Hortensius – came to see Cicero.
'My client has a favour to ask of you,' he said.
'Don't tell me: he would like me to refuse to appear as a witness against him?'
'That's right. He's entirely innocent and has always had the highest regard-'
'Oh, spare me all the hypocrisy. He's guilty and you know it.' Cicero scrutinised Hortensius's bland face, weighing him up. 'Actually, you can tell him I might be willing to hold my tongue in his particular case, but on one condition.'
'And what is that?'
'He gives me a million sesterces.'
I was making my usual note of the conversation, but I must say my hand froze when I heard that. Even Hortensius, who after thirty years at the Roman bar was not shocked by much, looked taken aback. Still, he went off and saw Sulla and came back later that same day.
'My client wishes to make a counter-offer. If you are willing to give the closing speech in his defence, he will pay you two million.'
'Agreed,' said Cicero without any hesitation.
There is little doubt that if Cicero had not struck this bargain, Sulla would have been condemned to exile like all the rest; indeed, it was said he had already transferred a large part of his fortune abroad. So when, on the opening day of the trial, Cicero turned up and sat on the bench reserved for the defence, the prosecuting counsel, Torquatus – an old ally of Cicero – could hardly contain his fury and disappointment. In the course of his summing- up he made a bitter attack on Cicero, accusing him of being a tyrant, of setting himself up as judge and jury, of having been the third foreign-born king of Rome, after Tarquin and Numa. It was painful to hear, and worse, it drew some applause from the spectators in the forum. This expression of popular opinion penetrated even Cicero's carapace of self-regard, and when the time came for him to deliver the closing speech he did venture a kind of apology. 'Yes,' he said, 'I suppose my achievements have made me too proud and bred in me a sort of arrogance. But of those glorious and deathless achievements, I can say only this: I shall be amply rewarded for saving this city and the lives of its citizens if no danger falls upon my person for this great service to all mankind. The forum is full of those men whom I have driven from your throats, gentlemen, but have not removed from mine.'
The speech was effective and Sulla was duly acquitted. But Cicero would have done well to heed these signals of a coming storm. Instead, such was his delight at raising most of the money he needed to buy his new house, he quickly shrugged off the incident. He was now only one and a half million short of the full sum, and for this he turned to the moneylenders. They required security, and therefore he told at least two of them, in confidence, of his agreement with Hybrida and his expectation of a share of the revenues from Macedonia. It was good enough to clinch the deal, and towards the end of the year we moved in to Victory Rise.
The house was as grand inside as out. Its dining room had a panelled ceiling with gilded rafters. In the hall were golden statues of young men, whose outstretched hands were designed to hold flaming torches. Cicero swapped his cramped study, where we had spent so many memorable hours, for a fine library. Even I had a larger room, which, though it was below ground, was not at all damp, and had a small barred window through which I could smell the flowers in the garden and hear the birdsong early in the morning. I would have preferred to have had my freedom, of course, and a place of my own, but Cicero had never mentioned it, and I was too bashful – and in a curious way, too proud – to ask.
After I had laid out my few belongings and found a hiding place for my life savings, I went and joined Cicero on a tour of the grounds. The colonnaded path took us past a fountain and a summer house, under a pergola and into a rose garden. The few blooms left were fleshy and faded; when Cicero reached out to pluck one, the petals came away. I felt that we were under inspection from the whole of the city: it made me uncomfortable, but that was the price one paid for the open view, which was indeed amazing. Beyond the Temple of Castor one could clearly see the rostra, and beyond that the senate house itself, and if one looked in the other direction one could just about make out the back of Caesar's official residence. 'I have done it at last,' said Cicero, gazing down at this with a slight smile. 'I have a better house than he has.'
The ceremony of the Good Goddess fell as usual on the fourth day of December. It was exactly a year since the arrest of the conspirators and just a week after we had moved into our new quarters. Cicero had no appointments in court; the senate's order of business was dull. He told me that for once we would not be going down into the city. Instead we would spend the day working on his memoirs.
He had decided to write one version of his autobiography in Latin, for the general reader, and another in Greek for more restricted circulation. He was also trying to persuade a poet to turn his consulship into a verse epic. His first choice, Archias, who had done a similar job for Lucullus, was reluctant to take it on; he said he was too old at sixty to do justice to such an immense theme. Cicero's preferred alternative, the fashionable Thyillus, replied humbly that his meagre skills as a versifier were simply not up to the task. 'Poets!' grumbled Cicero. 'I don't know what is the matter with them. The story of my consulship is an absolute gift to anyone with the slightest spark of imagination. It is beginning to look,' he continued darkly, in a phrase that struck fear into my heart, 'as though I shall have to write this poem myself.'
'Is that altogether wise?' I asked.
'What do you mean?'
I felt myself beginning to sweat. 'Well, after all, even Achilles needed his Homer. His story might not have had quite the same – what should one say? – epic resonance if he had told it from his own point of view.'
'I solved that problem in bed last night. My plan is to tell my tale in the voices of the gods, each taking it in turn to recount my career to me as they welcome me as an immortal on to Mount Olympus.' He jumped up and cleared his throat. 'I'll show you what I mean. Torn from your studies in youth's early dawn, your country recalled you, Giving you place in the thick of the struggle for public preferment; Yet in seeking release from the worries and cares that oppress you, Time that the state leaves free you devote to us and to learning…'
Dear heavens, it was terrible stuff! The gods must have wept to hear it. But when the mood seized him, Cicero could lay down hexameters as readily as a bricklayer could throw up a wall: three, four, even five hundred lines a day was nothing to him. He paced around the great open space of his library, acting out the roles of Jupiter and Minerva and Urania, the words pouring out of him so freely I had difficulty keeping up, even in shorthand. When eventually Sositheus tiptoed in and announced that Clodius was waiting outside, I must confess I was greatly relieved. By now it was quite late in the morning – the sixth hour at least – and Cicero was so seized by inspiration he almost sent his visitor packing. But he knew that Clodius would probably be bearing some choice morsel of gossip, and curiosity got the better of him. He told Sositheus to show him in, and Clodius duly strolled into the library, his golden curls elegantly coiffed, his goatee trimmed, his bronzed limbs trailing a scent of crocus oil. He was thirty by now, a married man, having wed the fifteen-year-old heiress Fulvia in the summer, at the same time as he was elected a magistrate. Not that married life detained him much. Her dowry had bought them a large house on the Palatine, and there she sat alone most evenings while he continued with his roistering ways in the taverns of Subura.
'Tasty news,' announced Clodius. He held up a finger with a highly polished nail. 'But you mustn't tell a soul.'
Cicero gestured to him to take a seat. 'You know how discreet I am.'
'You will simply adore this,' said Clodius, settling himself down. 'This will make your day.'
'I hope it lives up to its billing.'
'It will.' Clodius tugged at his little beard with glee. 'The Warden of Land and Sea is divorcing.'
Cicero had been lounging back in his chair with a half-smile on his face, his usual posture when gossiping with Clodius. But now he slowly straightened. 'Are you absolutely sure?'
'I just heard it from your next-door neighbour, my darling sister – who sends her love, by the way – who received the news by special messenger from husband Celer last night. Apparently Pompey has written to Mucia telling her not to be in the house by the time he gets back to Rome.'
'Which will be when?'
'In a few weeks. His fleet is off Brundisium. He may even have landed by now.'
Cicero let out a low whistle. 'So he's coming home at last. After six years I was beginning to think I'd never see him again.'
'Hoping you'd never see him again, more like.'
It was an impertinent remark, but Cicero was too preoccupied with Pompey's impending return to notice. 'If
