Lustrum

and held up his hand for silence.
    'Gentlemen, this is very serious. There should be no mistake as to what we have just heard. Clerk, read back to the chamber the words of Sergius Catilina.'
    I had no time to feel nervous as for the first and only time in my life I addressed the senate of the Roman republic: '“If a fire is raised to consume my fortunes,”' I read from my notes, '“then I will put it out – not with water but by demolition.”'
    I spoke as loudly as I could and sat down quickly, my heart pounding with such violence it seemed to shake my entire body. Catilina, still on his feet, his head on one side, was looking at Cicero with an expression I find it hard to describe – a sneer of insolence was part of it, and contempt, and blazing hatred obviously, and even perhaps a hint of fear: that twitch of alarm that can drive a desperate man to desperate acts. Cicero, his point made, gestured to Cato to resume his speech, and only I was close enough to see that his hand was shaking. 'Marcus Cato still has the floor,' he said.
    That night Cicero asked Terentia to speak to her highly placed informant, the mistress of Curius, to try to find out exactly what Catilina meant. 'Obviously he's realised he's going to lose, which makes this a dangerous moment. He might be planning to disrupt the poll. “Demolition”? See if she knows why he used that particular phrase.'
    Lucullus's triumph was to take place the following day, and in this atmosphere Quintus naturally worried about the arrangements for Cicero's security. But nothing could be done. Therewas no chance of varying the route, which was fixed by solemn tradition. The crowds would be immense. It was only too easy to imagine a determined assassin darting forwards, thrusting a long blade into the consul, and disappearing into the throng. 'But there it is,' said Cicero. 'If a man is set on killing you, it's hard to stop him, especially if he's willing to die in the attempt. We shall just have to trust to Providence.'
    'And the Sextus brothers,' added Quintus.
    Early the next morning Cicero led the entire senate out to the Field of Mars, to the Villa Publica, where Lucullus was lodging prior to entering the city, surrounded by the pitched tents of his veterans. With characteristic arrogance, Lucullus kept the delegation waiting for a while, and when he appeared, he presented a gaudy apparition, robed in gold, his face painted in red lead. Cicero recited the official proclamation of the senate, then handed him a laurel wreath, which Lucullus held aloft and showed to his veterans, slowly turning full circle to roars of approval before delicately placing it on his head. Because I was now on the staff of the treasury, I was given a place in the parade, behind the magistrates and senators, but ahead of the war booty and the prisoners, who included a few of Mithradates's relatives, a couple of minor princes, and half a dozen generals. We passed into Rome through the Triumphal Gate, and my chief recollections are of the oppressive heat of that summer day, and the contorted faces of the crowds lining the streets, and the rank smell of the beasts – the oxen and mules, dragging and carrying all that bullion and those works of art – their animal grunts and bellows mingling with the shouts of the spectators, and far behind us, like distant rolling thunder, the tramp of the legionaries' boots. It was quite disgusting, I have to say – the whole city stinking and shrieking like a vivarium – and no more so thanafter we had passed through the Circus Maximus and had come back along the Via Sacra to the forum, where we had to wait until the rest of the procession caught up with us. Standing outside the Carcer was the public executioner, surrounded by his assistants. He was a butcher by training, and looked it, squat and broad in his leather apron. This was where the crowd was thickest, drawn as always by the shivering thrill of close proximity to death. The miserable prisoners, yoked at the neck, their faces burned red by this sudden exposure to the sun after years of darkness, were led up one by one to the carnifex, who took them down into the Carcer and strangled them – thankfully out of sight, but still I could see that Cicero was keeping his face averted, and talking fixedly to Hybrida. A few rows back, Catilina watched Cicero with almost lascivious interest.
    Such are my principal memories of the triumph, although I must recount one other, which is that when