Dictator

Once the niceties were out of the way and Cleopatra had departed with her maids, Pompey came to the point: ‘This killing of Dio is starting to become embarrassing, both to me and to His Majesty. And now to cap it all, a murder charge has been brought by Titus Coponius, Dio’s host when he was killed, and by his brother Gaius. The whole thing is ridiculous, of course, but apparently they are not to be persuaded out of it.’

‘Who is the accused?’ enquired Cicero.

‘Publius Asicius.’

Cicero paused to remember the name. ‘Isn’t he one of your estate managers?’

‘He is. That’s what makes it embarrassing.’

Cicero had the tact not to ask whether Asicius was guilty or not. He considered the matter purely as a lawyer. He said to Ptolemy, ‘Until this matter blows over, I would strongly advise Your Majesty to remove yourself as far away from Rome as possible.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if I were the Coponius brothers, the first thing I should do is issue a subpoena summoning you to give evidence.’

‘Can they do that?’ asked Pompey.

‘They can try. To save His Majesty the embarrassment, I would advise him to be miles away when the writ is served – out of Italy, if possible.’

‘But what about Asicius?’ said Pompey. ‘If he’s found guilty, that could look very bad for me.’

‘I agree.’

‘Then he must be acquitted. You’ll take the case, I hope? I’d regard it as a favour.’

This was not what Cicero wanted. But Pompey was insistent, and in the end, as usual, he had no option but to accede. Before we left, Ptolemy, as a token of his thanks, presented Cicero with a small and ancient jade statue of a baboon, which he explained was Hedj-Wer, the god of writing. I expect it was quite valuable, but Cicero couldn’t abide it – ‘What do I want with their primitive mud gods?’ he complained to me afterwards, and he must have thrown it away; I never saw it again.

Asicius, the accused man, came to see us. He was a former legionary commander who had served with Pompey in Spain and the East. He looked eminently capable of murder. He showed Cicero his summons. The charge was that he had visited Coponius’s house early in the morning with a forged letter of introduction. Dio was in the act of opening it when Asicius whipped out a small knife he had concealed in his sleeve and stabbed the elderly philosopher in the neck. The blow had not been immediately fatal. Dio’s cries had brought the household running. According to the writ, Asicius had been recognised before he managed to slash his way out of the house.

Cicero did not enquire about the truth of the matter. He merely advised Asicius that his best chance of acquittal lay in a good alibi. Someone would need to vouch that he was with them at the time of the murder – and the more witnesses he could produce and the less connection they had with Pompey, or indeed Cicero, the better.

Asicius said, ‘That’s easy enough. I have just the fellow lined up: a man known to be on bad terms both with Pompey and yourself.’

‘Who?’

‘Your old protégé Caelius Rufus.’

‘Rufus? What’s he doing mixed up in this business?’

‘Does it matter? He’ll swear I was with him at the hour the old man was killed. And he’s a senator nowadays, don’t forget – his word carries weight.’

I half expected Cicero to tell Asicius to find another advocate, such was his distaste for Rufus. But to my surprise he said, ‘Very well, tell him to come and see me and we’ll depose him.’

After Asicius had gone, Cicero said, ‘Surely Rufus is a close friend of Clodius? Doesn’t he live in one of his apartments? In fact, isn’t Clodia his mistress?’

‘She certainly used to be.’

‘That was what I thought.’ The mention of Clodia made him thoughtful. ‘So what is Rufus doing offering an alibi to an agent of Pompey?’

Later that same day, Rufus came to the house. At twenty-five, he was the youngest member of the Senate, and very active in the law courts. It was odd to see him swaggering through the door wearing the purple-striped toga of a senator. Only nine years before, he had been Cicero’s pupil. But then he had turned on his former mentor, and eventually beaten him in court by prosecuting Cicero’s consular colleague, Hybrida. Cicero could have forgiven him that – he always liked to see a young man on the rise as an advocate – but his friendship with Clodius was a betrayal too far. So he greeted him very icily and pretended to read various documents while Rufus dictated his statement to me. Cicero must have been listening keenly, however, for when Rufus described how he was entertaining Asicius in his house at the time of the killing, and gave as his home address a property on the Esquiline, Cicero suddenly looked up and said, ‘But don’t you rent a property from Clodius on the Palatine?’

‘I’ve moved,’ replied Rufus casually, but there was something too offhand in his tone, and Cicero detected it at once.

He pointed his finger at him and said, ‘You’ve quarrelled.’

‘Not at all.’