Imperium

finished he asked what chance there was of receiving any help from the tribunes.
    “That depends,” said Palicanus, with a quick lick of his lips and a grin. “Come and sit down and let us see what is to be done.”
    He took us through into another room, small and completely overwhelmed by a huge wall painting of a laureled Pompey, this time dressed as Jupiter, complete with lightning bolts shooting from his fingers.
    “Do you like it?” asked Palicanus.
    “It is remarkable,” said Cicero.
    “Yes, it is,” he said, with some satisfaction. “ That is art.”
    I took a seat in the corner, beneath the Picenean deity, while Cicero, whose eye I dared not meet, settled himself at the opposite end of the couch to our host.
    “What I am about to tell you, Cicero, is not to be repeated outside this house. Pompey the Great”—Palicanus nodded to the painting, in case we were in any doubt as to whom he meant—“will soon be returning to Rome for the first time in six years. He will come with his army, so there can be no fancy double-dealing from our noble friends. He will seek the consulship. And he will get the consulship. And he will get it unopposed.”
    He leaned forward eagerly, expecting shock or surprise, but Cicero received this sensational intelligence as coolly as if he were being told the weather.
    “So in return for your helping me over Sthenius, I am to support you over Pompey?”
    “You are a canny one, Cicero, you have the stuff in you. What do you think?”
    Cicero rested his chin in his hand and gazed at Palicanus. “Quintus Metellus will not be happy, for a start. You know the old poem—‘In Rome Metalliare, ’tis fate, / Elected to the consulate.’ He has been scheduled since birth to have his turn next summer.”
    “Has he indeed? Well he can kiss my backside. How many legions did Quintus Metellus have behind him the last time you looked?”
    “Crassus has legions,” Cicero pointed out. “So has Lucullus.”
    “Lucullus is too far away, and besides, he has his hands full. As for Crassus—well, it is true that Crassus hates Pompey’s guts. But the thing about Crassus is that he is not a proper soldier. He is a businessman, and that type always cuts a deal.”
    “And then there is the little matter of its being completely unconstitutional. You have to be forty-two at the time of the consular election, and Pompey is how old?”
    “Just thirty-four.”
    “Indeed. Almost a year younger than me. And a consul is also required to have been elected to the Senate and to have served as praetor, neither of which has Pompey achieved. He has never made a political speech in his life. To put the matter simply, Palicanus, seldom has a man been less qualified for the post.”
    Palicanus made a dismissive gesture. “All that may be true, but let us face facts—Pompey has run whole countries for years, and done it with proconsular authority to boot. He is a consul, in all but name. Be realistic, Cicero. You cannot expect a man such as Pompey to come back to Rome and start at the bottom, running for quaestor like some political hack. What would that do to his dignity?”
    “I appreciate his feelings, but you ask my opinion, and I am giving it to you, and I tell you the aristocrats will not stand for it. All right, perhaps if he has ten thousand men outside the city, they will have no choice but to let him become consul, but sooner or later his army will go home and then how will he…Ha!” Cicero suddenly threw back his head and started laughing. “That is very clever.”
    “You have seen it?” said Palicanus, with a grin.
    “I have seen it.” Cicero nodded appreciatively. “Very good.”
    “Well, I am offering you the chance to be a part of it. And Pompey the Great does not forget his friends.”
    At the time I had not the least idea of what they were talking about. Only when we were walking home afterwards did Cicero explain everything to me. Pompey was planning to seek the consulship on the platform of a full restoration of tribunician power. Hence Palicanus’s surprising move in becoming a tribune. The strategy was not born of some altruistic desire on Pompey’s part to give the Roman people greater liberty—although I suppose it is just possible he was occasionally pleased to lie in his bath in Spain and fancy himself a champion of citizens’ rights—no: it was purely a matter of self-interest. Pompey, as a good general, saw that by advocating such a program he would trap the