Lustrum

sleeping. Even the morning exercises he had practised since he was a young man had been abandoned. I was surprised she should talk to me in this intimate way, as the truth was she had never much liked me, and took out on me much of the frustration she felt with her husband. I was the one who spent the most time sequestered with him, working. I was the one who disturbed their rare moments of leisure together by bringing him piles of letters and news of callers. Nevertheless, for once she spoke to me politely and almost as a friend. 'You must reason with him,' she said.'I sometimes believe you are the only one he will listen to, while I can only pray for him.'
    When the next morning arrived and there was still no word from Sanga, I began to fear that Cicero would be too nervous to make his speech. Remembering Terentia's plea, I even suggested he might ask for a further postponement. 'Are you mad?' he snapped. 'This isn't the time to show weakness. I'll be fine. I always am.' Despite his bravado, I had never seen him shake more at the start of a speech, or begin more inaudibly. The forum was packed and noisy, even though great masses of cloud were rolling over Rome, releasing occasional flurries of rain across the valley. But as it turned out, Cicero put a surprising amount of humour into that speech, memorably contrasting the claims of Servius and Murena for the consulship.
    'You are up before dawn to rally your clients,' he said to Servius, 'he to rally his army. You are woken by the call of cocks, he by the call of trumpets. You draw up a form of proceedings, he a line of battle. He understands how to keep off the enemy's forces, you rainwater. He has been engaged in extending boundaries, you in defining them.' The jury loved that. And they laughed even longer when he poked fun at Cato and his rigid philosophy. 'Rest assured that the superhuman qualities we have seen in Cato are innate; his failings due not to Nature but to his master. For there was a man of genius called Zeno, and the disciples of his teaching are called stoics. Here are some of his precepts: the wise man is never moved by favour and never forgives anyone's mistakes; only a fool feels pity; all misdeeds are equal, the casual killing of a cock no less a crime than strangling one's father; the wise man never assumes anything, never regrets anything, is never wrong, never changes his mind. Unfortunately Cato has seized on this doctrine not just as a topic for discussion but as a way of life.'
    'What a droll fellow our consul is,' sneered Cato in a loud voice as everybody laughed. But Cicero hadn't finished yet.
    'Now I must admit when I was younger I also took some interest in philosophy. My masters, though, were Plato and Aristotle. They don't hold violent or extreme views. They say that favour can sometimes influence the wise man; that a good man can feel pity; that there are different degrees of wrongdoing and different punishments; that the wise man often makes assumptions when he doesn't know the facts, and is sometimes angry, and sometimes forgives, and sometimes changes his mind; that all virtue is saved from excess by a so-called mean. If you had studied these masters, Cato, you might not be a better man or braver – that would be impossible – but you might be a little more kind.
    'You say that the public interest led you to start these proceedings. I don't doubt it. But you slip up because you never stop to think. I am defending Lucius Murena not because of friendship, but for the sake of peace, quiet, unity, liberty, our self-preservation – in short, the very lives of us all. Listen, gentlemen,' he said, turning to the jury, 'listen to a consul who spends all his days and nights in non-stop thinking about the republic. It is vital that there are two consuls in the state on the first day of January. Plans have been laid by men among us now to destroy the city, slaughter the citizens and obliterate the name of Rome. I give you warning. My consulate is reaching its dying days. Don't take from me the man whose vigilance should succeed mine.' He rested his hand on Murena's shoulder. 'Don't remove the man to whom I wish to hand over the republic still intact, for him to defend against these deadly perils.'
    He spoke for three hours, stopping only now and again to sip a little diluted wine or to mop the rain from his face. His deliverybecame more and more powerful as he went on, and I was reminded of some strong and graceful fish that had been