Imperium

villains—as thoroughbred as Arab bloodstock, and just as quick and headstrong and dangerous.
    “This is the deal as we see it,” said Catilina. “Young Clodius here will make a brilliant speech for the prosecution and everyone will say he is the new Cicero and I am bound to be convicted. But then you, Cicero, will make an even more brilliant argument for the defense in reply, and therefore no one will be surprised when I am acquitted. At the end of it, we shall have put on a good show and we shall all emerge with our positions enhanced. I am declared innocent before the people of Rome. Clodius is acknowledged as the brave and coming man. And you will have won yet another splendid triumph in the courts, defending someone a cut above your usual run of clients.”
    “And what if the jury decides differently?”
    “You need not be concerned about them.” Catilina patted his pocket. “I have taken care of the jury.”
    “The law is so expensive,” said Clodius, with a smile. “Poor Catilina has had to sell his heirlooms to be sure of justice. It really is a scandal. How do people manage?”
    “I shall need to see the trial documents,” said Cicero. “How soon before the hearing opens?”
    “Three days,” said Catilina, and he gestured to a slave who was standing at the door. “Does that give you long enough to prepare?”
    “If the jury has already been convinced, I can make the speech in six words: ‘Here is Catilina. Let him go.’”
    “Oh, but I want the full Ciceronian production!” protested Catilina. “I want: ‘This nnnoble mmman…the bbblood of centuries…behold the tears of his wwwife and fffriends…’” He had his hand in the air and was twirling it expressively, crudely imitating Cicero’s almost imperceptible stutter. Clodius was laughing; they were both slightly drunk. “I want ‘African sssavages ssssullying this ancient cccourt…’ I want Carthage and Troy to be conjured before us, and Dido and Aeneas—”
    “You will get,” said Cicero, coldly cutting him off, “a professional job.” The slave had returned with the papers for the trial and I began rapidly piling them into my document case, for I could sense the atmosphere beginning to worsen as the drink took hold and I was anxious to get Cicero out of there. “We shall need to meet to discuss your evidence,” he continued, in the same chilly tone. “Tomorrow it had better be, if that is convenient to you.”
    “By all means. I have nothing better to do. I had been expecting to stand for the consulship this summer, as you well know, until this young mischief-maker put a stop to it.”
    It was the agility that was so shocking in a man of such height. He suddenly lunged forward and wrapped his powerful right arm around Clodius’s neck and dragged the younger man’s head down, so that Clodius was bent double. Poor Clodius—who was no weakling, incidentally—let out a muffled cry, and his fingers clawed feebly at Catilina’s arm. But the strength of Catilina was appalling, and I wondered whether he might not have broken his visitor’s neck with a quick upward flick of his forearm, if Cicero had not said calmly, “I must advise you, Catilina, as your defense attorney, that it would be a grievous mistake to murder your prosecutor.”
    Catilina swung around and frowned at him, as if he had momentarily forgotten who Cicero was. Then he laughed. He ruffled Clodius’s blond curls and let him go. Clodius staggered backward, coughing and massaging the side of his head and throat, and for an instant he gave Catilina a look of pure murder, but then he, too, started laughing, and straightened up. They embraced, Catilina called for some more wine, and we left them to it. “What a pair,” exclaimed Cicero, as we passed by the Temple of Luna on our way back home. “With any luck they will have killed each other by morning.”

    BY THE TIME we had returned to Cicero’s house, Terentia was in labor. There was no mistaking it. We could hear the screams from the street. Cicero stood in the atrium, white with shock and alarm, for he had been away when Tullia was born, and nothing in his philosophy books had prepared him for what was happening. “Dear heavens, it sounds as though she is being tortured. Terentia!” He started toward the staircase which led to her room, but one of the midwives intercepted him.
    We passed a long vigil in the dining room. He asked me to stay with him, but was at first too anxious to do any