The Dictator (31 page)
“I don’t think she’s fully decided yet. But I believe she’s taking precautions in case it comes to that and you no longer have the means of repaying her yourself.” She leaned across the table and grasped his hand. “Try not to be too angry with her, Father. Money is her only means of independence. She still has very strong feelings for you, I know it.”
Cicero, unable to control his emotions, left the table and went out into the garden.
—
Of all the disasters and betrayals that had struck him over recent years, this was the worst. It completed the collapse of his fortunes. He was numbed by it. What made it harder was that Tullia begged him to say nothing about it until such time as he could confront Terentia face to face, otherwise her mother would know it was she who was his informant. The notion of a meeting seemed a remote prospect. And then, out of the blue, just as the heat of the summer was starting to become uncomfortable, a letter arrived from Caesar.
Caesar Dictator to Cicero Imperator.
I have received various messages from your brother complaining of dishonesty on your part towards me and insisting that but for your influence he would never have taken up arms against me. I have sent these letters to Balbus to pass on to you. You may do with them as you wish. I have pardoned him, and his son. They may live where they please. But I have no desire to renew relations with him. His behaviour towards you confirms a certain low opinion I had begun to form of him in Gaul.
I am travelling ahead of my army and will return to Italy earlier than expected next month, landing at Tarentum, when I hope it will be possible for us to meet to settle matters regarding your own future once and for all.
Tullia was greatly excited when she read this: she called it “a handsome letter.” But Cicero was secretly thrown into confusion. He had hoped he would be allowed to make his way back quietly to Rome, without fuss. He viewed the prospect of actually meeting Caesar with dread. The Dictator would doubtless be friendly enough, even if the gang around him were rough and insolent. However, no amount of politeness could disguise the basic truth: that he would be begging for his life from a conqueror who had usurped the constitution. Meanwhile fresh reports were coming in almost every day from Africa, where Cato was raising a huge new army to continue to uphold the republican cause.
He put on a cheerful face for Tullia’s sake, only to collapse into agonies of conscience once she had gone to bed. “You know that I have always tried to steer the right course by asking myself how history would judge my actions. Well, in this instance I can be certain of the verdict. History will say that Cicero wasn’t with Cato and the good cause because in the end Cicero was a coward. Oh, I have made such a mess of it all, Tiro! I actually believe Terentia is quite right to salvage what she can from the wreckage and divorce me.”
Soon afterwards Vatinius brought the news that Caesar had landed at Tarentum and wished to see Cicero the day after tomorrow.
Cicero said, “Where exactly are we to go?”
“He is staying in Pompey’s old villa by the sea. Do you know it?”
Cicero nodded. No doubt he was recalling his last visit, when he and Pompey had skimmed stones across the waves. “I know it.”
Vatinius insisted on providing a military escort, even though Cicero said that he would prefer to travel without ostentation: “No, I’m afraid that’s out of the question: the countryside is too dangerous. I hope we will meet again soon in happier circumstances. Good luck with Caesar. You will find him gracious, I’m sure.”
Afterwards, as I was showing him out, Vatinius said, “He doesn’t seem very happy.”
“He feels his humiliation keenly. The fact that he will have to bow the knee in his old chief’s former home will only add to his discomfort.”
“I might let Caesar know that.”
We set off the next morning—ten cavalrymen in the vanguard, followed by the six lictors; Cicero, Tullia and me in a carriage; Marcus on horseback; a baggage train of pack mules and servants; and finally another ten cavalry bringing up the rear. The Calabrian plain was flat and dusty. We saw almost no one apart from the occasional shepherd or olive farmer, and I realised that of course our escort wasn’t for our protection at all, but to make sure Cicero didn’t escape. We stayed overnight at a house reserved for us in Uria and continued the following day until around the middle of the afternoon, when we were only two or three miles from Tarentum, and then we saw a long column of horsemen in the distance, coming towards us.
In the rising heat and dust they seemed mere watery apparitions. It wasn’t until they were only a few hundred paces away that I recognised by the red crests on their helmets and the standards in their midst that they were soldiers. Our column halted, and the officer in charge dismounted and hurried back to tell Cicero that the oncoming cavalry was carrying Caesar’s personal standard. They were his praetorian guard and the Dictator was with them.
Cicero said, “Dear gods, is he planning to have me done in by the roadside, do you suppose?” Then, seeing Tullia’s horrified expression, he added, “That was a joke, child. If he’d wanted me dead it would have happened long ago. Well, let’s get it over with. You’d better come, Tiro. It will make a scene in your book.”
He clambered out of the carriage and called to Marcus to join us.
Caesar’s column had drawn up about a hundred paces away and deployed across the road as if for battle. It was huge: there must have been four or five hundred men. We walked towards them. Cicero was between Marcus and me. At first I couldn’t make out which of them was Caesar. But then a tall man swung himself out of his saddle, took off his helmet and gave it to an aide, and began to advance towards us, stroking his thin hair flat across his head.
How unreal it felt to watch the approach of this titan who had so dominated everyone’s thoughts for so many years—who had conquered countries and upended lives and sent thousands of soldiers marching hither and thither and had smashed the ancient republic to fragments as if it were nothing more substantial than a chipped antique vase that had gone out of fashion—to watch him, and to find him, in the end…just an ordinary breathing mortal! He walked in short strides with great rapidity—there was something curiously birdlike about him, I always thought: that narrow avian skull, those glittering watchful dark eyes. He stopped just in front of us. We stopped too. I was close enough to see the red indentations that his helmet had made in his surprisingly soft pale skin.
He looked Cicero up and down and said in his rasping voice, “Entirely unscathed, I am glad to see—exactly as I would have expected! I have a bone to pick with you,” he said, jabbing a finger at me, and for a moment I felt my insides turn to liquid. “You assured me ten years ago that your master was at death’s door. I told you then he would outlive me.”
Cicero said, “I’m glad to hear of your prediction, Caesar, if only because you are the one man in a position to make sure it comes true.”
Caesar threw back his head and laughed. “Ah yes, I’ve missed you! Now look here—do you see how I’ve come out of the town to meet you, to show you my respect? Let’s walk in the direction you’re headed and talk a little.”
And so they strolled on together for perhaps half a mile towards Tarentum, Caesar’s troops parting to allow them through. A few bodyguards walked behind them, one leading Caesar’s horse. Marcus and I followed. I could not hear what was said, but observed that Caesar occasionally took Cicero’s arm while gesturing with his other hand. Afterwards Cicero said that their conversation was friendly enough, and he roughly summarised it for me as follows:
CAESAR: “So what is it you would like to do?”
CICERO: “To return to Rome, if you’ll permit it.”
CAESAR: “And can you promise you will cause me no trouble?”
CICERO: “I swear it.”
CAESAR: “What will you do there? I’m not sure I want you making speeches in the Senate, and the law courts are all closed.”
CICERO: “Oh, I’m finished in politics, I know that. I shall retire from public life.”
CAESAR: “And do what?”
CICERO: “I thought I might write philosophy.”
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
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: