Caesar quickly rose to intervene. 'But surely the flaw in the consul's argument is that the accused have not committed any such acts they are being condemned for their intentions, rather than for anything they have done.'
'Exactly!' cried a voice from the other side of the chamber, and all heads turned to Cato.
If the vote had been taken at this point, I have little doubt that Caesar's proposal would have carried the day, regardless of the consul's view. The prisoners would have been packed off across Italy, to rot or be reprieved according to the caprices of politics, and Cicero's future would have worked out very differently. But just as the outcome seemed assured, there arose from the benches near the back of the temple a familiar gaunt and illkempt apparition, his hair all awry, his shoulders bare despite the cold, his sinewy arm stretched out to indicate his desire to intervene.
'Marcus Porcius Cato,' said Cicero uneasily, for one could never be sure which way Cato's rigid logic would lead him. 'You wish to speak?'
'Yes, I wish to speak,' said Cato. 'I wish to speak because someone has to remind this house of exactly what it is we're facing. The whole point, gentlemen, is precisely that we're not dealing with crimes that have been committed, but with crimes that are planned. For that very reason it will be no good trying to invoke the law afterwards we shall all have been slaughtered!' There was a murmur of acknowledgement: he spoke the truth. I glanced up at Cicero. He was also nodding. 'Too many sitting here,' proclaimed Cato, his voice rising, 'are more concerned for their villas and their statues than they are for their country. In heaven's name, men, wake up! Wake up while there's still time, and lend a hand to defend the republic! Our liberty and lives are at stake! At such a time does anyone here dare talk to me of clemency and compassion?'
He came down the gangway barefoot and stood in the aisle, that harsh and remorseless voice grating away like a blade on a grindstone. It was as if his famous great-grandfather had just stepped out of his grave and was shaking his furious grey locks at us.
'Do not imagine, gentlemen, that it was by force of arms that our ancestors transformed a petty state into this great republic. If it were so, it would now be at the height of its glory, since we have more subjects and citizens, more arms and horses, than they ever had. No, it was something else entirely that made them great something we entirely lack. They were hard workers at home, just rulers abroad, and to the senate they brought minds that were not racked by guilt or enslaved by passion. That is what we've lost. We pile up riches for ourselves while the state is bankrupt and we idle away our lives, so that when an assault is made upon the republic there's no one left to defend it.
'A plot has been hatched by citizens of the highest rank to set fire to their native city. Gauls, the deadliest foes of everything Roman, have been called to arms. The hostile army and its leader are ready to descend upon us. And you're still hesitating and unable to decide how to treat public enemies taken within your own walls?' He literally spat out his sarcasm, showering the senators nearest him with phlegm. 'Why then, I suggest you take pity on them they are young men led astray by ambition. Armed though they are, let them go. But mind what you're doing with your clemency and compassion if they draw the sword, it will be too late to do anything about it. Oh yes, you say, the situation is certainly ugly, but you're not afraid of it. Nonsense! You're quaking in your shoes! But you're so indolent and weak that you stand irresolute, each waiting for someone else to act no doubt trusting to the gods. Well, I tell you, vows and womanish supplications won't secure divine aid. Only vigilance and action can achieve success.
'We're completely encircled. Catilina and his army are ready to grip us by the throat. Our enemies are living in the very heart of the city. That is why we must act quickly. This therefore is my proposal, Consul. Write it down well, scribe: Whereas by the criminal designs of wicked citizens the republic has been subjected to serious danger; and whereas, by testimony and confession, the accused stand convicted of planning massacre, arson and other foul atrocities against their fellow citizens: that, having admitted their criminal intention, they should be put to death as if they had been caught in the actual commission of capital offences, in accordance with ancient custom.'
For thirty years I attended debates in the senate and I witnessed many great and famous speeches. But I never saw one not one: not even close that rivalled in its effects that brief intervention by Cato. What is great oratory, after all, except the distillation of emotion into exact words? Cato said what a majority of men were feeling but had not the language to express, even to themselves. He admonished them, and they loved him for it. All across the temple, senators rose from their seats applauding and went to stand beside their hero to indicate that he had their support. He was no longer the eccentric on the back bench. He was the rock and bone and sinew of the old republic. Cicero looked on in astonishment. As for Caesar, he jumped up demanding the right to reply, and actually started making a speech. But everyone could see that his true intention was to talk out Cato's motion and prevent a vote, for the light was very low now and shadows were deep across the chamber. There were shouts of rage from those around Cato, and some jostling, and several of the knights who had been watching from the doorway rushed in with their swords drawn. Caesar was twisting his shoulders back and forth to throw off the hands that were trying to pull him down, and still he kept on speaking. The knights looked to Cicero for instruction. All it would have taken was a nod from him, or a raised finger, and Caesar would have been run through on the spot. And for the briefest of instants he did hesitate. But then he shook his head, Caesar was released, and in the chaos he must have rushed from the temple, for I lost sight of him after that. Cicero came down off his dais. Striding along the aisle, shouting at the senators, he and his lictors separated the combatants, pushed a few of them back into their places, and when some sort of order had been restored he returned to his chair.
'Gentlemen,' he said, his face as white as milk in the darkness, his voice very thin and strained, 'the sentiment of the house is clear. Marcus Cato's motion passes. The sentence is death.'
Speed was now vital. The condemned men had to be moved quickly to the execution chamber before their friends and supporters realised their fate. To fetch each prisoner, Cicero placed a former consul at the head of a detachment of guards: Catulus went for Cethegus, Torquatus for Capito, Piso for Caeparius and Lepidus for Statilius. After settling the details, and requesting that the other senators remain in their places while the deed was done, he himself went off last of all to collect the most senior of the accused, Lentulus Sura.
Outside, the sun had just gone down. The forum was ominously crowded, yet the people parted at once to let us through. They reminded me of spectators at a sacrifice solemn, respectful, filled with awe at the mysteries of life and death. We went with our escort up on to the Palatine, to the home of Spinther, who was a kinsman of Sura, and found our prisoner in the atrium playing dice with one of the men assigned to guard him. He had just made his throw: the dice clattered on to the board as we came in. He must have realised at once from Cicero's expression that it was all over for him. He glanced down to inspect his score, then looked back up at us and gave a bleak smile. 'I seem to have lost,' he said.
I cannot reproach Sura for his behaviour. His grandfather and his great-grandfather had both been consuls and they would have been proud of his conduct in this last hour at least. He handed over a purse with some money to be distributed among his guards, then walked out of the house as calmly as if he were going to take a bath. He offered only the mildest of reproaches. 'I believe you laid a trap for me,' he said.
'You trapped yourself,' replied Cicero.
Sura didn't say another word as we crossed the forum, but trod steadily with his chin thrust out. He still wore the plain tunic he had been given the previous day. Yet from their demeanours one would have guessed that the deathly pale Cicero, despite his consular purple, was the condemned man and Sura his captor. I felt the eyes of the vast crowd upon us; they were as curious and docile as sheep. At the foot of the steps leading up to the Carcer, Sura's stepson Mark Antony ran out in front of the guards, crying out to know what was happening.
'I have a short appointment,' replied Sura calmly. 'It will all be over soon. Go and comfort your mother. She will have more need of you now than I.'
Antony bellowed with grief and anger and tried to reach out to touch Sura, but he was pushed out of the way by the lictors. We passed on up the steps between the pickets of troops, ducked through a doorway that was low but very thick, almost like a tunnel, and into a windowless circular stone chamber lit by torches. The air was close, noxious with the stink of death and human waste. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I recognised Catulus, Piso, Torquatus and Lepidus, with the folds of their togas pressed to their noses, and also the short and broad figure of the state executioner, the carnifex, in his leather apron, attended by half a dozen assistants. The other prisoners were already lying on the ground with their arms tightly pinioned behind their backs. Capito, who had spent the day with Crassus, was crying softly. Statilius, who had been held at Caesar's official residence, was insensible from the effects of wine. Caeparius was lost to the world, curled up in a ball with his eyes closed. Cethegus was protesting loudly that this was illegal and demanding the right to address the senate; someone kicked him in the ribs and he went quiet. The carnifex seized Sura's arms and bound them quickly at the wrists and elbows.
'Consul,' said Sura, wincing as he was trussed, 'will you give me your word that no harm will befall my wife and family?'
'Yes, I promise you that.'
'And will you surrender our bodies to our families for burial?'
'I will.' (Afterwards Mark Antony claimed that Cicero had denied this final request: yet another of his innumerable lies.)
'This was not supposed to be my destiny. The auguries were quite clear.'
'You allowed yourself to be suborned by wicked men.'
Moments later the tying-up was finished and Sura looked around him. 'I die a Roman nobleman,' he shouted defiantly, 'and a patriot!'
That was too much even for Cicero. 'No,' he said curtly, nodding to the carnifex, 'you die a traitor.'
At those words, Sura was dragged towards the large black hole in the centre of the floor that was the only means of entrance to the execution chamber beneath us. Two powerful fellows lowered him into it, and I had a last glimpse of his handsome, baffled, stupid face in the torchlight. Then strong hands must have taken hold of him from beneath, for abruptly he disappeared. Statilius's limp form was let down immediately after Sura; then it was quickly the turn of Capito, who was shaking so much his teeth were rattling; then Caeparius, still in a swoon of terror; and finally Cethegus, who screamed and sobbed and put up such a tremendous struggle that two men had to sit on him while a third tied his wildly thrashing legs in the end they tipped him through the hole head first and he fell with a thud. Nothing more was to be heard after that, apart from some occasional scuffling sounds; eventually those also ceased. I was told later that they were hanged in a row from hooks fixed in the ceiling. After what seemed an eternity, the carnifex called up that the job was done, and Cicero went reluctantly to the hole and peered down. A torch was flourished over the victims. The five strangled men lay in a row, gazing up at us with bulging sightless eyes. I felt no pity: I was remembering the violated body of the boy they had sacrificed to seal their pact. Cato was right, I thought: they deserved to die; and that remains my opinion to this day.