Lustrum

stem of his glass. 'I came back to Rome two years ago to help you win the election. I've stayed ever since to support you. But now things seem to have settled down, I don't think you need me any more.'
    'I most certainly do,' insisted Cicero.
    'Besides, I have business interests over there I have to attend to.'
    'Ah,' said Quintus into his glass, '
business interests
. Now we get to the bottom of it.'
    'What do you mean by that?' asked Atticus.
    'Nothing.'
    'No, please – say what's on your mind.'
    'Leave it, Quintus,' warned Cicero.
    'Only this,' said Quintus. 'That somehow Marcus and I seem to run all the dangers of public life, and shoulder all the hard work, while you are free to flit between your estates and attend to your
business interests
at will. You prosper through your connection with us, yet we seem permanently short of money. That's all.'
    'But you enjoy the rewards of a public career. You have fame and power and will be remembered by history, whereas I am a nobody.'
    'A nobody! A nobody who knows everybody!' Quintus took another drink. 'I don't suppose there's any chance of you taking your sister back with you to Epirus, is there?'
    'Quintus!' cried Cicero. 'If your marriage is unhappy,' said Atticus mildly, 'then I am sorry for you. But that is hardly my fault.'
    'And there we are again,' said Quintus. 'You've even managed to avoid marriage. I swear this fellow has the secret of life! Why don't you bear your share of domestic suffering like the rest of us?'
    'That's enough,' said Cicero, getting to his feet. 'We should leave you, Atticus, before any more words are uttered that aren't really meant. Quintus?' He held out his hand to his brother, who scowled and looked away. 'Quintus!' he repeated angrily, andthrust out his hand again. Quintus turned reluctantly and glanced up at him, and just for an instant I saw such a flash of hatred in his eyes it made me catch my breath. But then he threw aside his napkin and stood. He swayed a little and almost fell back on to the table, but I grabbed his arm and he recovered his balance. He lurched out of the library and we followed him into the atrium.
    Cicero had ordered a litter to take us home, but now he insisted that Quintus have it. 'You ride home, brother. We shall walk.' We helped him into the chair, and Cicero told the bearers to carry him to our old house on the Esquiline, next to the Temple of Tellus, into which Quintus had moved when Cicero moved out. Quintus was asleep even before the litter set off. As we watched him go, I reflected that it was no easy matter being the younger brother of a genius, and that all the choices in Quintus's life – his career, his home, even his wife – had been made in accordance with the demands of his brilliant, ambitious sibling, who could always talk him into anything.
    'He means no harm,' said Cicero to Atticus. 'He's worried about the future, that's all. Once the senate has decided which provinces are to be put into this year's ballot and he knows where he's going, he'll be happier.'
    'I'm sure you're right. But I fear he believes at least some of what he says. I hope he doesn't speak for you as well.'
    'My dearest friend, I am perfectly aware that our relationship has cost you far more than you have ever profited from it. We have simply chosen to tread different paths, that's all. I have sought public office while you have yearned for honourable independence, and who's to say which of us is right? But in every quality that really matters I put you second to no man, myself included. There now – are we clear?'
    'We are clear.'
    'And you will come and see me before you leave, and write to me often afterwards?'
    'I shall.'
    With that Cicero kissed him on the cheek and the two friends parted, Atticus retreating into his beautiful house with its books and treasures, while the former consul trudged down the hill towards the forum with his guards. On this question of the good life and how to lead it – purely theoretical in my own case, of course – my sympathies were all with Atticus. It seemed to me at the time – and still does now, only even more so – an act of madness for a man to pursue power when he could be sitting in the sunshine and reading a book. But then, even if I had been born into freedom, I know I would not have possessed that overweening force of ambition without which no city is created, no city destroyed.
    As chance would have it, our route home took us past the scenes of all Cicero's