Dictator

The following morning, after he had handed out Saturnalian gifts to all the slaves, he called me into his study and gave me a handsome sandalwood box. I assumed that the box was my present, but when I thanked him, he told me to open it. Inside I found the deeds to the farm near Puteoli. It had been transferred to my name. I was as stunned by the gesture as I had been on the day he granted me my freedom.

He said, ‘My dear old friend, I wish it were more and I wish I could have given it to you sooner. But here it is at last, that farm you always wanted – and may it bring you as much joy and comfort as you have brought to me over the years.’

Even though it was a holiday, Cicero worked. He had no family anymore with whom to celebrate – dead, divorced and scattered as they were – and I suppose that writing eased his loneliness. Not that he was melancholy. He had started a new work, a philosophical investigation of old age, and he was enjoying it (O wretched indeed is that old man who has not learned in the course of his long life that death should be held of no account). But he insisted that I, at any rate, should have the day off, and so I went for a walk along the beach, turning over in my mind the extraordinary fact that I was now a man of property – a farmer indeed. It felt like the end of one part of my life and the start of another, a portent that my work with Cicero was almost done and that we would soon part.

All along that stretch of coast one encounters large villas looking west across the bay towards the promontory of Misenum. The property next door to Cicero’s was owned by L. Marcius Philippus, a former consul a few years younger than Cicero, who had been awkwardly placed during the civil war, given that he was Cato’s father-in-law and yet was also married to Caesar’s closest living relative, his niece Atia. He had been granted permission by both sides to keep out of the conflict, and had sat it out down here – a cautious neutrality that perfectly suited his nervous temperament.

Now, as I drew closer to the boundary of his estate, I saw that the beach was blocked off by soldiers who were preventing people passing in front of the house. For a moment I wondered what was happening, and when at last I worked it out, I turned and hurried back to tell Cicero – only to find that he had already received a message:

Caesar Dictator to M. Cicero.

Greetings.

I am in Campania inspecting my veterans and shall be spending part of Saturnalia with my niece Atia at the villa of L. Philippus. If it is convenient, my party and I could visit you on the third day of the festival. Please let my officer know.

I asked, ‘How did you reply?’

‘How else does one reply to a god? I said yes, of course.’

He pretended to be put-upon, but I could tell that secretly he was flattered, although when he enquired as to the size of Caesar’s entourage, which he would also have to feed, and was told it consisted of two thousand men, he had second thoughts. His entire household were obliged to postpone their holiday, and for the remainder of that day and the whole of the next made frantic preparations, emptying the food markets of Puteoli and borrowing couches and tables from neighbouring villas. A camp was pitched in the field behind the house and sentries were posted. We were given a list of twenty men who were to dine in the house itself, headed by Caesar and including Philippus, L. Cornelius Galba and C. Oppius – these last two Caesar’s closest associates – and a dozen officers whose names I have forgotten. It was organised like a military manoeuvre, according to a strict timetable. Cicero was informed that Caesar would be working with his secretaries in Philippus’s house until shortly after noon, that he would then take an hour’s vigorous exercise along the seashore, and would appreciate it if a bath could be provided for his use before dinner. As to the menu, the Dictator was following a course of emetics and so would have an appetite equal to whatever was provided, but he would particularly appreciate oysters and quail if they were available.