Quintus said, ‘This is the most wonderful good fortune! We’d engaged a ship and were planning to set off for Corcyra tomorrow, having heard that the Senate was assembling there. And to think we might have missed you! What happened? Did the conference end earlier than expected?’
Cicero said, ‘No, the conference is still going on, as far as I know.’
‘But you’re not with them?’
‘Let us discuss that later. First let us hear what happened to you.’
They took it in turns to tell their story, like runners in a relay race handing on the baton – first the month-long march in pursuit of Caesar’s army and the occasional skirmishes along the way, and then at last the great confrontation at Pharsalus. On the eve of the battle Pompey had dreamed that he was in Rome entering the Temple of Venus the Victorious, and that the people were applauding him as he offered the goddess the spoils of war. He awoke content, thinking this a good omen, but then someone pointed out that Caesar claimed direct descent from Venus, and immediately he decided the meaning of the dream was the opposite of what he’d hoped. ‘From that moment on,’ said Quintus, ‘he seemed resigned to losing and acted accordingly.’ The Quinti had been in the second line and so had avoided the worst of the fighting. Marcus, though, had been in the middle of the struggle. He reckoned he had killed at least four of the enemy – one with his javelin, three with his sword – and had been confident of victory until the cohorts of Caesar’s Tenth Legion had seemed to rise up out of the ground before them. ‘Our units lost formation: it was massacre, Father.’ It had taken them the best part of a month, much of it spent living rough and dodging Caesar’s patrols, to escape to the western coast.
‘And Pompey?’ asked Cicero. ‘Is there news of him?’
‘None,’ replied Quintus, ‘but I believe I can guess where he went: east, to Lesbos. That’s where he sent Cornelia to await news of his victory. In defeat I’m certain he would have gone to her for consolation – you know what he’s like with his wives. Caesar must have guessed the same. He’s after him like a bounty hunter in pursuit of a runaway slave. My money is on Caesar in that particular race. And if he catches him, or kills him, what do you think that will that mean for the war?’
Cicero said, ‘Oh, the war will go on, it seems, whatever happens – but it will continue without me,’ and then he told them what had happened at Corcyra. I am sure he did not mean to sound flippant. It was simply that he was happy to have found his family alive, and naturally that light-hearted mood coloured his remarks. But as he repeated, with some satisfaction, his quip about eagles and jackdaws, and mocked the very idea that he should take command of “this losing cause”, and derided the bone-headedness of Gnaeus Pompey – ‘He makes even his father look intelligent’ – I could see Quintus’s jaw beginning to work back and forth in irritation; even Marcus’s expression was clenched with disapproval.
‘So that’s it, then?’ said Quintus in a cold, flat voice. ‘As far as this family is concerned, it’s over?’
‘Do you disagree?’
‘I feel I should have been consulted.’
‘How could I consult you? You weren’t there.’
‘No, I wasn’t. How could I have been? I was fighting in the war you encouraged me to join, and then I was trying to save my life, along with those of your son and your nephew!’
Too late Cicero saw how casually he had spoken. ‘My dear brother, I assure you, your welfare – the welfare of all of you – has ever been uppermost in my mind.’
‘Spare me your casuistry, Marcus. Nothing is ever uppermost in your mind except yourself. Your honour, your career, your interests – so that while other men go off to die, you sit behind with the elderly and the womenfolk, polishing your speeches and your pointless witticisms!’
‘Please, Quintus – you are in danger of saying things you will regret.’
‘My only regret is that I didn’t say them years ago. So let me say them now, and you will do me the courtesy of sitting there and listening to me for once! My whole life has been lived as nothing more than an appendix to yours – I am no more important to you than poor Tiro here, whose health has been broken in your service; less important, actually, as I don’t have his skills as a note-taker. When I went out to Asia as governor, you tricked me into staying for two years rather than one, so that you could have access to my funds to pay off your debts. During your exile I almost died fighting Clodius in the streets of Rome, and my reward when you came home was to be packed off again, to Sardinia, to appease Pompey. And now here I am, thanks largely to you, on the losing side in a civil war, when it would have been perfectly honourable for me to have stood side by side with Caesar, who gave me command of a legion in Gaul …’
There was more in this vein. Cicero endured it without comment or movement, apart from the occasional clenching and unclenching of his hands on the armrests of his chair. Marcus looked on, white with shock. Young Quintus smirked and nodded. As for me, I yearned to leave but couldn’t: some force seemed to have pinned my feet to the spot.
Quintus worked himself up into such a pitch of fury that by the end he was breathless, his chest heaving as if he had shifted some heavy physical load. ‘Your action in abandoning the Senate’s cause without consulting me or considering my interests is the final selfish blow. Remember, my position wasn’t exquisitely ambiguous like yours: I fought at Pharsalus – I am a marked man. So I have no choice: I shall have to try to find Caesar, wherever he is, and plead for his pardon, and believe me, when I see him, I shall have something to tell him about you.’
With that he stalked out of the room, followed by his son; and then, after a short hesitation, Marcus left too. In the shocking silence that ensued, Cicero continued to sit immobile. Eventually I asked if there was anything I could fetch him, and when still he made no response, I wondered if he might have suffered a seizure. Then I heard footsteps. It was Marcus returning. He knelt beside the chair.
‘I have said goodbye to them, Father. I will stay with you.’
Wordless for once, Cicero grasped his hand, and I withdrew to let them talk.
Cicero took to his bed and remained in his room for the next few days. He refused to see a doctor – ‘My heart is broken and no Greek quack can fix that’ – and kept his door locked. I hoped that Quintus would return and the quarrel might be repaired, but he had meant what he said and had left the city. When Curius got back from his business trip, I explained what had happened as discreetly as I could, and he agreed with me and Marcus that the best course was for us to charter a ship and sail back to Italy while the weather was still fair. Such, then, was the grotesque paradox we had reached: that Cicero was likely to be safer in a country under Caesar’s control than he would be in Greece, where armed bands belonging to the republican cause were only too eager to strike down men perceived as traitors.
As soon as his depression had lifted sufficiently for him to contemplate the future, Cicero approved this plan – ‘I’d rather die in Italy than here’ – and when there was a decent south-easterly wind we embarked. The voyage was good, and after four days at sea we saw on the horizon the great lighthouse at Brundisium. It was a blessed sight. Cicero had been away from the mother country for a year and a half, I for more than three years.
Fearful of his reception, Cicero remained in his cabin below decks while I went ashore with Marcus to find somewhere for us to stay. The best we could manage for that first night was a noisy inn near the waterfront, and we decided that the safest course would be for Cicero to come ashore at dusk wearing an ordinary toga belonging to Marcus rather than one of his own with the purple stripe of a senator. An additional complication was the presence, like the chorus in a tragedy, of his six lictors – for absurdly, although he was entirely powerless, he still technically possessed imperium as governor of Cilicia, and was reluctant even now to break the law by sending them away; nor would they leave him until they had been paid. So they too had to be disguised and their fasces wrapped in sacking and rooms hired for them.