Dictator

I watched him go, his familiar gestures: the straightening of his shoulders, the adjustment of the folds of his tunic, the unthinking way he offered his hand to be helped into his carriage. I glanced around at my vines and my olive trees, my goats and my chickens, my dry-stone walls, my sheep. Suddenly it seemed a small world – a very small world.

I called after him: ‘Wait!’

XVI

IF CICERO HAD pleaded with me to return with him to Rome, I probably would have refused. It was his willingness to set off without me on the last great adventure of his life that piqued my pride and sent me chasing after him. Of course my change of heart did not surprise him. He knew me far too well. He merely nodded and told me to gather what I required for the journey, and to be quick about it: ‘We need to make good progress before nightfall.’

I called my little household together in the courtyard and wished them luck with the harvest. I told them I would come back as soon as possible. They knew nothing of politics or Cicero. Their expressions were bewildered. They lined up to watch me leave. Just before the place disappeared from view, I turned to wave, but they had already returned to the fields.

It took us eight days to reach Rome, and every mile of the journey was fraught with peril, despite the guards that had been provided for Cicero by Brutus, and always the threat was the same: Caesar’s old soldiers, who had sworn oaths to hunt down those responsible for the assassination. The fact that Cicero had known nothing of it beforehand did not concern them: he had defended it afterwards, and that was enough to render him guilty in their eyes. Our route took us across the fertile plains that had been given to Caesar’s veterans to farm, and at least twice – once when we passed through the town of Aquinum and then soon afterwards at Fregellae – we were warned of ambushes up ahead and had to halt and wait until the road was secured.

We saw burnt-out villas, scorched fields, slaughtered livestock; even once a body hanging from a tree with a placard reading ‘Traitor’ round its neck. Caesar’s demobbed legionaries roamed Italy in small bands as if they were back in Gaul, and we heard many stories of looting, rape and atrocities. Whenever Cicero was recognised by the ordinary citizens, they flocked to him, kissed his hands and clothes and pleaded with him to deliver them from terror. Nowhere was the common population’s devotion more evident than when we reached the gates of Rome on the day before the Senate was due to meet. His welcome was even warmer than when he returned from exile. There were so many deputations, petitions, greetings, handshakes and sacrifices of thanks to the gods that it took him nearly all day to cross the city to his house.

In terms of reputation and renown I guess he was now the pre-eminent figure in the state. All his great rivals and contemporaries – Pompey, Caesar, Cato, Crassus, Clodius – had died violent deaths. ‘They are not cheering me as an individual so much as the memory of the republic,’ he said to me when finally we got inside. ‘I don’t flatter myself – I’m merely the last left standing. And of course demonstrating in support of me is a safe way of protesting against Antony. I wonder what he makes of today’s outpouring. He must want to crush me.’

One by one the leaders of the opposition to Antony in the Senate trooped up the slope to pay their respects. There were not many but I must mention two in particular. The first was P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus, the son of the old consul who had recently died aged ninety: he had been a strong supporter of Caesar and had only just returned from governing Asia – a difficult and arrogant man, he was deeply envious of Antony’s dominant position in the state. The second opponent of Antony I have already mentioned: Lucius Calpurnius Piso, the father of Caesar’s widow, who had been the first to raise his voice against the new regime. He was a sallow, stooping, hairy-faced old man with very bad teeth who had been consul at the time Cicero went into exile: for years he and Cicero had hated one another, but now they both hated Antony even more, and so in politics at least that made them friends. There were others present, but this was the pair who mattered most and they were of one voice in warning Cicero to stay away from the Senate the next day.

‘Antony has laid a trap for you,’ said Piso. ‘He plans to propose a resolution tomorrow calling for fresh honours in memory of Caesar.’

‘Fresh honours!’ cried Cicero. ‘The man is already a god. What other honours does he need?’