Imperium

but solely in the cause of my country.” He left the rostra to respectful applause. The law was passed, Lucullus was stripped of his command, and Gabinius was given his legateship. As for Cicero, he had surmounted another obstacle in his progress to the consulship, but was more hated than ever by the aristocrats.
    Later, he had a letter from Varro, describing Pompey’s reaction to the news that he now had complete control of Rome’s forces in the East. As his officers crowded around him at his headquarters in Ephesus to congratulate him, he frowned, struck himself on the thigh, and said (“in a weary voice,” according to Varro), “How sad it makes me, this constant succession of labors! Really I would rather be one of those people whom no one has heard about, if I am never to have any relief from military service, and never to be able to escape from being envied so that I can live quietly in the country with my wife.” Such play-acting was hard to stomach, especially when the whole world knew how much he had wanted the command.

    THE PRAETORSHIP BROUGHT an elevation in Cicero’s station. Now he had six lictors to guard him whenever he left the house. He did not care for them at all. They were rough fellows, hired for their strength and easy cruelty: if a Roman citizen was sentenced to be punished, they were the ones who carried it out, and they were adept at floggings and beheadings. Because their posts were permanent, some had been used to power for years, and they rather looked down on the magistrates they guarded as mere transitory politicians. Cicero hated it when they cleared the crowds out of his way too roughly, or ordered passersby to remove their headgear or dismount in the presence of a praetor, for the people being so humiliated were his voters. He instructed the lictors to show more politeness, and for a time they would, but they soon snapped back into their old ways. The chief of them, the proximus lictor, who was supposed to stand at Cicero’s side at all times, was particularly obnoxious. I forget his name now, but he was always bringing Cicero tittle-tattle of what the other praetors were up to, gleaned from his fellow lictors, not realizing that this made him deeply suspect in Cicero’s eyes, who was well aware that gossip is a trade, and that reports of his own actions would be offered as currency in return. “These people,” Cicero complained to me one morning, “are a warning of what happens to any state which has a permanent staff of officials. They begin as our servants and end up imagining themselves our masters!”
    My own status rose with his. I discovered that to be known as the confidential secretary of a praetor, even if one was a slave, was to enjoy an unaccustomed civility from those one met. Cicero told me beforehand that I could expect to be offered money to use my influence on behalf of petitioners, and when I insisted hotly that I would never accept a bribe, he cut me off. “No, Tiro, you should have some money of your own. Why not? I ask only that you tell me who has paid you, and that you make it clear to whoever approaches you that my judgments are not to be bought, and that I will decide things on their merits. Aside from that, I trust you to use your own discretion.” This conversation meant a great deal to me. I had always hoped that eventually Cicero would grant me my freedom; permitting me to have some savings of my own I saw as a preparation for that day. The amounts which came in were small—fifty or a hundred here and there—and in return I might be required to bring a document to the praetor’s attention, or draft a letter of introduction for him to sign. The money I kept in a small purse, hidden behind a loose brick in the wall of my cubicle.
    As praetor, Cicero was expected to take in promising pupils from good families to study law with him, and in May, after the Senate recess, a new young intern of sixteen joined his chambers. This was Marcus Caelius Rufus from Interamnia, the son of a wealthy banker and prominent election official of the Velina tribe. Cicero agreed, largely as a political favor, to supervise the boy’s training for two years, at the end of which it was fixed that he would move on to complete his apprenticeship in another household—that of Crassus, as it happened, for Crassus was a business associate of Caelius’s father, and the banker was anxious that his heir should learn how to manage a fortune. The father was a ghastly