Such approval now appeared as remote as ever. The brutality of Pompey’s actions in seizing the consulship would not lightly be forgiven. His army remained a standing menace. Nor did Pompey have the slightest intention of giving up so much as a single legionary. Yet even as he persisted in intimidating the establishment he clung to his hope of winning its heart. For the citizens of a republic such as Rome, loneliness was a bewildering, almost incomprehensible state. Only outlaws – or kings – could truly know it. This was why Pompey, no matter how violently he offended his peers, still wooed them. He had been loved too long, too ardently, not to crave and need love still.
It was a cruel irony, then, that even as he returned to his improbable courtship of the Senate his personal life, which had been so happy and such a comfort to him, should suddenly have darkened. In August 54 BC his adored wife Julia went into labour. Again she miscarried, but this time she did not survive the loss of her baby. Her husband and father were left equally devastated. For Caesar, however, grief was compounded by alarm. The love that both he and Pompey had felt for Julia had provided the two men with a bond strong enough to survive any number of political tensions. Now that bond was gone. Caesar, preoccupied with rebellions in Gaul, was desperate not to have his position back in the capital weakened. He needed Pompey more than Pompey needed him, and both men knew it. For a while their shared bereavement would continue to unite them, but not for ever. How long would Pompey stay single? His eligibility was a valuable asset – far too valuable not to be exploited. His return to the marriage market would give him unanticipated room for manoeuvre. And that, of course, was precisely what unsettled his partner so much.
Yet Pompey was still hemmed in by obligations. For as long as the menacing figure of Crassus remained on the horizon, he would remain nervous of offending Caesar. Mutual fear, not affection, was what had provided the triumvirate with its cement. No one partner could stand up to the other two. This was why, in carving up the Republic’s empire, the three conspirators had been so careful to interlock their power bases. By doing so they aimed to defend themselves from one another as much as from their common foes. But then, a year after Julia’s death, midway through 53 BC, the news arrived from Carrhae that Crassus was dead. For Caesar this was a second devastating blow, but it is unlikely that Pompey shed many tears. After all, what sweeter measure of success could there be than the failure of a rival? Let the Roman people shudder – the Parthian victory would serve to remind them that victories against Eastern barbarians could never be taken for granted. Should the situation on the frontier turn really ugly, then Pompey’s fellow citizens would know where to turn. But even if – as happened – the Parthians did not press their advantage into Syria, Pompey could still stretch his limbs and exult in a novel feeling. A malign presence had been exorcised from his life. Never again would it shadow him, cabin him, torment him. Crassus was no more.
Now, suddenly, everything seemed to be moving Pompey’s way. Sleaze had begun to corrode the moral authority of the Senate. The consulship of Appius and Domitius had ended amid high outrage when the two men were accused of accepting bribes to fix the forthcoming consular elections. Four candidates had been standing and all four were indicted. Amid escalating rumours of ever more shady deals, the elections had to be postponed for six months. For Domitius, and the cause of senatorial respectability for which he had been the spokesman, the scandal was a particular calamity. As Cicero cattily pointed out, Appius had no reputation to lose, ‘but his colleague is left a broken reed, utterly discredited’.25 Such was the turmoil that it seemed only one man could restore order. Pompey’s lapdogs began to mutter that he should be made dictator. When Cato, to no one’s surprise, exploded at the suggestion, Pompey ostentatiously turned down the offer. But still the whisperings would not be silenced. They could be heard throughout the feverish, troubled capitaclass="underline" in the Senate House, the Forum, the slums. The Republic was collapsing. A strongman was needed. Only Pompey would do. Pompey himself kept his peace, looked modest, and bided his time.
It was the perfect strategy. As the sense of crisis steadily deepened, the mood in the Republic began to turn brutal as well as fetid. In his desperation to find a forceful counterweight to Pompey, Cato had settled upon an extraordinary choice. His favoured candidate for the consulship of 52 was none other than Clodius’ old sparring-partner, the turbulent street-brawler Milo. Once a ferocious partisan of Pompey, Milo had been unceremoniously dumped by the great man, and was therefore happy to throw his lot in with Cato and his plans. Pompey warned his former protégé to stand down, and when Milo refused threw his weight behind rival candidates. But his fury was, of course, nothing compared to that of Milo’s deadliest enemy. For three years Clodius had been on his best behaviour, attempting to rebrand himself as a sound and sober statesman, but the prospect of having Milo as a consul was too much. Like a reformed alcoholic reaching for a bottle, Clodius returned to the streets. His old gangs were resurrected. In reply Milo bought up the gladiator schools. As 53 BC drew to a close, Rome descended into anarchy. So too did the Republic. For the third time in four years elections were postponed, this time because the presiding official had been knocked out by a brick. With all public business in abeyance, club-wielding mobsters roamed the streets, while law-abiding citizens cowered where they could.
It seemed that things could hardly become any worse. Then, on 18 January 52 BC, they did. Clodius and Milo met face to face on the Appian Way. Taunts flew; one of Milo’s gladiators flung a javelin; Clodius was struck in the shoulder. His bodyguards hauled their wounded leader to a nearby tavern, but Milo’s heavies, following in pursuit, overpowered them. Clodius himself was slung out of the tavern on to the road, where he was speedily finished off. There, by the side of a shrine to the Good Goddess, his corpse was left mangled and naked in the dust. It appeared that the goddess had at last had her revenge.
But Clodius’ friends claimed differently. After his body had been found and brought back to Rome, the news of his murder spread quickly from crossroad to crossroad. The slums began to echo with wails of lamentation. Soon crowds were massing outside Clodius’ mansion on the Palatine. Fulvia showed them the gashed body of her husband, carefully pointing out each wound. The mob howled in misery and rage. The next day the corpse of the people’s hero was borne from the Palatine, across the Forum, and laid on the rostra. Meanwhile, in the neighbouring Senate House benches were kicked over, tables smashed, clerical records plundered. Then, on the floor of the chamber, a pyre was raised. Clodius was laid upon it. A torch was brought. More than thirty years had passed since the destruction of Jupiter’s temple on the Capitol, warning the Roman people of coming catastrophe. Now, once again, the Forum was lit a violent red. In the flickering glare battles between the partisans of Clodius and those of his murderer reached a new and intoxicating pitch of savagery. Still the flames raged, and as the Senate House crashed into blackened ruin they spread to a neighbouring monument: the Basilica Porcia. Here was where Rome’s first permanent law court had been built – by an ancestor of Cato, no less. In a spectacle loaded with pointed and deliberate symbolism, it too was consumed. That night, when Clodius’ partisans feasted in honour of their dead leader, they did so amid the ashes of the Senate’s authority.