Lustrum Read Free

are hungry. They take their food where they can. You really want me to bring a priest? To do what? To curse the fish? To
bless
the fish?' A few people began to laugh. 'Since when did Romans become frightened of
fish
? Go home. Enjoy yourselves. The day after tomorrow there will be a new year, with a new consul – one who you can be sure will always guard your welfare!'
    It was no great oration by his standards but it did what was required. There were even a few cheers. He jumped down. The legionaries cleared a path for us through the mob and we retreated quickly towards the city. As we neared the gate, I glanced back. At the fringes of the crowd people were already beginning to wander away in search of fresh diversions. I turned to Cicero to congratulate him on the effectiveness of his remarks, but he was leaning over the roadside ditch, vomiting.
    Such was the state of the city on the eve of Cicero's consulship – a vortex of hunger, rumour and anxiety; of crippled veterans and bankrupt farmers begging at every corner; of roistering bands of drunken young men terrorising shopkeepers; of women from good families openly prostituting themselves outside the taverns; of sudden conflagrations, violent tempests, moonless nights and scavenging dogs; of fanatics, soothsayers, beggars, fights. Pompey was still away commanding the legions in the East, and in his absence an uneasy, shifting mood swirled around the streets like river fog, giving everyone the jitters. There was a sense that some huge event was impending, but no clear idea what it might be. The new tribunes were said to be working with Caesar andCrassus on a vast and secret scheme for giving away public land to the urban poor. Cicero had tried to find out more about it but had been rebuffed. The patricians were certain to resist it, whatever it was. Goods were scarce, food hoarded, shops empty. Even the moneylenders had stopped making loans.
    As for Cicero's colleague as consul, Antonius Hybrida – Antonius the Half-Breed: Half-Man, Half-Beast – he was both wild and stupid, as befitted a candidate who had run for office on a joint ticket with Cicero's sworn enemy, Catilina. Nevertheless, knowing the perils they would face, and feeling the need for allies, Cicero had made strenuous efforts to get on good terms with him. Unfortunately his approaches had come to nothing, and I shall say why. It was the custom for the two consuls-elect to draw lots in October to decide which province each would govern after his year in office. Hybrida, who was steeped in debt, had set his heart on the rebellious but lucrative lands of Macedonia, where a vast fortune was waiting to be made. However to his dismay he drew instead the peaceful pastures of Nearer Gaul, where not even a field mouse was stirring. It was Cicero who drew Macedonia, and when the result was announced in the senate, Hybrida's face had assumed such a picture of childish resentment and surprise that the entire chamber had been convulsed by laughter. He and Cicero had not spoken since.
    Little wonder then that Cicero was finding it so hard to compose his inaugural address, and that when we returned to his house from the river and he tried to resume his dictation his voice kept on trailing off. He would stare into the distance with a look of abstraction on his face and repeatedly wonder aloud why the boy had been killed in such a manner, and of what significance it was that he belonged to Hybrida. He agreed with Octavius: the likeliest culprits were the Gauls. Human sacrificewas certainly one of their cults. He sent a message to a friend of his, Q. Fabius Sanga, who was the Gauls' principal patron in the senate, asking in confidence if he thought such an outrage was possible. But Sanga sent rather a huffy letter back within the hour saying of course not, and that the Gauls would be gravely offended if the consul-elect persisted in such damaging speculation. Cicero sighed, threw the letter aside, and attempted to pick up