Dictator

As far as I am aware, Cicero never uttered a word of reproach to his brother. Nevertheless, something was altered in their relationship. I believe Quintus felt a keen sense of failure. He had hoped to find fame and fortune and independence in Gaul; instead he came back tarnished, out of pocket and more dependent than ever on his famous sibling. His marriage remained bitter. He was still drinking heavily. And his only son, young Quintus, who was now fifteen, had all the charms of that particular age, being sullen, secretive, insolent and duplicitous. Cicero believed the boy needed more of his father’s attention and suggested he should accompany us to Cilicia, along with his own son, Marcus. My expectations of our trip, already low, receded further.

When we left Rome at the start of the senatorial recess, we were a huge party. Cicero had been invested with imperium and was obliged to travel with six lictors as well as a great retinue of slaves carrying all our baggage for the voyage abroad. Terentia came part of the way to see her husband off, and so did Tullia, who had just been divorced by Crassipes. She was closer to her father than ever and read him poetry on the journey. Privately he fretted to me about her future: twenty-five years old, no child, no husband … We stopped off at Tusculum to say goodbye to Atticus, and Cicero asked him as a favour to keep an eye on Tullia and try to find her a new match while he was away.

‘Of course I shall,’ Atticus replied, ‘and would you in return do a favour for me? Will you try to make Quintus just a little kinder to my sister? I know Pomponia is a difficult woman, but he has returned from Gaul in a permanent foul temper, and their constant arguments are having a bad effect on their boy.’

Cicero agreed, and when we met up with Quintus and his family at Arpinum, he took his brother aside and repeated what Atticus had said. Quintus promised to do his best. But Pomponia, I’m afraid, was quite impossible, and it was not long before the couple were refusing to speak to one another, let alone share a bed, and they parted very coldly.

Relations between Terentia and Cicero were more civil, apart from the one vexed area that had been a source of antagonism between them all their married life – money. In contrast to her husband, Terentia had welcomed his appointment as governor, seeing in it a wonderful opportunity for enrichment. She had even brought her steward, Philotimus, along on the journey south so that he could give Cicero the benefit of his various ideas for skimming off a profit. Cicero kept postponing the conversation and Terentia kept nagging him to have it until at last on their final day together he lost his temper.

‘This fixation of yours with making money is really most unseemly.’

‘This fixation of yours with spending it gives me no choice!’

Cicero paused for a moment to control his irritation and then tried to explain the matter calmly. ‘You don’t seem to understand – a man in my position cannot risk the slightest impropriety. My enemies are just waiting for an opportunity to prosecute me for corruption.’

‘So you intend to be the only provincial governor in history not to come home richer than he went out?’

‘My dear wife, if you ever read a word I wrote, you would know I am just about to publish a treatise on good government. How will that sit with a reputation for thievery in office?’

‘Books!’ said Terentia with great contempt. ‘Where is the money in books?’

They repaired their quarrel sufficiently to dine together that night, and to humour her Cicero agreed that at some stage in the coming year he would at least listen to Philotimus’s business proposals – but only on condition they were legal.

The next morning the family parted, with many tears and much embracing – Cicero and Marcus, who was now fourteen, setting off on horseback together side by side, while Terentia and Tullia stood at the gate of the family farm, waving. I remember that just before the road carried us out of sight I took a final look over my shoulder. Terentia had gone in by then but Tullia was still there watching us, a fragile figure against the majesty of the mountains.

We were due to embark on the first leg of our voyage to Cilicia from Brundisium, and it was while we were on the road there, at Venusia, that Cicero received an invitation from Pompey. The great man was taking the winter sun at his villa in Tarentum and suggested that Cicero should come and stay for a couple of days ‘to discuss the political situation’. As Tarentum was only forty miles from Brundisium, and as our route would take us practically past the door, and as Pompey was not a man to whom it was easy to say no, Cicero had little option but to accept.