Page 12 of Agrippa

We also discovered over dinner that by chance, the most famous of Rome’s elder statesmen, M. Tullius Cicero, the orator and former consul, was himself vacationing on the bay, staying in his villa next door, which he had recently acquired.

Octavius was immediately intrigued and started asking questions about him.

According to Balbus, Cicero had not been part of the conspiracy to murder Caesar. However, as a staunch defender of the old Republic, he had hailed the assassins as liberators. When I heard that, I urged Octavius to have nothing to do with him. Now that we had men and the possibility of money, we should maintain our momentum and press on to Rome the following morning – that, I said, was what Caesar would have done.

Octavius shook his head.

– No, you are wrong. Caesar set great store by Cicero’s shrewdness and patriotism. He allowed him a freedom he granted no other man. He would have gone to see him.

He asked Philippus to arrange a meeting.

Philippus, who had been mostly silent throughout the evening, began to object to this, then changed his mind. It was an instruction rather than a request, issued with the authority of an eighteen-year-old who was no longer a child but had two cohorts of well-trained soldiers encamped in the neighbouring fields, all sworn to do his bidding.

At the end of the meal, Philippus took me aside and accused me of putting Octavius up to this reckless adventure in order to further my own ambition. I had no wish to argue with him. I excused myself, left the villa and bedded down to sleep in a tent with the men.

The next day, accompanied by Balbus, Octavius and I went to see Cicero.

We found him alone with his secretary.

The Father of the Nation, as he liked to style himself, was now past sixty, somewhat corpulent, conscious of his dignity, and obviously wary of Caesar’s unexpected heir, who had dropped from the skies like a meteorite. His first observation was that Octavius had brought an awful lot of soldiers with him, who were surrounding his house and making him uneasy. Octavius guaranteed he would not be molested. He said he had looked forward to this meeting for years, that he had read all Cicero’s books of philosophy and collected speeches, indeed that he had various passages of them off by heart. The more he flattered, the more the old man preened.

– And what am I to call you? To be honest, I would find another Caesar hard to get used to at my age.

Octavius bowed his head politely.

– The Father of the Nation may call me whatever he likes.

– Octavius it is then.

After that, they were as warm together as old friends and withdrew to the terrace to talk privately, leaving Balbus and me alone with the silent secretary. When they returned, Cicero asked us all to dine the following evening with the two men Caesar had designated to be consuls the following year, Aulus Hirtius and Vibius Pansa.

– They are staying in the neighbourhood. It would be useful for you to get to know them. Both are soldiers, and not at all stupid by any means, but somewhat green in the ways of politics. I am trying to teach them oratory – which between you and me is no easy task.

This was typical of the sort of malicious so-called wit Cicero liked to deploy behind people’s backs. He was brilliant and duplicitous and entirely self-interested. I distrusted him even more after listening to the patronising way he spoke to Octavius, and said so as soon as we were alone outside, walking back to our villa. Octavius brushed my concerns aside.

– Yes, he underrates me, but that is to my advantage. I can handle him.

I was not so confident. The old man had been elected consul before Octavius and I were even born. No one was more adept at steering a course through the treachery of politics. But I did not argue.

Octavius paid a second call on Cicero that afternoon, and went again the following morning. Both times I watched them from the terrace as they walked along the beach, deep in conversation. Sometimes Cicero stopped to skim a stone across the flat waves. Occasionally Octavius extended his arm to help him over the rocks. They might have been grandfather and grandson.

Nine of us attended Cicero’s dinner – Octavius and me, Atia and Philippus, Maecenas, Hirtius and Pansa, and Cicero and his secretary, who said nothing but watched his master intently and often turned away from the table to make a note of some clever remark. They made a strange pair, as indeed did the two consuls-designate. Hirtius, who had been Caesar’s staff officer in Gaul, was plump, and devoured every dish of Cicero’s exquisite food with a gourmet’s relish, while Pansa, who had been governor of Nearer Gaul, was thin as a stick, although he drank a great deal. Both were in their thirties, both entirely Caesar’s creatures and both seemed lost without him.

The dinner stays in my memory for two reasons. One was that Philippus got drunk, and with his tongue loosened by wine reverted loudly to his view that Octavius should renounce his inheritance.

– You may call yourself Caesar, but that does not make you Caesar. You have not even fought in a battle! Do you really think you’re a match for Antony, who commanded the left wing at Pharsalus?

Octavius ignored him.

My other memory is the firmness with which Cicero took the directly opposite view. Power did not fall into one’s lap, he asserted. Power had to be seized. Octavius should certainly go to Rome. One of the tribuneships was vacant – Cinna, the noted poet, had been killed in the rioting after Caesar’s funeral by the mob, who had mistaken him for Cinna the senator, one of the conspirators.

– You should put yourself forward as a candidate to replace him. Just avoid writing poetry.

Philippus muttered into his wine that Octavius was only eighteen, too young to be eligible as a candidate.

– That doesn’t matter. For Octavius, the move is win-win. If Antony allows the rule to be waived and he gains a tribuneship, that will be a wonderful beginning. But if he blocks him, that will be even better. It will look as though he is frightened, and Octavius can appeal over his head to the people. The mob always responds to bravado.

Of course, Cicero’s advice was self-interested. He wanted to cause Antony as much trouble as possible. But still, it was a clever idea. I began to understand why Octavius had been so eager to consult him.