Dictator

Caesar: ‘Excellent. I approve of statesmen who write philosophy. It means they have given up all hope of power. You may go to Rome. Will you teach the subject as well as write it? If so, I might send you a couple of my more promising men for instruction.’

Cicero: ‘Aren’t you worried I might corrupt them?’

Caesar: ‘Nothing worries me when it comes to you. Do you have any other favours to ask?’

Cicero: ‘Well, I would like to be relieved of these lictors.’

Caesar: ‘It’s done.’

Cicero: ‘Doesn’t it require a vote of the Senate?’

Caesar: ‘I am the vote of the Senate.’

Cicero: ‘Ah! So I take it you have no intention of restoring the republic …?’

Caesar: ‘One cannot rebuild using rotten timber.’

Cicero: ‘Tell me – did you always aim at this outcome: a dictatorship?’

Caesar: ‘Never! I sought only the respect due to my rank and achievements. For the rest, one merely adapts to circumstances as they arise.’

Cicero: ‘I wonder sometimes, if I had come out to Gaul as your legate – as you were kind enough once to suggest – whether all of this might have been averted.’

Caesar: ‘That, my dear Cicero, we shall never know.’

‘He was perfectly amiable,’ recalled Cicero. ‘He allowed no glimpse of those monstrous depths. I saw only the calm and glittering surface.’

At the end of their talk, Caesar shook Cicero’s hand. Then he mounted his horse and galloped away in the direction of Pompey’s villa. His action took his praetorian guard by surprise. They set off quickly after him, and the rest of us, Cicero included, had to scramble into the ditch to avoid being trampled.

Their hooves threw up the most tremendous cloud of dust. We choked and coughed, and when they had thundered past, we climbed back up on to the road to clean ourselves off. For a while we stood watching until Caesar and his followers had dissolved into the haze of heat, and then we began our journey back to Rome.

PART TWO

REDUX

47

BC

–43

BC

Defendi rem publicam adulescens; non deseram senex.

I defended the republic in my youth; I will not desert it in old age.

Cicero, Second Philippic, 44 BC

XII

THIS TIME NO crowds turned out to cheer Cicero on his way home. With so many men away at war, the fields we passed looked untended, the towns dilapidated and half empty. People stared at us sullenly; either that or they turned away.

Venusia was our first stop. From there Cicero dictated a chilly message to Terentia:

I think I shall go to Tusculum. Kindly see that everything is ready. I may have a number of people with me and shall probably make a fairly long stay there. If there is no tub in the bathroom, get one put in; likewise whatever else is necessary for health and subsistence. Goodbye.

There was no term of endearment, no expression of eager anticipation, not even an invitation to her to meet him. I knew then he had made up his mind to divorce her, whatever she might have decided.

We broke our journey for two nights at Cumae. The villa was shuttered; most of the slaves had been sold. Cicero moved through the stuffy, unventilated rooms and tried to remember what items were missing – a citrus-wood table from the dining room, a bust of Minerva that had been in the tablinum, an ivory stool from his library. He stood in Terentia’s bedroom and contemplated the bare shelves and alcoves. It was to be the same story in Formiae; she had taken all her personal belongings – clothes, combs, perfumes, fans, parasols – and he said, ‘I feel like a ghost revisiting the scenes of my life.’

At Tusculum she was waiting for us. We knew she was inside because one of her maids was looking out for us by the gate.