Imperium

work. He lay stretched out on the same couch Terentia had been occupying when we left, and then, when he heard another scream, he would jump up and pace around. The air was hot and heavy, the candle flames motionless, their black threads of smoke as rigid as plumb lines suspended from the ceiling. I busied myself by emptying my case of the court papers I had carried back from Catilina’s house and sorting them into categories—charges, depositions, summaries of documentary evidence. Eventually, to distract himself, Cicero, still prone on the couch, stretched out a hand and started reading, picking up one roll after another and holding each to the lamp which I placed beside him. He kept flinching and wincing, but I could not tell whether it was because of the continuing howls from upstairs or the horrific allegations against Catilina, for these were indeed the most appalling accounts of violence and rape, dispatched by almost every town in Africa, from Utica to Thaenae, and from Thapsus to Thelepte. After an hour or two, he tossed them aside in disgust and asked me to fetch some paper so that he could dictate a few letters, beginning with one to Atticus. He lay back and closed his eyes in an effort to concentrate. I have the very document before me now.
    “It is a long time since I had a line from you. I have already written to you in detail about my election campaign. At the moment I am proposing to defend my fellow candidate Catilina. We have the jury we want, with full cooperation from the prosecution. If he is acquitted I hope he will be more inclined to work with me in the campaign. But should it go otherwise, I shall bear it philosophically.”
    “Ha! That is certainly true enough.” He closed his eyes again.
    “I need you home pretty soon. There is a decidedly strong belief going around that your noble friends are going to oppose my election—”
    And at that point my writing stops, because instead of a scream we heard a different sound from above us—the gurgling cry of a baby. Cicero sprang from the couch and ran upstairs to Terentia’s room. It was some time before he reappeared, and when he did he silently took the letter from me and wrote across the top in his own hand:
    “I have the honor to inform you that I have become the father of a little son. Terentia is well.”

    HOW TRANSFORMED A HOUSE is by the presence of a healthy newborn baby! I believe, although it is seldom acknowledged, that this must be because it is a double blessing. The unspoken dreads which attend all births—of agony, death, and deformity—are banished, and in their place comes this miracle of a fresh life. Relief and joy are intertwined.
    Naturally, I was not permitted upstairs to see Terentia, but a few hours later Cicero brought his son down and proudly showed him off to the household and his clients. To be frank, not much was visible, apart from an angry little red face and a lick of fine dark hair. He was wrapped up tight in the woollen swaddling clothes which had performed the same service for Cicero more than forty years earlier. The senator also had a silver rattle preserved from his infancy which he tinkled above the tiny face. He carried the infant tenderly into the atrium and pointed to the spot where he dreamed that one day his consular image would hang. “And then,” he whispered, “you will be Marcus Tullius Cicero, son of Marcus Tullius Cicero, the consul —how does that sound? Not bad, eh? There will be no taunts of “new man” for you! Here you are, Tiro—make the acquaintance of a whole new political dynasty.” He offered the bundle to me, and I held it nervously, in that way the childless do when handed a baby, and was relieved when the nurse took him from me.
    Cicero, meanwhile, was once again contemplating the blank spot on his atrium wall and had fallen into one of his reveries. I wonder what it was he was seeing there: his death mask, perhaps, staring back at him, like a face in the mirror? I inquired after the health of Terentia, and he said, distractedly, “Oh, she is very well. Very strong. You know what she is like. Strong enough, at least, to resume belaboring me for making an alliance with Catilina.” He dragged his gaze away from the empty wall. “And now,” he sighed, “I suppose we had better keep our appointment with the villain.”
    When we reached the house of Catilina, we found the former governor of Africa in a charming humor. Cicero later made a list of his “paradoxical