Because the boys were reluctant to go to bed and Cicero, having been away so long, wished to indulge them, dinner was not served until late. This time, to Pomponia’s obvious irritation, he invited me to join them. She did not approve of slaves eating with their masters, and doubtless felt it was her prerogative, not her brother-in-law’s, to decide who should be present at her own table. In the event we were six: Cicero and Terentia on one couch, Quintus and Pomponia on another, Tullia and I on the third. Normally Pomponia’s brother, Atticus, would have joined us. He was Cicero’s closest friend. But a week before Cicero’s return he had abruptly left Rome for his estates in Epirus. He pleaded urgent business but I suspect he foresaw the looming family arguments. He always preferred a quiet life.
It was dusk and the slaves were just bringing in tapers to light the lamps and candles when from somewhere in the distance arose a cacophony of whistles, drums, horn blasts and chanting. At first we dismissed it as a passing procession connected with the games. But the noise seemed to come from directly outside the house, where it remained.
Finally Terentia said, ‘What on earth is that, do you suppose?’
‘You know,’ replied Cicero, in a tone of scholarly interest, ‘I wonder if it might not be a flagitatio. Now there’s a quaint custom! Tiro, would you take a look?’
I don’t suppose such a thing exists any more, but back in the days of the republic, when people were free to express themselves, a flagitatio was the right of citizens who had a grievance, but were too poor to use the courts, to demonstrate outside the house of the person they held responsible. Tonight the target was Cicero. I could hear his name mingled among their chants, and when I opened the door I got the message clear enough:
Whoreson Cicero where’s our bread?
Whoreson Cicero stole our bread!
A hundred people packed the narrow street, repeating the same phrases over and over, with occasional and saltier variations on the word ‘whoreson’. When they noticed me looking at them, a terrific jeer went up. I closed the door, bolted it and went back to the dining room to report.
Pomponia sat up in alarm. ‘But what shall we do?’
‘Nothing,’ said Cicero calmly. ‘They’re entitled to make their noise. Let them get it off their chests, and when they tire of it they’ll go away.’
Terentia asked, ‘But why are they accusing you of stealing their bread?’
Quintus said, ‘Clodius blames the lack of bread on the size of the crowds coming into Rome to support your husband.’
‘But the crowds aren’t here to support my husband – they’ve come to watch the games.’
‘Brutally honest, as always,’ agreed Cicero, ‘and even if they were here for me, the city has never to my knowledge run short of food on a festival day.’
‘So why has it happened now?’
‘I imagine someone has sabotaged the supply.’
‘Who would do that?’
‘Clodius, to blacken my name; or perhaps even Pompey, to give himself a pretext to take over distribution. In any case, there’s nothing we can do about it. So I suggest we eat our meal and ignore them.’
But although we tried to carry on as if nothing was happening, and even made jokes and laughed about it, our conversation was strained, and every time there was a lull, it was filled by the angry voices outside:
Cocksucker Cicero stole our bread!
Cocksucker Cicero ate our bread!
Eventually Pomponia said, ‘Will they go on like that all night?’
Cicero said, ‘Possibly.’
‘But this has always been a quiet and respectable street. Surely you can do something to stop them?’
‘Not really. It’s their right.’
‘Their right!’
‘I believe in the people’s rights, if you remember.’
‘Good for you. But how am I to sleep?’
Cicero’s patience finally gave in. ‘Why not put some wax in your ears, madam?’ he suggested, then added under his breath, ‘I’m sure I’d put some in mine if I were married to you.’
Quintus, who had drunk plenty, tried to stifle his laughter. Pomponia turned on him at once. ‘You’ll allow him to speak to me in that way?’
‘It was only a joke, my dear.’
Pomponia put down her napkin, rose with dignity from her couch and announced that she would go and check on the boys. Terentia, after a sharp look at Cicero, said that she would join her. She beckoned to Tullia to follow.
When the women had gone, Cicero said to Quintus, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken in that way. I’ll go and find her and apologise. Besides, she’s right: I’ve brought trouble on your house. We’ll move out in the morning.’
‘No you won’t. I’m master here, and my roof will be your roof for as long as I’m alive. Insults from that rabble are of no concern to me.’
We listened again.
Bumfucker Cicero where’s our bread?
Bumfucker Cicero sold our bread!
Cicero said, ‘It’s a marvellously flexible metre, I’ll give them that. I wonder how many more versions they can come up with.’
‘You know we could always send word to Milo. Pompey’s gladiators would clear the street in no time.’
‘And put myself even further in their debt? I don’t think so.’
We went our separate ways to bed, although I doubt any of us slept much. The demonstration did not cease as Cicero had predicted; if anything, by the following morning it had increased in volume, and certainly in violence, for the mob had started digging up the cobblestones and were hurling them against the walls, or lobbing them over the parapet so that they landed with a crash in the atrium or the garden. It was clear our situation was becoming parlous, and while the women and children sheltered indoors, I climbed up on to the roof with Cicero and Quintus to estimate the danger. Peering cautiously over the ridge tiles, it was possible to see down into the Forum. Clodius’s mob was occupying it in force. The senators trying to get to the chamber for the day’s session had to run a gauntlet of abuse and chanting. The words drifted up to us, accompanied by the banging of cooking utensils:
Where’s our bread?
Where’s our bread?
Where’s our bread?
Suddenly there was a scream from the floor beneath us. We scrabbled down from the roof and descended to the atrium in time to see a slave fishing out a black-and-white object, like a pouch or a small bag, that had just dropped through the aperture in the roof and fallen into the impluvium. It was the mangled body of Myia, the family dog. The two boys crouched in the corner of the atrium, hands over their ears, crying. Heavy stones battered against the wooden door. And now Terentia turned on Cicero with a bitterness I had never before witnessed: ‘Stubborn man! Stubborn, foolish man! Will you do something at last to protect your family? Or must I crawl out yet again on my hands and knees and plead with this scum not to hurt us?’
Cicero swayed backwards in the face of her fury. Just then there was a fresh bout of childish sobbing and he looked across to where Tullia was comforting her brother and cousin. That seemed to settle the issue. He said to Quintus, ‘Do you think you can smuggle a slave out through a window at the back?’