Lustrum

climax till last. We ascended by a different route, a wide staircase tunnelled into the bowels of the dripping rockbeneath the house. We passed through several heavy iron gates manned by sentries, until we came at last to a series of chambers, each of which was crammed with the treasure Lucullus had carted back from the Mithradatic war. Attendants passed their torches over glittering heaps of jewel-encrusted armour, shields, dinner plates, beakers, ladles, basins, gold chairs and gold couches. There were heavy silver ingots and chests full of millions of tiny silver coins, and a golden statue of Mithradates more than six feet high. After a while our exclamations of wonder dwindled to silence. The riches were stupefying. Then, as we went back into the tunnel, there came a very faint scuffling noise from somewhere close at hand, which at first I thought was rats, but which Lucullus explained was the noise of the sixty prisoners – friends of Mithradates, and some of his generals – whom he had been keeping down here for the past five years in readiness for his triumphal parade, at the end of which they would be strangled.
    Cicero put his hand to his mouth and cleared his throat. 'Actually, imperator, it's about your triumph that I've come to see you.'
    'I thought it might be,' said Lucullus, and in the torchlight I saw the briefest of smiles pass over his fleshy face. 'Shall we eat?'
    Naturally we dined on fish – oysters and sea bass, crab and eel, grey and red mullet. It was all too rich for me: I was accustomed to plainer fare and took little. Nor did I utter a word during dinner, but kept a subtle distance between myself and the other guests, to signify my awareness that my presence was a special favour. The Sextus brothers ate greedily, and from time to time one or the other would rise from the table and go into the garden to vomit noisily, to clear space for the next course. Cicero asusual was sparing in his consumption, while Lucullus chewed and swallowed steadily but without any apparent pleasure.
    I found myself secretly observing him, for he fascinated me, and still does. In truth I believe he was the most melancholy man I ever met. The blight of his life was Pompey, who had replaced him as supreme commander in the East and who had then, through his allies in the senate, blocked Lucullus's hopes of a triumph. Many men would have accepted this, but not Lucullus. He had everything in the world he wanted except the one thing he most desired. So he flatly refused to enter Rome or surrender his command, and instead diverted his talents and ambition into creating ever more elaborate fish ponds. He became bored and listless, his domestic life unhappy. He was married twice, the first time to one of the sisters of Clodius, from whom he separated in scandalous circumstances, alleging that she had committed incest with her brother, who had then encouraged a mutiny against Lucullus in the East. The second marriage, which still endured, was to a sister of Cato, but she was also said to be flighty and unfaithful: I never set eyes on her, so I cannot judge. I did however meet her child, Lucullus's young son, then two years old, who was brought out by his nurse to kiss his father good night. Seeing the way Lucullus treated him, I could tell he loved the lad deeply. But the moment the child had gone away to bed, the veils came down once more over Lucullus's large blue eyes and he resumed his joyless chomping.
    'So,' he said eventually, between mouthfuls, 'my triumph?' There was a fragment of fish stuck on his cheek that he didn't know about. It was peculiarly distracting.
    'Yes,' repeated Cicero, 'your triumph. I was thinking of laying a motion before the senate straight after the recess.'
    'And will it pass?'
    'I don't believe in calling votes that I can't win.'
    The
chomp, chomp
continued for a while longer.
    'Pompey won't be pleased.'
    'Pompey will have to accept that others are allowed to triumph in this republic as well as he.'
    'And what's in it for you?'
    'The honour of proposing your eternal glory.'
    'Balls.' Lucullus finally wiped his mouth and the particle of fish disappeared. 'You've really travelled fifty miles in a day just to tell me this? You can't expect me to believe it.'
    'Oh dear, you're too shrewd for me, Imperator! Very well, I confess I also wanted to have a political talk with you.'
    'Go on.'
    'I believe we are drifting towards calamity.' Cicero pushed away his plate and, summoning all his eloquence,