Dictator

It is not my intention to dwell on personal gossip: such matters fall beneath the dignity of my subject. Nevertheless, I cannot give a proper account of Cicero’s life without mentioning what happened, for this was when his domestic unhappiness really started, and it was to have an effect upon his political career.

He and Terentia had been married for more than twenty years. They had often argued. But underlying their disputes was a mutual respect. She was a woman of independent wealth: that was why he had married her; it was certainly not for her looks or the sweetness of her temper. It was Terentia’s fortune that had enabled him to enter the Senate. In return, his success had increased her social standing. Now the disaster of his fall had exposed the inherent weaknesses of this partnership. Not only had she been obliged to sell a good part of her property in order to protect the family in his absence, she had been reviled and insulted and reduced to lodging with her in-laws – a family she snobbishly considered far beneath her own. Yes, Cicero was alive and he was back in Rome and I am sure she was glad for that. But she made no secret of her view that his days of political power were over, even if he – still floating on the clouds of popular adulation – had failed to grasp the fact.

I was not asked to dine with the family that first evening, and given the tensions between them, I cannot say I minded especially. I was, however, dismayed to find that I had been given a bed in the slaves’ quarters in the cellar, sharing a cubicle with Terentia’s steward, Philotimus. He was an oily, avaricious creature of middle age: we had never liked one another, and I should guess he was no happier to see me than I him. Still, his love of money at least made him a diligent manager of Terentia’s business affairs, and it must have pained him to see her fortune depleted month after month. The bitterness with which he assailed Cicero for placing her in this situation infuriated me, and after a while I told him curtly to shut his mouth and show some respect, or I would make sure the master gave him a whipping. Later, as I lay awake listening to his snores, I wondered how many of the complaints I had just heard were his, and how many he was merely repeating from the lips of his mistress.

The next day, because of my restlessness, I overslept and woke in a panic. Cicero was due to attend the Senate that morning to express his formal thanks for their support. Normally he learnt his speeches by heart and delivered them without a note. But it was so long since he had spoken in public he feared he might stumble over his words, therefore this oration had had to be dictated and written out during the journey from Brundisium. I took it from my dispatch box, checked I had the full text, and hurried upstairs, at the same time as Quintus’s secretary, Statius, was showing two visitors into the tablinum. One was Milo, the tribune who had visited us in Thessalonica; the other was Lucius Afranius, Pompey’s principal lieutenant, who had been consul two years after Cicero.

Statius said to me, ‘These gentlemen wish to see your master.’

‘I’ll see if he’s available.’

At which Afranius remarked, in a tone I didn’t much care for, ‘He’d better be available!’

I went at once to the principal bedroom. The door was closed. Terentia’s maid put her finger to her lips and told me Cicero wasn’t there. Instead she directed me along the passage to the dressing room, where I found him being helped into his toga by his valet. As I was describing who had come to see him, I noticed over his shoulder a small makeshift bed. He caught my glance and muttered, ‘Something’s wrong but she won’t tell me what it is,’ and then, perhaps regretting his candour, brusquely ordered me to go and fetch Quintus so that he too could hear what his visitors had come to say.

At first the meeting was friendly. Afranius announced that he brought with him the warmest regards of Pompey the Great, who hoped soon to welcome Cicero back to Rome in person. Cicero thanked him for the message and thanked Milo for all that he had done to bring about his recall. He described the enthusiasm of his reception in the countryside and of the crowds that had turned out to see him in Rome the previous day: ‘I feel it is a whole new life that I am beginning. I hope Pompey will be in the Senate to hear me praise him with such poor eloquence as I can muster.’

‘Pompey won’t be attending the Senate,’ Afranius said bluntly.

‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

‘He doesn’t feel it appropriate, in view of the new law that is to be proposed.’ Whereupon he opened a small bag and handed over a draft bill, which Cicero read with evident surprise and then gave to Quintus, who eventually handed it to me.