'Cicero,' said Rufus in return, without emotion.

'And Marcus Mummius, back from serving Pompey in the East.

And Gordianus,' said Cicero, finally seeing me. His voice went

flat for a moment, then took on a politician's affable familiarity. 'Ah, yes, you've come to take the auspices for young Meto's coming of age. We're all getting older, aren't we, Gordianus?'

Some more than others, I thought, though the years had actually done much to soften Cicero's unlovely features. The thin, sharp nose was now rather fleshy; the slender neck with its prominent knob was now padded with rings of fat; the pointed chin had become lost in jowls. The man whose delicate constitution would hardly allow him to eat in the heat of the day had nevertheless managed to grow portly. Cicero had never been handsome, but he had managed to acquire a look of prosperity and self-assurance. His voice, once grating and unpleasant, had been trained and transformed over the years into a melodious instrument. 'How I regret that I was unable to attend your party,' he said. 'The demands of being consul are unending — you understand, I'm sure. But I did send Marcus Caelius to offer my apologies. He did deliver his message, did he not?' The look in his eyes gave a deeper meaning to the question.

'Caelius came,' I said. 'But his message was misdirected. He left dissatisfied.'

'Oh?' Cicero sounded unconcerned, but his eyes flashed. 'Well, my fellow consul and I must hurry on — we have pressing business in the Senate. Good luck in your campaign, Rufus! Good fortune to you, Meto!'

As they passed, I said in a low voice to Rufus, 'Well, augur, what did you make of that flicker of lightning — the one in Cicero's eyes?' 'Is there trouble between you?'

"There's likely to be. But what is this business of his wearing a breastplate? And going about with such a formidable bodyguard?'

'He looks absurd!' bellowed Mummius. 'like a mockery of a military man. Does he dare to mock Pompey?'

'Hardly,' said Rufus. 'He began to wear it the day he postponed the elections, saying that Catilina was plotting to murder him in the confusion of voting day — "To save his own life, the consul of the Roman Republic must resort to wearing armour and surrounding himself with armed men," et cetera. It's a tactic to get the crowd's attention and alarm the voters; it's political theatre, spectacle, nothing more. After what Cicero and his brother did to Catilina's good name in the consular campaign last year, no one would be surprised if Catilina wanted to murder him. Who knows, perhaps there is a plot to assassinate Cicero; but for Cicero it's just more grist for the mill of his shrill rhetoric'

'Politics!' Mummius barked. 'I had enough of it the year I served as praetor. Give me orders to follow and men to order, and I'm happy.'

'Well,' I said, huffing and puffing from the exertion of the steep ascent, 'for the moment, at least, let us put all such unworthy matters behind us.' Quite literally behind us, and beneath us as well, I thought, turning my head to glance down at the teeming Forum far below. ‘We have arrived at the summit. There is nothing but blue sky between us and the eyes of Jupiter. Here in this place, my son becomes a man.'

XX

On battlefields and in the countryside, where there is no permanent place for performing auguries, a sacred tent must be pitched before the augur may begin his work. High up on the Arx in Rome, above a steep semicircular cliff with an expansive view of the whole northern horizon, there is a paved place open to the sky called the Auguraculum, especially consecrated for the taking of the auspices. The only structure is a permanently pitched tent maintained by the college of augurs. Like the special robes they wear, it has a purple border and is shot with stripes of saffron. It is a small tent, so small that one would have to stoop to step inside, though so far as I know no one ever goes inside.

Why a tent? I do not know, especially since the taking of the auspices by definition must be performed outdoors with a view of the sky. Perhaps it is the ancient linkage of the augurs with military campaigns, where their approval of the omens must still be sought before a general can engage his troops in battle. Perhaps it is because the augurs study not only the flights of birds and peregrinations of quadrupeds, but also the occurrence of lightning bolts, the study of which dates back to the Etruscans and beyond; where there is lightning, after all, there is likely to be rain, and thus the need for a tent.

However it may be, we found ourselves gathered on the Arx before the sacred tent. Rufus took up his ivory wand and with it marked out a section of the heavens from which he would take the auspices, like an invisible window frame set into the sky. Through it I could see most of the Field of Mars, a wide bend of the Tiber, and a great swathe of land beyond.

The augurs divide birds into two classes, those whose cry signifies

the divine win, including the raven, the crow, the owl, and the woodpecker, and those whose flight may be read for the same significations, including the vulture, the hawk, and the eagle, Jupiter's favourite bird. On military expeditions, where an omen may be needed on short notice and wild fowl may be scarce, chickens are taken along in special cages. To determine the will of the gods, the doors of the coop are thrown open and a handful of grain is thrown on the ground. A strong show of appetite on the part of the hens is deemed a good sign, especially if they drop little bits of food from their beaks onto the ground. A reluctance to leave the cage or a show of finickiness is a bad sign. As for the reading of lightning, it has always been my understanding that lightning on the left is good, but on the right is bad. Or is it the other way around?

There are those, like Cicero, who believe that augury is utter nonsense, and will say so in private letters and conversations. There are those politicians like Caesar who see augury as a useful tool, and have no more or less contempt for it than they do for any other device of power, such as elections, taxation, or courts of law. And there are those like Rufus who sincerely believe in the manifestation of divine will in various phenomena and in their own ability to perceive and interpret those manifestations.

For myself, standing in the hot sun and wishing I had thought to bring my broad-brimmed hat, I began to wish that the ceremonial tent behind us contained a chicken coop so that we could get on with the divination. All the birds of Rome appeared to be napping, and there was not a thundercloud in sight.

An augury takes as long as an augury takes. The divine will is not at the beck and call of even the youngest and most charming of the augurs. The gods have other things to do than to make a raven cackle or send a vulture soaring on the hot wind. Patience is the first duty of the pious.

Even so, I found my thoughts wandering. My eyes strayed from the designated section of the heavens to the eastern escarpment of the Arx, over which, if I stood on my toes, I could glimpse the Forum below. It was still full of people, but a stillness and a hush had fallen on the crowd. "Within the Senate House the senators were debating, and the men of Rome awaited word of their leaders' decision. Cicero was probably speaking even now. Caesar and Crassus might join in the argument, if it suited their ends to do so, as might Cato, with his heavy moralizing, and the troublemaker Clodius, and the year's forgotten consul, the nonentity Antonius. Catilina would be there as well, to defend himself, to strike back at Cicero, to demand that the election proceed. Was it really possible that he could be elected consul? And if so, could he force the Senate to implement his radical programmes? Would Caesar and Crassus support him — to a point? Would the state come to a standstill? Be torn apart? Descend again into bloody civil war? And who then would pick up the pieces — Crassus, Caesar, Pompey.. Catilina?