Lustrum

'I hope we can now talk about something else.') I had been keeping an eye throughout all this on Crassus, who was sitting on the edge of his bench, ready to jump up the moment he got a chance. There was something about his determination to speak, and a kind ofhappy craftiness in his expression, for which I did not much care.
    'How wonderful it is, gentlemen,' he said, when at last he was called, 'to have with us beneath this sacred roof the man who has expanded our empire, and sitting next to him the man who has saved our republic. May the gods be blessed who have brought this to pass. Pompey I know stood ready with his army to come to the aid of the fatherland if it was necessary – but praise the heavens he was spared the task by the wisdom and foresight of our consul at that time. I hope I take nothing away from Pompey when I say that it is to Cicero that I feel I owe my status as a senator and a citizen; to him I owe my freedom and my life. Whenever I look upon my wife and my house, or upon the city of my birth, what I see is a gift that was granted me by Cicero …'
    There was a time when Cicero would have spotted such an obvious trap a mile off. But I fear there is in all men who achieve their life's ambition only a narrow line between dignity and vanity, confidence and delusion, glory and self-destruction. Instead of staying in his seat and modestly disavowing such praise, Cicero rose and made a long speech agreeing with Crassus's every word, whilst beside him Pompey gently cooked in a stew of jealousy and resentment. Watching from the door, I wanted to run forward and cry out to Cicero to stop, especially when Crassus stood and asked him if, as the Father of the Nation, he recognised in Clodius a second Catilina.
    'How can I not,' responded Cicero, unable to resist this opportunity to rekindle the glory days of his leadership of the senate in front of Pompey, 'when the same debauched men who followed the one now flock to the other, and when the same tactics are daily employed? Unity, gentlemen, is our only hopeof salvation, now as it was then – unity between this senate and the Order of Knights; unity between all classes; unity across Italy. As long as we remember that glorious concord that existed under my consulship, we need have no fear, for the spirit that saw off Sergius Catilina will most assuredly see off his bastard son!'
    The senate cheered and Crassus sat back on his bench, beaming at a job well done, because of course the news of what Cicero had said spread across Rome immediately and quickly reached the ears of Clodius. At the end of the session, when Cicero walked back home with his entourage, Clodius was waiting in the forum surrounded by a gang of his own supporters. They blocked our path and I was sure some heads were going to be broken, but Cicero remained calm. He halted his procession. 'Offer them no provocation!' he called out. 'Give them no excuse to start a riot.' And turning to Clodius he said, 'You would have done well to have heeded my advice and gone into exile. The road you have started down can only end in one place.'
    'And where is that?' sneered Clodius.
    'Up there,' said Cicero, pointing at the Carcer, 'at the end of a rope.'
    'Not so,' responded Clodius, and he gestured in the other direction, to the rostra, with its ranks of life-sized statues. 'One day I shall be up there, among the heroes of the Roman people.'
    'Really? And tell me, will you be sculpted wearing women's clothing and carrying a lyre?' We all started to laugh. 'P. Clodius Pulcher: the first hero of the Order of Transvestites? I rather doubt it. Get out of my way.'
    'Willingly,' said Clodius, with a smile. But as he stood aside to let Cicero pass, I was struck by how much he had changed. It was not merely that he seemed physically bigger and stronger: there was a glint of resolution in his eyes that had not been therebefore. He was feeding on his notoriety, I realised: drawing energy from the mob. 'Caesar's wife was one of the best I ever had,' he said softly, as Cicero went by. 'Almost as good as Clodia.' He seized his elbow and added loudly, 'I was willing to be your friend. You should have been mine.'
    'Claudians make unreliable friends,' replied Cicero, pulling himself free.
    'Yes, but we make very reliable enemies.'
    He proved to be as good as his word. From that day on, whenever he spoke in the forum he would always gesture to Cicero's new house, sitting on the Palatine high above the heads of the