Cicero - Anthony Everitt [88]
Lentulus decided to proceed by stages. In May 57 the Senate endorsed his proposal that the various Roman officials and citizens who had helped Cicero during his banishment be formally thanked. It also agreed to convene a meeting of the Military Assembly later in the summer to consider his recall. This was a little odd because for many years this Assembly’s main function had been the election of senior magistrates; its use on this occasion was probably due to the fact that its voting system was more manageable than that of the General Assembly. The meeting was extensively publicized throughout Italy, and citizens were encouraged to come to Rome and vote. The political establishment was taking no chances with the Roman mob, which was still largely under Clodius’s thumb.
Then, in July, an unusually well-attended meeting of the Senate called on the Consuls and magistrates to prepare legislation for Cicero’s recall. No Tribune vetoed the proposal and Clodius was the only one to speak against it. Except for Clodius’s brother Appius and two Tribunes (“bought at auction,” as the word went), the entire magistracy came together behind a motion to repeal the law that had banished Cicero. No reference was made to the general measure condemning the execution of Roman citizens without trial, which had in fact precipitated Cicero’s hurried departure from Rome. The assumption now was that it simply did not apply to him.
The campaign accelerated. Thanks largely to lobbying by Pompey, all kinds of institutions—town councils, associations of tax farmers, craft guilds—passed resolutions in favor of recall. Pompey instructed his veterans to attend the Military Assembly, which was held in Rome on the Field of Mars in August. The most important men in the State, led by Pompey, addressed the meeting, which was guarded by Milo’s gangs and teams of gladiators. Senior Senators superintended the voting. The bill was passed triumphantly.
Apart from his appearance at the Senate, there is no record of where Clodius spent his time during these weeks. His career shows that he was no coward and he is likely to have made his presence felt in some way, if not directly on the Field of Mars. He had suffered a serious setback, but he soon demonstrated that he was by no means routed.
In Greece Cicero’s moods had been seesawing between pessimism and elation. Some months earlier he had written to Atticus: “From your letter and from the facts themselves I see that I am utterly finished.” Now he had every justification for euphoria. AS the news improved, he decided it was safe to leave boring Thessalonica and stay somewhere closer to Italy. He moved to Dyrrachium, a port on the Adriatic Sea, which was only a few days’ sail to Brundisium; he was “patron” of the town and had “warm friends” among the townsfolk. Confident enough to anticipate the outcome of events in Rome, he set sail before the vote was taken and arrived on Italian soil on the Nones of August. It was an auspicious day, for it happened to be the anniversary of Brundisium’s foundation. The town was en fête and Cicero’s arrival added an excitingly topical dimension to the civic celebrations. Even more joyfully, it was Tullia’s birthday and she was there to greet him. In her early twenties and as always the apple of his eye, she was now a widow. Her first husband, Calpurnius Piso, had recently died—from what cause is unknown. Although it had been an arranged marriage, the union had been a happy one.
Cicero’s journey up Italy and his reception in Rome were as close to a Triumph as a nonmilitary man could aspire to. There were massive demonstrations in his favor and he said later that Italy had taken him on its shoulders and carried him back to Rome. He described it all in a long, excited letter to Atticus. Official delegations came out to meet him from every township and gave him “the most flattering marks