'Almost immediately, word of the incident got to Cicero in his house on the Palatine — Cicero's eyes and ears are everywhere, and nothing important happens in the city that he doesn't know about at once. A short while later the consul himself appeared at the theatre, with an armed bodyguard. He summoned everyone in the place to the Temple of Bellona and delivered a splendid speech that ended with the whole crowd cheering Otho and returning to their seats to watch the play without further interruption.'

'What did Cicero say?'

'I wasn't there to hear it myself, but I'm sure that Cicero's secretary Tiro transcribed a copy, if you care to read it. Cicero cannot open his mouth without Tiro's scribbling every utterance, as if his master were an oracle. You know that Cicero can be quite convincing when he defends privilege and order. I believe he dwelled upon Otho's honourable service to the state, and scolded those who would be so crude as to hiss and boo an upstanding Roman magistrate. Then he defended extending privileges to the equestrians; not hard for him to do — he comes from the equestrian class himself, of course,' said Rufus, with a patrician's disdainful lift of the eyebrow. 'It's my theory that the more hot-blooded members of the crowd simply got bored and ran off to expend their energies elsewhere, while the more sedate audience members sheepishly returned to enjoy the comedy. Cicero counted the affair as a personal triumph.'

'From the argument we just overheard, there must be those who disagree.'

"The controversy rages on and on. It's always little things that prick at people. Catilina has picked it up as a campaign issue, naturally. Catilina is always ready to be the champion of the discontented.'

A little later I overheard another argument, this one between an orator on a makeshift wooden pedestal and a citizen who refused to let him deliver his speech, engaging him in a heated debate instead.

'The Rullan land reform would have changed everything for the better!' insisted the orator.

'Nonsense!' shouted the citizen. 'It was one of the most poorly thought-out pieces of legislation ever proposed, and Cicero was right to speak out against it'

'Cicero is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Optimates.'

'And why not? It's up to the Best People to speak out against these mad schemes put forward by Caesar simply to curry favour with the mob — and to get his hands on Egypt, into the deal.'

'It was Rullus who proposed the law, not Caesar.'

'Rullus opens his mouth and Caesar's words come out'

'Very well, then, we agree that the argument was not Rullus against Cicero, but Caesar against the Optimates,' said the orator.

'Exactly!'

'And you must also agree that if the Rullan bill had become law, there could have been redistribution of land to the people who need it without recourse to violence or unfair confiscation.'

'Absurd! It would never have worked. Who in Rome wants to head out for the countryside and become a farmer, anyway, when here in the city there's the circus and the festivals and the free grain dole?'

'It's attitudes like that that are ruining the Republic'

'It's Romans who are ruining the Republic, because they've grown soft and lazy. That's why we need the Optimates to keep their hands on the tiller.'

'Their hands in the till, you mean. Better to have the hands of the common man on a plough.'

'Ridiculous — look at the mess up in Etruria with Sulla's veterans. Not one in ten of them turned out to be a decent farmer. Now they're all bankrupt and looking to that demagogue Catilina to bail them out, with fire and sword if he has to.'

'So you don't want land reform, you don't like Catilina—'

'I despise him! He and his circle of pampered, well-born, irresponsible dilettantes. They've had their chance to lead decent lives and they've wasted themselves instead — going hopelessly into debt to more responsible and upright citizens. This whole radical scheme of his to forgive debts is no favour to the masses — it's a way to get himself and his friends off the hook, and to plunder the property of those who deserve to keep what they and their ancestors have accumulated. If schemers like Catilina end up powerless and impoverished, it's no more than they deserve. And if the voters of Rome have no more sense than to go along with their crazy ideas—'

'All right, all right, far be it from me to stand up for Catilina. But you seem to have just as low an opinion of Caesar—'

'Who is just as much in debt! No wonder they both suck up to the famous millionaire. Catilina and Caesar are like twin babies hanging off Crassus's teats. Ha! Like Romulus and Remus suckling the she-wolf!' The speaker made obscene popping noises with his lips.

This last elicited equal parts of laughter and hissing from the crowd, who were either amused or offended by such blasphemy.

'Very well, citizen, you insult Catilina, you insult Caesar and Crassus — I suppose you cling to Pompey.'

'I have no use for Pompey either. They're all wild horses trying to break from the chariot. They're in a race with each other, and they care nothing at all for the common good.'

'And Cicero does?' sneered the orator.

'Yes, Cicero does. Catilina, Caesar, Crassus, Pompey — every one of them would make himself dictator if he could, and cut off the heads of the rest. You can't say that about a man like Cicero. He's spoken against tyranny since the dictatorship of Sulla, when it took a brave man to do so. A mouthpiece, you call him — very well, that's what a consul should be, speaking out for those in the Senate whose families made the Republic what it is and have been running it ever since the kings were thrown down. We don't need rule by the mob, or rule by dictators, but the steady, slow, sure rule of those who know best.'

This last set off a round of jeering from some newcomers who had just arrived in the crowd, and the debate degenerated into a shouting match. Fortunately, the agitation in the crowd provided an opening, and we were able to press on. A moment later Meto drew beside me with an earnest look on his face.

'Papa, I couldn't follow their argument at all!'

'I could, but only barely. Land reform! The populists all promise it, but they can't make it come true. The Optimates turn it into a dirty word.'

'What was the Rullan bill they were talking about?'

'Something that was proposed earlier this year. I remember our neighbour Claudia railing against it. I really don't know the details,' I admitted.

Rufus turned towards us. 'One of Caesar's ideas, in conjunction with Crassus, and typically brilliant. The problem: how to find land for those who need it here in Italy. The solution: sell public lands we've conquered in distant countries and set aside those proceeds to buy land in Italy on which to settle the poor in agricultural colonies. Not a wholesale confiscation and redistribution of land from rich to poor, as Catilina proposes, but the expenditure of public funds to effect a fair reapportionment.'

'Why did the man bring up Egypt?' said Meto.

"The foreign lands to be sold include those in Egypt, which the late

Alexander II bequeathed to Rome. The Rullan law proposed setting up a special commission of ten men who would oversee the project, including its administration in Egypt—'

'And Caesar would have been one of the commissioners,' said Mummius dryly, joining the discussion. 'He'd have picked Egypt like a fig from a tree.'

'If you like,' Rufus conceded. 'Crassus would have been on the commission as well, since his support was vital With Egypt under their sway, they'd have had a bastion against Pompey's power in the East, you see. You'd have thought the Optimates would like that, since they fear Pompey, too. But as long as Pompey is away from Rome and campaigning in the East, the Optimates fear Caesar and Crassus more.'