Imperium

propped against a pillar at the very back of the audience. If it was him—and I do not know for sure that it was—I have often wondered what he thought of his cousin’s oratory as he tore into the evidence of the Gauls, jabbing his finger at Induciomarus—“Does he actually know what is meant by giving evidence? Is the greatest chief of the Gauls worthy to be set on the same level as even the meanest citizen of Rome?”—and demanding to know how a Roman jury could possibly believe the word of a man whose gods demanded human victims: “For who does not know that to this very day they retain the monstrous and barbarous custom of sacrificing men?” What would he have said to Cicero’s description of the Gaulish witnesses, “swaggering from end to end of the Forum, with proud and unflinching expressions on their faces and barbarian menaces upon their lips”? And what would he have made of Cicero’s brilliant coup de théâtre at the very end, of producing in court, in the closing moments of his speech, Fonteius’s sister, a vestal virgin, clad from head to toe in her official garb of a flowing white gown, with a white linen shawl around her narrow shoulders, who raised her white veil to show the jury her tears—a sight which made her brother also break down weeping? Cicero laid his hand gently on his client’s shoulders.
    “From this peril, gentlemen, defend a gallant and a blameless citizen. Let the world see that you place more confidence in the evidence of our fellow countrymen than in that of foreigners, that you have greater regard for the welfare of our citizens than for the caprice of our foes, that you set more store by the entreaties of she who presides over your sacrifices than by the effrontery of those who have waged war against the sacrifices and shrines of all the world. Finally, gentlemen, see to it—and here the dignity of the Roman people is most vitally engaged—see to it that you show that the prayers of a vestal maid have more weight with you than do the threats of Gauls.”
    Well, that speech certainly did the trick, both for Fonteius, who was acquitted, and for Cicero, who was never again regarded as anything less than the most fervent patriot in Rome. I looked up after I had finished making my shorthand record, but it was impossible to discern individuals in the crowd anymore—it had become a single, seething creature, aroused by Cicero’s technique to a chanting ecstasy of national self-glorification. Anyway, I sincerely hope that Lucius was not present, and there must surely be a chance that he was not, for it was only a few hours later that he was discovered at his home quite dead.

    CICERO WAS DINING PRIVATELY with Terentia when the message came. The bearer was one of Lucius’s slaves. Scarcely more than a boy, he was weeping uncontrollably, so it fell to me to take the news in to the senator. He looked up blankly from his meal when I told him, stared straight at me, and said irritably, “No,” as if I had offered him the wrong set of documents in court. And for a long time that was all he said: “No, no.” He did not move; he did not even blink. The working of his brain seemed locked. It was Terentia who eventually spoke, suggesting gently that he should go and find out what had happened, whereupon he started searching dumbly for his shoes. “Keep an eye on him, Tiro,” she said quietly to me.
    Grief kills time. All that I retain of that night, and of the days which followed, are fragments of scenes, like some luridly brilliant hallucinations left behind after a fever. I recall how thin and wasted Lucius’s body was when we found it, lying on its right side in his cot, the knees drawn up, the left hand laid flat across his eyes, and how Cicero, in the traditional manner, bent over him with a candle, to call him back to life. “What was he seeing?” That was what he kept asking: “What was he seeing?” Cicero was not, as I have indicated, a superstitious man, but he could not rid himself of the conviction that Lucius had been presented with a vision of unparalleled horror at the end, and that this had somehow frightened him to death. As to how he died—well, here I must confess to carrying a secret all these years, of which I shall be glad now to unburden myself. There was a pestle and mortar in the corner of that little room, with what Cicero—and I, too, at first—took to be a bunch of fennel lying beside it. It was a reasonable supposition, for among