I ask you: is that any time to bed a comrade’s wife-when he is a thousand miles away, fighting for his country?”

“Disgraceful,” agreed Cicero. “Mind you,” he said to me after Palicanus had gone, “if you are going to do such a thing, I should have thought that was the ideal time. Not that I am an expert on such matters.” He shook his head. “Really, though, one has to wonder about Caesar. If a man would steal your wife, what wouldn’t he take from you?”

Yet again I almost told him what I had witnessed in Pompey’s house; and yet again I thought the better of it.

IT WAS ON A CLEAR AUTUMN morning that Cicero bade a tearful good-bye to Terentia, Tullia, and little Marcus, and we left the city to begin his great campaign tour of the north. Quintus, as usual, remained behind to nurse his brother’s political interests, while Frugi was entrusted with the legal casework. As for young Caelius, this became the occasion of his finally leaving Cicero and going to the household of Crassus to complete his internship.

We traveled in a convoy of three four-wheeled carriages, pulled by teams of mules-one carriage for Cicero to sleep in, another specially fitted out as an office, and a third full of luggage and documents; other, smaller vehicles trailed behind for the use of the senator’s retinue of secretaries, valets, muleteers, cooks, and heaven knows who else, including several thick-set men who acted as bodyguards. We left by the Fontinalian Gate, with no one to see us off. In those days, the hills to the north of Rome were still pine-clad, apart from the one on which Lucullus was just completing his notorious palace. The patrician general had now come back from the East, but was unable to enter the city proper without forfeiting his military imperium, and with it his right to a triumph. So he was lingering out here amid his spoils of war, waiting for his aristocratic cronies to assemble a majority in the Senate to vote him triumphator, but the supporters of Pompey, among them Cicero, kept blocking it. Mind you, even Cicero glanced up from his letters long enough to take a look at this colossal structure, the roof of which was just visible over the treetops, and I secretly hoped that we might catch a glimpse of the great man himself, but of course he was nowhere to be seen. (Incidentally, Quintus Metellus, the sole survivor of the three Metelli brothers, had also recently returned from Crete, and was also holed up outside the city in anticipation of a triumph which, again, the ever-jealous Pompey would not allow. The plight of Lucullus and Metellus was a source of endless amusement to Cicero: “a traffic jam of generals,” he called them, “all trying to get into Rome through the Triumphal Gate!”) At the Mulvian Bridge we paused while Cicero dashed off a final note of farewell to Terentia. Then we crossed the swollen waters of the Tiber and turned north onto the Flaminian Way.

We made extremely good time on that first day, and shortly before nightfall we reached Ocriculum, about thirty miles north of the city. Here we were met by a prominent local citizen who had agreed to give Cicero hospitality, and the following morning the senator went into the forum to begin his canvass. The secret of effective electioneering lies in the quality of the staff work done in advance, and here Cicero was very fortunate to have attached to his campaign two professional agents, Ranunculus and Filum, who traveled ahead of the candidate to ensure that a decent crowd of supporters would always be waiting in each town when we arrived. There was nothing about the electoral map of Italy which these two rascals did not know: who among the local knights would be offended if Cicero did not stop to pay his respects, and who should be avoided; which were the most important tribes and centuries in each particular district, and which were most likely to come his way; what were the issues which most concerned the citizens, and what were the promises they expected in return for their votes. They had no other topic of conversation except politics, yet Cicero could sit with them late into the night, swapping facts and stories, as happily as he could converse with a philosopher or a wit.

I would not weary you with all the details of the campaign, even if I could remember them. Dear gods, what a heap of ash most political careers amount to when one really stops to consider them! I used to be able to name every consul for the past one hundred years, and most praetors for the past forty. Now they have almost entirely faded out of my memory, quenched like lights at midnight around the Bay of Naples. Little wonder that the towns and crowds of Cicero’s consular campaign have all merged into one generalized impression of hands shaken, stories listened to, bores endured, petitions received, jokes told, undertakings given, and local worthies smoothed and flattered. The name of Cicero was famous by this time, even outside Rome, and people turned out to see him en masse, especially in the larger towns where law was practiced, for the speeches he had prepared for the prosecution of Verres-even those he had not delivered-had been extensively copied and circulated. He was a hero to both the lower classes and the respectable knights, who saw him as a champion against the rapacity and snobbery of the aristocracy. For this reason, not many grand houses opened their doors to him, and we had to endure taunts and even, occasionally, missiles whenever we passed close to the estates of one or other of the great patricians.