had a melodious voice, which was why Cicero came to rely on him as a reader. He was twenty-six or thereabouts, and slept in a small room next to mine in the cellar. What started as a hacking cough developed into a fever, and Cicero sent his own doctor down to examine him. A course of bleeding did no good; nor did leeches. Cicero was very much affected, and most days he would sit for a while beside the young man's cot, holding a cold wet towel to his burning forehead. I stayed up with Sositheus every night for a week, listening to his rambling nonsense talk and trying to calm him down and persuade him to drink some water.
It is often the case with these dreadful fevers that the final crisis is preceded by a lull. So it was with Sositheus. I remember it very well. It was long past midnight. I was stretched out on a straw mattress beside his cot, huddled against the cold under a blanket and a sheepskin. He had gone very quiet, and in the silence and the dim yellow light cast by the lamp, I nodded off myself. But something woke me, and when I turned, I saw that he was sitting up and staring at me with a look of great terror.
'The letters,' he said.
It was so typical of him to be worried about his work, I nearly wept. 'The letters are taken care of,' I replied. 'Everything is up to date. Go back to sleep now.'
'I copied out the letters.'
'Yes, yes, you copied out the letters. Now go to sleep.' I tried gently to press him back down, but he wriggled beneath my hands. He was nothing but sweat and bone by this time, as feeble as a sparrow. Yet he would not lie still. He was desperate to tell me something.
'Crassus knows it.'
'Of course Crassus knows it.' I spoke soothingly. But then I felt a sudden sense of dread. 'Crassus knows what?'
'The letters.'
'What letters?' Sositheus made no reply. 'You mean the anonymous letters? The ones warning of violence in Rome? You copied those out?' He nodded. 'How does Crassus know?' I whispered.
'I told him.' His fragile claw of a hand scrabbled at my arm. 'Don't be angry.'
'I'm not angry,' I said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. 'He must have frightened you.'
'He said he knew already.'
'You mean he tricked you?'
'I'm so sorry…' He stopped, and gave an immense groan – a terrible noise, for one so frail – and his whole body trembled. His eyelids drooped, then opened wide for one last time, and he gave me such a look as I have never forgotten – there was a whole abyss in those staring eyes – and then he fell back in my arms unconscious. I was horrified by what I saw, I suppose because it was like gazing into the blackest mirror – nothing to see but oblivion – and I realised at that instant that I too would die like Sositheus, childless and leaving behind no trace of my existence. From then on I redoubled my resolve to write down all the history I was witnessing, so that my life might at least have this small purpose.
Sositheus lingered on all through that night, and into the next day, and on the last evening of the year he died. I went at once to tell Cicero.
'The poor boy,' he sighed. 'His death grieves me more than perhaps the loss of a slave should. See to it that his funeral shows the world how much I valued him.' He turned back to his book, then noticed that I was still in the room. 'Well?'
I was in a dilemma. I felt instinctively that Sositheus had imparted a great secret to me, but I could not be absolutely sure if it was true, or merely the ravings of a fevered man. I was also torn between my responsibility to the dead and my duty to the living – to respect my friend's confession, or to warn Cicero? In the end, I chose the latter. 'There's something you should know,' I said. I took out my tablet and read to him Sositheus's dying words, which I had taken the precaution of writing down.
Cicero studied me as I spoke, his chin in his hand, and when I finished, he said, 'I knew I should have asked you to do that copying.'
I had not quite been able to bring myself to believe it until that moment. I struggled to hide my shock. 'And why didn't you?'
He gave me another appraising look. 'Your feelings are bruised?'
'A little.'
'Well, they shouldn't be. It's a compliment to your honesty. You sometimes have too many scruples for the dirty business of politics, Tiro, and I would have found it hard to carry off such a deception under your disapproving gaze. So I had you fooled, then, did I?' He sounded quite proud of himself.
'Yes,' I replied, 'completely,' and he had: when I remembered his apparent surprise on the night Crassus brought the letters round with Scipio and Marcellus, I was forced to marvel at his skills as an actor, if nothing else.
'Well, I regret I had to trick you. However, it seems I didn't trick Old Baldhead – or at least he isn't tricked any longer.' He sighed again. 'Poor Sositheus. Actually, I'm fairly sure I know when Crassus extracted the truth from him. It must have been on the day I sent him over to collect the title deeds to this place.'
'You should have sent me!'
'I would have done but you were out and there was no one else I trusted. How terrified he must have been when that old fox trapped him into confessing! If only he had told me what he'd done – I could have set his mind at rest.'
'But aren't you worried what Crassus might do?'
'Why should I be worried? He got what he wanted, all except the command of an army to destroy Catilina – that he should even have thought of asking for that amazed me! But as for the rest – those letters Sositheus wrote at my dictation and left on his doorstep were a gift from the gods as far as he was concerned. He cut himself free of the conspiracy and left me to clear up the mess and stop Pompey from intervening. In fact I should say Crassus derived far more benefit from the whole affair than I did. The only ones who suffered were the guilty.'
'But what if he makes it public?'
'If he does, I'll deny it – he has no proof. But he won't. The last thing he wants is to open up that whole stinking pit of bones.' He picked up his book again. 'Go and put a coin in the mouth of our dear dead friend, and let us hope he finds more honesty on that side of the eternal river than exists on this.'
I did as he commanded, and the following day Sositheus's body was burnt on the Esquiline Field. Most of the household turned out to pay their respects, and I spent Cicero's money very freely on flowers and flautists and incense. All in all it was as well done as these occasions ever can be: you would have thought we were bidding farewell to a freedman, or even a citizen. Thinking over what I had learned, I did not presume to judge Cicero for the morality of his action, nor did I feel much wounded pride that he had been unwilling to trust me. But I did fear that Crassus would try to seek revenge, and as the thick black smoke rose from the pyre to merge with the low clouds rolling in from the east, I felt full of apprehension.
Pompey approached the city on the Ides of January. The day before he was due, Cicero received an invitation to attend upon the imperator at the Villa Publica, which was then the government's official guest house. It was respectfully phrased. He could think of no reason not to accept. To have refused would have been seen as a snub. 'Nevertheless,' he confided to me as his valet dressed him the next morning, 'I cannot help feeling like a subject being summoned out to greet a conqueror, rather than a partner in the affairs of state arranging to meet another on equal terms.'
By the time we reached the Field of Mars, thousands of citizens were already straining for a glimpse of their hero, who was now rumoured to be only a mile or two away. I could see that Cicero was slightly put out by the fact that for once the crowds all had their backs to him and paid him no attention, and when we went into the Villa Publica his dignity received another blow. He had assumed he was going to meet Pompey privately, but instead he discovered several other senators with their attendants already waiting, including the new consuls, Pupius Piso and Valerius Messalla. The room was gloomy and cold, in that way of official buildings that are little used, and yet although it smelled strongly of damp, no one had troubled to light a fire. Here Cicero was obliged to settle down to wait on a hard gilt chair, making stiff conversation with Pupius, a taciturn lieutenant of Pompey's whom he had known for many years and did not like.
After about an hour, the noise of the crowd began to grow and I realised that Pompey must have come into view. Soon the racket was so intimidating the senators gave up trying to talk and sat mute, like strangers thrown together by chance while seeking shelter from a thunderstorm. People ran to and fro outside, and cried and
