Lustrum

started making a speech. But everyonecould see that his true intention was to talk out Cato's motion and prevent a vote, for the light was very low now and shadows were deep across the chamber. There were shouts of rage from those around Cato, and some jostling, and several of the knights who had been watching from the doorway rushed in with their swords drawn. Caesar was twisting his shoulders back and forth to throw off the hands that were trying to pull him down, and still he kept on speaking. The knights looked to Cicero for instruction. All it would have taken was a nod from him, or a raised finger, and Caesar would have been run through on the spot. And for the briefest of instants he did hesitate. But then he shook his head, Caesar was released, and in the chaos he must have rushed from the temple, for I lost sight of him after that. Cicero came down off his dais. Striding along the aisle, shouting at the senators, he and his lictors separated the combatants, pushed a few of them back into their places, and when some sort of order had been restored he returned to his chair.
    'Gentlemen,' he said, his face as white as milk in the darkness, his voice very thin and strained, 'the sentiment of the house is clear. Marcus Cato's motion passes. The sentence is death.'
    Speed was now vital. The condemned men had to be moved quickly to the execution chamber before their friends and supporters realised their fate. To fetch each prisoner, Cicero placed a former consul at the head of a detachment of guards: Catulus went for Cethegus, Torquatus for Capito, Piso for Caeparius and Lepidus for Statilius. After settling the details, and requesting that the other senators remain in their places while the deed was done, he himself went off last of all to collect the most senior of the accused, Lentulus Sura.
    Outside, the sun had just gone down. The forum was ominously crowded, yet the people parted at once to let us through. They reminded me of spectators at a sacrifice – solemn, respectful, filled with awe at the mysteries of life and death. We went with our escort up on to the Palatine, to the home of Spinther, who was a kinsman of Sura, and found our prisoner in the atrium playing dice with one of the men assigned to guard him. He had just made his throw: the dice clattered on to the board as we came in. He must have realised at once from Cicero's expression that it was all over for him. He glanced down to inspect his score, then looked back up at us and gave a bleak smile. 'I seem to have lost,' he said.
    I cannot reproach Sura for his behaviour. His grandfather and his great-grandfather had both been consuls and they would have been proud of his conduct in this last hour at least. He handed over a purse with some money to be distributed among his guards, then walked out of the house as calmly as if he were going to take a bath. He offered only the mildest of reproaches. 'I believe you laid a trap for me,' he said.
    'You trapped yourself,' replied Cicero.
    Sura didn't say another word as we crossed the forum, but trod steadily with his chin thrust out. He still wore the plain tunic he had been given the previous day. Yet from their demeanours one would have guessed that the deathly pale Cicero, despite his consular purple, was the condemned man and Sura his captor. I felt the eyes of the vast crowd upon us; they were as curious and docile as sheep. At the foot of the steps leading up to the Carcer, Sura's stepson Mark Antony ran out in front of the guards, crying out to know what was happening.
    'I have a short appointment,' replied Sura calmly. 'It will allbe over soon. Go and comfort your mother. She will have more need of you now than I.'
    Antony bellowed with grief and anger and tried to reach out to touch Sura, but he was pushed out of the way by the lictors. We passed on up the steps between the pickets of troops, ducked through a doorway that was low but very thick, almost like a tunnel, and into a windowless circular stone chamber lit by torches. The air was close, noxious with the stink of death and human waste. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I recognised Catulus, Piso, Torquatus and Lepidus, with the folds of their togas pressed to their noses, and also the short and broad figure of the state executioner, the carnifex, in his leather apron, attended by half a dozen assistants. The other prisoners were already lying on the ground with their arms tightly pinioned behind their backs. Capito, who had spent the