Imperium

I was by this time almost forty, and after a life devoted exclusively to clerical duties my hands were as soft as a maiden’s. In the event of trouble it would be Cicero, whose daily exercises had given him an imposing physique, who would be called upon to protect me . Nevertheless, I opened up the safe in his study and began counting out the cash we needed in silver coin. (He had a well-stocked campaign fund, made up of gifts from his admirers, which he drew on to pay for such expenses as his tour of Nearer Gaul; this money was not bribes, as such, although obviously it was comforting for the donors to know that Cicero was a man who famously never forgot a name.) Anyway, this silver was fitted into a money belt which I had to strap around my waist, and with a heavy tread, in both senses of the phrase, I descended with Cicero at dusk into the Subura. He cut a curious figure wearing a hooded tunic borrowed from one of his slaves, for the night was very warm. But in the crowded slums of the poor, the bizarrely dressed are an everyday sight, and when people saw a man with a hood pulled down low over his face they gave him a wide berth, perhaps fearing that he had leprosy or some other disfiguring ailment. We followed Ranunculus, who darted, appropriately tadpole-like, through the labyrinth of narrow squalid alleys which were his natural habitat, until at last we came to a corner where men were sitting, leaning against the wall, passing a jar of wine back and forth. Above their heads, beside the door, was a painting of Bacchus with his groin thrust out, relieving himself, and the spot had the smell to match the sign. Ranunculus stepped inside and led us behind the counter and up some narrow wooden stairs to a raftered room, where Salinator was waiting, along with another man, the sequester, whose name I never learned.

They were so anxious to see the money, they paid little attention to the hooded figure behind me. I had to take off my belt and show them a handful of coins, whereupon the sequester produced a small pair of scales and began weighing the silver. Salinator, who was a flabby, lank-haired, potbellied creature, watched this for a while, then said to Ranunculus, “That seems well enough. Now you had better give me the name of your client.”

“I am his client,” said Cicero, throwing back his hood. Needless to say, Salinator recognized him at once, and stepped back in alarm, crashing into the sequester and his scales. The bribery agent struggled to recover, hopelessly trying to turn his stumble into a sequence of bows, and began some improvised speech about what an honor it was and so forth to help the senator in his campaign, but Cicero shut him up quickly. “I do not require any help from the likes of you, wretch! All I require is information.”

Salinator had just begun to whine that he knew nothing when suddenly the sequester dropped his scales and made a dive for the staircase. He must have got about halfway down before he ran into the solid figure of Quintus, who spun him around, hauled him up by his collar and the seat of his tunic, and threw him back into the room. Coming up the stairs behind Quintus, I was relieved to see, were a couple of stout young lads who often served as Cicero’s attendants. At the sight of so many, and confronted by the most famous advocate in Rome, Salinator’s resistance began to weaken. What finished it altogether was Cicero’s threat to hand him over to Crassus for trying to sell the same votes twice, for nothing scared him more than Crassus’s retribution. I was reminded of that phrase about Old Baldhead which Cicero had repeated years before: “the most dangerous bull in the herd.”

“Your client is Crassus, then?” asked Cicero. “Think carefully before you deny it.”

Salinator’s chin twitched slightly, the nearest he dared come to a nod.

“And you were to deliver three hundred votes to Hybrida and Catilina for the consulship?”

Again he gave the ghost of a nod. “For them,” he said, “and the others.”

“Others? You mean Lentulus Sura for praetor?”

“Yes. Him. And the others.”

“You keep saying ‘the others,’” said Cicero, frowning. “Who are these ‘others’?”

“Keep your mouth shut!” shouted the sequester, but Quintus kicked him in the stomach and he groaned and rolled over.

“Ignore him,” said Cicero affably. “He is a bad influence. I know the type. You can tell me.” He put an encouraging hand on the bribery agent’s arm. “The others?”

“Cosconius,” said Salinator, casting a nervous glance at the figure writhing on the floor. Then he took a breath and said rapidly, in a quiet voice, “Pomptinus. Balbus. Caecilius. Labienus. Faberius. Gutta. Bulbus. Calidius. Tudicius. Valgius. And Rullus.”

As each new name was mentioned, Cicero looked more and more astonished. “Is that it?” he said when Salinator had finished. “You are sure there is no one left in the Senate you have forgotten?” He glanced across at Quintus, who was looking equally amazed.

“That is not just two candidates for consul,” said Quintus. “That is three candidates for praetor and ten for tribune. Crassus is trying to buy the entire government!”

Cicero was not a man who liked to show surprise, but even he could not disguise it that night. “This is completely absurd,” he protested. “How much is each of these votes costing?”

“Five hundred for consul,” replied Salinator, as if he were selling pigs at market. “Two hundred for praetor. One hundred for tribune.”

“So you are telling me,” said Cicero, frowning as he performed the calculation, “that Crassus is willing to pay three quarters of a million merely for the three hundred votes in your syndicate?”

Salinator nodded, this time more vigorously, even happily, and with a certain professional pride. “It has been the most magnificent canvass anyone can remember.”

Cicero turned to Ranunculus, who had been keeping watch at the window in case of any trouble in the street. “How many votes do you think Crassus will have bought altogether at this sort of price?”

“To feel confident of victory?” replied Ranunculus. He pondered the matter judiciously. “It must be seven or eight thousand.”

“Eight thousand ?” repeated Cicero. “Eight thousand would cost him twenty million . Have you ever heard the like? And at the end of it, he is not even in office himself, but has filled the magistracies with ni

“No, senator. Crassus is not a man much given to answering questions.”

“Well, he will answer some fucking questions now,” Quintus said, and to relieve his frustration he aimed another kick at the belly of the sequester, who had just started to rise, and sent the fellow groaning and crashing back to the floor.

QUINTUS WAS ALL FOR BEATING the last scrap of information out of the two hapless agents, and then either marching them around to the house of Crassus and demanding that he put a stop to his schemes, or dragging them before the Senate, reading out their confessions, and calling for the elections to be postponed. But Cicero kept a cooler head. With a straight face he thanked Salinator for his honesty, then told Quintus to have a cup of wine and calm down, and me to gather up our silver. Later, when we had returned home, he sat in his study and tossed that little leather exercise ball of his from one hand to the other, while Quintus raged that he had been a fool to let the two bribery agents go, that they would surely now alert Crassus or flee the city.

“They will not do either,” replied Cicero. “To go to Crassus and tell him what has happened would be to sign their own death warrants. Crassus would never leave such incriminating witnesses alive, and they know it. And flight would merely bring about the same result, except that it would take him longer to track them down.” Back and forth, back and forth went the ball. “Besides, no crime has been committed. Bribery is hard enough to prove at the best of times-impossible to establish when not a vote has been cast. Crassus and the Senate would merely laugh at us. No, the best thing is to leave them at liberty, where at least we know where to find them again, and be ready to subpoena them if we lose the election.” He threw the ball higher and caught it with a swiping motion. “You were right about one thing, though, Quintus.”

“Was I really?” said Quintus bitterly. “How kind of you to say so.”

“Crassus’s action has nothing to do with his enmity for me. He would not spend twenty million simply to frustrate my hopes. He would only invest twenty million if the likely return were huge . What can it be? On that issue I must confess myself baffled.” He stared at the wall for a while. “Tiro, you always got on well with young Caelius Rufus, didn’t you?”

I remembered the shirked tasks which I had been obliged to complete for him, the lies I had told to keep him out of trouble the day he stole my savings and persuaded me not to report his thieving to Cicero. “Reasonably well, senator,” I replied cautiously.

“Go and talk to him tomorrow morning. Be subtle about it. See if you can extract any clues from him about what Crassus is up to. He lives under the same roof, after all. He must know something.”

I lay awake long into the night, pondering all of this, and feeling increasingly anxious for the future. Cicero did not sleep much either. I could hear him pacing around upstairs. The force of his concentration seemed almost to penetrate the floorboards, and when sleep at last came to me, it was restless and full of portents.

The following morning I left Laurea to deal with Cicero’s press of visitors and set off to walk the mile or so to the house of Crassus. Even today, when the sky is cloudless and the mid-July heat feels oppressive even before the sun is up, I whisper to myself, “Election weather!” and feel again that familiar clench of excitement in my stomach. The sound of hammering and sawing rose from the Forum, as the workmen finished the erection of the ramps and fences around the Temple of Castor. It was the day on which the bribery bill was to be put to the vote of the people, and I cut through behind the temple and paused to take a drink from the tepid waters of the fountain of Juturna. I had no idea what I was going to say to Caelius. I am a most inexpert liar-I always have been-and I realized I should have asked Cicero to advise me on some line to take, but it was too late now. I climbed the path to the Palatine, and when I reached the house of Crassus I told the porter that I had an urgent message for Caelius Rufus. He offered to let me wait inside but I declined. Instead, while he went off to fetch the young man, I crossed the street and tried to make myself as inconspicuous as possible.