Imperium

admiration, Cicero. You deserve the place you have won in Rome. It is my view that you should achieve the praetorship in the summer, and the consulship itself two years after that. There—I have said it. You may have my support. Now what do you say in reply?”
    This was indeed a stunning offer, and at that moment I grasped an important point about clever men of business: that it is not consistent meanness which makes them rich (as many vulgarly assume), but rather the capacity, when necessary, to be unexpectedly, even extravagantly generous. Cicero was entirely caught off balance. He was effectively being offered the consulship, his life’s dream, on a platter—an ambition he had never even dared voice in the presence of Pompey, for fear of arousing the great man’s jealousy.
    “You overwhelm me, Crassus,” he said, and his voice was so thick with emotion he had to cough to clear it before he could continue. “But fate has once again cast us on different sides.”
    “Not necessarily. On the day before the people vote, surely the time has arrived for a compromise? I accept that this supreme command is Pompey’s conception. Let us share it.”
    “A shared supreme command is an oxymoron.”
    “We shared the consulship.”
    “Yes, but the consulship is a joint office, based on the principle that political power should always be checked. Running a war is entirely different, as you know far better than I. In warfare, any hint of division at the top is fatal.”
    “This command is so huge, there is easily room enough for two,” said Crassus airily. “Let Pompey take the east, and I the west. Or Pompey the sea and I the land. Or vice versa. I do not mind. The point is that between us, we can rule the world, with you as the bridge that links us.”
    I am sure that Cicero had expected Crassus to come in threatening and aggressive, tactics which a career in the law courts had long since taught him how to handle. But this unexpectedly generous approach had him reeling, not least because what Crassus was suggesting was both sensible and patriotic. It would also be the ideal solution for Cicero, enabling him to win the friendship of all sides. “I shall certainly put your offer to him,” promised Cicero. “He shall have it in his hands before the day is out.”
    “That is no use to me!” scoffed Crassus. “If it were a matter of merely putting a proposal, I could have sent Arrius here out to the Alban Hills with a letter, could I not, Arrius?”
    “Hindeed you could.”
    “No, Cicero, I need you actually to bring this about.” He leaned in close and moistened his lips; there was something almost lecherous about the way Crassus talked of power. “I shall be frank with you. I have set my heart upon resuming a military career. I have all the wealth a man could want, but that can only be a means and not an end in itself. Can you tell me what nation ever erected a statue to a man because he was rich? Which of the earth’s many peoples mingles the name of some long-dead millionaire in its prayers because of the number of houses he once possessed? The only lasting glory is on the page—and I am no poet!—or on the battlefield. So you see, you really must deliver the agreement of Pompey for our bargain to stick.”
    “He is not a mule to be driven to market,” objected Cicero, whom I could see was starting to recoil again from the crudeness of his old enemy. “You know what he is like.”
    “I do. Too well! But you are the most persuasive man in the world. You got him to leave Rome—do not deny it! Now surely you can convince him to come back?”
    “His position is that he will come back as the sole supreme commander, or he will not come back at all.”
    “Then Rome will never see him again,” snapped Crassus, whose friendliness was beginning to peel away like a thin layer of cheap paint on one of his less salubrious properties. “You know perfectly well what is going to happen tomorrow. It will unfold as predictably as a farce at the theater. Gabinius will propose your law and Trebellius, on my behalf, will veto it. Then Roscius, also on my instructions, will propose an amendment, setting up a joint command, and dare any tribune to veto that . If Pompey refuses to serve, he will look like a greedy child, willing to spoil the cake rather than share it.”
    “I disagree. The people love him.”
    “The people loved Tiberius Gracchus, but it did him no good in the end. That was a horrible fate for a