Lustrum

much clearer, he retreated to his library. 'What are the only weapons I possess, Tiro?' he asked me, and then he answered his own question. 'These,' he said, gesturing to his books. 'Words. Caesar and Pompey have their soldiers, Crassus his wealth, Clodius his bullies on the street. My only legions are my words. By language I rose, and by language I shall survive.'
    Accordingly we began work on what he called 'The Secret History of My Consulship' – the fourth and final version of his autobiography, and by far the truest, a book he intended to be the basis of his defence if he was put on trial, which has never been published, and which I have drawn on to write this memoir. In it, he set out all the facts about Caesar's relationship with Catilina; about the way in which Crassus had defended Catilina, financed him and finally betrayed him; and about how Pompey had used his lieutenants to try to prolong and worsen the crisis so that he could use it as an excuse to come home with his army. It took us two weeks to compile, and I made an extra copy as we went along. When we had finished, I wrapped each roll of the original in a linen sheet and then in oilcloth and put them in an amphora, which we sealed tight with wax. Then Cicero and I rose early one morning, while the rest of the household was asleep, and took it into the nearby woods and buried it between a hornbeam and an ash. 'If anything happens to me,' Cicero instructed, 'dig it up and give it to Terentia, and tell her to use it as she thinks fit.'
    As far as he could see, he had only one real hope left of avoiding being put on trial: that Pompey's disenchantment withCaesar would widen into an open breach. Given their characters, it was not an unreasonable expectation, and he was constantly on the lookout for any scrap of promising news. All letters from Rome were eagerly opened. All acquaintances on their way south to the Bay of Naples were closely questioned. There were bits of intelligence that seemed encouraging. As a gesture to Cicero, Pompey had asked Clodius to undertake a mission to Armenia rather than stand for tribune. Clodius had refused. Pompey had thereupon taken offence and fallen out with Clodius. Caesar had sided with Pompey. Clodius had argued with Caesar, even to the extent of threatening, when he became tribune, to rescind the triumvirate's legislation. Caesar had lost his temper with Clodius. Pompey had rebuked Caesar for landing them with this ungovernable patrician-cum-plebeian in the first place. Some even whispered that the two great men had stopped speaking. Cicero was delighted. 'Mark my words, Tiro: all regimes, however popular or powerful, pass away eventually.' There were signs that this one might be collapsing already. And perhaps it would have done if Caesar had not taken a dramatic step to preserve it.
    The blow fell on the first day of May. It was in the evening, after dinner, and Cicero had just nodded off on his couch, when a letter arrived from Atticus. I should explain that we were in the villa in Formiae by this time, and that Atticus had returned briefly to his house in Rome, whence he was sending Cicero more or less daily all the intelligence he could discover. Of course it was no substitute for actually seeing Atticus, but neverthless it was agreed between them that he should stay there, for he was of more service picking up gossip than counting waves on the seashore. Terentia was doing her embroidery in a corner of the room, all was peaceful, and I debated whether or not towake Cicero. But he had already heard the noise of the messenger, and his hand rose imperiously from the couch. 'Give it me,' he said. I handed him the letter and went out on to the terrace. I could see a tiny light on a boat out at sea, and I was wondering what manner of fish had to be caught in darkness, or if this was the setting of traps for lobsters or whatnot – I am a terrible landlubber – when I heard a great groan from the couch behind me.
    Terentia looked up in consternation. 'Whatever is it?' she asked.
    I went inside. Cicero had the letter crumpled on his chest. 'Pompey has married again,' he said in a hollow voice. '
He has married Caesar's daughter!
'
    Against the workings of history Cicero could deploy many weapons: logic, cunning, irony, wit, oratory, experience, his profound knowledge of law and men. But against the alchemy of two naked bodies in a bed in the darkness, and against all the complex longings and attachments and