Conspirata (30 page)

Around the middle of March, Hortensius came to see Cicero. He trailed Gatulus after him, and when the old patrician shuffled in, he looked more than ever like a tortoise without its shell. Catulus had recently had the last of his teeth removed, and the trauma of the extraction, the long months of agony that had preceded it and the distortion of his mouth that had resulted all combined to make him look every one of his sixty years. He seemed unable to stop drooling and carried a large handkerchief that was sodden and yellowish. He reminded me of someone: I could not think who at first, and then I remembered - Rabirius. Cicero sprang up to help him to a chair, but Catulus waved him away, mumbling that he was perfectly all right.

'This wretched affair with Clodius cannot be allowed to drag on any longer Hortensius began.

'I agree with you,' said Cicero, who privately, I knew, was beginning to feel uncomfortable about the damaging war of words he was locked in with Clodius. 'The government is at a standstill. Our enemies are laughing at us.'

"We need to bring it to trial as soon as possible. I propose we should give up our insistence that the jury be selected by the urban praetor.'

'So how would it be selected?'

In the usual way, by lot.'

' But might we not then find ourselves with quite a few dubious characters on the jury? We don't want the rascal to be acquitted. That really would be a disaster.'

Acquittal is utterly impossible. Once any jury sees the weight of the evidence against him, he's bound to be convicted. All we need is a bare majority. We must have some faith in the good sense of the Roman people.'

'He must be crushed by the facts,' put in Catulus, holding his stained handkerchief to his mouth, 'and the sooner the better.'

'Will Fufius agree to drop his veto if we give up the clause about the jury?'

'He assures me he will, on condition we also reduce the penalty from death to exile.'

'What does Lucullus say?'

'He just wants a trial on any terms. You know he's been preparing for this day for years. He has all manner of witnesses lined up ready to testify to Clodius's immorality - even the slave girls who changed the sheets on his bed in Misenum after he had intercourse with his sisters.'

'Dear gods! Is it wise to have that kind of detail aired in public?'

'I never heard of such disgusting behaviour,' drooled Catulus. 'The whole Augean stable needs cleaning out, or it will be the ruin of us.'

'Even so . . .' Cicero frowned and did not complete the sentence. I could see he was not convinced, and for the first time I believe he sniffed danger to himself. Exactly what it was he could not say, simply that something about it smelled ominous. He continued to raise objections for a little longer - 'Wouldn't it be better just to drop the whole bill? Haven't we made our

point? Don't we risk making a martyr of the young fool?' - before reluctantly giving Hortensius his assent. 'Well, I suppose you will have to do whatever you think is right. You've taken the lead in this thing from the start. However, I must make one thing clear - I want no part in it.'

I was vastly relieved to hear him utter those words: it seemed to me almost the first sensible decision he had made since leaving the consulship. Hortensius looked disappointed, having doubt-Jess hoped that Cicero would lead for the prosecution, but he did not try to argue the matter, and duly went off to make the deal with Fufius. Thus the bill was passed and the people of Rome licked their lips and prepared for what promised to be the most scandalous trial in the republic's history.

The normal business of government was now able to resume, beginning with the drawing of lots by the praetors for their provinces. A few days before the ceremony, Cicero went out to the Alban Hills to see Pompey and asked him as a favour not to press for the recall of Hybrida.

'But the man is a disgrace to our empire,' objected Pompey. 'I have never heard of such thievery and incompetence.'

'I am sure he is not as bad as all that.'

Are you doubting my word?'

'No. But I would be grateful if you could oblige me in this matter. I gave him my assurance that I'd support him.'

'Ah, so I assume he's cutting you in?' Pompey winked and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.

'Certainly not. I simply feel honour-bound to protect him, in return for all the help he gave me in saving the republic.'

Pompey looked unconvinced. But then he grinned and clapped

Cicero on the shoulder. What was Macedonia after all? A mere vegetable plot to the Warden of Land and Sea! All right, let him have another year. But in return I expect you to do everything in your power to get my three bills through the senate.'

Cicero agreed, and thus when the lot drawing took place in the chamber of the senate, Macedonia, the most valuable prize, was not on the table. Instead there were just five provinces to be divided among the eight former praetors. The rivals all sat in a row on the front bench, Caesar at the end furthest from Quintus. Vergilius went first, if I remember rightly, and drew Sicily, and Caesar was the next to step up to try his luck. This was an important moment for him. Because of his divorce he had been obliged to hand back Pompeia's dowry and was being hard-pressed by his creditors: there was talk he was no longer solvent and might even be forced to leave the senate. He put his hand into the urn and gave the token to the consul. When the result was read out - 'Caesar draws Further Spain!' - he grimaced. Unfortunately for him, there was no war to be had in that distant land; he would much have preferred Africa or even Asia, where there was a greater chance of making money. Cicero managed to suppress a smile of triumph, but only for a moment or two, because shortly afterwards Asia went to Quintus, and Cicero was the first on his feet to congratulate his brother. Once again he let his tears flow freely. There seemed every possibility that Quintus might return from his province and become consul in his turn. Theirs was a dynasty in the making, and joyous was the family celebration that evening, to which I was once again invited. Cicero and Caesar were now on opposite sides of Fortune's wheel, with Cicero at the top and Caesar very firmly at the bottom.

Normally the new governors would have set off for their

provinces immediately: in fact they should have left months earlier. But on this occasion the senate refused to allow them to leave Rome until the trial of Clodius had been concluded, in case they might be needed to restore public order.

The court duly convened in May, the prosecution being mounted by three young members of the Cornelius Lentulus family - Crus, Marcellinus and Niger, the latter being also the chief priest of Mars. They were great rivals of the Claudian clan, and had a particular grudge against Clodius, who had seduced several of their womenfolk. As his chief defender Clodius relied upon a former consul, Scribonius Curio, who was the father of one of his closest friends. Curio had made his fortune in the East as a soldier under Sulla, but was rather slow-witted, with a poor memory. As an orator he was known as 'The Fly-Swatter' because of his habit of throwing his arms around when he spoke. To weigh the evidence was a jury of fifty-six citizens, drawn by lot. They were of all types and conditions, from patrician senators down to such notorious low-life figures as Talna and Spongia. Originally eighty jurors had been empanelled, but the defence and prosecution each had twelve challenges, which they quickly used up, the defence rejecting the respectable and the prosecution the rough. Those who had survived this winnowing sat uneasily together.

A sex scandal will always draw a crowd, but a sex scandal involving the ruling classes is titillating beyond measure. To accommodate the numbers who wished to watch, it was necessary to hold the trial in front of the Temple of Castor. A special section of seats was set aside for the senate, and that was where Cicero took his place on the opening day, on the bench next to Hortensius. Caesar's ex-wife had prudently withdrawn from Rome to avoid giving evidence, but the chief priest's mother,

Aurelia, and his sister, Julia, both came forward to act as witnesses, and identified Clodius as the man who had invaded the sacred rites. Aurelia made an especially strong impression, as she pointed her talon-like finger at the accused, sitting no more than ten feet from her, and insisted in her hard voice that the Good Goddess must be placated by his exile or disaster would descend on Rome. That was the first day.

On the second, Caesar followed her on to the witness stand, and I was struck again by the similarities between mother and son - tough and sinewy, and confident beyond mere arrogance, to a point where all men, aristocrat or plebeian, were deemed equally beneath them in their gaze. (This, I think, was why he was always so popular with the people: he was far too superior to be a snob.) Under cross-examination he responded that he could not say what had happened that night, as he had not been present. He added, very coldly, that he bore no particular ill will towards Clodius - in whose direction, however, he did not once look - because he had no idea whether he was guilty or not; clearly, he loathed him. As to his divorce, he could only repeat the answer he had given Cicero in the senate: he had set Pompeia aside not necessarily because she was guilty but because, as the chief priest's wife, she could not be tainted by suspicion. As everyone in Rome knew of Caesar's own reputation, not least his conquest of Pompey's wife, this fine piece of casuistry provoked long and mocking laughter, which he had to endure behind his habitual mask of supreme indifference.

He finished giving evidence and stepped down from the tribunal, coincidentally at exactly the same moment as Cicero rose to leave the audience. They almost walked into one another, and there was no chance of avoiding at least a brief exchange.

'Well, Caesar, you must be glad your testimony is over.' 'Why do you say that?'

'I presume it must have been awkward for you.' 'I never feel awkward. But yes, you're right, I am delighted to put this absurd affair behind me, because now I can set off for Spain.'

When are you planning to leave?' 'Tonight.'

'But I thought the senate had forbidden the new governors to leave for their provinces until the trial was over?'

'True, but I haven't a moment to lose. The moneylenders are after me. Apparently I somehow have to make twenty-five million sesterces just to own nothing.' He gave a shrug - a gambler's shrug: I remember he seemed quite unconcerned - and sauntered off towards his official residence. Within the hour, accompanied by a small entourage, he was gone, and it was left to Crassus to stand surety for his debts.

Caesar's evidence was entertaining enough. But the real highlight of the proceedings came on the third day of Clodius's trial with the appearance of Lucullus. It is said that at the entrance to Apollo's shrine at Delphi three things are written: 'Know thyself; 'Desire nothing too much' and 'Never go to law'. Did ever a man so wilfully ignore these precepts as Lucullus in this affair? Forgetting that he was supposed to be a military hero, he ascended the platform trembling with his desire to ruin Clodius, and very soon began to describe how he had surprised his wife in bed with her brother during a vacation when Clodius had been a guest in his house on the Bay of Naples more than a decade earlier. By then he had been watching them together for many weeks, said Lucullus - oh yes, the way they touched one another, and whispered when they thought his back was turned:

they took him for a fool - and he had ordered his wife's maids to bring her sheets to him each morning for his inspection and report to him everything he saw. These female slaves, six in all, were summoned into court, and as they filed in, clearly nervous and with their eyes lowered, I saw among them my beloved Agathe, whose image had rarely left my mind in the two years since we were together.

They stood meekly as their depositions were produced, and I willed her to look up and glance in my direction. I waved. I even whistled. The people standing around me must have thought I had gone mad. Finally I cupped my hands to my mouth and yelled her name. She did raise her eyes at that, but there were so many thousands of spectators crammed into the forum, and the noise was so intense, and the glaring sunshine so bright, there can have been little chance of her seeing me. I tried to struggle forward through the packed crowd, but the people in front of me had queued for hours for their places, and they refused to let me pass. In an agony I heard Clodius's counsel announce that they did not wish to challenge these witnesses, as their testimony was not relevant to the case, and the maids were ordered to leave the platform. I watched Agathe turn with the others and descend out of sight.

Lucullus resumed giving evidence and I felt a great hatred well up in me at the sight of this decaying plutocrat who unthinkingly possessed a treasure for which, at that moment, I would have given my life. I was so preoccupied that I briefly lost track of what he was saying, and it was only when I realised that the crowd had started to gasp and laugh with delight that I took notice of his evidence. He was describing how he had concealed himself in his wife's bedchamber and observed her and her brother in the act of fornication: 'dog on bitch', as he put it.

Nor, continued Lucullus, ignoring the noise of the crowd, did Clodius confine his base appetites to one sister, but boasted of his conquests of the other two. Bearing in mind that Clodia's husband Celer had just returned from Nearer Gaul to stand for the consulship, this allegation caused a particular sensation. Clodius sat through it all smiling broadly at his former brother-in-law, clearly aware that whatever damage Lucullus imagined he was doing to him, he was actually inflicting far more harm on his own reputation. That was the third day, and at the end of it the prosecution rested its case. I lingered after the court had been adjourned in the hope of seeing Agathe again, but she had been taken away.

On the fourth day, the defence began the job of trying to extricate Clodius from this morass of filth. It seemed a hopeless task, for no one, not even Curio, was in serious doubt of his client's guilt of the actual offence. Nevertheless, he did his best. The core of his case was that the whole episode had been a simple matter of mistaken identity. The lights had been dim, the women hysterical, the intruder disguised - how could anyone be sure it was Clodius? It was hardly a convincing line. But then, just as the morning was nearing its end, Clodius's side produced a surprise witness. A man named C. Causinius Schola, a seemingly respectable citizen from the town of Interamna, some ninety miles from Rome, came forward to say that on the night in question, Clodius had actually been with him in his home. Even under cross-examination he was quite unshakeable on this point, and although his was only one voice set against a dozen on the other side, including the firm testimony of Caesar's own mother, he cut a strangely believable figure.