Dictator

‘You’ve quarrelled with that devil and his sister from hell. That’s why you’re doing this favour for Pompey. You always were the most hopeless liar, Rufus. I see through you as clearly as if you were made of water.’

Rufus laughed. He had great charm: he was said to be the most handsome young man in Rome. ‘You seem to forget, I don’t live in your house any more, Marcus Tullius. I don’t have to give an account of my friendships to you.’ He swung himself easily on to his feet. He was also very tall. ‘Now I’ve given your client his alibi, as was requested, and our business here is done.’

‘Our business will be done when I say it is,’ Cicero called after him cheerfully. He did not bother to rise. I showed Rufus out, and when I returned, he was still smiling. ‘This is what I’ve been waiting for, Tiro. I can feel it. He’s fallen out with those two monsters, and if that’s the case, they won’t rest until they’ve destroyed him. We need to ask around town. Discreetly. Spread some money around if we have to. But we must find out why he’s left that house!’

The trial of Asicius ended the day it began. The case boiled down to the word of a few household slaves against that of a senator, and on hearing Rufus’s affidavit, the praetor directed the jury to acquit. This was the first of many legal victories for Cicero following his return, and he was soon in high demand, appearing in the Forum most days, just as in his prime.

Throughout this time the violence in Rome worsened. On some days the courts could not sit because of the risks to public safety. A few days after setting upon Cicero in the Via Sacra, Clodius and his followers attacked the house of Milo and attempted to burn it down. Milo’s gladiators drove them off and retaliated by occupying the voting pens on the Field of Mars in a vain attempt to prevent Clodius’s election as aedile.

Cicero sensed opportunity in the chaos. One of the new tribunes, Cannius Gallus, laid a bill before the people demanding that Pompey alone should be entrusted with restoring Ptolemy to the throne of Egypt. The bill so incensed Crassus that he actually paid Clodius to organise a popular campaign against Pompey. And when Clodius eventually won the aedileship, he used his powers as a magistrate to summon Pompey to give evidence in an action he brought against Milo.

The hearing took place in the Forum in front of many thousands. I watched it with Cicero. Pompey mounted the rostra, but had hardly uttered more than a few sentences when Clodius’s supporters started to drown him out with catcalls and slow handclaps. There was a kind of heroism in the way that Pompey simply put his shoulders down and went on reading out his text, even though no one could hear him. This must have gone on for an hour or more, and then Clodius, who was standing a few feet along the rostra, started really working up the crowd against him.

‘Who’s starving the people to death?’ he shouted.

‘Pompey!’ roared his followers.

‘Who wants to go to Alexandria?’

‘Pompey!’

‘Whom do you want to go?’

‘Crassus!’

Pompey looked as if he had been struck by lightning. Never had he been insulted in such a way. The crowd started heaving like a stormy sea, one side pushing against the other, with little eddies of scuffles breaking out here and there, and suddenly from the back, ladders appeared and were passed rapidly over our heads to the front, where they were thrown up against the rostra and a group of ruffians began scaling it – Milo’s ruffians, it transpired, for the moment they reached the platform they charged at Clodius and hurled him off it, a good twelve feet down on to the spectators. There were cheers and screams. I didn’t see what happened after that, as Cicero’s attendants hustled us out of the Forum and away from danger, but we learned later that Clodius had escaped unharmed.

The following evening, Cicero went off to dine with Pompey and came home rubbing his hands with pleasure. ‘Well, if I’m not mistaken, that’s the beginning of the end of our so-called triumvirate, at least as far as Pompey’s concerned. He swears Crassus is behind a plot to murder him, says he’ll never trust him again, threatens that if necessary Caesar will have to return to Rome to answer for his mischief in creating Clodius in the first place and destroying the constitution. I’ve never seen him in such a rage. As for me, he couldn’t have been friendlier, and assures me that whatever I do, I can rely on his support.

‘But better even than that – when he was deep in his cups, he finally told me why Rufus has switched allegiance. I was right: there’s been the most tremendous falling-out between him and Clodia – so much so that she’s claiming he tried to poison her! Naturally, Clodius has taken his sister’s side, thrown Rufus out of his house and called in his debts. So Rufus has had to turn to Pompey in the hope of some Egyptian gold to pay off what he owes. Isn’t it all marvellous?’