Lustrum

regain control of the situation before my authority to deal with the likes of Catilina was destroyed entirely.'
    Hortensius went next, and did his best, but those great orotund purple passages for which he was so famous belonged to another setting – and, in truth, another era. He was past fifty, had more or less retired, was out of practice – and it showed. Some in the audience near the platform actually began to talk over him, and I was close enough to see the panic in his face as Hortensius gradually realised that he – the great Hortensius, the Dancing Master, the King of the Law Courts – was actually losing his audience! The more frantically he flung out his arms and patrolled the platform and swivelled his noble head, the more risible he seemed. Nobody was interested in his arguments. I could not hear all of what he said, as the din was tremendous, with thousands of citizens milling around and chatting to one anotherwhile they waited to vote. He broke off, sweating despite the cold, and wiped his face with his handkerchief, then called his witnesses, first Catulus and next Isauricus. Each came up to the platform and was heard respectfully. But the moment Hortensius resumed his speech, the racket of conversation started up again. By then he could have combined the tongue of Demosthenes with the wit of Plautus – it would not have made a difference. Cicero stared straight ahead into the din, white-faced, immobile, as if chiselled out of marble.
    At length Hortensius sat down and it was Cicero's turn to speak. Labienus called on him to address the assembly, but such was the volume of noise he did not rise at first. Instead he examined his toga carefully, and brushed away a few invisible specks. The hubbub continued. He checked his fingernails. He folded his arms. He looked around him. He waited. It went on a long time. And amazingly a kind of sullen, respectful silence did eventually fall over the Field of Mars. Only then did Cicero nod, as if in approval, and slowly get to his feet.
    'Although it is not my habit, fellow citizens,' he said, 'to begin a speech by explaining why I am appearing on behalf of a particular individual, nonetheless in defending the life, the honour and the fortunes of Gaius Rabirius, I consider it my duty to lay before you an explanation. For this trial is not really about Rabirius – old, infirm and friendless as he is. This trial, gentlemen, is nothing less than an attempt to ensure that from now on there should be no central authority in the state, no concerted action of good citizens against the frenzy and audacity of wicked men, no refuge for the republic in emergencies, and no security for its welfare. Since this is so,' he continued, his voice becoming louder, his hands and his gaze rising slowly to the heavens, 'I beg of most high and mighty Jupiter and all the other immortal godsand goddesses to grant me their grace and favour, and I pray that by their will this day that has dawned may see the salvation of my client and the rescue of the constitution!'
    Cicero used to say that the bigger a crowd the more stupid it is, and that a useful trick with an immense multitude is always to call on the supernatural. His words carried like a rolling drum across the hushed plain. There was still some chatter at the periphery, but it was too far away to drown him out.
    'Labienus, you summon this assembly as a great populist. But of the two of us, which is really the people's friend? You, who think it right to threaten Roman citizens with the executioner even in the midst of their assembly; who, on the Field of Mars, give orders for the erection of a cross for the punishment of citizens? Or I, who refuse to allow this assembly to be defiled by the presence of the executioner? What a friend of the people our tribune is, what a guardian and defender of its rights and liberties!'
    Labienus waved his hand at Cicero, as if he were a horsefly to be swiped away, but there was petulance in the gesture: like all bullies, he was better at handing out injuries than absorbing them.
    'You maintain,' continued Cicero, 'that Gaius Rabirius killed Lucius Saturninus, a charge that Quintus Hortensius, in the course of his most ample defence, has proved to be false. But if it were up to me, I would brave this charge. In fact I would admit it. I would plead guilty to it!' A rumble of anger began to spread among the crowd, but Cicero shouted over their jeers. 'Yes, yes, I would admit it! I only wish I could