Imperium

Scipio could trace his line back for at least eleven generations, nine of which had produced consuls. The walls around us were lined with the wax masks of the Scipiones, some of them centuries old, yellowed with smoke and grime (later, Scipio’s adoption by Pius was to bring a further six consular masks crowding into the atrium); and they exuded that thin, dry compound of dust and incense which to me is the smell of antiquity. Cicero went around studying the labels. The oldest mask was three hundred and twenty-five years old. But naturally, it was that of Scipio Africanus, conqueror of Hannibal, that fascinated him the most. It was a noble, sensitive face—smooth, unlined, ethereal, more like the representation of a soul than of flesh and blood. “Prosecuted, of course, by the great-grandfather of our present client,” sighed Cicero after studying it. “Contrariness runs thick in the blood of the Catos.”
    The footman returned, and we followed him through into the tablinum. There, young Scipio lounged on a couch surrounded by a jumble of precious objects—statues, busts, antiques, rolls of carpet, and the like. It looked like the burial chamber of some Eastern potentate. He did not stand when Cicero entered (an insult to a senator), nor did he invite him to sit, but merely asked him in a drawling voice to state his business. This Cicero proceeded to do, firmly but courteously, informing him that Cato’s case was legally watertight, given that Cato was both formally betrothed to the young lady, and also her guardian. He gestured to the document case, which I held before me like a serving boy with a tray, and ran through the precedents, concluding by saying that Cato was resolved to bring an action in the embezzlement court, and would also seek a motion obsignandi gratia, preventing the young lady from having further contact with person or persons material to the case. There was only one sure way of avoiding this humiliation, and that was for Scipio to give up his suit immediately.
    “He really is a crackpot, isn’t he?” said Scipio languidly, and lay back on his couch with his hands behind his head, smiling at the painted ceiling.
    “Is that your only answer?” said Cicero.
    “No,” said Scipio, “this is my only answer. Lepida!” And at that, a demure young woman appeared from behind a screen, where she had obviously been listening, and moved gracefully across the floor to stand beside the couch. She slipped her hand into his. “This is my wife. We were married yesterday evening. What you see around you are the wedding gifts of our friends. Pompey the Great came directly from sacrificing on the Capitol to be a witness.”
    “Jupiter himself could have been a witness,” retorted Cicero, “but that would not suffice to make the ceremony legal.” Still, I could see by the way his shoulders slumped slightly that the fight had gone out of him. Possession, as the jurists say, is nine-tenths of the law, and Scipio not merely had the possession, but obviously the eager acquiescence, of his new bride. “Well,” Cicero said, looking around at the wedding presents, “on my behalf, I suppose, if not that of my client, I offer you congratulations. Perhaps my wedding gift to you should be to persuade Cato to recognize reality.”
    “That,” said Scipio, “would be the rarest gift ever bestowed.”
    “My cousin is a good man at heart,” said Lepida. “Will you convey my best wishes, and my hopes that one day we shall be reconciled?”
    “Of course,” said Cicero with a gentlemanly bow, and he was just turning to go when he stopped abruptly. “Now that is a pretty piece. That is a very pretty piece.”
    It was a bronze statue of a naked Apollo, perhaps half the size of a man, playing on a lyre—a sublime depiction of graceful masculinity, arrested in mid-dance, with every hair of his head and string of his instrument perfectly delineated. Worked into his thigh in tiny silver letters was the name of the sculptor: Myron.
    “Oh, that,” said Scipio, very offhand, “that was apparently given to some temple by my illustrious ancestor, Scipio Africanus. Why? Do you know it?”
    “If I am not mistaken, it is from the shrine of Aesculapius at Agrigentum.”
    “That is the place,” said Scipio. “In Sicily. Verres got it off the priests there and gave it to me last night.”

    IN THIS WAY Cicero learned that Gaius Verres had returned to Rome and was already spreading the tentacles of his corruption