Imperium

Verres has used violence and intimidation many times before, and you can be sure he will use them again to protect himself. We need to take the rascal unawares.”
    “Does that mean,” asked Sthenius, hardly daring to hope, “that you will help us?”
    Cicero looked at him but did not answer.

    LATER THAT DAY, when he returned from the law courts, the senator made up his quarrel with his wife. He dispatched young Sositheus down to the old flower market in the Forum Boarium, in front of the Temple of Portunus, to buy a bouquet of fragrant summer blooms. These he then gave to little Tullia, telling her solemnly that he had a vital task for her. She was to take them in to her mother and announce they had come for her from a rough provincial admirer. (“Have you got that, Tulliola? ‘A rough provincial admirer.’”) She disappeared very self-importantly into Terentia’s chamber, and I guess they must have done the trick, for that evening, when—at Cicero’s insistence—the couches were carried up to the roof and the family dined beneath the summer stars, the flowers had a place of honor at the center of the table.
    I know this because, as the meal was ending, I was unexpectedly sent for by Cicero. It was a still night, without a flicker of wind to disturb the candles, and the nighttime sounds of Rome down in the valley mingled with the scent of the flowers in the warm June air—snatches of music, voices, the call of the watchmen along the Argiletum, the distant barking of the guard dogs set loose in the precincts of the Capitoline Triad. Lucius and Quintus were still laughing at some joke of Cicero’s, and even Terentia could not quite hide her amusement as she flicked her napkin at her husband and scolded him that that was quite enough. (Pomponia, thankfully, was away visiting her brother in Athens.)
    “Ah,” said Cicero, looking around, “now here is Tiro, the master politician of us all, which means I can proceed to make my little declaration. I thought it appropriate that he should be present to hear this as well. I have decided to stand for election as aedile.”
    “Oh, very good!” said Quintus, who thought it was all still part of Cicero’s joke. Then he stopped laughing and said in a puzzled way, “But that is not funny.”
    “It will be if I win.”
    “But you cannot win. You heard what Pompey said. He doesn’t want you to be a candidate.”
    “It is not for Pompey to decide who is to be a candidate. We are free citizens, free to make our own choices. I choose to run for aedile.”
    “There is no sense in running and losing, Marcus. That is the sort of pointlessly heroic gesture Lucius here believes in.”
    “Let us drink to pointless heroism,” said Lucius, raising his glass.
    “But we cannot win against Pompey’s opposition,” persisted Quintus. “And what is the point of incurring Pompey’s enmity?”
    To which Terentia retorted: “After yesterday, one might better ask, What is the point of incurring Pompey’s friendship?”
    “Terentia is right,” said Cicero. “Yesterday has taught me a lesson. Let us say I wait a year or two, hanging on Pompey’s every word in the hope of favor, running errands for him. We have all seen men like that in the Senate—growing older, waiting for half promises to be fulfilled. They are hollowed out by it. And before they even know it, their moment has passed and they have nothing left with which to bargain. I would sooner clear out of politics right now than let that happen to me. If you want power, there is a time when you have to seize it. This is my time.”
    “But how is this to be accomplished?”
    “By prosecuting Gaius Verres for extortion.”
    So there it was. I had known he would do it since early morning, and so, I am sure, had he, but he had wanted to take his time about it—to try on the decision, as it were, and see how it fitted him. And it fitted him very well. I had never seen him more determined. He looked like a man who believed he had the force of history running through him. Nobody spoke.
    “Come on!” he said with a smile. “Why the long faces? I have not lost yet! And I do not believe I shall lose, either. I had a visit from the Sicilians this morning. They have gathered the most damning testimony against Verres, have they not, Tiro? We have it under lock and key downstairs. And when we do win—think of it! I defeat Hortensius in open court, and all this ‘second-best advocate’ nonsense is finished forever.