Lustrum

I hurried down the aisle and reached the door in time to glimpse Nepos and his retinue of attendants heading across the forum in the direction of the rostra. It was around the eighth hour of the day, still busy, and amid the bustle of the city I had no trouble hiding myself – not that Nepos was the type of man much given to looking over his shoulder. His little entourage passed the Temple of Castor, and it was lucky I had moved up close behind it, because a little way up the Via Sacra they abruptly vanished, and I realised they had stepped into the official residence of the pontifex maximus.

My first impulse was to head back to Cicero and tell him, but then a shrewder instinct checked me. There was a row of shops opposite the great mansion, and I pretended to browse for jewellery, all the time keeping an eye on Caesar's door. I saw his mother arrive in a litter, and then his wife leave by the same means, looking very young and beautiful. Various people went in and out, but no one I recognised. After about an hour the impatient shopkeeper announced that he wished to close, and he ushered me out on to the street just as the unmistakable bald head of Crassus emerged from a small carriage and darted through the doorway into Caesar's home. I lingered for a while but no one else appeared, and not wishing to push my luck any further, I slipped away to give Cicero the news.

He had left the senate house by this time, and I found him at home, working on his correspondence. 'Well, at least that clears up one mystery,' he said, when I described what I had seen. 'We now know where Caesar got the twenty million to buy his office. It didn't all come from Crassus. A lot of it must have come from the Warden of Land and Sea.' He tilted back in his chair and became very pensive, for, as he later observed, 'When the chief general in the state, the chief moneylender and the chief priest all start meeting together, the time has come for everyone else to be on their guard.'

It was around this time that Terentia began to play an important role in Cicero's consulship. People often wondered why Cicero was still married to her after fifteen years, for she was excessively pious and had little beauty and even less charm. But she had something rarer. She had character. She commanded respect, and increasingly as the years went on he sought her advice. She had no interest in philosophy or literature, no knowledge of history; not much learning of any sort, in fact. However, unburdened by education or natural delicacy, she did possess a rare gift for seeing straight through to the heart of a thing, be it a problem or a person, and saying exactly what she thought.

To begin with, not wishing to alarm her, Cicero did not mention Catilina's oath to murder him. But it was typical of Terentia's shrewdness that she soon discovered it for herself. As a consul's wife she had supervision of the cult of the Good Goddess. I cannot tell you what this entailed, as everything to do with the goddess and her serpent-infested temple on the Aventine is closed to men. All I know is that one of Terentia's fellow priestesses, a patriotic woman of noble family, came to her one day in a tearful state and warned her that Cicero's life was in danger, and that he should be on his guard. She refused to say more. But naturally Terentia would not leave it at that, and by a combination of flattery, cajolery and threats which must have been worthy of her husband, she slowly extracted the truth. Having done so, she then forced the unfortunate woman to come back to the house and repeat her story to the consul.

I was working with Cicero in his study when Terentia threw open the door. She did not knock; she never did. Being both richer than Cicero and more nobly born, she tended not to show the customary deference of wife to husband. Instead, she simply announced: 'There is someone here you must see.'

'Not now,' he said, without looking up. 'Tell them to go away.'

But Terentia stood her ground. 'It's -,' she said, and here she named the lady, whose identity I shall conceal, not for her sake (she is long dead) but for the honour of her descendants.

'And why should I see her?' grumbled Cicero, and for the first time he glanced up irritably at his wife. But then he noticed the grimness of her expression and his tone changed. 'What is it, woman? What's wrong?'

'You need to listen for yourself.' She stood aside to reveal a matron of rare if fading beauty whose eyes were red and puffy from weeping. I made as if to leave, but Terentia ordered me very firmly to stay where I was. 'The slave is a highly skilled note-taker,' she explained to the visitor, 'and entirely discreet. If he so much as breathes a word to anyone, I can assure you I shall have him skinned alive.' And she gave me a look that left me in no doubt that she would do precisely that.

The subsequent meeting was almost as embarrassing for Cicero, who had a prudish streak, as it was for the lady, who was obliged, under prompting from Terentia, to confess that for several years she had been the mistress of Quintus Curius. He was a dissolute senator and friend of Catilina. Already expelled once from the senate for immorality and bankruptcy, he seemed certain to be thrown out again at the next census, and was in desperate straits.

'Curius has been in debt as long as I've known him,' explained the lady, 'but never as badly as now. His estate is mortgaged three times over. One moment he threatens to kill us both rather than endure the disgrace of bankruptcy, the next he boasts of all the fine things he's going to buy for me. Last night I laughed at him. I said, “How could you afford to buy me anything? It's I who has to give money to you!” I provoked him. We argued. Eventually he said, “By the end of the summer we shall have all the money we need.” That was when he told me of Catilina's plans.'

'Which are?'

She glanced down at her lap for a moment, then straightened herself and gazed steadily at Cicero. 'To murder you, and then to seize control of Rome. To cancel all debts, confiscate the property of the rich, and divide the magistracies and priesthoods among his followers.'

'Do you believe they mean it?'

'I do.'

Terentia interrupted. 'But she's left out the worst part! To bind them to him more closely, Catilina made them swear a blood oath on the body of a child. They slaughtered him like a lamb.'

'Yes,' confessed Cicero, 'I know,' and he held up his hand to forestall her protest. 'I'm sorry. I didn't know how seriously to take it. There seemed no point in upsetting you over nothing.' To the lady he said: 'You must give up the names of all those involved in this conspiracy.'

'No, I can't-'

'What's said can't be unsaid. I must have their names.'

She wept for a while. She must have known she was trapped. 'At least will you give me your word you'll protect Curius?'

'I can't promise that. I'll see what I can do. Come, madam: the names.'

It took her some time to speak, and when she did I could hardly hear her. 'Cornelius Cethegus,' she whispered. 'Cassius Longinus. Quintus Annius Chilo. Lentulus Sura and his freedman Umbrenus…' The names suddenly started to tumble out, as if by reciting them quickly she could shorten her ordeal. 'Autronius Paetus, Marcus Laeca, Lucius Bestia, Lucius Vargunteius-'

'Wait!' Cicero was gazing at her in astonishment. 'Did you just say Lentulus Sura – the urban praetor – and his freedman Umbrenus?'

'-Publius Sulla, and his brother Servius.' She stopped abruptly.

'And that is all?'

'Those are all the senators I've heard him mention. There are others outside the senate.'

Cicero turned to me. 'How many is that?'

'Ten,' I counted. 'Eleven, if you add Curius. Twelve, if you include Catilina.'

' Twelve senators? ' I had seldom seen Cicero more flabbergasted. He blew out his cheeks and sat back in his chair as if he had been struck. He let out a long breath. 'But men like the Sulla brothers and Sura don't even have the excuse of bankruptcy! This is just treason, plain and simple!' Suddenly he was too agitated to sit still. He jumped to his feet and started pacing the narrow floor. 'Dear gods! What's going on?'