'No,' said Catulus. 'And it won't be soon, either.'
'Really? Why is that?
'We met yesterday and agreed that in view of the fact that there are two candidates of equal merit, we should go back to the old method, and let the people choose.'
'Is that wise?'
'I certainly think so,' said Catulus, tapping the side of his beaky nose and giving one of his thin smiles, 'because I believe that in a tribal assembly I shall win.'
'And Isauricus?'
'He also believes that he will win.'
'Well, good luck to you both. Rome will be the winner whoever is the victor.' Cicero began to move away but then checked himself, and a slight frown crossed his face. He returned to Catulus. 'One more thing, if I may? Who proposed this widening of the franchise?'
'Caesar.'
Although Latin is a language rich in subtlety and metaphor, I cannot command the words, either in that tongue or even in Greek, to describe Cicero's expression at that moment. 'Dear gods,' he said in a tone of utter shock. 'Is it possible he means to stand himself?'
'Of course not. That would be ridiculous. He's far too young. He's thirty-six. He's not yet even been elected praetor.'
'Yes, but even so, in my opinion, you would be well advised to reconvene your college as quickly as possible and go back to the existing method of selection.'
'That is impossible.'
'Why?'
'The bill to change the franchise was laid before the people this morning.'
'By whom?'
'Labienus.'
'Ah!' Cicero clapped his hand to his forehead.
'You're alarming yourself unnecessarily, Consul. I don't believe for an instant that Caesar would be so foolish as to stand, and if he did he would be crushed. The Roman people are not entirely mad. This is a contest to be head of the state religion. It demands the utmost moral rectitude. Can you imagine Caesar responsible for the Vestal Virgins? He has to live among them. It would be like entrusting your hen-coop to a fox!'
Catulus swept on, but I could see that the tiniest flicker of doubt had entered his eyes, and soon the gossip started that Caesar was indeed intending to stand. All the sensible citizens were appalled at the notion, or made ribald jokes and laughed out loud. Still, there was something about it – something breathtaking about the sheer cheek of it, I suppose – that even his enemies could not help but admire. 'That fellow is the most phenomenal gambler I have ever encountered,' remarked Cicero. 'Each time he loses, he simply doubles his stake and rolls the dice again. Now I understand why he gave up on Rullus's bill and the prosecution of Rabirius. He saw that the chief priest was unlikely to recover, calculated the odds, and decided that the pontificate was a much better bet than either.' He shook his head in wonder and set about doing what he could to make sure this third gamble also failed. And it would have done, but for two things.
The first was the incredible stupidity of Catulus and Isauricus. For several weeks Cicero went back and forth between them, trying vainly to make them see that they could not both stand, that if they did they would split the anti-Caesar vote. But they were proud and irritable old men. They would not yield, or draw lots, or agree on a compromise candidate, and in the end both their names went forward.
The other decisive factor was money. It was said at the time that Caesar bribed the tribes with so much cash the coin had to be transported in wheelbarrows. Where had he found it all? Everyone said the source must be Crassus. But even Crassus would surely have baulked at the twenty million – twenty million! – Caesar was rumoured to have laid out to the bribery agents. Whatever the truth, by the time the vote was held on the Ides of March, Caesar must have known that defeat would mean his ruin. He could never have repaid such a sum if his career had been checked. All that would have been left to him were humiliation, disgrace, exile, possibly even suicide. That is why I am inclined to believe the famous story that on the morning of the poll, as he left his little house in Subura to walk to the Field of Mars, he kissed his mother goodbye and announced that he would either return as pontifex maximus or he would not return at all.
The voting lasted most of the day, and by one of those ironies that abound in politics, it fell to Cicero, who was once again in March the senior presiding magistrate, to announce the result. The early spring sun had fallen behind the Janiculum, and the sky was streaked in horizontal lines of purple, red and crimson, like blood seeping through a sodden bandage. Cicero read out the returns in a monotone. Of the seventeen tribes polled, Isauricus had won four, Catulus six, and Caesar had been backed by seven. It could scarcely have been closer. As Cicero climbed down from the platform, obviously sick to his stomach, the victor flung back his head and raised his arms to the heavens. He looked almost demented with delight – as well he might, for he knew that, come what may, he would now be pontifex maximus for life, with a huge state house on the Via Sacra and a voice in the innermost councils of the state. In my opinion, everything that happened subsequently to Caesar really stemmed from this amazing victory. That crazy outlay of twenty million was actually the greatest bargain in history: it would buy him the world.
V
From this time on men began to look upon Caesar differently. Although Isauricus accepted his defeat with the stoicism of an old soldier, Catulus – who had set his heart on the chief pontificate as the crown of his career – never entirely recovered from the blow. The following day he denounced his rival in the senate. 'You are no longer working underground, Caesar!' he shouted in such a rage his lips were flecked with spittle. 'Your artillery is planted in the open and it is there for the capture of the state!' Caesar's only response was a smile. As for Cicero, he was in two minds. He agreed with Catulus that Caesar's ambition was so reckless and gargantuan it might one day become a menace to the republic. 'And yet,' he mused to me, 'when I notice how carefully arranged his hair is, and when I watch him adjusting his parting with one finger, I can't imagine that he could conceive of such a wicked thing as to destroy the Roman constitution.'
Reasoning that Caesar now had most of what he wanted, and that everything else – a praetorship, the consulship, command of an army – would come in due course, Cicero decided the time had come to try to absorb him into the leadership of the senate. For example, he felt it was unseemly to have the head of the state religion bobbing up and down during debates, alongside senators of the second rank, trying to catch the consul's eye. Therefore he resolved to call upon Caesar early, straight after the praetorians. But this conciliatory approach immediately landed him with a fresh political embarrassment – and one that showed the extent of Caesar's cunning. It happened in the following way.
Very soon after Caesar was elected – it must have been within three or four days at most – the senate was in session, with Cicero in the chair, when suddenly there was a shout at the far end of the chamber. Pushing his way through the crowd of spectators gathered at the door was a bizarre apparition. His hair was wild and disordered and powdery with dust. He had hastily thrown on a purple-edged toga, but it did not entirely conceal the military uniform he was wearing underneath. In place of red shoes his feet were clad in a soldier's boots. He advanced down the central aisle, and whoever was speaking halted in mid-sentence as all eyes turned on the intruder. The lictors, standing near me just behind Cicero's chair, stepped forward in alarm to protect the consul, but then Metellus Celer shouted out from the praetorian benches: 'Stop! Don't you see? It's my brother!' and sprang up to embrace him.