Imperium

work?”
    “Our opponents are in disarray. That is a start.”
    The curtain fell, then parted once more.
    “How long before the bill is voted on?”
    “Fifteen days.”
    “Keep me informed. Daily at the least.”
    Cicero stepped aside as the canopied chair was hoisted onto the shoulders of its bearers. They must have been strong young fellows, for Pompey was a great weight, yet they set off at the double, past the Senate House and out of the Forum—the heavenly body of Pompey the Great trailing his comet’s tail of clients and admirers. “‘Did I like the line about hearths and temples?’” repeated Cicero under his breath as he watched him go. “Well, naturally I did, you great booby—I wrote it!” I guess it must have been hard for him to devote so much energy to a chief he did not admire and a cause he believed to be fundamentally specious. But the journey to the top in politics often confines a man with some uncongenial fellow passengers and shows him strange scenery, and he knew there was no turning back now.

Roll XII

    FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS there was only one topic in Rome, and that was the pirates. Gabinius and Cornelius, in the phrase of the time, “lived on the rostra”—that is, every day they kept the issue of the pirate menace before the people by issuing fresh proclamations and summoning more witnesses. Horror stories were their speciality. For example, it was put about that if one of the pirates’ prisoners announced that he was a Roman citizen, his captors would pretend to be frightened and beg forgiveness. They would even fetch a toga for him to wear, and shoes for his feet, and bow whenever he passed, and this game would go on for a long time, until at last, when they were far out at sea, they would let down a ladder and tell him he was free to go. If their victim refused to walk, he would be flung overboard. Such tales enraged the audience in the Forum, who were accustomed to the magical incantation “I am a Roman citizen” guaranteeing deference throughout the world.
    Cicero himself did not speak from the rostra. Oddly enough, he had never yet done so, having decided early on to hold back until a moment in his career when he could make the maximum impact. He was naturally tempted to make this the issue on which he broke his silence, for it was a popular stick with which to beat the aristocrats. But in the end he decided against it, reasoning that the measure already had such overwhelming backing in the streets, he would be better employed behind the scenes, plotting strategy and trying to tempt over waverers in the Senate. For this reason, his crucial importance has been frequently neglected. Instead of the fiery public orator he played the moderate for a change, working his way up and down the senaculum, listening to the complaints of the pedarii, promising to relay messages of commiseration and entreaty to Pompey, and dangling—very occasionally—half offers of preferment to men of influence. Each day a messenger came to the house from Pompey’s estate in the Alban Hills bearing a dispatch containing some fresh moan or inquiry or instruction (“Our new Cincinnatus does not seem to be spending much time plowing,” observed Cicero with a wry smile), and each day the senator would dictate to me a soothing reply, often giving the names of men it might be useful for Pompey to summon out for interview. This was a delicate task, since it was important to maintain the pretense that Pompey was taking no further part in politics. But a combination of greed, flattery, ambition, realization that some kind of special command was inevitable, and fear that it might go to Crassus eventually brought half a dozen key senators into Pompey’s camp, the most significant of whom was Lucius Manlius Torquatus, who had only just finished serving as praetor and was certain to run for the consulship the following year.
    Crassus remained, as always, the greatest threat to Cicero’s schemes, and naturally he was not idle during this time, either. He, too, went around making promises of lucrative commissions, and winning over adherents. For connoisseurs of politics it was fascinating to observe the perennial rivals, Crassus and Pompey, so evenly poised. Each had two tame tribunes; each could therefore veto the bill; and each had a list of secret supporters in the Senate. Crassus’s advantage over Pompey was the support of most of the aristocrats, who feared Pompey more than any other man in the