Chapter VIII #2
Octavius recoiled, or pretended to. Most of those marked to die were wealthy nobodies, he said. But Cicero? The Father of the Nation? Such a killing would echo around the world.
Antony was unmoved.
– He has insulted me and Fulvia time and again. He applauded the murder of Caesar. He is rich. He can’t resist meddling. He will cause us endless trouble. If anyone deserves to die, he does.
Octavius argued for a little while longer, then threw up his hands.
– Very well.
And so Cicero’s name was added to a provisional list of the thirteen most important condemned men, which was dispatched to Rome immediately, before news of their fate could leak.
The conference ended soon afterwards. To celebrate, Lepidus held a splendid banquet in his tent.
Much fine food was eaten and good wine drunk in endless toasts to friendship and the future.
Lepidus had no idea who I was and put me on a table away from the principals.
I had little appetite. As I have said, I did not care for Cicero, but I was concerned for Octavius.
As soon as we were back in our camp, I reminded him that he had given Cicero his personal guarantee that he would protect him.
Abandoning him in such a way could tarnish his reputation for ever.
– What choice did I have? Besides, I never liked him really. Although they don’t know it, they have done me a favour.
And with that, he yawned and went off to bed, and I am sure slept soundly.
We returned to Rome in November. The city was ringed with soldiers. We set sentries on the gates to prevent escape. Lists of the proscribed were posted in the Forum and added to daily by ‘the Triumvirate’, as Octavius, Antony and Lepidus became known.
The rewards for tracking down and killing a wanted man were enormous, up to one hundred thousand sesterces a head for the most prominent.
Bands of armed executioners went from house to house in search of victims. More than a hundred senators and a thousand knights were dealt with in this way.
Decapitated bodies lay in the streets and floated in the Tiber.
Dogs scavenged among the corpses. The sickly, pungent stink of death lurked round every corner.
A handful did escape and were offered sanctuary by Pompey’s sole surviving son, Sextus, who after the defeat at Munda had escaped to assemble a large fleet of pirate vessels and taken control of Sicily – a province that was supposed to have been allotted to Octavius.
Sextus was still in his middle twenties, not much older than me and Octavius.
We should have recognised him as an equal.
But we made the mistake of consistently underestimating him.
In fact, he had been close to his father, had lived much of his adolescence and adulthood in army camps, had learned a lot, knew how to fight, possessed a famous name and was brave and shrewd. He proved to be a real threat.
Despite the formation of the Triumvirate, our position was by no means secure.
I had been elected a tribune in my absence earlier in the month.
But the Senate was prorogued, and I was thankful to have an excuse to spend most of my time beyond the city walls, working with the legionary commanders on the Field of Mars, preparing for the next campaign.
Thanks to the proscriptions, we now had the money to pay our men and to buy the stores and material needed for the expedition against Brutus and Cassius.
At the beginning of December, Octavius summoned me and handed me a key. He wanted to give me the house of an executed senator that was part of his share of the spoils. It came, he said, with various properties and farms that would provide me with a steady income.
– A member of the Triumvirate cannot have his closest friend residing in some squalid rented place. It reflects badly on us both. You are now a leading figure in the state and must live in the appropriate style.
His only condition was that I should make a will leaving the property to him in the event of my death.
I thanked him and accepted gratefully. I could hardly have done otherwise without causing grave offence. Besides, I reasoned that the man was dead whatever happened, and if someone had to take his house, it might as well be me. I moved in the next day.
It was a small, well-furnished place on the Palatine, an easy walk to the fine mansion that had once belonged to the descendants of the orator Hortensius that Octavius had taken for himself.
I could therefore be summoned readily at any time of day or night.
I also took over the household establishment of slaves, who transferred their loyalty to me without hesitation.
Their old master was never mentioned. I sat on his furniture and dined off his plate and slipped into his lifestyle as one might an old coat.
As a tribune, I began to wear the toga of a senator and to receive daily callers who wished to petition me for favours. Many came to plead for the lives of their relatives. One of these was Caecilia, the daughter of Atticus.
I was grieved to see her in such a state of deep distress. Due to his wealth and his friendship with Cicero, her father had been placed on the list of the proscribed. She told me he was hiding in the country. He had always been on good terms with Antony, and she begged me to intercede with him.
Had it been anyone else, I would have refused.
My influence in those days was still small.
But I had thought about her often following our brief meeting in Volsini.
I knew that Octavius would not do anything to help her – he was inundated with pleas for mercy, and Atticus’s wealth was assessed at twelve million sesterces: he would want to get his hands on a share of that.
And Lepidus was a remote and aristocratic figure who had barely addressed a word to me.
So I said that I would approach Antony on her father’s behalf.
I went that same day to his house on the Esquiline. This time I was shown in immediately to the pillared tablinum where we had first met the previous year.