“She is,” said Cato bitterly. “And that is the trouble. Scipio Nasica, her former suitor, who has just come back from Spain after fighting in the army of Pompey-the-so-called-Great, has found out how rich she has become now that her father and brother are gone, and he has reclaimed her as his own.”

“But surely it is for the young lady herself to decide?”

“She has,” said Cato. “She has decided on him.”

“Ah,” replied Cicero, sitting back in his chair, “in that case, you may be in some difficulties. Presumably, if she was orphaned at fifteen, she must have had a guardian appointed. You could always talk to him. He is probably in a position to forbid the marriage. Who is he?”

“That would be me.”

“You? You are the guardian of the woman you want to marry?”

“I am. I’m her closest male relative.”

Cicero rested his chin in his hand and scrutinized his prospective new client-the ragged hair, the filthy bare feet, the tunic unchanged for weeks. “So what do you wish me to do?”

“I want you to bring legal proceedings against Scipio, and against Lepida if necessary, and put a stop to this whole thing.”

“These proceedings-would they be brought by you in your role as rejected suitor, or as the girl’s guardian?”

“Either.” Cato shrugged. “Both.”

Cicero scratched his ear. “My experience of young women,” he said carefully, “is as limited as my faith in the rule of law is boundless. But even I, Cato, even I have to say that I doubt whether the best way to a girl’s heart is through litigation.”

“A girl’s heart?” repeated Cato. “What has a girl’s heart got to do with anything? This is a matter of principle.”

And money, one would have added, if he had been any other man. But Cato had that most luxurious prerogative of the very rich: little interest in money. He had inherited plenty and gave it away without even noticing. No: it was principle that always motivated Cato-the relentless desire never to compromise on principle.

“We would have to go to the embezzlement court,” said Cicero, “and lay charges of breach of promise. We would have to prove the existence of a prior contract between you and the Lady Lepida, and that she was therefore a cheat and a liar. We would have to prove that Scipio was a double-dealing, money-grubbing knave. I would have to put them both on the witness stand and tear them to pieces.”

“Do it,” said Cato, with a gleam in his eye.

“And at the end of all that, we would probably still lose, for juries love nothing more than star-crossed lovers, save perhaps for orphans-and she is both-and you would have been made the laughingstock of Rome.”

“What do I care what people think of me?” said Cato scornfully.

“And even if we win-well, imagine it. You might end up having to drag Lepida kicking and screaming from the court through the streets of Rome, back to her new marital home. It would be the scandal of the year.”

“So this is what we have descended to, is it?” demanded Cato bitterly. “The honest man is to step aside so that the rascal triumphs? And this is Roman justice?” He leapt to his feet. “I need a lawyer with steel in his bones, and if I cannot find anyone to help me, then I swear I shall lay the prosecution myself.”

“Sit down, Cato,” said Cicero gently, and when Cato did not move, he repeated it: “Sit, Cato, and I shall tell you something about the law.” Cato hesitated, frowned, and sat, but only on the edge of his chair, so that he could leap up again at the first hint that he should moderate his convictions. “A word of advice, if I may, from a man ten years your senior. You must not take everything head-on. Very often the best and most important cases never even come to court. This looks to me like one of them. Let me see what I can do.”

“And if you fail?”

“Then you can proceed however you like.”

After he had gone, Cicero said to me: “That young man seeks opportunities to test his principles as readily as a drunk picks fights in a bar.” Nevertheless, Cato had agreed to let Cicero approach Scipio on his behalf, and I could tell that Cicero relished the opportunity this would give him to scrutinize the aristocracy at first hand. There was literally no man in Rome with grander lineage than Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Cornelius Scipio Nasica-Nasica meaning “pointed nose,” which he carried very firmly in the air-for he was not only the natural son of a Scipio but the adopted son of Metellus Pius, pontifex maximus, and the titular head of the Metelli clan. Father and adopted son were currently on Pius’s immense country estate at Tibur. They were expected to enter the city on the twenty-ninth day of December, riding behind Pompey in his triumph. Cicero decided to arrange a meeting for the thirtieth.

The twenty-ninth duly arrived, and what a day it was! Rome had not seen such a spectacle since the days of Sulla. As I waited by the Triumphal Gate it seemed that everyone had turned out to line the route. First to pass through the gate from the Field of Mars was the entire body of the Senate, including Cicero, walking on foot, led by the consuls and the other magistrates. Then the trumpeters, sounding the fanfares. Then the carriages and litters laden with the spoils of the Spanish war-gold and silver, coin and bullion, weapons, statues, pictures, vases, furniture, precious stones, and tapestries-and wooden models of the cities Pompey had conquered and sacked, and placards with their names, and the names of all the famous men he had killed in battle. Then the massive, plodding white bulls, destined for sacrifice, with gilded horns hung with ribbons and floral garlands, driven by the slaughtering priests. Then trudging elephants-the heraldic symbol of the Metelli-and lumbering oxcarts bearing cages containing the wild beasts of the Spanish mountains, roaring and tearing at their bars in rage. Then the arms and insignia of the beaten rebels, and then the prisoners themselves, the defeated followers of Sertorius and Perperna, shuffling in chains. Then the crowns and tributes of the allies, borne by the ambassadors of a score of nations. Then the twelve lictors of the imperator, their rods and axes wreathed in laurel. And now at last, to a tumult of applause from the vast crowd, the four white horses of the imperator’s chariot came trotting through the gate, and there was Pompey himself, in the barrel-shaped, gem-encrusted chariot of the triumphator. He wore a gold-embroidered robe with a flowered tunic. In his right hand he held a laurel bough and in his left a scepter. There was a wreath of Delphic laurel on his head, and his handsome face and muscled body had been painted with red lead, for on this day he truly was the embodiment of Jupiter. Standing beside him was his eight-year-old son, the golden-curled Gnaeus, and behind him a public slave to whisper in his ear that he was only human and all this would pass. Behind the chariot, riding on a black warhorse, came old Metellus Pius, his leg tightly bandaged, evidence of a wound incurred in battle. Next to him was Scipio, his adopted son-a handsome young fellow of twenty-four: no wonder, I thought, that Lepida preferred him to Cato-and then the legionary commanders, including Aulus Gabinius, followed by all the knights and cavalry, armor glinting in the pale December sun. And finally the legions of Pompey’s infantry, in full marching order, thousands upon thousands of sunburnt veterans, the crash of their tramping boots seeming to shake the very earth, roaring at the top of their voices “Io Triumphe! ” and chanting hymns to the gods and singing filthy songs about their commander in chief, as they were traditionally permitted to do in this, the hour of his glory.

It took half the morning for them all to pass, the procession winding through the streets toward the Forum, where, according to tradition, as Pompey ascended the steps of the Capitol to sacrifice before the Temple of Jupiter, his most eminent prisoners were lowered into the depths of the Carcer and garroted-for what could be more fitting than that the day which ended the military authority of the conqueror should also end the lives of the conquered? I could hear the distant cheering inside the city but spared myself that sight, and hung around the Triumphal Gate with the dwindling crowd to see the entry of Crassus for his ovation. He made the best of it, marching with his sons beside him, but despite the efforts of his agents to whip up some enthusiasm, it was a poor show after Pompey’s dazzling pageant. I am sure he must have resented it mightily, picking his way between the horse shit and elephant dung left behind by his consular colleague. He did not even have many prisoners to parade, the poor fellow, having slaughtered almost all of them along the Appian Way.

The following day, Cicero set out for the house of Scipio, with myself in attendance, carrying a document case-a favorite trick of his to try to intimidate the opposition. We had no evidence; I had simply filled it with old receipts. Scipio’s residence was on the Via Sacra, fronted by shops, although naturally these were not your average shops, but exclusive jewelers, who kept their wares behind metal grilles. Our arrival was expected, Cicero having sent notice of his intention to visit, and we were shown immediately by a liveried footman into Scipio’s atrium. This has been described as “one of the wonders of Rome,” and indeed it was, even at that time. Scipio could trace his line back for at least eleven generations, nine of which had produced consuls. The walls around us were lined with the wax masks of the Scipiones, some of them centuries old, yellowed with smoke and grime (later, Scipio’s adoption by Pius was to bring a further six consular masks crowding into the atrium); and they exuded that thin, dry compound of dust and incense which to me is the smell of antiquity. Cicero went around studying the labels. The oldest mask was three hundred and twenty-five years old. But naturally, it was that of Scipio Africanus, conqueror of Hannibal, that fascinated him the most. It was a noble, sensitive face-smooth, unlined, ethereal, more like the representation of a soul than of flesh and blood. “Prosecuted, of course, by the great-grandfather of our present client,” sighed Cicero after studying it. “Contrariness runs thick in the blood of the Catos.”

The footman returned, and we followed him through into the tablinum. There, young Scipio lounged on a couch surrounded by a jumble of precious objects-statues, busts, antiques, rolls of carpet, and the like. It looked like the burial chamber of some Eastern potentate. He did not stand when Cicero entered (an insult to a senator), nor did he invite him to sit, but merely asked him in a drawling voice to state his business. This Cicero proceeded to do, firmly but courteously, informing him that Cato’s case was legally watertight, given that Cato was both formally betrothed to the young lady, and also her guardian. He gestured to the document case, which I held before me like a serving boy with a tray, and ran through the precedents, concluding by saying that Cato was resolved to bring an action in the embezzlement court, and would also seek a motion obsignandi gratia, preventing the young lady from having further contact with person or persons material to the case. There was only one sure way of avoiding this humiliation, and that was for Scipio to give up his suit immediately.