quarters. But not at all: as the consul's private secretary, I too was conducted to a guest room, fresh clothes were fetched for me, and then a most remarkable thing occurred, which I blush to remember but must set down if this is to be an honest account. A young female slave appeared. She was Greek, I discovered, so I was able to converse with her in her own tongue. She was in her twenties, and very charming, in a short-sleeved dress – slender, olive- skinned, with a mass of long black hair all pinned up and waiting to fall in a soft cascade. Her name was Agathe. With much giggling and insistent gesturing she persuaded me to undress and step into a small windowless cubicle, which was entirely covered in mosaics of sea creatures. I stood there for a moment, feeling somewhat foolish, until all at once the ceiling seemed to dissolve and begin pouring forth warm fresh water. This was my first experience of one of Sergius Orata's famous shower baths, and I luxuriated in it for a long while before Agathe returned and led me into the next-door room to be cleansed and massaged – and oh, what sweet delight was that! Her smile revealed teeth as white as ivory and a mischievous pink tongue. When I met up with Cicero on the terrace an hour or so later, I asked if he had tried out one of these extraordinary showers.
'Certainly not! Mine came equipped with a young whore. I never heard of such degeneracy,' and then he peered at me and said in disbelief, 'Don't tell me you did!' I turned scarlet, at which he started laughing very loudly, and for many months thereafter, whenever he wished to tease me, he would bring up the episode of Lucullus's shower bath.
Before we dined, our host took us on a tour of his palace. The main part of the house was a century old, and had been built by Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi brothers, but Lucullus had tripled it in size, adding wings and terraces and a swimming pool – all of it hewn out of the solid rock. The views on every side were astounding, the rooms sumptuous. We were led into a tunnel lined with torches that cast their light on glisten ing mosaics of Theseus in the labyrinth. Steps took us down to the sea and out on to a platform positioned just above the lapping waves. Here was Lucullus's particular pride – a great expanse of man-made pools, filled with every species of fish you could name, including huge eels decorated with jewellery, which came at the sound of his call. He knelt and a slave handed him a silver bucket full of food, which he gently tipped into the water. Immediately the surface roiled with smooth and powerful bodies. 'They all have names,' he said, and pointed to a particularly fat and repulsive creature with gold rings in its fins. 'I call that one Pompey.'
Cicero laughed politely. 'And whose place is that?' he asked, nodding across the water to another huge villa with a fish farm.
'That belongs to Hortensius. He thinks he can breed better fish than I, but he will never manage it. Good night, Pompey,' he said to the eel in a caressing voice. 'Sleep well.'
I thought we must have seen everything, but Lucullus had saved the climax till last. We ascended by a different route, a wide staircase tunnelled into the bowels of the dripping rock beneath the house. We passed through several heavy iron gates manned by sentries, until we came at last to a series of chambers, each of which was crammed with the treasure Lucullus had carted back from the Mithradatic war. Attendants passed their torches over glittering heaps of jewel-encrusted armour, shields, dinner plates, beakers, ladles, basins, gold chairs and gold couches. There were heavy silver ingots and chests full of millions of tiny silver coins, and a golden statue of Mithradates more than six feet high. After a while our exclamations of wonder dwindled to silence. The riches were stupefying. Then, as we went back into the tunnel, there came a very faint scuffling noise from somewhere close at hand, which at first I thought was rats, but which Lucullus explained was the noise of the sixty prisoners – friends of Mithradates, and some of his generals – whom he had been keeping down here for the past five years in readiness for his triumphal parade, at the end of which they would be strangled.
Cicero put his hand to his mouth and cleared his throat. 'Actually, imperator, it's about your triumph that I've come to see you.'
'I thought it might be,' said Lucullus, and in the torchlight I saw the briefest of smiles pass over his fleshy face. 'Shall we eat?'
Naturally we dined on fish – oysters and sea bass, crab and eel, grey and red mullet. It was all too rich for me: I was accustomed to plainer fare and took little. Nor did I utter a word during dinner, but kept a subtle distance between myself and the other guests, to signify my awareness that my presence was a special favour. The Sextus brothers ate greedily, and from time to time one or the other would rise from the table and go into the garden to vomit noisily, to clear space for the next course. Cicero as usual was sparing in his consumption, while Lucullus chewed and swallowed steadily but without any apparent pleasure.
I found myself secretly observing him, for he fascinated me, and still does. In truth I believe he was the most melancholy man I ever met. The blight of his life was Pompey, who had replaced him as supreme commander in the East and who had then, through his allies in the senate, blocked Lucullus's hopes of a triumph. Many men would have accepted this, but not Lucullus. He had everything in the world he wanted except the one thing he most desired. So he flatly refused to enter Rome or surrender his command, and instead diverted his talents and ambition into creating ever more elaborate fish ponds. He became bored and listless, his domestic life unhappy. He was married twice, the first time to one of the sisters of Clodius, from whom he separated in scandalous circumstances, alleging that she had committed incest with her brother, who had then encouraged a mutiny against Lucullus in the East. The second marriage, which still endured, was to a sister of Cato, but she was also said to be flighty and unfaithful: I never set eyes on her, so I cannot judge. I did however meet her child, Lucullus's young son, then two years old, who was brought out by his nurse to kiss his father good night. Seeing the way Lucullus treated him, I could tell he loved the lad deeply. But the moment the child had gone away to bed, the veils came down once more over Lucullus's large blue eyes and he resumed his joyless chomping.
'So,' he said eventually, between mouthfuls, 'my triumph?' There was a fragment of fish stuck on his cheek that he didn't know about. It was peculiarly distracting.
'Yes,' repeated Cicero, 'your triumph. I was thinking of laying a motion before the senate straight after the recess.'
'And will it pass?'
'I don't believe in calling votes that I can't win.'
The chomp, chomp continued for a while longer.
'Pompey won't be pleased.'
'Pompey will have to accept that others are allowed to triumph in this republic as well as he.'
'And what's in it for you?'
'The honour of proposing your eternal glory.'
'Balls.' Lucullus finally wiped his mouth and the particle of fish disappeared. 'You've really travelled fifty miles in a day just to tell me this? You can't expect me to believe it.'
'Oh dear, you're too shrewd for me, Imperator! Very well, I confess I also wanted to have a political talk with you.'
'Go on.'
'I believe we are drifting towards calamity.' Cicero pushed away his plate and, summoning all his eloquence, proceeded to describe the state of the republic in the starkest terms, dwelling especially on Caesar's support for Catilina, and Catilina's revolutionary programme of cancelling debts and seizing the property of the rich. He did not have to point out what a threat this posed to Lucullus, reclining in his palace amid all his silk and gold: it was perfectly obvious. Our host's face became grimmer and grimmer, and when Cicero had finished, he took his time before replying.
'So it is your firm opinion that Catilina could win the consulship?'
'It is. Silanus will take the first place and he the second.'
'Well then, we have to stop him.'
'I agree.'
'So what do you propose?'
'That is why I've come. I'd like you to stage your triumph just before the consular elections.'
'Why?'
'For the purpose of your procession, I assume you plan to bring into Rome several thousand of your veterans from all across Italy?'
'Naturally.'
'Whom you will entertain lavishly, and reward generously out of the spoils of your victory?'
'Of course.'
'And who will therefore listen to your advice about whom to support in the consular elections?'
