Imperium - Харрис Роберт. Страница 23

And with that he marched up the remaining few steps to Glabrio, who was looking mightily bemused, and gave him his application to prosecute. The praetor glanced at it quickly, then passed it to one of his clerks. He shook Cicero’s hand-and that was it. I am afraid the whole business had fallen embarrassingly flat, the trouble being that Rome was constantly witnessing individuals declaring their intention to run for some office or another-at least fifty were elected annually-and nobody saw Cicero’s announcement in quite the same historic terms as he did. As for the prosecution, it had been more than a year since he had stirred up the original excitement about Verres, and people, as he frequently remarked, have short memories: they had forgotten all about the wicked governor of Sicily. I could see that Cicero was suffering a dreadful sense of anticlimax, which even Lucius, who was usually good at making him laugh, could not shake him out of.

We reached the house and Quintus and Lucius tried to amuse him by picturing the responses of Verres and Hortensius when they learned that a charge had been laid: the slave running back from the Forum with the news, Verres turning white, a crisis meeting summoned. But Cicero would have none of it. I guessed he was thinking of the warning Servilia had given him, and the way Hortensius and Verres had laughed at him on inauguration day. “They knew this was coming,” he said. “They have a plan. The question is: what? Do they know our evidence is too weak? Is Glabrio in their pocket? What?”

The answer was in his hands before the morning was out. It came in the form of a writ from the extortion court, served upon him by one of Glabrio’s lictors. He took it with a frown, broke open the seal, read it quickly, and then said a soft “Ah…”

“What is it?” asked Lucius.

“The court has received a second application to prosecute Verres.”

“That is impossible,” said Quintus. “Who else would want to do that?”

“A senator,” replied Cicero, studying the writ. “Caecilius Niger.”

“I know him,” piped up Sthenius. “He was Verres’s quaestor, in the year before I had to flee the island. It was said that he and the governor quarreled over money.”

“Hortensius has informed the court that Verres has no objection to being prosecuted by Caecilius, on the grounds that he seeks ‘personal redress,’ whereas I, apparently, merely seek ‘public notoriety.’”

We all looked at one another in dismay. Months of work seemed to be turning to dust.

“It is clever,” said Cicero ruefully. “You have to say that for Hortensius. What a clever devil he is! I assumed he would try to have the whole case thrown out without a hearing. I never imagined that instead he would seek to control the prosecution as well as the defense.”

“But he cannot do that!” spluttered Quintus. “Roman justice is the fairest system in the world!”

“My dear Quintus,” replied Cicero with such patronizing sarcasm it made me wince, “where do you find these slogans? In nursery books? Do you suppose that Hortensius has dominated the Roman bar for the best part of twenty years by playing fair? This is a writ. I am summoned before the extortion court tomorrow morning to argue why I should be allowed to bring the prosecution rather than Caecilius. I have to plead my worth before Glabrio and a full jury. A jury, let me remind you, that will be composed of thirty-two senators, many of whom, you may be sure, will recently have received a New Year’s gift of bronze or marble.”

“But we Sicilians are the victims!” exclaimed Sthenius. “Surely it must be for us to decide whom we wish to have as our advocate?”

“Not at all. The prosecutor is the official appointee of the court, and as such a representative of the Roman people. Your opinions are of interest, but they are not decisive.”

“So we are finished?” asked Quintus plaintively.

“No,” said Cicero, “we are not finished,” and already I could see that some of the old fight was coming back into him, for nothing roused him to greater energy than the thought of being outwitted by Hortensius. “And if we are finished, well then, at least let us go down with a fight. I shall start preparing my speech, and you, Quintus, will see if you can prepare me a crowd. Call in every favor. Why not give them your line about Roman justice being the fairest in the world, and see if you can persuade a couple of respectable senators to escort me to the Forum? Some might believe it. When I step up to that tribunal tomorrow, I want Glabrio to feel that the whole of Rome is watching him.”

NO ONE CAN REALLY CLAIM to know politics properly until he has stayed up all night writing a speech for delivery the following day. While the world sleeps, the orator paces by lamplight, wondering what madness ever brought him to this occupation in the first place. Arguments are prepared and discarded. The exhausted mind ceases to have any coherent grip upon the purpose of the enterprise, so that often-usually an hour or two after midnight-there comes a point where failing to turn up, feigning illness, and hiding at home seem the only realistic options. And then, somehow, just as panic and humiliation beckon, the parts cohere, and there it is: a speech. A second-rate orator now retires gratefully to bed. A Cicero stays up and commits it to memory.

Taking only a little fruit and cheese and some diluted wine to sustain him, this was the process Cicero went through that evening. Once he had the sections in order, he released me to get some sleep, but I do not believe that he saw his own bed for even an hour. At dawn he washed in freezing cold water to revive himself and dressed with care. When I went in to see him, just before we left for court, he was as restless as any prizefighter limbering up in the ring, flexing his shoulders and rocking from side to side on the balls of his feet.

Quintus had done his job well, and immediately the door was opened we were greeted by a noisy crowd of well-wishers, jammed together all the way up the street. In addition to the ordinary people of Rome, three or four senators with a particular interest in Sicily had turned out to demonstrate their support. I remember the taciturn Gnaeus Marcellinus, the righteous Calpurnius Piso Frugi-who had been praetor in the same year as Verres, and despised him as a scoundrel-and at least one member of the Marcelli clan, the traditional patrons of the island. Cicero waved from the doorstep, hoisted up Tullia and gave her one of his resounding kisses, and showed her to his supporters. Then he returned her to her mother, with whom he exchanged a rare public embrace, before Quintus, Lucius, and I cleared a passage for him and he thrust his way into the center of the throng.

I tried to wish him luck, but by then, as so often before a big speech, he was unreachable. He looked at people but he did not see them. He was primed for action, playing out some inner drama, rehearsed since childhood, of the lone patriot, armed only with his voice, confronting everything that was corrupt and despicable in the state. As if sensing their part in this fantastic pageant, the crowd gradually swelled in number, so that by the time we reached the Temple of Castor there must have been two or three hundred to clap him vigorously in to court. Glabrio was already in his place between the great pillars of the temple, as was the panel of jurors, among whom sat the menacing specter of Catulus himself. I could see Hortensius on the bench reserved for distinguished spectators, examining his beautifully manicured hands and looking as calm as a summer morning. Next to him, also very easy with himself, was a man in his mid-forties with reddish, bristling hair and a freckled face, whom I realized must be Gaius Verres. It was curious for me to actually get a good look at this monster, who had occupied our thoughts for so long, and to find him so ordinary looking-more fox than boar.