Eco stared after him. 'Papa, what on earth has happened to my little brother?'

'He's become a man, I suppose.'

'No, I mean — '

'I know what you mean. Ever since his birthday celebration here in Rome, he's become more and more as you see him now.'

'But these wild ideas, and the depth of his anger against Cicero — where does it come from?'

I shrugged. 'Catilina has slept under my roof several times. I think Meto may have had some private conversations with him while I was elsewhere. You know Catilina's notorious effect on the young.'

'But such ideas are dangerous. If Meto wants to brood on the farm, that's one thing, but here in the city I hope he knows enough to keep his mourn shut, at least in public. I think you should have a talk with him.'

'Why? Everything he says makes perfect sense to me.' 'Yes, but aren't you worried?'

'I suppose. But when he left the room just now, it wasn't worry that I was feeling. I was feeling rather proud of him, actually — and a little ashamed of myself'

There are moments in the theatre when the characters and events upon the stage seem to become more real than reality itself. I speak not of bawdy Roman comedies, though sometimes even those attain the phenomenon I'm thinking of; I speak more of those sublime tragedies of the Greeks. One knows that mere actors reside behind the masks, and one knows that the words they speak come from a script, and yet when Oedipus is blinded one feels an anguish more vivid than physical pain and a terror that seems to well up from the deepest recess of the soul. Gods hover in the air: one knows they are merely men suspended from a crane, and yet one experiences an awe that transcends all reason.

The days that followed Cicero's speech in the Forum were coloured with that same sense of vivid, compelling unreality. There was something grand and theatrical, but at the same time grubby and absurd, about the inevitable progression towards the destruction of the men who had fallen into Cicero's power. Ultimately it was not Cicero who decreed their annihilation, but the Senate. Whether that august body acted legally or not is a controversy which I doubt will be resolved in my lifetime.

Roman law does not give to either the consuls or to the Senate the right to put a citizen to death; that right is reserved for the courts and for the people's Assembly. Because the courts are slow and cumbersome and the Assembly is dangerously volatile, neither institution is of much use in an emergency. It might be argued that the Extreme Decree, by which the Senate had empowered the consuls to take any steps necessary to preserve the state, superseded other restrictions and allowed for a penalty of death against Rome's enemies within. Even so, was it right, legal, or honourable to put to death men in captivity, who had laid down their arms and given themselves into custody, and thus posed no immediate threat to anyone? These were some of the arguments that occupied the Senate over the next two days.

Self-professed hater of politics that I was, I should have left the city at once, but I did not I could not Like every other citizen I endured the passing hours in nervous, spellbound suspense, feeling the dread of something awful hanging over the city and its people. Everyone felt it, no matter what his political stripe, or his opinion of Cicero, or his belief in the righteousness or wickedness of the men in custody. The dread was like an ache that had settled into every joint of the body politic, a fever that addled the collective mind. We wished to be rid of our illness. We also feared that our physicians in the Senate would resort to some drastic cure that would not only break the fever but also kill the patient.

On the day after Cicero's speech the city became a vast whirlpool of rumours, with the Temple of Concord, where the Senate continued to meet, at its ravenous centre. The news that one of Catilina's supporters had implicated Crassus sent a panic through the commodity traders in the Forum; men wrung their hands, wondering what would happen if Crassus should be arrested and his fortune immobilized or confiscated, while others said that Crassus would never allow such a thing and would instead join Catilina in civil war. In fact, a certain Lucius Tarquinius had come before the Senate to state that Crassus had sent him to Catilina to carry news of the arrests and to advise Catilina to march on Rome at once. The senators' reaction, after some consternation, was to shout the man down. Even if the story was true, no one particularly cared to draw Crassus into the affair so long as he remained publicly loyal to the Senate. After a brief debate, those present recorded a vote of confidence in their richest member. It was also decided that Lucius Tarquinius would not be allowed to give any further testimony until such time as he was willing to reveal who had bribed him to give false and slanderous testimony against a man of such indisputable patriotism as Marcus Crassus. Some believed that Tarquinius had set out to implicate Crassus in order to moderate the punishment of those already in custody, since with Crassus among them the Senate would shrink from taking drastic measures. Others thought that it was Cicero who put Tarquinius up to it, in order to silence Crassus and keep him from influencing the debate. Lucius Tarquinius nevertheless stood by his original story and, disqualified from further testimony, was effectively gagged. The matter of Crassus's loyalties was not raised again, but he also removed himself from actively debating the fate of the arrested men.

Caesar was also the subject of scrutiny and suspicion. Had Volturcius and the Allobroges implicated him as well? And had those charges been suppressed by the Senate and censored by Cicero in his speech, because they did not want a confrontation with Caesar? Or were these assertions merely rumours circulated by Caesar's enemies? Whatever the truth of the matter, the rumours against Caesar were widespread. So strong did feelings run among the armed men assigned to protect the Temple of Concord — all equestrians and partisans of Cicero — that when Caesar was leaving the building that afternoon they shouted threats and brandished their swords at him. According to those who were there, Caesar's dignity never faltered, and once he was clear of the cordon he quipped, 'What a foul mood these dogs are in; has their master not ted them lately?'

That day the senators voted on the treasonable conduct of the prisoners, and after a brief debate pronounced them all guilty. Whether or not this constituted a legal trial was a question that would loom large for years to come. The senators also voted to give substantial rewards to the Allobroges and to Volturcius.

In the shops and taverns and open squares, details began to circulate about the uprising that had allegedly been scheduled to coincide with the Saturnalia. The entire Senate was to be killed along with as many citizens as possible in an indiscriminate slaughter; only the children of Pompey were to be taken alive, as hostages to keep the great general at bay. A hundred men had been recruited to set fires all over the city and to demolish the aqueducts, so that the fires would burn unchecked; anyone bearing water to extinguish the blazes was to be slain on the spot. Which of these details was authentic and which fantastic? It was impossible to tell, for as soon as one heard a rumour, another arose to contradict it. A silver merchant near the Forum told me he had seen with his own eyes the enormous cache of newly sharpened swords and incendiary material that had been discovered in the house of Cethegus, and that Cethegus's household consisted of a fierce coterie of highly trained gladiators; a few steps away and a few moments later, a wine merchant who claimed to have visited Cethegus only two days before his arrest said that the only weapons at the house were a collection of harmless ceremonial heirlooms, that he kept only a handful of bodyguards (like every senator), and that his house contained no more kindling and brimstone than any other.