'Is that such a bad thing?' I asked stupidly, for I was still half asleep. 'I thought you always said Silanus was dull but respectable, and so perfect for high office.'
'I do want him to win, you dunderhead! And so do the patricians, and so it now seems does Caesar. Silanus is therefore unstoppable. The real fight is going to be for the second consulship – and that, unless we are very careful, is going to be won by Catilina.'
'But Servius is so confident—'
'Not confident – complacent, which is exactly what Caesar wants him to be.'
I splashed some cold water on my face. I was at last beginning to wake up. Cicero was already halfway out of the door.
'May I ask where we are going?' I called.
'South,' he replied over his shoulder, 'to the Bay of Naples, to see Lucullus.'
He left a note of explanation for Terentia and we were gone before she woke. We travelled fast in a closed carriage to avoid being recognised – a necessary precaution since it seemed that half the senate, weary of Rome's unusually long winter, was en route to the warm spas of Campania. We reduced the escort to make better speed and only two men guarded the consul: a great ox of a knight called Titus Sextus and his equally hefty brother, Quintus; they rode on horseback fore and aft of us.
As the sun rose higher, the air became warmer, the sea bluer, and the aromas of mimosa blossom, and of sun-dried herbs and fragrant pines, gradually infiltrated the carriage. From time to time I would part the curtain and gaze out at the landscape, and I vowed to myself that if ever I did get that little farm I so desired, it would be down here in the south. Cicero meanwhile saw nothing. He slept throughout the entire journey and only woke towards the end of the afternoon as we jolted down the narrow lane to Misenum, where Lucullus had his – well, I was going to call it a house, but the word hardly fits that veritable palace of pleasure, the Villa Cornelia, which he had bought and extended on the coast. It stood on the promontory where the herald of the Trojans lies buried, and commanded perhaps the most exquisite view in Italy, from the island of Prochyta all the way across the wondrous blueness of the Bay of Naples to the mountains of Caprae. A gentle breeze rustled the tops of an avenue of cypresses, and we descended from our dusty carriage as if into Paradise.
On hearing who was in his courtyard, Lucullus himself wafted out to greet us. He was in his middle fifties, very languid and affected, and just beginning to run to fat: seeing him in his silken slippers and Greek tunic, you would never have believed he was a great general, the greatest for over a century; he looked more like a retired dancing-master. But the detachment of legionaries guarding his house and the lictors sprawled in the shade of the plane trees served as a reminder that he had been hailed as imperator in the field by his victorious soldiers and still commanded military imperium. He insisted Cicero must dine with him, and stay the night, but that first he must bathe and rest. Such was either his chilliness or his exquisite manners that he expressed not the slightest curiosity as to why Cicero had turned up on his doorstep uninvited.
The consul and his escort were led away by flunkeys, and I assumed I would be consigned to the slaves' quarters. But not at all: as the consul's private secretary, I too was conducted to a guest room, fresh clothes were fetched for me, and then a most remarkable thing occurred, which I blush to remember but must set down if this is to be an honest account. A young female slave appeared. She was Greek, I discovered, so I was able to converse with her in her own tongue. She was in her twenties, and very charming, in a short-sleeved dress – slender, olive-skinned, with a mass of long black hair all pinned up and waiting to fall in a soft cascade. Her name was Agathe. With much giggling and insistent gesturing she persuaded me to undress and step into a small windowless cubicle, which was entirely covered in mosaics of sea creatures. I stood there for a moment, feeling somewhat foolish, until all at once the ceiling seemed to dissolve and begin pouring forth warm fresh water. This was my first experience of one of Sergius Orata's famous shower baths, and I luxuriated in it for a long while before Agathe returned and led me into the next-door room to be cleansed and massaged – and oh, what sweet delight was that! Her smile revealed teeth as white as ivory and a mischievous pink tongue. When I met up with Cicero on the terrace an hour or so later, I asked if he had tried out one of these extraordinary showers.
'Certainly not! Mine came equipped with a young whore. I never heard of such degeneracy,' and then he peered at me and said in disbelief, 'Don't tell me you did!' I turned scarlet, at which he started laughing very loudly, and for many months thereafter, whenever he wished to tease me, he would bring up the episode of Lucullus's shower bath.
Before we dined, our host took us on a tour of his palace. The main part of the house was a century old, and had been built by Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi brothers, but Lucullus had tripled it in size, adding wings and terraces and a swimming pool – all of it hewn out of the solid rock. The views on every side were astounding, the rooms sumptuous. We were led into a tunnel lined with torches that cast their light on glisten ing mosaics of Theseus in the labyrinth. Steps took us down to the sea and out on to a platform positioned just above the lapping waves. Here was Lucullus's particular pride – a great expanse of man-made pools, filled with every species of fish you could name, including huge eels decorated with jewellery, which came at the sound of his call. He knelt and a slave handed him a silver bucket full of food, which he gently tipped into the water. Immediately the surface roiled with smooth and powerful bodies. 'They all have names,' he said, and pointed to a particularly fat and repulsive creature with gold rings in its fins. 'I call that one Pompey.'
Cicero laughed politely. 'And whose place is that?' he asked, nodding across the water to another huge villa with a fish farm.
'That belongs to Hortensius. He thinks he can breed better fish than I, but he will never manage it. Good night, Pompey,' he said to the eel in a caressing voice. 'Sleep well.'
I thought we must have seen everything, but Lucullus had saved the climax till last. We ascended by a different route, a wide staircase tunnelled into the bowels of the dripping rock beneath the house. We passed through several heavy iron gates manned by sentries, until we came at last to a series of chambers, each of which was crammed with the treasure Lucullus had carted back from the Mithradatic war. Attendants passed their torches over glittering heaps of jewel-encrusted armour, shields, dinner plates, beakers, ladles, basins, gold chairs and gold couches. There were heavy silver ingots and chests full of millions of tiny silver coins, and a golden statue of Mithradates more than six feet high. After a while our exclamations of wonder dwindled to silence. The riches were stupefying. Then, as we went back into the tunnel, there came a very faint scuffling noise from somewhere close at hand, which at first I thought was rats, but which Lucullus explained was the noise of the sixty prisoners – friends of Mithradates, and some of his generals – whom he had been keeping down here for the past five years in readiness for his triumphal parade, at the end of which they would be strangled.
Cicero put his hand to his mouth and cleared his throat. 'Actually, imperator, it's about your triumph that I've come to see you.'
'I thought it might be,' said Lucullus, and in the torchlight I saw the briefest of smiles pass over his fleshy face. 'Shall we eat?'
Naturally we dined on fish – oysters and sea bass, crab and eel, grey and red mullet. It was all too rich for me: I was accustomed to plainer fare and took little. Nor did I utter a word during dinner, but kept a subtle distance between myself and the other guests, to signify my awareness that my presence was a special favour. The Sextus brothers ate greedily, and from time to time one or the other would rise from the table and go into the garden to vomit noisily, to clear space for the next course. Cicero as usual was sparing in his consumption, while Lucullus chewed and swallowed steadily but without any apparent pleasure.
I found myself secretly observing him, for he fascinated me, and still does. In truth I believe he was the most melancholy
man I ever met. The blight of his life was Pompey, who had replaced him as supreme commander in the East and who had then, through his allies in the senate, blocked Lucullus's hopes of a triumph. Many men would have accepted this, but not Lucullus. He had everything in the world he wanted except the one thing he most desired. So he flatly refused to enter Rome or surrender his command, and instead diverted his talents and ambition into creating ever more elaborate fish ponds. He became bored and listless, his domestic life unhappy. He was married twice, the first time to one of the sisters of Clodius, from whom he separated in scandalous circumstances, alleging that she had committed incest with her brother, who had then encouraged a mutiny against Lucullus in the East. The second marriage, which still endured, was to a sister of Cato, but she was also said to be flighty and unfaithful: I never set eyes on her, so I cannot judge. I did however meet her child, Lucullus's young son, then two years old, who was brought out by his nurse to kiss his father good night. Seeing the way Lucullus treated him, I could tell he loved the lad deeply. But the moment the child had gone away to bed, the veils came down once more over Lucullus's large blue eyes and he resumed his joyless chomping.
'So,' he said eventually, between mouthfuls, 'my triumph?' There was a fragment of fish stuck on his cheek that he didn't know about. It was peculiarly distracting.
'Yes,' repeated Cicero, 'your triumph. I was thinking of laying a motion before the senate straight after the recess.'
'And will it pass?'
'I don't believe in calling votes that I can't win.'
The chomp, chomp continued for a while longer.
'Pompey won't be pleased.'
'Pompey will have to accept that others are allowed to triumph in this republic as well as he.'
'And what's in it for you?'
'The honour of proposing your eternal glory.'
'Balls.' Lucullus finally wiped his mouth and the particle of fish disappeared. 'You've really travelled fifty miles in a day just to tell me this? You can't expect me to believe it.'
'Oh dear, you're too shrewd for me, Imperator! Very well, I confess I also wanted to have a political talk with you.'
'Go on.'
'I believe we are drifting towards calamity.' Cicero pushed away his plate and, summoning all his eloquence, proceeded to describe the state of the republic in the starkest terms, dwelling especially on Caesar's support for Catilina, and Catilina's revolutionary programme of cancelling debts and seizing the property of the rich. He did not have to point out what a threat this posed to Lucullus, reclining in his palace amid all his silk and gold: it was perfectly obvious. Our host's face became grimmer and grimmer, and when Cicero had finished, he took his time before replying.
'So it is your firm opinion that Catilina could win the consulship?'
'It is. Silanus will take the first place and he the second.'
'Well then, we have to stop him.'
'I agree.'
'So what do you propose?'
'That is why I've come. I'd like you to stage your triumph just before the consular elections.'
'Why?'
'For the purpose of your procession, I assume you plan to bring into Rome several thousand of your veterans from all across Italy?'
'Naturally.'
'Whom you will entertain lavishly, and reward generously out of the spoils of your victory?'
'Of course.'
'And who will therefore listen to your advice about whom to support in the consular elections?'
'I would like to think so.'
'In which case, I know just the candidate they should vote for.'
'I thought you might,' said Lucullus with a cynical smile. 'You have in mind your great ally Servius.'
'Oh no. Not him. The poor fool doesn't stand a chance. No, I'm thinking of your old legate – and their former comrade-in-arms – Lucius Murena.'
Accustomed though I was to the twists and turns of Cicero's stratagems, it had never crossed my mind that he might abandon Servius so readily. For a moment I could not believe what I had just heard. Lucullus looked equally surprised. 'I thought Servius was one of your closest friends?'
'This is the Roman republic, not a coterie of friends. My heart certainly urges me to vote for Servius. But my head tells me he can't beat Catilina. Whereas Murena, with your backing, might just be able to manage it.'
Lucullus frowned. 'I have a problem with Murena. His closest lieutenant in Gaul is that depraved monster, my former brother-in-law – a man whose name is so disgusting to me I refuse to pollute my mouth by even uttering it.'
'Well then, let me utter it for you. Clodius is not a man I have any great liking for myself. But in politics one cannot always pick and choose one's enemies, let alone one's friends. To save the republic, I must abandon an old and dear companion. To save the republic, you must embrace the ally of your bitterest foe.' He leaned across the table, and added softly, 'Such is politics, Imperator, and if ever the day comes when we lack the stomach for such work, we should get out of public life and stick to breeding fish!'
For a moment I feared he had gone too far. Lucullus threw down his napkin and swore that he would not be blackmailed into betraying his principles. But as usual Cicero had judged his man well. He let Lucullus rant on for a while, and when he had finished he made no response, but simply gazed across the bay and sipped his wine. The silence seemed to go on for a very long time. The moon above the water cast a path of shimmering silver. Finally, in a voice leaden with suppressed anger, Lucullus said that he supposed Murena might make a decent enough consul if he was willing to take advice, whereupon Cicero promised to lay the issue of his triumph before the senate as soon as the recess ended.
Neither man having much appetite left for further conversation, we all retired early to our rooms. I had not long been in mine when I heard a gentle knocking at the door. I opened it, and there stood Agathe. She came in without a word. I assumed she had been sent by Lucullus's steward, and told her it was not necessary, but as she climbed into my bed she assured me it was of her own volition, and so I joined her. We talked between caresses, and she told me something of herself – of how her parents, now dead, had been led back as slaves from the East as part of Lucullus's war booty, and how she could just vaguely remember the village in Greece where they had lived. She had worked in the kitchens, and now she looked after the imperator's guests. In due course, as her looks faded, she would return to the kitchens, if she was lucky; if not, it would be the fields, and an early death. She talked about all this without any self-pity, as one might describe the life of a horse or a dog. Cato called himself a stoic, I thought, but this girl really was one, smiling at her fate and armoured against despair by her dignity. I said as much to her, and she laughed.
'Come, Tiro,' she said, holding up her arms and beckoning me to her, 'no more solemn words. Here is my philosophy: enjoy such brief ecstasy as the gods permit us, for it is only in these moments that men and women are truly not alone.'
When I awoke with the dawn she had gone.
Do I surprise you, reader? I remember I surprised myself. After so many years of chastity, I had ceased even to imagine such things and was content to leave them to the poets: 'What life is there, what delight, without golden Aphrodite?' Knowing the words was one thing; I never expected to know their meaning.
I had hoped we might stay for one more night at least, but the next morning Cicero announced that we were leaving. Secrecy was absolutely vital to his plans, and the longer he lingered in Misenum, the more he feared his presence would become known. So after a final brief conference with Lucullus, we set off back in the closed carriage. As we descended towards the coastal road, I stared back at the house over my shoulder. There were many slaves to be seen, working in the gardens and moving beneath the various parts of the great villa, preparing it for another perfect spring day. Cicero was also looking back.
'They flaunt their wealth,' he murmured, 'and then they wonder why they are so hated. And if that is how stupendously
rich Lucullus has become, who never actually defeated Mithradates, can you imagine the colossal wealth that Pompey must now possess?'
I could not imagine it, and nor did I wish to. It sickened me. Never before had the pointlessness of piling up treasure for its own sake been more apparent to me than it was on that warm blue morning as the house receded behind me.
Now that he had settled on his strategy, Cicero was eager to pursue it, and for that we needed to return to Rome. As far as he was concerned, the holiday was over. Reaching the seaside villa at Formiae at dusk, we rested overnight, and then set off again at first light. If Terentia was irritated by this neglect of her and the children, she did not show it. She knew he would travel quicker without them. We were back in Rome by the Ides of April, and Cicero at once set about making discreet contact with Murena. The governor was still in his province of Further Gaul, but it turned out he had sent back his lieutenant, Clodius, to start planning his election campaign. Cicero hummed and hawed about what to do, for he did not trust Clodius, and nor did he want to tip off his plans to Caesar and Catilina by going openly to the young man's house. Eventually he decided to approach him via his brother-in-law, the augur Metellus Celer, and this led to a memorable encounter.
Celer lived up on the Palatine Hill, on Victory Rise, close to the house of Catulus, in a street of fine residences overlooking the forum. Cicero reasoned that nobody would find it surprising to see a consul dropping by to visit a praetor. But when we entered the mansion, we discovered that its master was away for the day on a hunting trip. Only his wife was at home, and it was she who came out to greet us, accompanied by several maids. As far as I am aware, this was the first occasion on which Cicero met Clodia, and she made a striking impression on him of beauty and of cleverness. She was thirty or thereabouts, famous for her large brown eyes with long lashes – 'Lady Ox-Eyes', Cicero used to call her – which she employed to great effect, giving men flirtatious sidelong glances, or fixing them with beguiling and intimate stares. She had an expressive mouth and a caressing voice, pitched for gossip. Like her brother, she affected a fashionable 'urban' accent. But woe betide the man who tried to be too familiar with her – she was capable of turning in an instant into a true Claudian: haughty, ruthless, cruel. A rake named Vettius, who had tried to seduce her and failed, circulated quite a good pun about her: in triclinio Coa, in cubiculo nola ('a silky island in the dining room, a rocky fortress in bed'), with the result that two of her other admirers, M. Camurtius and M. Caesernius, took revenge on her behalf: they beat him up, and then, to make the punishment fit the crime, they buggered him half to death.