Imperium

Toward the end of December an incident occurred which finally brought together, and in dramatic fashion, all these separate strands of Cicero’s life. I opened the door one dark morning to find, standing at the head of the usual queue, the man we had recently seen in the tribunes’ basilica acting as defense attorney for his great-grandfather’s pillar-Marcus Porcius Cato. He was alone, without a slave to attend him, and looked as though he had slept out in the street all night. (I suppose he might have done, come to think of it, although Cato’s appearance was usually dishevelled-like that of a holy man or mystic-so that it was hard to tell). Naturally Cicero was intrigued to discover why a man of such eminent birth should have turned up on his doorstep, for Cato, bizarre as he appeared, dwelt at the very heart of the old republican aristocracy, connected by blood and marriage to a webwork of Servilii, Lepidii, and Aemilii. Indeed, such was Cicero’s pleasure at having such a highborn visitor, he went out to the tablinum himself to welcome him and conducted him into the study personally. This was the sort of client he had long dreamed of finding in his net one morning.
I settled myself in the corner to take notes, and young Cato, never a man for small talk, came straight to the point. He was in need of a good advocate, he said, and he had liked the way Cicero had handled himself before the tribunes, for it was a monstrous thing when any man such as Verres considered himself above the ancient laws. To put it briefly: he was engaged to be married to his cousin, Aemilia Lepida, a charming girl of eighteen whose young life had already been blighted by tragedy. At the age of thirteen, she had been humiliatingly jilted by her fiance, the haughty young aristocrat Scipio Nasica. At fourteen, her mother had died. At fifteen, her father had died. At sixteen, her brother had died, leaving her completely alone.
“The poor girl,” said Cicero. “So I take it, if she is your cousin, that she must be the daughter of the consul of six years ago, Aemilius Lepidus Livianus? He was, I believe, the brother of your late mother, Livia?” (Like many supposed radicals, Cicero had a surprisingly thorough knowledge of the aristocracy.)
“That is correct.”
“Why, then, I congratulate you, Cato, on a most brilliant match. With the blood of those three families in her veins, and with her nearest relatives all dead, she must be the richest heiress in Rome.”
“She is,” said Cato bitterly. “And that is the trouble. Scipio Nasica, her former suitor, who has just come back from Spain after fighting in the army of Pompey-the-so-called-Great, has found out how rich she has become now that her father and brother are gone, and he has reclaimed her as his own.”
“But surely it is for the young lady herself to decide?”
“She has,” said Cato. “She has decided on him.”
“Ah,” replied Cicero, sitting back in his chair, “in that case, you may be in some difficulties. Presumably, if she was orphaned at fifteen, she must have had a guardian appointed. You could always talk to him. He is probably in a position to forbid the marriage. Who is he?”
“That would be me.”
“You? You are the guardian of the woman you want to marry?”
“I am. I’m her closest male relative.”
Cicero rested his chin in his hand and scrutinized his prospective new client-the ragged hair, the filthy bare feet, the tunic unchanged for weeks. “So what do you wish me to do?”
“I want you to bring legal proceedings against Scipio, and against Lepida if necessary, and put a stop to this whole thing.”
“These proceedings-would they be brought by you in your role as rejected suitor, or as the girl’s guardian?”
“Either.” Cato shrugged. “Both.”
Cicero scratched his ear. “My experience of young women,” he said carefully, “is as limited as my faith in the rule of law is boundless. But even I, Cato, even I have to say that I doubt whether the best way to a girl’s heart is through litigation.”
“A girl’s heart?” repeated Cato. “What has a girl’s heart got to do with anything? This is a matter of principle.”
And money, one would have added, if he had been any other man. But Cato had that most luxurious prerogative of the very rich: little interest in money. He had inherited plenty and gave it away without even noticing. No: it was principle that always motivated Cato-the relentless desire never to compromise on principle.
“We would have to go to the embezzlement court,” said Cicero, “and lay charges of breach of promise. We would have to prove the existence of a prior contract between you and the Lady Lepida, and that she was therefore a cheat and a liar. We would have to prove that Scipio was a double-dealing, money-grubbing knave. I would have to put them both on the witness stand and tear them to pieces.”
“Do it,” said Cato, with a gleam in his eye.
“And at the end of all that, we would probably still lose, for juries love nothing more than star-crossed lovers, save perhaps for orphans-and she is both-and you would have been made the laughingstock of Rome.”
“What do I care what people think of me?” said Cato scornfully.
“And even if we win-well, imagine it. You might end up having to drag Lepida kicking and screaming from the court through the streets of Rome, back to her new marital home. It would be the scandal of the year.”
“So this is what we have descended to, is it?” demanded Cato bitterly. “The honest man is to step aside so that the rascal triumphs? And this is Roman justice?” He leapt to his feet. “I need a lawyer with steel in his bones, and if I cannot find anyone to help me, then I swear I shall lay the prosecution myself.”
“Sit down, Cato,” said Cicero gently, and when Cato did not move, he repeated it: “Sit, Cato, and I shall tell you something about the law.” Cato hesitated, frowned, and sat, but only on the edge of his chair, so that he could leap up again at the first hint that he should moderate his convictions. “A word of advice, if I may, from a man ten years your senior. You must not take everything head-on. Very often the best and most important cases never even come to court. This looks to me like one of them. Let me see what I can do.”
“And if you fail?”
“Then you can proceed however you like.”
After he had gone, Cicero said to me: “That young man seeks opportunities to test his principles as readily as a drunk picks fights in a bar.” Nevertheless, Cato had agreed to let Cicero approach Scipio on his behalf, and I could tell that Cicero relished the opportunity this would give him to scrutinize the aristocracy at first hand. There was literally no man in Rome with grander lineage than Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Cornelius Scipio Nasica-Nasica meaning “pointed nose,” which he carried very firmly in the air-for he was not only the natural son of a Scipio but the adopted son of Metellus Pius, pontifex maximus, and the titular head of the Metelli clan. Father and adopted son were currently on Pius’s immense country estate at Tibur. They were expected to enter the city on the twenty-ninth day of December, riding behind Pompey in his triumph. Cicero decided to arrange a meeting for the thirtieth.
The twenty-ninth duly arrived, and what a day it was! Rome had not seen such a spectacle since the days of Sulla. As I waited by the Triumphal Gate it seemed that everyone had turned out to line the route. First to pass through the gate from the Field of Mars was the entire body of the Senate, including Cicero, walking on foot, led by the consuls and the other magistrates. Then the trumpeters, sounding the fanfares. Then the carriages and litters laden with the spoils of the Spanish war-gold and silver, coin and bullion, weapons, statues, pictures, vases, furniture, precious stones, and tapestries-and wooden models of the cities Pompey had conquered and sacked, and placards with their names, and the names of all the famous men he had killed in battle. Then the massive, plodding white bulls, destined for sacrifice, with gilded horns hung with ribbons and floral garlands, driven by the slaughtering priests. Then trudging elephants-the heraldic symbol of the Metelli-and lumbering oxcarts bearing cages containing the wild beasts of the Spanish mountains, roaring and tearing at their bars in rage. Then the arms and insignia of the beaten rebels, and then the prisoners themselves, the defeated followers of Sertorius and Perperna, shuffling in chains. Then the crowns and tributes of the allies, borne by the ambassadors of a score of nations. Then the twelve lictors of the imperator, their rods and axes wreathed in laurel. And now at last, to a tumult of applause from the vast crowd, the four white horses of the imperator’s chariot came trotting through the gate, and there was Pompey himself, in the barrel-shaped, gem-encrusted chariot of the triumphator. He wore a gold-embroidered robe with a flowered tunic. In his right hand he held a laurel bough and in his left a scepter. There was a wreath of Delphic laurel on his head, and his handsome face and muscled body had been painted with red lead, for on this day he truly was the embodiment of Jupiter. Standing beside him was his eight-year-old son, the golden-curled Gnaeus, and behind him a public slave to whisper in his ear that he was only human and all this would pass. Behind the chariot, riding on a black warhorse, came old Metellus Pius, his leg tightly bandaged, evidence of a wound incurred in battle. Next to him was Scipio, his adopted son-a handsome young fellow of twenty-four: no wonder, I thought, that Lepida preferred him to Cato-and then the legionary commanders, including Aulus Gabinius, followed by all the knights and cavalry, armor glinting in the pale December sun. And finally the legions of Pompey’s infantry, in full marching order, thousands upon thousands of sunburnt veterans, the crash of their tramping boots seeming to shake the very earth, roaring at the top of their voices “Io Triumphe!” and chanting hymns to the gods and singing filthy songs about their commander in chief, as they were traditionally permitted to do in this, the hour of his glory.