would have to find another way; I would have to go roundabout, perhaps approach Marcus and win him over, make him see that his older brother needed looking after. Yes, I thought, that was the answer, considering how famously close was the bond between the two brothers. A very public family tragedy had struck them early in life; sometimes such an event drives a wedge between siblings, but quite the opposite had occurred with the brothers Lucullus. Their father's self-destructive behavior had very nearly ruined them, but together they had regained the city's respect and made a name for themselves that exceeded anything their ancestors had achieved. One might even say that Lucullus owed his success to the failure of his father-that he owed everything to his father…
Then I saw, in a flash, that cherries had nothing to do with Lucullus's dilemma. The will, yes-but not the cherries…
A slave, hearing his master's voice raised, appeared and stood at a respectful distance, a quizzical look on his face.
'Go find your master's brother. Ask him to come here,' I said.
The slave looked to Lucullus, who peered at me for a long moment, then nodded. 'Do as this man requests. Bring Marcus only- no one else.'
While we waited, neither of us spoke. Lucullus moved his eyes here and there, never meeting my gaze.
Marcus appeared. 'What's this? The slave told me he heard raised voices, an argument, and then Gordianus asked for me.'
'He seems to think that my beloved cherries have been poisoned somehow,' muttered Lucullus.
'Yes, but that was a false notion,' I said. 'And realizing that it was false, I gave it up. If only you could do the same, Lucullus.'
'This is about Motho, isn't it?' said Marcus, regarding his brother with a pained look.
'Call him by his true name-Varius!' cried Lucullus.
'Why did you recently decide to write a will?' I said. The two brothers both looked at me sharply, taken aback at the change of subject.
'What a peculiar question to ask!' said Lucullus.
'For many years you had no will. You were far from Rome, fighting battles, accumulating a vast fortune and repeatedly putting your life at risk. Yet you saw no cause to write a will then.'
'Because I thought I'd live forever! Men cling to the illusion of immortality for as long as they can,' said Lucullus. 'I think Archias once wrote a poem on the subject. Shall I summon him to deliver an epigram?'
' 'The closer I cut to the bone, the more he laughs, denying all danger,'' I said, quoting Ennius. 'How's that for a suitable epigram?'
'What are you talking about?' snapped Marcus. But the tremor in his voice gave him away; he was beginning to see the train of my thoughts.
'You encouraged him to write a will. Didn't you?' Marcus stared at me for a long moment, then lowered his eyes. 'Yes. The time had come.'
'Because of a change in Lucullus's health? Because of some other
threat to his life?'
'Not exactly.' Marcus sighed. 'Dear brother, he knows. There's no use hiding the truth from him.'
'He knows nothing. There is nothing to know!' said Lucullus. 'I have employed Gordianus for a single purpose: to prove to the world, and to you, Marcus, that I am not mistaken in what I know about Varius, or Motho, or whatever we should call him. I know what I know, and the world must be made to know it, too!'
'Did your father say things like that, after he was recalled from Sicily and made to stand trial?' I said, as gently as I could.
Marcus drew a deep breath. 'Similar things, yes. He had strange notions; he fixated upon impossible ideas that no one could talk him out of. His emotions became inappropriate, his logic inexplicable, his behavior unpredictable. It began in a small way, but grew, until toward the end there was almost nothing left of the man we had known. There was only the slightest hint of the change before he left to take up the command in Sicily-so slight, no one really noticed it at the time, but only in retrospect. By the time he returned to Rome and stood trial, the change was obvious to those closest to him-our mother, our uncles. My brother and I were mere children, of course; we had no way of understanding. It was a very difficult time for everyone. We spoke of it only within the family. It became a source of shame to us, greater than the shame of my father's con-viction and exile.'
'A family secret,' I said. 'Had such a thing happened before, in earlier generations?'
'Don't answer, Marcus!' said Lucullus. 'He has no right to ask such a question.'
Unheeding, Marcus nodded. 'Something similar befell our father's father. An early dotage, a softening of the wits; we think it must be a kind of a malady that passes from father to son, a coiled serpent in the mind that waits to strike until a man is at the peak of his powers.'
'All supposition!' snapped Lucullus. 'Just as likely, it was the harassment of his enemies that drove our father to distraction, not some affliction from within.'
'As you see, Gordianus, my brother has always preferred to deny the truth of this matter,' said Marcus. 'He denied it concerning our father. He denies it now, when it begins to concern himself.'
'And yet,' I said, 'he acceded to writing a will when you urged him to-now, rather than later, when his faculties may have eroded to a greater degree. That indicates to me that at some level, Lucullus knows the truth of what's happening to him, even if he continues outwardly to deny it. Is that not so, Lucullus?'
He gazed at me angrily, than his features gradually softened. His eyes glistened. A tear ran down one cheek. 'I have led an honorable life. I have served Rome to the very best of my ability. I have been generous to my friends, forgiving to my enemies. I love life dearly. At last, I am about to have a child! Why must this shameful fate befall me? If the child is a son, will it befall him as well? My body is still strong; I may live many years yet. What's to become of me in the time I have left, if I lose my senses? Have the gods no mercy?'
I looked upon Lucullus and shivered. I saw a man surrounded by opulence beyond measure, at the summit of his career, adored by the multitude, beloved by his friends-yet utterly alone. Lucullus possessed everything and nothing, because he had no future.
'The gods have much to answer for,' I said quietly. 'But while you still can, you must struggle against your delusions, especially those which pose a danger to others. Renounce this idea you have about Motho, Lucullus. Say it aloud, so that Marcus can hear.'
His face became a tragedy mask. The struggle within him was so great that he trembled. Marcus, weeping more openly than his brother, gripped his arm to steady him.
'Motho… is not Varius. There, I've said it! Though every fiber of my being tells me it's a lie, I'll say it again: Motho is not Varius.'
'Say that you won't harm him,' I whispered.
Lucullus shut his eyes tightly and clenched his fists. 'I shall not harm him!'
I turned and left the brothers alone, to find what comfort they could beneath the branches of the cherry tree called Most-Precious-of-All.
So I came to taste my first cherry; so I made the acquaintance of Lu-cullus, to whom I never spoke again.
The months that followed marked the pinnacle of a life which, to any outsider, must have appeared especially blessed by the gods. Lucullus celebrated a magnificent triumph (at which the rebel general Varius did not appear). Also, a son was born to him, healthy and whole. Lucullus named the boy Marcus, and was said to dote upon him shamelessly. His marriage to Servilia was less happy; he eventually accused her of adultery and divorced her. Whether the charge was true, or the result of a delusion, I never knew.
Those months brought other changes, some very sad. Our conversation about Lucullus was one of my last encounters with my dear friend, Lucius Claudius, who fell dead one autumn afternoon in the Forum, clutching his chest. To my astonishment, Lucius did make me heir to his Etruscan farm-he had not been jesting that day in his garden. At about the same time, Cicero defeated Catilina and won his campaign for the consulship, making him a New Man among the nobility-the first of his family to attain Rome's highest office. Of my move to the Etruscan countryside, and of the great and tragic events of Cicero's consulship, I have written elsewhere.
An era of enormous tumult was beginning. Steadfast Republicans like Cicero and Cato desperately looked to Lucullus, with his immense wealth and prestige, to rise up as a bulwark against the looming ambitions of warlords like Caesar and Pompey. Lucullus failed to meet their expectations. Instead he withdrew more and more from public life into an existence of sensual pleasure and seclusion. People said Lucullus had lost his ambition. Conventional
