Lustrum

swooning, ran out of the room and managed to escape fromthe house via a kitchen window. Only now did Pompeia appear, with Abra, whereupon Aurelia accused her daughter-in-law and her maid of collusion in this sacrilege. Both denied it tearfully, but the senior Vestal Virgin announced that their protests did not matter: a desecration had occurred, the sacred rites would have to be abandoned, and the devotees must all disperse to their homes at once.
    Such was Terentia's story, and Cicero listened to it with a mixture of incredulity, disgust and painfully suppressed amusement. Obviously he would have to take a stern moral line in public and in front of Terentia – it
was
shocking, he agreed with her absolutely – but secretly he also thought it one of the funniest things he had ever heard. In particular, the image of Clodius waving his private parts in the horrified faces of Rome's stuffiest matrons made him laugh until his eyes watered. But that was for the seclusion of his library. As far as the politics were concerned, he thought Clodius had finally shown himself to be an irredeem able idiot – 'he's thirty, in the name of heaven, not thirteen' – and that his career as a magistrate was finished before it had even started. He also suspected, gleefully, that Caesar might be in trouble as well: the scandal had happened in his house, it had involved his wife; it would not look good.
    This was the spirit in which Cicero went down to the senate the following morning, one year to the day after the debate on the fate of the conspirators. Many of the senior members had heard from their wives what had happened, and as they stood around in the senaculum waiting for the auspices to be taken, there was only one topic of discussion, or at least there was by the time Cicero had finished his rounds. The Father of the Nation moved solemnly from group to group, wearing an expression of piety and grave seriousness, his arms folded inside his toga,shaking his head and reluctantly spreading the news of the outrage to those who had not already heard it. 'Oh look,' he would say in conclusion, with a glance across the senaculum, 'there's poor Caesar now – this must be a terrible embarrassment for him.'
    And Caesar did indeed look grey and grim, the young chief priest, standing alone on that bleak day in December, at the absolute nadir of his fortunes. His praetorship, now drawing to its close, had not been a success: at one point he was actually suspended, and had been lucky not to be hauled into court along with Catilina's other supporters. He was anxiously waiting to hear which province he would be allotted: it would need to be lucrative, as he was greatly in debt to the moneylenders. And now this ludicrous affair involving Clodius and Pompeia threatened to turn him into a figure of ridicule. It was almost possible to feel sorry for him as he watched, with hawkish eyes, Cicero going around the senaculum, relaying the gossip. Rome's cuckolder-in-chief: a cuckold! A lesser man would have stayed away from the senate for the day, but that was never Caesar's style. When the auspices had been read, he walked into the chamber and sat on the praetors' bench, two places along from Quintus, while Cicero went over to join the other ex-consuls on the opposite side of the aisle.
    The session had barely begun when the former praetor Cornificius, who regarded himself as a custodian of religious probity, jumped up on a point of order to demand an emergency debate on the 'shameful and immoral' events that were said to have occurred overnight at the official residence of the chief priest. Looking back, this could have been the end for Clodius right then and there. He was not yet even eligible to take his seat in the senate. But fortunately for him, the consul presidingin December was none other than his stepfather-in-law, Murena, and whatever his private feelings on the subject, he had no intention of adding to the family's embarrassment if he could avoid it.
    'This is not a matter for the senate,' ruled Murena. 'If anything has happened, it is the responsibility of the religious authorities to investigate.'
    This brought Cato to his feet, his eyes ablaze with excitement at the thought of such decadence. 'Then I propose that this house asks the College of Priests to conduct an inquiry,' he said, 'and report back to us as soon as possible.'
    Murena had little choice except to put the motion to the vote, and it passed without discussion. Earlier,