Dictator

My existence and that of all honest men and the entire commonwealth hangs in the balance, as you may tell from the fact that we have left our homes and the mother city herself to plunder or burning. Swept along by some spirit of folly, forgetting the name he bears and the honours he has won, Caesar seized Ariminium, Pisaurum, Ancona and Arretium. So we abandoned Rome – how wisely or how courageously it is idle to argue. We have reached the point when we cannot survive unless some god or accident comes to our rescue. To add to my vexations, my son-in-law Dolabella is with Caesar.

I wanted you to be aware of these facts. Mind you don’t let them upset you and hinder your recovery. Since you could not be with me when I most needed your services and loyalty, make sure you do not hurry or be so foolish as to undertake the voyage either as an invalid or in winter.

I obeyed his instruction and thus I found myself following the collapse of the Roman Republic from my sick room – and in my memory, my illness and the madness being played out in Italy are forever merged in a single fevered nightmare. Pompey and his hastily assembled army headed to Brundisium to embark for Macedonia to begin their world war. Caesar chased after him to stop him. He tried to blockade the harbour. He failed. He watched the sails of Pompey’s troopships dwindle into the distance, then turned round and marched back the way he had come, towards Rome. His route along the Via Appia took him past Cicero’s door in Formiae.

Formiae, 29 March

From Cicero to his dear Tiro, greetings.

So I have seen the madman at last – for the first time in nine years, can one believe it? He appeared quite unchanged. A little harder, leaner, greyer, and more lined perhaps; but I fancy this life of brigandage suits him. Terentia, Tullia and Marcus are with me (they send their love, by the way).

What happened was this. All yesterday his legionaries were streaming past our door – a wild-looking lot, but they left us unmolested. We were just settling down to dinner when a commotion at the gate signalled the arrival of a column of mounted men. What an entourage, what an underworld! A grimmer group of desperadoes you have never seen! The man himself – if man he is: one starts to wonder – was alert and audacious and in a hurry. Is he a Roman general or is he Hannibal? ‘I could not pass so close without stopping for a moment to see you.’ As if he was a country neighbour! To Terentia and Tullia he was most civil. He refused all hospitality (‘I must press on’) and we went into my study to talk. We were quite alone. He came straight to the point. He was summoning a meeting of the Senate in four days’ time.

‘On what authority?’

‘This,’ he said, and touched his sword. ‘Come along and work for peace.’

‘At my own discretion?’