He made some soothing reply to the effect that no such thing would happen, and I was careful to keep out of her way.
On the eve of our departure, Cicero gave a dinner for his future son-in-law, Crassipes, who happened to mention that Crassus, to whom he was very close, had left Rome in a hurry the previous day, telling no one where he was going. Cicero said, ‘No doubt he’s heard of some elderly widow in a remote spot who is at death’s door and who might be persuaded to part with her property cheaply.’
Everyone laughed apart from Crassipes, who looked very prim. ‘I am sure he is simply taking a vacation, like everyone else.’
‘Crassus doesn’t take holidays – there’s no profit in them.’ Then Cicero raised his cup and proposed a toast to Crassipes and Tullia. ‘May their union be long and happy and blessed with many children – for preference I should like three at least.’
‘Father!’ exclaimed Tullia. She laughed and blushed and looked away.
‘What?’ asked Cicero, with an air of innocence. ‘I have the grey hairs and now I need the grandchildren to go with them.’
He rose from the table early. Before he left for the south he wanted to see Pompey. In particular he wanted to plead the case for Quintus to be allowed to relinquish his legateship and return home from Sardinia. He travelled to Pompey’s in a litter but ordered the porters to go slowly so that I could walk alongside and we could have some conversation. It was getting dark. We had to travel a mile or so, beyond the city walls, to the Pincian hill, where Pompey had his new suburban villa – or palace would be a better word for it – looking down on his vast complex of temples and theatres then nearing completion on the Field of Mars.
The great man was dining alone with his wife, and we had to wait for them to finish. In the vestibule a team of slaves was busy transferring piles of luggage to half a dozen wagons drawn up in the courtyard – so many trunks of clothes and boxes of tableware and carpets and furniture and even statues that it looked as if Pompey were planning to set up a new home somewhere. Eventually the couple appeared and Pompey presented Julia to Cicero, who in turn presented me to her.
‘I remember you,’ she said to me, although I’m sure she didn’t. She was only seventeen but very gracious. She possessed her father’s exquisite manners, and also something of his piercing way of looking at one, so that I had a sudden, disconcerting memory of Caesar’s naked hairless torso reclining on the massage table at his headquarters in Mutina: I had to shut my eyes to banish it.
She left almost at once, pleading the need to get a good night’s sleep before her travels the next day. Pompey kissed her hand – he was famously devoted to her – and took us through into his study. This was a vast room the size of a house, crammed with trophies from his many campaigns, including what he insisted was the cloak of Alexander the Great. He sat on a couch made out of a stuffed crocodile, which he said Ptolemy had given him, and invited Cicero to take the seat opposite.
Cicero said, ‘You look as though you are embarking on a military expedition.’
‘That’s what comes of travelling with one’s wife.’
‘Might I ask where you’re going?’
‘Sardinia.’
‘Ah,’ said Cicero, ‘that’s a coincidence. I wanted to ask you about Sardinia.’ And he proceeded to make an eloquent case for his brother to be allowed home, citing three reasons in particular – the length of time he had been away, his need to spend time with his son (who was turning into a troubled boy) and his preference for military rather than civil command.
Pompey heard him out, stroking his chin, reclining on his Egyptian crocodile. ‘If that’s what you want,’ he said. ‘Yes, he can come back. You’re right anyway – he isn’t much good at administration.’
‘Thank you. I’m obliged to you, as always.’
Pompey regarded Cicero with crafty eyes. ‘So I hear you caused a stir in the Senate the other day.’
‘Only on your behalf – I was simply trying to secure the funds for your commission.’
‘Yes, but by challenging Caesar’s laws.’ He wagged his finger in reproach. ‘That’s naughty of you.’
‘Caesar is not a god, infallible; his laws have not come down to us from Mount Olympus. Besides, if you’d been there and seen the pleasure Crassus was taking in all the attacks on you, I believe you would have wanted me to find some way to wipe the smile from his face. And by criticising Caesar, I certainly did that.’
Pompey brightened at once. ‘Oh well, I’m with you there!’
‘Believe me, Crassus’s ambition and disloyalty to you have been far more destabilising to the commonwealth than anything I have done.’
‘I agree entirely.’
‘In fact I’d suggest that if your alliance with Caesar is threatened by anyone, it’s him.’
‘How is that?’
‘Well, I don’t understand how Caesar can stand back and allow him to plot against you in this way, especially letting him employ Clodius. Surely as your father-in-law he owes his first duty to you? If Crassus carries on like this, he will sow much discord, I predict it now.’
‘He will.’ Pompey nodded. He looked crafty again. ‘You’re right, of course.’ He stood, and Cicero followed suit. He took Cicero’s hand in both his immense paws. ‘Thank you for coming to see me, my old friend. You have given me much food for thought during my voyage to Sardinia. We must write to one another often. Where exactly will you be?’
‘Cumae.’
‘Ah! I envy you. Cumae – the most beautiful spot in Italy.’
Cicero was well pleased with his night’s work. On the way home he said to me, ‘This triple alliance of theirs can’t last. It defies nature. All I have to do is keep chipping away at it, and sooner or later the whole rotten edifice will come crashing down.’
We left Rome at first light – Terentia, Tullia and Marcus all in the same carriage, along with Cicero, who was in great good humour – and made quick progress, stopping first for a night at Tusculum, which Cicero was glad to find habitable again, and then at the family estate in Arpinum, where we remained for a week. Finally from those cold high peaks of the Apennines we descended south to Campania.
With every mile the clouds of winter seemed to lift, the sky became bluer, the temperature warmer, the air more fragrant with the scent of pines and herbs, and when we joined the coastal road, the breeze off the sea was balmy. Cumae was then a much smaller and quieter town than it is today. At the Acropolis I gave a description of our destination and was directed by a priest to the eastern side of the Lucrine Lake, to a spot low in the hills, looking out across the lagoon and the narrow spit of land to the variegated blueness of the Mediterranean. The villa itself was small and dilapidated, with half a dozen elderly slaves to look after it. The wind blew through open walls; a section of the roof was missing. But it was worth every discomfort simply for the panorama. Down on the lake, little rowing boats moved among the oyster beds, while from the garden at the back there rose a majestic view of the lush green pyramid of Vesuvius. Cicero was enchanted, and set to work at once with the local builders, commissioning a great programme of renovation and redecoration. Marcus played on the beach with his tutor. Terentia sat on the terrace and sewed. Tullia read her Greek. It was a family holiday of a sort they had not taken for many years.
There was one puzzle, however. That whole stretch of coast from Cumae to Puteoli, then as now, was dotted with villas belonging to members of the Senate. Naturally Cicero assumed that once word spread he was in residence, he would begin to receive callers. But nobody came. At night he stood on the terrace and looked up and down the seashore and peered up into the hills and complained he could see hardly any lights. Where were the parties, the dinners? He patrolled the beach, a mile in either direction, and not once did he spot a senatorial toga.