Lustrum

last you have shown your true regard for me to all the world – by helping to give my deadliest enemy the weapon he needs to destroy me!'
    Pompey's lip quivered and his oyster eyes filled with tears. 'Cicero, I am appalled. How can you say such things? I would never stand aside and see you destroyed. My position is not an easy one, you know – trying to exert a calming influence on Caesar is a sacrifice I make on behalf of the republic every day of my life.'
    'But not today, apparently.'
    'He felt that his dignity and authority were threatened by what you said.'
    'Not half as threatened as they will be if I reveal all I know about this Beast with Three Heads and its dealings with Catilina!'
    Gabinius broke in. 'I don't think you should speak to Pompey the Great in that tone.'
    'No, no, Aulus,' said Pompey sadly, 'what Cicero says is right. Caesar has gone too far. The gods know I have tried to do as much as I can to moderate his actions behind the scenes. When Cato was flung in prison, I had him released at once. And poorBibulus would have suffered a much worse fate than having a barrel of shit poured over him if it hadn't been for me. But on this occasion I failed. I was bound to one day. I'm afraid Caesar is just so …
relentless
.' He sighed and picked up one of the toy temples from his model theatre and contemplated it thoughtfully. 'Perhaps the time is coming,' he said, 'when I shall have to break with him.' He gave Cicero a crafty look – his eyes had quickly dried, I noticed. 'What do you think of that?'
    'I think it cannot come soon enough.'
    'You may be right.' Pompey took the temple between his fat thumb and forefinger and replaced it with surprising delicacy in its former position. 'Do you know what his new scheme is?'
    'No.'
    'He wishes to be awarded a military command.'
    'I'm sure he does. But the senate has already decreed that there will be no provinces for the consuls this year.'
    'The senate has, yes. But Caesar doesn't care about the senate. He is going to get Vatinius to propose a law in the popular assembly.'
    'What?'
    'A law granting him not just one province, but two – Nearer Gaul and Bithynia – with the authority to raise an army of two legions. And it won't just be a one-year appointment, either – he wants five years.'
    'But the award of provinces has always been decided by the senate, not the people,' protested Cicero. 'And
five years
! This will smash our constitution to pieces.'
    'Caesar says not. Caesar says to me, “What is wrong with trusting the people?”'
    'It isn't the people! It's a mob, controlled by Vatinius.'
    'Well,' said Pompey, 'now perhaps you can understand whyI agreed to watch the skies for him this afternoon. Of course I should have refused. But I have to keep a larger picture in view. Someone must control him.'
    Cicero put his head in his hands in despair. Eventually he said, 'May I tell some of my friends your reasons for going along with him today? Otherwise they will think I no longer have your support.'
    'If you must – in the strictest confidence. And you may tell them – with Aulus here as a witness – that no harm will befall Marcus Tullius Cicero as long as Pompey the Great still breathes in Rome.'
    Cicero was very silent and thoughtful as we walked home. Instead of going straight to his library, he took several turns around his garden in the darkness, while I sat at a table nearby with a lamp and quickly wrote down as much of Pompey's conversation as I could remember. When I had finished, Cicero told me to come with him, and we went next door to see Metellus Celer.
    I was worried that Clodia might be present, but there was no sign of her. Instead Celer was sitting in his dining room alone, lit by a solitary candelabrum, chewing morosely on a cold chicken leg, with a jug of wine beside him. Cicero refused a drink for the second time that evening and asked me to read out what Pompey had just said. Celer was predictably outraged.
    'So I shall have Further Gaul – which is where the fighting will have to be done – and he Nearer, yet each of us is to have two legions?'
    'Yes, except that he will hold his province for an entire lustrum, while you will have to give up yours by the end of the year. You may be sure that if there's any glory to be had, Caesar will have it all.'
    Celer let out a bellow of rage and shook his fists. 'He
must
be stopped! I don't care if there
are
three of them running this republic. There are hundreds of us!'
    Cicero sat down