Once the executions were over, a great tension lifted from the city, as when the final words of a tragedy are spoken and the actors leave the stage. Night was falling. The crowd began to disperse. Cicero, surrounded by his bodyguard, made his way across the Forum Sudden cries of acclamation filled the air. Men rushed towards Cicero, calling him the saviour of the city. As he left the Forum and walked through the luxurious neighbourhood of the Palatine towards his house, rich matrons rushed to their windows to see him and sent slaves to put lamps and torches in their doorways, so that his path was brightly lit. He no longer wore a grim face, but smiled, and waved to the crowd as generals do in their triumphal parades.
Thus ended the Nones of December, Cicero's greatest day. To watch the crowd hail him as he ascended the Palatine, one might have believed his triumph was endless and absolute. But when we returned to Eco's house on the Esquiline, we saw no celebrations in the Subura. In its dirty, unlit streets, a sullen silence reigned.
XXXVII
The year dwindled and the winter grew harsher. Cold winds blew from the north. Sleet pelted the shutters at night. Frost covered the earth, and days seemed to grow dark before they had even begun.
Hie shortage of hay on the farm grew acute. 'We should begin to favour the younger, healthier animals’ Aratus told me, 'and to consider slaying some of the others to eat, or else try to sell them at market, even at a loss, rather than see them wither and grow weak. Underfed animals will fall prey to a hard winter. They'll die of illness if not starvation. Better to get some use from them than to watch them slowly die.'
From time to time we saw troops marching up the Cassian Way towards the north, dressed in battle gear and wrapped in their marching blankets. The Senate's forces were gathering strength for a confrontation. One day, when a troop of legionnaires was passing by, I came upon Meto and Diana up on the ridge. He was pointing to the ranks of soldiers passing below and telling her the names and uses of their various weapons and pieces of armour. When he realized that I was behind him, he fell silent and walked away. Diana ran after him, then turned back. She cocked her head and frowned at me. 'Papa’ she said, 'why do you look so sad?'
Eco sent messages from the city to keep me informed of developments. He continued to hear news of uprisings as far away as Mauritania and Spain, but following the executions in Rome a great many of Catilina's supporters abandoned him at once. Still, there were those who persevered in their loyalty, and even within families there had been great upheavals. Most terrifying was the story of a senator's son, Aulus Fulvius, who had left Rome to join Catilina. His rather sent a party of men after him. Aulus was apprehended, brought back to Rome, and put to death by his father.
The Saturnalia came and went without bloodshed. The midwinter holiday was celebrated in Rome as a day of deliverance. Cato declared to the throng in the Forum that Cicero should be saluted as the Father of the Fatherland. The crowd took up the cry without hesitation, and the Senate later passed such a resolution into law. When he began his year as consul, could Cicero have foreseen in his wildest dreams that he would attain such glory?
The first sour note was struck at the beginning of the new year, when Cicero was obliged to lay down his office. Tradition demanded that he should take an oath proclaiming that he had been faithful in his service to Rome, and then be allowed to deliver a valedictory address from the Rostra in the Forum. What a speech Cicero must have been planning! Having once spent several days in his house while Cicero composed his defence of Sextus Roscius, I could imagine him in his opulent library, pacing back and forth, trying out this phrase and that, sending Tiro after various books so as to get every quotation right, polishing and repolishing what was to be the supreme oration of Rome's greatest orator, his declaration to posterity of all his magnificent accomplishments as consul.
But it was not to be. Two of the new tribunes, who had already taken office, used their power to block Cicero from delivering his farewell speech, citing a technicality of the law and saying that a man who had put Roman citizens to death without due process of law could not be allowed to deliver a valedictory address. They occupied the Rostra and would not allow him to mount the platform. Finally they relented, but only to let him pronounce the oath of leaving office. While the tribunes watched, ready physically to remove him, he began the oath — and then quickly improvised: 'I swear… that I did truly save my country and keep her great!'
Cicero may have had the last word that day, but his bitterness at being deprived of his valedictory must have been great. Some say Caesar and the populists were behind the incident. Others say it was Pompey's faction, who were already tired of hearing Cicero proclaim that his execution of the traitors was as great an achievement as Pompey's conquest of the East, and thought that Senator Chickpea needed to be put in his place.
* * *
I was not surprised when Meto came to my library one frosty morning, and said, with his eyes averted, that he wished to leave the farm for a while and go to stay with his brother in the city.
I considered this request for a long moment. 'I suppose, if Eco is — amenable…'
'He is,' said Meto quickly. ‘I know, because I already asked him, when we were in Rome last month.' 'I see.'
'I'm not really needed here. You have all the help you need.' 'Yes, I suppose we can manage without you. Diana will miss you, of course.'
'Perhaps I won't be gone for long.' He sighed and threw up his hands. 'Oh, Papa, can't you see I simply need to get away?'
‘Yes, that much is clear. You're right, it would probably be a good thing for you to be in the city. You're a man now. You need to find your own way. And I know that we can trust Eco to look after you. Which of the slaves will you take with you?'
He averted his eyes again. 'I was thinking that I would go by myself'
'Oh, no, not with the countryside in such turmoil. You can't travel alone. Besides, I can't send you to Eco without sending along a slave to compensate for the extra burden on his household. How about Orestes? He's strong and young.'
Meto merely shrugged.
He left almost at once, having already packed his things the night before. Bethesda waited until after he was gone to start crying. She thought that Meto and I must have had a great row, and pestered me for the details. When I denied this and tried to comfort her, she shoved me from the room and closed the door in my face.
'Perhaps I should flee to Rome myself,' I muttered under my breath.
It was turning out to be a very hard winter.
The next day I took a long walk around the periphery of the farm, thinking that exertion and fresh air might help relieve my depression. I struck out towards the Cassian Way and walked along it towards the north until I came to the low stone wall that separated my land from that of Manius Claudius. What a peculiar fellow he had turned out to be, I thought, remembering the scene he had made at Meto's party. Stealing bits of food to take home with him, and then daring to insult me in my son's home! He was probably in Rome now.
Claudia had said that he preferred the city, especially in the colder months.
The slaves had done a good job of repairing the wall during the summer, but already the rains and the ice were taking a toll; I noticed several small cracks here and there in the mortar. I looked across the open fields that gradually rose towards my house, from which the smoke of wood fires rose into the still air. From such a distance, with the ridge behind it, it looked the very picture of a rich man's peaceful retreat from the city.
I came to the stream and turned south. Except for the evergreens, all the foliage along its course had been stripped naked by the winter, and the stream had frozen over, locking the waterwheel in place until the thaw. Some day, I thought, the controversy over the stream would be settled for good, and I could visit its banks without thinking of lawyers, law courts, and the sour countenance of Publius Claudius. A hill obscured my view of his property, but I could see a plume of smoke rising from his house. What was my neighbour doing on such a day? Probably keeping warm with his little Butterfly, I thought. The memory of my brief visit to his house caused me to shiver.
Following the stream, I came to the thicket at the southwestern corner of the farm, the secret place where I had buried Nemo. Amid the denuded branches it was not hard to find his stele. Who had he been, after all — a pawn of Cicero's, or Catilina's, or of Marcus Caelius? Not far away we had buried the body of Forfex. Though we knew his name, I had buried him as a slave, with only a stone to mark the place.
I climbed the ridge and looked down over all. The view was pleasing, even to a melancholy eye, with its muted shades of grey and umber. I would have stayed longer on the hill, but the cold in my fingers and toes drove me back to the house.
Aratus met me at the door. 'Master,' he said in a low voice, 'you have a visitor, waiting for you in your library.'
'From the city?' I said, feeling a prickle of dread.
'No, Master. The visitor is your neighbour, Gnaeus Claudius.'
'What in the name of Jupiter can he want?' I muttered.
I shrugged off my cloak and headed towards the library. I found Gnaeus seated in a backless chair, looking bored and fingering the little tag attached to a scroll tucked away in its pigeonhole, as if he had never seen a written document before. He raised an eyebrow when I entered but did not bother to stand.
'What do you want, Gnaeus Claudius?'
'Bitter weather we're having,' he remarked in a conversational drawl.
'Beautiful weather in its way, if a little harsh.'
'Yes, harsh, that's what I meant to say. Like country living in general. It's a hard life, running a farm, especially if you don't have a home in town to retreat to. People from the city read a few poems and imagine it's all butterflies and fauns lurking in the woods. The reality is quite different. All in all, I gather you've had a very harsh year here on cousin Lucius's old farm'
'From where did you gather that idea?'
'So my cousin Claudia says.'
'And what concern is that of yours?'
'Perhaps I could help you.'
'I don't think so, unless you have hay to sell me.'
'Of course I don't! You know there are no decent fields on the mountain for growing hay!'
'Then what are you talking about?'
His sudden vehemence slowly faded into a smile. 'I should like to make an offer to buy this farm'
'It's not for sale. If Claudia told you so—'. 'I merely assumed you might be ready to give it up and go back where you belong.'
"This is where I belong.'