'My apologies,' he said quietly, with a slight bow of his head. 'I meant no offence.'

'None was taken.'

'Good.' After a suitable interval the frown vanished. The look of mischief returned. 'Then you won't mind if I pose the same question again — purely as a hypothetical matter, of course. Suppose then, only suppose, that you had a father you wished to be rid of How would you go about it?'

I shrugged. 'How old is the old man?'

'Sixty, perhaps sixty-five.'

'And how old am I — hypothetically speaking?'

'Perhaps forty.'

'Time,' I said. 'Whatever the complaint, time will take care of it, as surely as any other remedy.'

Cicero nodded. 'Simply wait, you mean. Sit back. Relax. Allow nature to take its course. Yes, that would be the easiest way. And perhaps, though not necessarily, the safest. Certainly, it's what most people would do, confronted with another person whose existence they can hardly bear — especially if that person is older or weaker, especially if he happens to be a member of the family. Most especially if he happens to be one's father. Bear the discomfort and be patient. Let it be resolved by time. After all, no one lives forever, and the young usually outlive their elders.'

Cicero paused. The yellow gauze gently rose and fell as if the whole house exhaled. The room was flooded with heat. 'But time can be something of a luxury. Certainly, if one waits long enough, an old man of sixty-five will eventually expire on his own — though he may be an old man of eighty-five before that happens.'

He rose from his chair and began to pace. Cicero was not a man to orate while sitting still. I would later come to see his whole body as a sort of engine — the legs deliberately pacing, the arms in motion, the hands shaping ponderous gestures, the head tilting, the eyebrows oscillating up and down. None of these movements was an end in itself. Instead they were all connected together somehow, and all subservient to his voice, that strange, irritating, completely fascinating voice — as if his voice were an instrument and his body the machine that produced it; as if his limbs and digits were the gears and levers necessary to manufacture the voice that issued from his mouth. The body moved. The voice emerged.

'Consider,' he said — a tilt of the head, a subtle flourish of the hand — 'an old man of sixty-five, a widower living alone in Rome. Not at all the reclusive type. He's quite fond of going to dinners and parties. He loves the arena and the theatre. He frequents the baths. He even patronizes -1 swear it, at sixty-five! — the neighbourhood brothel. Pleasure is his life. As for work, he's retired. Oh, there's money to spare. Valuable estates in the countryside, vineyards and farms — but he doesn't bother with that any more. He's long left the work of running things to someone younger.'

'To me,' I said.

Cicero smiled slightly. Like all orators; he hated any interruption, but the question proved that I was at least listening. 'Yes,' he said, 'hypothetically speaking. To you. To his hypothetical son. As for the old man, his own life is now devoted solely to pleasure. In its pursuit he walks the streets of the city at all hours of the day and night, attended only by his slaves.'

'He has no bodyguard?' I said.

'None to speak of. Two slaves accompany him. More for convenience than protection.' 'Armed?' 'Probably not.'

'My hypothetical father is asking for trouble.'

Cicero nodded. 'Indeed. The streets of Rome are hardly the place for any decent citizen to go gadding about in the middle of the night. Especially an older man. Especially if he has the look of money about him, and no armed guard. Foolhardy! Taking his life into his hands, day by day — such an old fool. Sooner or later he'll come to no good end, or so you think. And yet, year after year he keeps up this outrageous behaviour, and it comes to nothing. You begin to think that some invisible demon or spirit must be looking after him, for he never comes to harm. Never once is he robbed. Not once is he even threatened. The worst that occurs is that he may be accosted by a beggar or a drunkard or some vagrant whore late at night, and these he can easily handle with a coin or a word to his slaves. No, time seems not to be cooperating. Left to his own devices, the old man may very well live forever.'

'And would that be so bad? I think I'm beginning to like him.'

Cicero raised an eyebrow. 'On the contrary, you hate him. Never mind why. Simply assume for the moment that, for whatever reason, you want him dead. Desperately.'

'Time would still be easiest. Sixty-five, you said — how is his health?’

'Excellent. Probably better than yours. And why not? Everyone is always saying how overworked you are, running the estates, raising your family, working yourself into an early grave — while the old man hasn't a care in the world. All he does is enjoy himself. In the morning he rests. In the afternoon he plans his evening. In the evening he stuffs himself with expensive food, drinks to excess, carouses with men half his age. The next morning he recovers at the baths and begins all over again. How is his health? I told you, he still patronizes the local whorehouse.'

'Food and drink have been known to kill, a man,' I ventured. 'And they say that many a whore has stopped an old man's heart.'

Cicero shook his head. 'Not good enough, too unreliable. You hate him, don't you understand? Perhaps you fear him. You grow impatient for his death.'

'Politics?' I offered.

Cicero ceased his pacing for a moment, smiled, and then resumed. 'Politics,' he said. 'Yes, in these days, in Rome — politics could certainly kill a man more quickly and surely than high living or a whore's embrace or even a midnight stroll through the Subura.' He spread his hands wide open in an orator’s despair. 'Unfortunately, the old man is one of those remarkable creatures who manages to go through life without ever having any politics at all.'

'In Rome?' I said. 'A citizen and a landowner? Impossible.'

'Then say that he's one of those men like a rabbit — charming, vacuous, harmless. Never attracting attention to himself, never giving offence. Not worth the bother of hunting, so long as there's larger game afoot. Surrounded on every side by politics, like a thicket of nettles, yet able to slip through the maze without a scratch.'

'He sounds clever. I like this old man more and more.'

Cicero frowned. 'Cleverness has nothing to do with it. The old man has no strategy except to slip through life with the least possible inconvenience. He's lucky, that's all. Nothing reaches him. The Italian allies rise in revolt against Rome? He comes from Ameria, a village that waits until the last moment to join the revolt, then reaps the first fruits of the reconciliation; that's how he became a citizen. Civil war between Marius and Sulla, then between Sulla and Cinna? The old man wavers in his loyalty — a realist and an opportunist like most Romans these days — and emerges like the delicate maiden who traverses a raging stream by hopping from stone to stone without even getting her sandals wet. Those who have no opinions are the only people safe today. A rabbit, I tell you. If you leave it to politics to put him in danger, he'll live to be a hundred.'

'Surely he can't be as vapid as you describe. Every man takes risks these days just by being alive. You say he's a landowner, with interests in Rome. He must be a client to some influential family. Who are his patrons?'

Cicero laughed. 'Even there he chooses the blandest, safest possible family to ally himself with — the Metelli. Sulla's in-laws — or at least they were until Sulla divorced his fourth wife. And not just any of the Metelli, but the oldest, the most inert, and endlessly respectable of its many branches. Somehow or other he ingratiated himself to Caecilia Metella. Have you ever met her?'