Imperium

lose his imperium, and with it his immunity from prosecution. Cicero was determined to strike at the first opportunity, and, if possible, give him no time to dispose of evidence or intimidate witnesses. For this reason, to avoid arousing suspicion, the Sicilians stopped coming to the house, and Lucius became the conduit between Cicero and his clients, meeting them in secret at different locations across the city. He was in many respects very similar to Cicero. He was almost the same age, clever and amusing, a gifted philosopher. The two had grown up together in Arpinum, been schooled together in Rome, and traveled together in the East. But there was one huge difference: Lucius entirely lacked worldly ambition. He lived alone, in a small house full of books, and did nothing all day except read and think—a most dangerous occupation for a man, which in my experience leads invariably to dyspepsia and melancholy. But oddly enough, despite his solitary disposition, he soon came to relish leaving his study every day and was so enraged by Verres’s wickedness that his zeal to bring him to justice eventually exceeded even Cicero’s. “We shall make a lawyer of you yet, cousin,” Cicero remarked admiringly, after he had produced yet another set of damning affidavits. I thus came to know Lucius much better, and the more I saw of him, the more I liked him.
    Toward the end of December an incident occurred which finally brought together, and in dramatic fashion, all these separate strands of Cicero’s life. I opened the door one dark morning to find, standing at the head of the usual queue, the man we had recently seen in the tribunes’ basilica acting as defense attorney for his great-grandfather’s pillar—Marcus Porcius Cato. He was alone, without a slave to attend him, and looked as though he had slept out in the street all night. (I suppose he might have done, come to think of it, although Cato’s appearance was usually dishevelled—like that of a holy man or mystic—so that it was hard to tell). Naturally Cicero was intrigued to discover why a man of such eminent birth should have turned up on his doorstep, for Cato, bizarre as he appeared, dwelt at the very heart of the old republican aristocracy, connected by blood and marriage to a webwork of Servilii, Lepidii, and Aemilii. Indeed, such was Cicero’s pleasure at having such a highborn visitor, he went out to the tablinum himself to welcome him and conducted him into the study personally. This was the sort of client he had long dreamed of finding in his net one morning.
    I settled myself in the corner to take notes, and young Cato, never a man for small talk, came straight to the point. He was in need of a good advocate, he said, and he had liked the way Cicero had handled himself before the tribunes, for it was a monstrous thing when any man such as Verres considered himself above the ancient laws. To put it briefly: he was engaged to be married to his cousin, Aemilia Lepida, a charming girl of eighteen whose young life had already been blighted by tragedy. At the age of thirteen, she had been humiliatingly jilted by her fiancé, the haughty young aristocrat Scipio Nasica. At fourteen, her mother had died. At fifteen, her father had died. At sixteen, her brother had died, leaving her completely alone.
    “The poor girl,” said Cicero. “So I take it, if she is your cousin, that she must be the daughter of the consul of six years ago, Aemilius Lepidus Livianus? He was, I believe, the brother of your late mother, Livia?” (Like many supposed radicals, Cicero had a surprisingly thorough knowledge of the aristocracy.)
    “That is correct.”
    “Why, then, I congratulate you, Cato, on a most brilliant match. With the blood of those three families in her veins, and with her nearest relatives all dead, she must be the richest heiress in Rome.”
    “She is,” said Cato bitterly. “And that is the trouble. Scipio Nasica, her former suitor, who has just come back from Spain after fighting in the army of Pompey-the-so-called-Great, has found out how rich she has become now that her father and brother are gone, and he has reclaimed her as his own.”
    “But surely it is for the young lady herself to decide?”
    “She has,” said Cato. “She has decided on him.”
    “Ah,” replied Cicero, sitting back in his chair, “in that case, you may be in some difficulties. Presumably, if she was orphaned at fifteen, she must have had a guardian appointed. You could