At first the meeting was friendly. Afranius announced that he brought with him the warmest regards of Pompey the Great, who hoped soon to welcome Cicero back to Rome in person. Cicero thanked him for the message and thanked Milo for all that he had done to bring about his recall. He described the enthusiasm of his reception in the countryside and of the crowds that had turned out to see him in Rome the previous day: ‘I feel it is a whole new life that I am beginning. I hope Pompey will be in the Senate to hear me praise him with such poor eloquence as I can muster.’
‘Pompey won’t be attending the Senate,’ Afranius said bluntly.
‘I’m sorry to hear it.’
‘He doesn’t feel it appropriate, in view of the new law that is to be proposed.’ Whereupon he opened a small bag and handed over a draft bill, which Cicero read with evident surprise and then gave to Quintus, who eventually handed it to me.
Whereas the people of Rome are being denied access to a sufficient supply of grain; and to the extent that this constitutes a grave threat to the well-being and security of the state; and mindful of the principle that all Roman citizens are entitled to the equivalent of at least one free loaf of bread per day – it is hereby ordained that Pompey the Great shall be granted the power as Commissioner of Grain to purchase, seize or similarly obtain throughout the entire world enough grain to secure a plentiful supply for the city; that this power should be his for a term of five years; and that to assist him in this task he shall have the right to appoint fifteen lieutenant commissioners of grain to carry out such duties as he directs.
Afranius said, ‘Naturally, Pompey would like you to have the honour of proposing the legislation when you address the Senate today.’
Milo said, ‘It’s a cunning stroke, you must agree. Having retaken the streets from Clodius, we shall now remove his ability to buy votes with bread.’
‘Is the shortage really so serious it demands an emergency law?’ asked Cicero. He turned to Quintus.
Quintus said, ‘It’s true, there’s little bread to be had, and what there is has risen to an extortionate price.’
‘Even so, these are astonishing, unprecedented powers over the nation’s food supply to bestow upon one man. I’d really need to find out more about the situation before I offered an opinion, I’m afraid.’
He tried to hand the draft bill back to Afranius, who refused to take it. He folded his arms and glared at Cicero. ‘I must say, we expected a little more gratitude than that – after all we’ve done for you.’
‘It goes without saying,’ added Milo, ‘that you’d be one of the fifteen lieutenant commissioners.’ And he rubbed his finger and thumb together to indicate the lucrative nature of the appointment.
The ensuing silence became uncomfortable. Eventually Afranius said, ‘Well, we’ll leave the draft with you, and when you address the Senate we’ll listen to your words with interest.’
After they had gone, it was Quintus who spoke first. ‘At least now we know their price.’
‘No,’ said Cicero gloomily, ‘this isn’t their price. This is merely the first instalment of their price – a loan that in their eyes will never be repaid, however much I give them.’
‘So what will you do?’
‘Well, it’s a devil’s alternative, is it not? Propose the bill, and everyone will say I’m Pompey’s creature; say nothing, and he’ll turn against me. Whatever I do, I lose.’
As was often the case, he had not decided which course to take even when we set off to attend the Senate. He always liked to take the temperature of the chamber before he spoke – to listen to its heartbeat like a doctor with a patient. Birria, the scarred gladiator who had accompanied Milo when he visited us in Macedonia, acted as a bodyguard, along with three of his comrades. In addition, I suppose there must have been twenty or thirty of Cicero’s clients, who served as a human shield; we felt quite safe. As we walked, Birria boasted to me of their strength: he said that Milo and Pompey had a hundred pairs of gladiators on standby in a barracks on the Field of Mars, ready to deploy at a moment’s notice if Clodius tried any of his tricks.
When we reached the Senate building, I handed Cicero the text of his speech. On entering he touched the ancient doorpost and looked around him at what he called ‘the greatest room in the world’ in thankful amazement that he should have lived to see it again. As he approached his customary position on the front bench nearest to the consuls’ dais, the neighbouring senators rose to shake his hand. It was an ill-attended house – not just Pompey was absent, I noticed, but also Clodius, and Marcus Crassus, whose pact with Pompey and Caesar was still the most powerful force in the republic. I wondered why they had stayed away.
The presiding consul that day was Metellus Nepos, the long-standing enemy of Cicero who was nevertheless now publicly reconciled with him – albeit only grudgingly and under pressure from the majority of the Senate. He made no acknowledgement of Cicero’s presence but instead rose to announce that a new dispatch had just arrived from Caesar in Further Gaul. The chamber fell silent and the senators listened intently as he read out Caesar’s account of yet more brutal encounters with savage and exotically named tribes – the Viromandui, the Atrebates and the Nervii – fought out amid those gloomy echoing forests and swollen impassable rivers. It was clear that Caesar had pushed much further north than any Roman commander before him, almost to the cold north sea, and again his victory was little short of an annihilation: of the sixty thousand men who had made up the army of the Nervii, he claimed to have left alive only five hundred. When Nepos had finished, the house seemed to let out its breath; only then did the consul call on Cicero to speak.
It was a difficult moment to make a speech, and in the event Cicero mostly restricted himself to a list of thanks. He thanked the consuls. He thanked the Senate. He thanked the people. He thanked the gods. He thanked his brother. He thanked just about everybody except Caesar, whom he did not mention. He thanked especially Pompey (‘whose courage, fame and achievements are unapproached in the records of any nation or any age’) and Milo (‘his whole tribunate was nothing but a firm, unceasing, brave and undaunted championship of my well-being’). But he did not raise either the grain shortage or the proposal to give Pompey extra powers, and as soon as he sat down, Afranius and Milo promptly got up from their places and left the building.
Afterwards, as we walked back to Quintus’s house, I noticed that Birria and his gladiators were no longer with us, which I thought was odd, for the danger had hardly gone away. There were a great many beggars among the streams of spectators milling around, and perhaps I was mistaken, but it seemed to me that the number of hostile looks and gestures Cicero attracted was substantially greater than before.
Once we were safely indoors, Cicero said, ‘I couldn’t do it. How could I take the lead in a controversy I know nothing about? Besides, it wasn’t the proper occasion to make a proposal of that sort. All anyone could talk about was Caesar, Caesar, Caesar. Perhaps now they’ll leave me alone for a while.’
The day was long and sunny, and Cicero spent much of it in the garden reading or throwing a ball for the family dog, a terrier named Myia, whose antics greatly delighted young Marcus and his nine-year-old cousin, Quintus Junior, the only child of Quintus and Pomponia. Marcus was a sweet, straightforward lad whereas Quintus, spoilt by his mother, had a streak of something nasty in him. But they played together happily enough. Occasionally the roar of the crowd in the Circus Maximus carried up from the valley on the other side of the hill – a hundred thousand voices crying out or groaning in unison: a sound at once exhilarating and frightening, like the growl of a tiger; it made the hairs tingle on my neck and arms. In the middle of the afternoon Quintus suggested that perhaps Cicero should go down to the Circus and show himself to the audience and watch at least one of the races. But Cicero preferred to stay where he was: ‘I am tired of exhibiting myself to strangers.’