Imperium

that was part of it: the whetstone to his blade. At any rate, she did not bother us for the rest of that night, as Cicero dictated the words he thought that Pompey should say. He had never written a speech for anyone else before, and it was a peculiar experience. Nowadays, of course, most senators employ a slave or two to turn out their speeches; I have even heard of some who have no idea of what they are going to say until the text is placed in front of them; how these fellows can call themselves statesmen defeats me. But Cicero found that he rather enjoyed composing parts for others. It amused him to think of lines that great men ought to utter, if only they had the brains, and later he would use the technique to considerable effect in his books. He even thought of a phrase for Gabinius to deliver, which afterwards became quite famous: “Pompey the Great was not born for himself alone, but for Rome!”
    The statement was deliberately kept short and we finished it long before midnight, and early the following morning, after Cicero had performed his exercises and greeted only his most important callers, we went across to Pompey’s house and gave him the speech. Overnight, Pompey had contracted a bad dose of cold feet, and now he fretted aloud whether retirement was such a good idea after all. But Cicero saw that it was nervousness about going up onto the rostra as much as anything else, and once Pompey had his prepared text in his hands, he began to calm down. Cicero then gave some notes to Gabinius, who was also present, but the tribune resented being handed his lines like an actor and questioned whether he should really say that Pompey was “born for Rome.” “Why?” teased Cicero. “Do you not believe it?” Whereupon Pompey gruffly ordered Gabinius to stop complaining and say the words as written. Gabinius fell silent, but he glowered at Cicero and from that moment I believe became his secret enemy—a perfect example of the senator’s recklessness in causing offense by his repartee.
    An enormous throng of spectators had gathered in the Forum, eager to see the sequel to the previous day’s performance. We could hear the noise as we came down the hill from Pompey’s house—that awesome, oblivious swelling sound of a great, excited multitude, which always reminds me of a huge sea rolling against a distant shore. I felt my blood begin to pulse faster in anticipation. Most of the Senate was there, and the aristocrats had brought along several hundred supporters of their own, partly for their protection, and also to howl down Pompey when, as they expected, he declared his desire for the supreme command. The great man briefly entered the Forum escorted, as before, by Cicero and his senatorial allies, but kept to the edge of it and immediately went to the back of the rostra, where he paced around, yawned, blew on his freezing hands, and generally gave every indication of nerves, as the roar of the crowd increased in volume. Cicero wished him luck, then went around to the front of the rostra to stand with the rest of the Senate, for he was keen to observe their reactions. The ten tribunes filed up onto the platform and sat on their bench, then Gabinius stepped forward and shouted dramatically, “I summon before the people Pompey the Great!”
    How important appearance is in politics, and how superbly Pompey was fashioned by nature to carry the look of greatness! As that broad and familiar figure came plodding up the steps and into view, his followers gave him the most tremendous ovation. He stood there as solid as a full-grown bull, his massive head tilted back slightly on his muscular shoulders, looking down on the upturned faces, his nostrils flared as if inhaling the applause. Normally, the people resented having speeches read to them rather than delivered with apparent spontaneity, but on this occasion there was something in the way that Pompey unrolled his short text and held it up that reinforced the sense that these were words as weighty as the man delivering them—a man above the smooth oratorical tricks of the law and politics.
    “People of Rome,” he bellowed into the silence, “when I was seventeen I fought in the army of my father, Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, to bring unity to the state. When I was twenty-three I raised a force of fifteen thousand, defeated the combined rebel armies of Brutus, Caelius, and Carrinas, and was saluted imperator in the field. When I was twenty-four I conquered Sicily.