Lustrum

for the rest of his life Gnaeus Pompey be permitted to wear his triumphal robes at the Games, so that the Roman people even in their leisure will ever be reminded of the debt they owe him.'
    I could almost hear Cicero's teeth grinding behind his fixed smile as he accepted the amendment and put it to the vote. He knew that Pompey would mark well that Caesar had been twice as generous as he. The motion passed with only one dissenting voice: that of young Marcus Cato, who declared in a furious voice that the senate was treating Pompey as if he were a king, crawling to him and flattering him in a way that would have sickened the founders of the republic. He was jeered, and a couple of senators sitting near to him tried to pull him down. But looking at the faces of Catulus and the other patricians, I could tell how uncomfortable his words had made them.
    Of all these great figures from the past who roost like bats in my memory and flutter from their caves at night to disturb my dreams, Cato is the strangest. What a bizarre creature he was! He was not much more than thirty at this time, but his face was already that of an old man. He was very angular. His hair was unkempt. He never smiled, and rarely bathed: he gave off a ripe smell, I can tell you. Contrariness was his religion. Even though he was immensely rich, he never rode in a litter or a carriagebut went everywhere on foot, and frequently refused to wear shoes, or sometimes even a tunic – he desired, he said, to train himself to care nothing for the opinion of the world on any matter, trivial or great. The clerks at the treasury were terrified of him. He had served there as a junior magistrate for a year and they often told me how he had made them justify every item of expenditure, down to the tiniest sum. Even after he had left the department he always came into the senate chamber carrying a full set of treasury accounts, and there he would sit, in his regular place on the furthest back bench, hunched forward over the figures, gently rocking back and forth, oblivious to the laughter and talk of the men around him.
    The day after the news about the defeat of Mithradates, Cato came to see Cicero. The consul groaned when I told him Cato was waiting. He knew him of old, having acted briefly as his advocate when Cato – in another of his other-worldly impulses – had resolved to sue his cousin, Lepida, in order to force her to marry him. Nevertheless, he ordered me to show him in.
    'Pompey must be stripped of his command immediately,' announced Cato the moment he entered the study, 'and summoned home at once.'
    'Good morning, Cato. That seems a little harsh, don't you think, given his recent victory?'
    'The victory is precisely the trouble. Pompey is supposed to be the servant of the republic, but we are treating him as our master. He will return and take over the entire state if we're not careful. You must propose his dismissal tomorrow.'
    'I most certainly will not! Pompey is the most successful general Rome has produced since Scipio. He deserves all the honours we can grant him. You're falling into the same error as your great-grandfather, who hounded Scipio out of office.'
    'Well, if you won't stop him, I shall.'
    'You?'
    'I intend to put myself forward for election as tribune. I want your support.'
    'Do you, indeed!'
    'As tribune I shall veto any bill that may be introduced by one of Pompey's lackeys to further his designs. It is my intention to be a politician entirely different to any who has gone before.'
    'I am sure you will be,' replied Cicero, glancing over the young man's shoulder at me, and giving me the very slightest wink.
    'I propose to bring to public affairs for the first time the full rigour of a coherent philosophy, subjecting each issue as it arises to the maxims and precepts of stoicism. You know that I have living in my household none other than Athenodorus Cordylion – whom I think you will agree is the leading scholar of the stoics. He will be my permanent adviser. The republic is drifting, Cicero, that is how I see it – drifting towards disaster on the winds and currents of easy compromise. We should never have given Pompey his special commands.'
    'I supported those commands.'
    'I know, and shame on you! I saw him in Ephesus on my way back to Rome a year or two ago, all puffed up like some Eastern emperor. Where's his authorisation for all these cities he's founded and provinces he's occupied? Has the senate discussed it? Have the people