Yes, it was a brave performance, and I hope I have given here some flavour of the scene: the orators on the platform with their querulous client, the lictors lined up around the base to protect the consul, the teeming citizenry of Rome plebs and knights and senators all pressed together the legionaries in their plumed helmets and the generals in their scarlet cloaks, the sheep pens set out and made ready for the vote; the noise of it, the temples gleaming on the distant Capitol, and the bitter January cold. I kept a lookout for Caesar, and occasionally I thought I glimpsed his lean face peering from the crowd. Catilina was certainly there with his claque, including Rufus, who was yelling his share of insults at his former patron. Cicero finished, as he always did, by standing with his hand on the shoulder of his client and appealing for the mercy of the court 'He does not ask you to grant him a happy life but only an honourable death' and then it was all over and Labienus gave orders for the voting to begin.
Cicero commiserated with the dejected Hortensius, then jumped down from the platform and came over to where I was standing. He was still full of fire, as always after a big speech, breathing deeply, his eyes shining, his nostrils flared, like a horse at the end of a gruelling race. It had been a stirring performance. I remember one phrase in particular: 'Narrow indeed are the bounds within which Nature has confined our lives, but those of our glory are infinite.' Unfortunately, fine words are no substitute for votes, and when Quintus joined us he announced grimly that all was lost. He had just come from observing the first ballots cast the centuries were voting unanimously to condemn Rabirius, which meant that the old man would be obliged to leave Italy immediately, his house would be pulled down, and all his property confiscated.
'This is a tragedy,' swore Cicero.
'You did your best, brother. At least he is an old man and has lived his life.'
'I'm not thinking of Rabirius, you idiot, but of my consulship!'
Just as he was speaking, we heard a shout and a scream. A scuffle had started nearby, and when we turned we could clearly see the tall figure of Catilina in the thick of it, laying about him with his fists. Some of the legionaries ran to separate the combatants. Beyond them, Metellus and Lucullus had risen to their feet to watch. The augur, Celer, who was standing beside his cousin Metellus, had his hands cupped to his mouth and was urging the soldiers on. 'Just look at Celer there,' said Cicero, with a hint of admiration, 'simply itching to join in. He loves a fight!' He became thoughtful and then said suddenly, 'I'm going to talk to him.'
He set off so abruptly that his lictors had to scramble to get ahead of him to clear a path. When the two generals saw the consul approaching, they glowered at him. Both had been stuck outside the city for a long while waiting for the senate to vote them their triumphs years, in the case of Lucullus, who had whiled away his time building a vast retreat at Misenum on the Bay of Naples as well as his mansion north of Rome. But the senate was reluctant to accede to their demands, chiefly because both had quarrelled with Pompey. So they were trapped. Only holders of imperium could have a triumph; but entering Rome to argue for a triumph would automatically end their imperium. One could sympathise with their frustration.
'Imperator,' said Cicero, raising his hand in salute to each man in turn. 'Imperator.'
'We have matters we need to discuss with you,' began Metellus in a menacing tone.
'I know exactly what you are about to say, and I assure you I shall keep my promise and argue your case in the senate to the full extent of my powers. But that's for another day. Do you see how hard pressed I am at the moment? I need some assistance, not for my sake but for the nation's. Celer, will you help me save the republic?'
Celer exchanged glances with his cousin. 'I don't know. That depends on what you want me to do.'
'It's dangerous work,' warned Cicero, knowing full well that this would make the challenge irresistible to a man such as Celer.
'I've never been called a coward. Tell me.'
'I want you to take a detachment of your cousin's excellent legionaries, cross the river, climb the Janiculum and haul down the flag.'
Even Celer swayed back on his heels at that, for the lowering of the flag signalling the approach of an enemy army would automatically suspend the assembly, and the Janiculum was always heavily protected by guards. Both he and his cousin turned to Lucullus, the senior of the trio, and I watched as that elegant patrician calculated the odds. 'It's a fairly desperate trick, Consul,' he said.
'It is. But if we lose this vote, it will be a disaster for Rome. No consul will ever again be sure he has the authority to suppress an armed rebellion. I don't know why Caesar wishes to set such a precedent, but I do know we can't afford to let him.'
In the end, it was Metellus who said, 'He's right, Lucius. Let's give him the men. Quintus,' he said to Celer, 'are you willing?'
'Of course.'
'Good,' said Cicero. 'The guards should obey you as praetor, but in case they make trouble, I'll send my secretary with you,' and to my dismay he pulled his ring from his finger and pressed it into my hand. 'You're to tell the commander that the consul says an enemy threatens Rome,' he said to me, 'and the flag must be lowered. My ring is the proof that you are my emissary. Do you think you can do that?'
I nodded. What else could I do? Metellus meanwhile was beckoning to the centurion who had weighed in against Catilina, and very soon afterwards I found myself panting along behind a contingent of thirty legionaries, their swords drawn, moving at the double, with Celer and the centurion at their head. Our mission let us be frank about this was to disrupt the Roman people in a lawful assembly, and I remember thinking, Never mind Rabirius, this is treason.
We left the Field of Mars and trotted across the Sublician Bridge, over the swollen brown waters of the Tiber, then traversed the flat plain of the Vaticanum, which was filled with the squalid tents and small makeshift huts of the homeless. At the foot of the Janiculum the crows of Juno watched from the bare branches of their sacred grove such a mass of gnarled black shapes that when we passed and sent them crying into the air it was as if the very wood itself had taken flight. We toiled on up the road to the summit, and never did a hill seem so steep. Even as I write, I can feel again the thump of my heart and the searing of my lungs as I sobbed for breath. The pain in my side was as sharp as a spear tip being pressed into my flesh.
On the ridge of the hill, at the highest point, stands a shrine to Janus, with one face turned to Rome and the other to the open country, and above this, atop a high pole, flew a huge red flag, flapping and cracking in the stiff wind. About twenty legionaries were huddled around two large braziers, and before they could do anything to stop us we had them surrounded.
'Some of you men know me!' shouted Celer. 'I am Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer praetor, augur, lately returned from the army of my brother-in-law, Pompey the Great. And this fellow,' he said, gesturing to me, 'comes with the ring of our consul, Cicero. His orders are to lower the flag. Who's in command here?'
'I am,' said a centurion, stepping forward. He was an experienced man of about forty. 'And I don't care whose brother-in-law you are, or what authority you have, that flag stays flying unless an enemy threatens Rome.'
'But an enemy does threaten Rome,' said Celer. 'See!' And he pointed to the countryside west of the city, which was all spread out beneath us. The centurion turned to look, and in a flash, Celer had seized him from behind by his hair and had the edge of his sword at the soldier's throat. 'When I tell you there's an enemy coming,' he hissed, 'there's an enemy coming, understand? And do you know how I know there's an enemy coming, even though you can't see anything?' He gave the man's hair a vicious tug, which made him grunt. 'Because I'm a fucking augur, that's why. Now take down that flag, and sound the alarm.'
'I am,' said a centurion, stepping forward. He was an experienced man of about forty. 'And I don't care whose brother-in-law you are, or what authority you have, that flag stays flying unless an enemy threatens Rome.'
'But an enemy does threaten Rome,' said Celer. 'See!' And he pointed to the countryside west of the city, which was all spread out beneath us. The centurion turned to look, and in a flash, Celer had seized him from behind by his hair and had the edge of his sword at the soldier's throat. 'When I tell you there's an enemy coming,' he hissed, 'there's an enemy coming, understand? And do you know how I know there's an enemy coming, even though you can't see anything?' He gave the man's hair a vicious tug, which made him grunt. 'Because I'm a fucking augur, that's why. Now take down that flag, and sound the alarm.'
Nobody argued after that. One of the sentries unfastened the rope and hauled down the flag, while another picked up his trumpet and blew several piercing blasts. I looked across the river to the Field of Mars and the thousands all standing around there, but the distance was too great to judge immediately what was happening. Only gradually did it become apparent that the crowd was draining away, and that the clouds of dust rising at the edge of the field were being raised by people fleeing to their homes. Cicero described to me afterwards the effect of the trumpet and the realisation that the flag was coming down. Labienus had tried to calm the crowd and assure them it was a trick, but people in a mass are as stupid and easily frightened as a school of fish or a herd of beasts. In no time word spread that the city was about to be attacked. Despite the pleas of Labienus and his fellow tribunes, voting had to be abandoned. Many of the fences of the sheep pens were smashed by the stampeding citizens. The stand where Lucullus and Metellus had been sitting was knocked over and trampled to pieces. There was a fight. A pickpocket was stabbed to death. The pontifex maximus, Metellus Pius, suffered some kind of seizure and had to be rushed back to the city, unconscious. According to Cicero, only one man remained calm, and that was Gaius Rabirius, rocking back and forth on his bench, alone on the deserted platform amid the chaos, his eyes closed, humming to himself some strange and discordant tune.