Lustrum

Tiro,' Cicero said to me under his breath as I opened the document case and handed him his notes, 'here is the proof that the gods have a sense of humour – that I should have to appear in this place, as the advocate for this rogue!' He turned and smiled at Hybrida, who was himself at that moment climbing laboriously up on to the platform. 'Good morning to you, Hybrida. I trust you have avoided the wine at breakfast, as you promised? We shall need to keep clear wits about us today.'
    'Of course,' replied Hybrida. But it was obvious from the way he stumbled on the steps, as well as from his slurred speech, that he had not been as abstemious as he claimed.
    Apart from me and his usual team of clerks, Cicero had also brought along his son-in-law, Frugi, to act as his junior. Rufus, in contrast, appeared alone, and the moment I saw him striding across the comitium towards us, with only one secretary in attendance, I felt what little confidence I had evaporate. Rufus was not yet twenty-three and had just completed a year in Africa on the staff of the governor. A youth had gone out, a man had returned, and I reckoned the contrast between this tall and sunburnt prosecutor and the fleshy, ruined Hybrida was worth a dozen jury votes even before the trial had started. Nor did Cicero come well out of the comparison. He was twice the age of Rufus, and when he went over to his opponent to shake hishand and wish him good luck, he appeared stooped and care-worn. It was like a tableau on the wall of the baths: Juventus versus Senex, with sixty jurymen arrayed in tiers behind them, and the praetor, the haughty Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus, seated between them in the judge's chair.
    Rufus was called on first to lay out his case, and it was soon obvious that he had been a more attentive pupil in Cicero's chambers than any of us had realised. The burden of his prosecution was fivefold: first, that Hybrida had concentrated all his energies on extorting as much money as he could from Macedonia; second, that the revenue that should have gone to his army had been diverted into his own pocket; third, that he had neglected his duties as military commander during an expedition to the Black Sea to punish rebellious tribes; fourth, that he had demonstrated cowardice on the field of battle by fleeing from the enemy; and finally fifth, that as a result of his incompetence, the empire had lost the region around Histria on the Lower Danube. Rufus laid these charges with a mixture of moral outrage and malicious humour that was worthy of the Master at his best. I remember in particular his graphic account of Hybrida's dereliction of duty on the morning of the battle against the rebels. 'They found the man himself stretched out in a drunken stupor,' he said, walking around the back of Hybrida and gesturing to him as if he were an exhibit, 'snoring with all the force of his lungs, belching repeatedly, while the distinguished ladies who shared his quarters sprawled over every couch, and the other women were lying on the floor all around. Half dead with terror, and aware now of the enemy's approach, they tried to rouse up Hybrida; they shouted his name, and tried in vain to hoist him up by his neck; some whispered blandishments in his ear, one or two gave him an energetic slap. He recognised all their voicesand their touch and tried to put his arms round the neck of whoever was nearest to him. He was too much aroused to sleep, and too drunk to stay awake; dazed and half asleep, he was thrown around in the arms of his centurions and his concubines.'
    And all this, mark you, delivered without a note. It was murderous enough for the defence by itself. But the prosecution's main witnesses – including several of Hybrida's army commanders, a pair of his mistresses, and his quartermaster – were even worse. At the end of the day Cicero congratulated Rufus on his performance, and that evening he frankly advised his gloomy client to sell his property in Rome for the best price he could get, and convert his assets into jewellery or anything portable that he could carry into exile. 'You must brace yourself for the worst.'
    I shall not describe all the details of the trial. Suffice it to say that even though Cicero tried every trick he knew to discredit Rufus's case, he barely left a scratch on it, and the witnesses Hybrida produced in his own defence were uniformly feeble – mostly his old drinking companions, or officials he had bribed to lie. By the end of