Eight days later, as we were walking along the Via Sacra, we heard an outburst of shouts and the sound of running feet behind us, and turned to see Clodius and a dozen of his henchmen flourishing cudgels and even swords, sprinting to attack us. We had the usual bodyguard of Milo’s men and they hustled us into the doorway of the nearest house. In their panic, Cicero was pushed to the ground and gashed his head and twisted his ankle but otherwise was unharmed. The startled owner of the house in which we sought refuge, Tettius Damio, took us in and gave us a cup of wine, and Cicero talked calmly to him of poetry and philosophy until we were told that our attackers had been driven off and the coast was clear; then he said his thanks and we continued on our way home.
Cicero was in that state of elation that sometimes follows a close brush with death. His appearance, however, was a different matter – limping, with a bloodied forehead and torn and dirty clothes – and the instant Terentia saw him she cried out in shock. Useless for him to protest that it was nothing, that Clodius had been put to flight, and that his descent to such tactics showed how desperate he was becoming: Terentia would not listen. The siege, the fire and now this: she insisted that they all should leave Rome at once.
Cicero replied mildly, ‘You forget, Terentia: I’ve tried that once, and see where it left us. Our only hope is to stay here and win back our position.’
‘And how are you to do that when you can’t even walk in safety down a busy street in broad daylight?’
‘I shall find a way.’
‘And in the meantime, what lives do the rest of us have?’
‘Normal lives!’ Cicero suddenly shouted back at her. ‘We defeat them by leading normal lives! We sleep together as man and wife for a start.’
I glanced away in embarrassment.
Terentia said, ‘You wish to know why I keep you from my room? Then look!’
And to Cicero’s astonishment and certainly to mine, this most pious of Roman matrons began to unfasten the belt of her dress. She called to her maid to come and help. Turning her back to her husband, she opened her gown and her maid pulled it down all the way from the nape of her neck to the base of her spine, exposing the pale flesh between her thin shoulders, which was savagely criss-crossed by at least a dozen livid red welts.
Cicero stared at the scars, transfixed. ‘Who did this to you?’
Terentia pulled the dress back up and her maid knelt to fasten her belt.
‘Who did this?’ repeated Cicero quietly. ‘Clodius?’
She turned to face him. Her eyes were not wet but dry and full of fire. ‘Six months ago I went to see his sister, as one woman to another, to plead on your behalf. But Clodia is not a woman: she is a Fury. She told me I was no better than a traitor myself – that my presence defiled her house. She summoned her steward and had him whip me off the premises. She had her louche friends with her. They laughed at my shame.’
‘Your shame?’ cried Cicero. ‘The only shame is theirs! You should have told me!’
‘Told you? You, who greeted the whole of Rome before he greeted his own wife?’ She spat out the words. ‘You may stay and die in the city if you wish. I shall take Tullia and Marcus to Tusculum and see what lives we can have there.’
The following morning, she and Pomponia left with the children, and a few days later, amid much mutual shedding of tears, Quintus also departed to buy grain for Pompey in Sardinia. Prowling round the empty house, Cicero was keenly aware of their absence. He told me he felt every blow that Terentia had endured as if it were a lash upon his own back, and he tortured his brain to find some means of avenging her, but he could see no way through, until one day, quite unexpectedly, the glimmer of an opportunity presented itself.
It happened that around this time, the distinguished philosopher Dio of Alexandria was murdered in Rome while under the roof of his friend and host, Titus Coponius. The assassination caused a great scandal. Dio had come to Italy supposedly with diplomatic protection, as the head of a delegation of one hundred prominent Egyptians to petition the Senate against the restoration of their exiled pharaoh, Ptolemy XII, nicknamed ‘the Flute Player’.
Suspicion naturally fell on Ptolemy himself, who was staying with Pompey at his country estate in the Alban hills. The Pharaoh, detested by his people for the taxes he levied, was offering the stupendous reward of six thousand gold talents if Rome would secure his restoration, and the effect of this bribe upon the Senate was as dignified as if a rich man had thrown a few coins into a crowd of starving beggars. In the scramble for the honour of overseeing Ptolemy’s return, three main candidates had emerged: Lentulus Spinther, the outgoing consul, who was due to become governor of Cilicia and therefore would legally command an army on the borders of Egypt; Marcus Crassus, who yearned to possess the same wealth and glory as Pompey and Caesar; and Pompey himself, who feigned disinterest in the commission but behind the scenes was the most active of the three in trying to secure it.
Cicero had no desire to become embroiled in the affair. There was nothing in it for him. He was obliged to support Spinther, in return for Spinther’s efforts to end his exile, and lobbied discreetly behind the scenes on his behalf. But when Pompey asked him to come out and meet the Pharaoh to discuss the death of Dio, he felt unable to turn the summons down.
The last time we had visited the house was almost two years earlier, when Cicero had gone to plead for help in resisting Clodius’s attacks. On that occasion Pompey had pretended to be out to avoid seeing him. The memory of his cowardice still rankled with me, but Cicero refused to dwell on it: ‘If I do, I shall become bitter, and a man who is bitter hurts no one but himself. We must look to the future.’ Now, as we rattled up the long drive to the villa, we passed several groups of olive-skinned men wearing exotic robes and exercising those sinister yellowish prick-eared greyhounds so beloved of the Egyptians.
Ptolemy awaited Cicero with Pompey in the atrium. He was a short, plump, smooth figure, dark-complexioned like his courtiers, and so quietly spoken that one found oneself bending forward to catch what he was saying. He was dressed Roman-style in a toga. Cicero bowed and kissed his hand, and I was invited to do the same. His perfumed fingers were fat and soft like a baby’s, but the nails I noticed with disgust were broken and dirty. Coyly peering around him with her arms clasped across his stomach was his young daughter. She had huge charcoal-black eyes and a painted ruby mouth – an ageless slattern’s mask even at the age of eleven, or so it seems to me now, but perhaps I am being unfair and allowing my memory to be distorted by what was to come, for this was the future Queen Cleopatra, later to cause such mischief.
Once the niceties were out of the way and Cleopatra had departed with her maids, Pompey came to the point: ‘This killing of Dio is starting to become embarrassing, both to me and to His Majesty. And now to cap it all, a murder charge has been brought by Titus Coponius, Dio’s host when he was killed, and by his brother Gaius. The whole thing is ridiculous, of course, but apparently they are not to be persuaded out of it.’
‘Who is the accused?’ enquired Cicero.
‘Publius Asicius.’
Cicero paused to remember the name. ‘Isn’t he one of your estate managers?’
‘He is. That’s what makes it embarrassing.’
Cicero had the tact not to ask whether Asicius was guilty or not. He considered the matter purely as a lawyer. He said to Ptolemy, ‘Until this matter blows over, I would strongly advise Your Majesty to remove yourself as far away from Rome as possible.’