Lustrum

mountains and rivers between here and the Atlantic. Caesar can't get back in time to put his name on the ballot.'
    'And there's another thing,' added Cato. 'Caesar will want to triumph, and he'll have to stay outside the city until he does.'
    'And we can hold him up for years,' said Lucullus, 'just as hemade me wait for half a decade. My revenge for that insult is going to taste better than any meal.'
    Cicero however did not look convinced. 'Well, maybe, but I have learned by hard experience never to underestimate our friend Gaius.'
    It was a wise remark, because about a week later a second dispatch reached the senate from Further Spain. Again, Celer read it aloud to the assembled senators: in view of the fact that his newly conquered territory was entirely subdued, Caesar announced that he was returning to Rome.
    Cato got up to object. 'Provincial governors should remain at their posts until this house gives them permission to do otherwise,' he said. 'I move that we tell Caesar to stay where he is.'
    'It's a bit late for that!' someone next to me shouted from the doorway. 'I've just seen him on the Field of Mars!'
    'That is impossible,' insisted Cato, looking flustered. 'The last time we heard from him, he was boasting that he was on the Atlantic coast.'
    Nevertheless, Celer took the precaution of sending a slave out on to the Field of Mars to check the rumour, and he returned an hour later to announce that it was true: Caesar had overtaken his own messenger and was staying at the home of a friend outside the city.
    The news threw Rome into a frenzy of hero-worship. The next day Caesar sent an emissary to the senate to ask that he be granted his triumph in September, and that in the interim he be permitted to stand for the consulship
in absentia
. There were plenty in the senate willing to grant him his wish, for they recognised that Caesar's renown, combined with his new wealth, had made his candidacy well-nigh unstoppable. If a vote had been called, his supporters would probably have won it. Accordingly, day afterday, whenever the motion was brought before the house, Cato rose and talked it out. He droned on about the overthrow of the kings of Rome. He bored away about the ancient laws. He wearied everyone with the importance of asserting senatorial control over the legions. He repeatedly warned of the dangerous precedent it would set if a candidate were allowed to seek office at election time whilst still holding military imperium: 'Today Caesar asks for the consulship, tomorrow he may demand it.'
    Cicero did not take part himself, but signalled his support for Cato by coming into the chamber whenever he spoke and sitting on the front bench nearest to him. Time was running out for Caesar, and it looked certain that he would miss the deadline for submitting his nomination. Naturally everyone expected that he would choose to triumph rather than become a candidate: Pompey had done that; every victorious general in Rome's history had done it; there was surely nothing to equal the glory of a triumph. But Caesar was never a man to mistake power's show for its substance. Late one afternoon on the fourth day of Cato's filibuster, when the chamber was almost empty and the long green summer shadows were creeping over the deserted benches, into the senate house strolled Caesar. The twenty or so senators who were present could not believe their eyes. He had taken off his uniform and put on a toga.
    Caesar bowed to the chair and took his place on the front bench opposite Cicero. He nodded politely across the aisle to my master and settled down to listen to Cato. But for once the great didact was lost for words. Having no further motivation to talk, he sat down abruptly, and the following month Caesar was elected consul by a unanimous vote of all the centuries – the first candidate to achieve this feat since Cicero.

XVI
    The whole of Rome now waited to see what Caesar would do. 'The only thing we can expect,' said Cicero, 'is that it will be unexpected.' And so it was. It took five months, but when Caesar made his move it was masterly.
    One day towards the end of the year, in December, shortly before Caesar was due to be sworn in, Cicero received a visit from the eminent Spaniard Lucius Cornelius Balbus.
    This remarkable creature was then forty years old. Born in Gades of Phoenician extraction, he was a trader, and very rich. His complexion was dark, his hair and beard as black as jet, his teeth and the whites of his eyes