Imperium

trade. He had lobbied well. When the issue came up for discussion in the Senate, despite the intense opposition of the aristocrats and the supporters of Crassus, the house voted narrowly to let Pompey keep his Spanish army intact and bring it back to the mother country to crush Spartacus’s northern recruits. From that point on, the consulship was as good as his, and on the day the motion passed, Cicero came home smiling. True, he had been snubbed by the aristocrats, who now loathed him more than any other man in Rome, and the presiding consul, the super-snobbish Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura, had refused to recognize him when he tried to speak. But what did that matter? He was in the inner circle of Pompey the Great, and, as every fool knows, the quickest way to get ahead in politics is to get yourself close to the man at the top.
    Throughout these busy months, I am ashamed to say, we neglected Sthenius of Thermae. He would often turn up in the mornings and hang around the senator for the entire day in the hope of securing an interview. He was still living in Terentia’s squalid tenement block. He had little money. He was unable to venture beyond the walls of the city, as his immunity ended at the boundaries of Rome. He had not shaved his beard nor cut his hair, nor, by the smell of him, changed his clothes since October. He reeked, not of madness exactly, but of obsession, forever producing small scraps of paper, which he would fumble with and drop in the street.
    Cicero kept making excuses not to see him. Doubtless he felt he had discharged his obligation. But that was not the sole explanation. The truth is that politics is a country idiot, and capable of concentrating on only one thing at a time, and poor Sthenius had become simply yesterday’s topic. All anyone could talk about now was the coming confrontation between Crassus and Pompey; the plight of the Sicilian was a bore.
    In the late spring, Crassus had finally defeated the main force of Spartacus’s rebels in the heel of Italy, killing Spartacus and taking six thousand prisoners. He had started marching toward Rome. Very soon afterwards, Pompey crossed the Alps and wiped out the slave rebellion in the north. He sent a letter to the consuls which was read out in the Senate, giving only the faintest credit to Crassus for his achievement, instead proclaiming that it was really he who had finished off the slave war “utterly and entirely.” The signal to his supporters could not have been clearer: only one general would be triumphing that year, and it would not be Marcus Crassus. Finally, lest there be any remaining doubt, at the end of his dispatch Pompey announced that he, too, was moving on Rome. Little wonder that amid these stirring historical events, Sthenius was forgotten.
    Sometime in May, it must have been, or possibly early June—I cannot find the exact date—a messenger arrived at Cicero’s house bearing a letter. With some reluctance the man let me take it, but refused to leave the premises until he had received a reply: those, he said, were his orders. Although he was wearing civilian clothes, I could tell he was in the army. I carried the message into the study and watched Cicero’s expression darken as he read it. He handed it to me, and when I saw the opening—“From Marcus Licinius Crassus, Imperator, to Marcus Tullius Cicero: Greetings”—I understood the reason for his frown. Not that there was anything threatening in the letter. It was simply an invitation to meet the victorious general the next morning on the road to Rome, close to the town of Lanuvium, at the eighteenth milestone.
    “Can I refuse?” asked Cicero, but then he answered his own question. “No, I can’t. That would be interpreted as a mortal insult.”
    “Presumably he is going to ask for your support.”
    “Really?” said Cicero sarcastically. “What makes you think that?”
    “Could you not offer him some limited encouragement, as long as it does not clash with your undertakings to Pompey?”
    “No. That is the trouble. Pompey has made that very clear. He expects absolute loyalty. So Crassus will pose the question: Are you for me or against me? and then I shall face the politician’s nightmare: the requirement to give a straight answer.” He sighed. “But we shall have to go of course.”
    We left soon after dawn the following morning, in a two-wheeled open carriage, with Cicero’s valet doubling as coachman for the occasion. It was the most