Lustrum

richest man in Rome – but not any more, I fancy. After this, even you will be applying to Pompey for a loan!' Crassus gave a crooked smile; one could tell the sight was choking him.
    Pompey sent all this into the city on the first day, but remained himself outside the gates. On the second day, his birthday, the Triumphal parade proper began with the prisoners he had brought back from the East: first the army commanders, then the officials of Mithradates's household, then a group of captured pirate chiefs, then the King of the Jews, followed by the King of Armenia with his wife and son, and finally, as the highlight of this part of the procession, seven of Mithradates's children and one of his sisters. The thousands of Romans in the Forum Boarium and the Circus Maximus jeered and flung lumps of shit and earth at them, so much so that by the time they finally stumbled down the Via Sacra towards the Carcer they looked like clay figures come to life. There they were made to wait beneath the gaze of the carnifex and his assistants, trembling at the thought of their fate, while the distant roars from the direction of the TriumphalGate signalled that at last their conqueror had entered the city.
    Cicero waited too, with the rest of his colleagues, outside the senate house. I was on the opposite side of the forum, and as the parade passed between us, I kept losing sight of him amid all that torrent of glory. There were wagons with gaudy tableaux depicting each of the nations Pompey had subdued – Albania, Syria, Palestine, Arabia and so forth – followed by some of the eight hundred heavy bronze ramming beaks of the pirate ships he had captured, and the glittering heaps of armour and shields and swords he had seized from Mithradates's armies. Behind all this tramped Pompey's soldiers, chanting bawdy verses about their commander, and then at last Pompey himself came into the forum, riding in his jewel-studded chariot, wearing a purple toga embroidered with golden stars, and of course the cloak of Alexander. Clinging on to the platform behind him was the slave traditionally charged with intoning in his ear that he was only human. I did not envy that poor fellow his job, and he was clearly starting to get on Pompey's nerves, because the moment the charioteer pulled the horses up outside the Carcer and the parade came to a halt, Pompey pushed him roughly off the platform and turned his broad red-painted face to address the muddy apparitions of the prisoners.
    'I, Pompey the Great, conqueror of three hundred and twenty-four nations, having been granted the power of life and death by the senate and people of Rome, do hereby declare that you, as vassals of the Roman empire, shall immediately' —he paused— 'be granted a full pardon and set free to return to the lands of your birth. Go, and tell the world of my mercy!'
    It was as magnificent as it was unexpected, for Pompey had been known in his youth as 'The Butcher Boy', and had seldom showed much clemency to anyone. The crowd seemed disappointed at first, but then began to applaud, while the prisoners,when they were told what he had said, stretched out their hands and cried out to Pompey in a babble of foreign tongues. Pompey acknowledged their gratitude with a twirling gesture of his hand, then jumped down from his chariot and walked towards the Capitol, where he was due to sacrifice to Jupiter. The senate, Cicero included, trailed after him, and I was about to follow when I made a most remarkable discovery.
    Now that the parade had ended, the wagons laden with arms and armour were queuing to leave the forum, and for the first time I saw at close quarters some of the swords and knives. I was no expert when it came to soldiering, but even I could recognise that these brand-new weapons, with their curved Oriental blades and mysterious engravings on their hilts, were exactly the same as the ones that Cethegus had been hoarding in his house, and of which I had made an inventory on the eve of his execution. I made a move to pick one up, intending to take it back and show it to Cicero, but the legionary who was guarding the wagon shouted at me roughly to keep my distance. I was on the point of telling him who I was and why I needed it when good sense checked my tongue. I turned without a word and hurried away, and when I looked back the legionary was still watching me suspiciously.
    Cicero had been obliged to attend Pompey's great official banquet following the sacrifice, and it