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victories over King Mithradates. Once their reports had been read, supporters of each man rose in turn to praise his patron’s achievements and subtly denigrate those of his rivals. I knew the politics of this from Cicero and passed them on to Sthenius in a superior whisper: “Crassus hates Pompey and is determined to defeat Spartacus before Pompey can return with his legions from Spain to take all the credit. Pompey hates Crassus and wants the glory of finishing off Spartacus so that he can rob him of a triumph. Crassus and Pompey both hate Lucullus because he has the most glamorous command.”
    “And whom does Lucullus hate?”
    “Pompey and Crassus, of course, for intriguing against him.”
    I felt as pleased as a child who has just successfully recited his lesson, for it was all just a game then, and I had no idea that we would ever get drawn in. The debate came to a desultory halt, without the need for a vote, and the senators began talking among themselves. Gellius, who must have been well into his sixties, held the order paper up close to his face and squinted at it, then peered around the chamber, trying to locate Cicero, who, as a junior senator, was confined to a distant back bench, near to the door. Eventually, Cicero stood to show himself, Gellius sat, the buzz of voices died away, and I picked up my stylus. There was a silence, which Cicero allowed to grow, an old trick to increase tension. And then, when he had waited so long it seemed that something must be wrong, he began to speak—very quietly and hesitantly at first, forcing his listeners to strain their ears, the rhythm of his words hooking them without their even knowing it.
    “Honorable members, compared to the stirring accounts of our men in arms to which we have lately listened, I fear what I say will sound small indeed.” And now his voice rose: “But if the moment has come when this noble House no longer has ears for the pleas of an innocent man, then all those courageous deeds are worthless, and our soldiers bleed in vain.” There was a murmur of agreement from the benches beside him. “This morning there came into my home just such an innocent man, whose treatment by one of our number has been so shameful, so monstrous, and so cruel that the gods themselves must weep to hear of it. I refer to the honorable Sthenius of Thermae, recently resident in the miserable, misgoverned, misappropriated province of Sicily.”
    At the word “Sicily,” Hortensius, who had been sprawling on the front bench nearest the consul, twitched slightly. Without taking his eyes from Cicero he whispered to Quintus, the eldest of the Metellus brothers, who promptly leaned behind him and beckoned to Marcus, the junior of the fraternal trio. After receiving his instructions, Marcus bowed to the presiding consul and hurried down the aisle toward me. For a moment I thought I was about to be struck—they were tough, swaggering fellows, those Metelli—but he did not even look at me. He lifted the rope, ducked under it, pushed through the crowd, and disappeared.
    Cicero, meanwhile, was hitting his stride. After our return from Molon, with the precept Delivery, delivery, delivery carved into his mind, he had spent many hours at the theater, studying the methods of the actors, and had developed a considerable talent for mime and mimicry. Using only the smallest touch of voice or gesture, he could, as it were, populate his speeches with the characters to whom he referred. He treated the Senate that afternoon to a command performance: the swaggering arrogance of Verres was contrasted with the quiet dignity of Sthenius; the long-suffering Sicilians shrank before the vileness of the public executioner, Sextius. Sthenius himself could hardly believe what he was witnessing. He had been in the city but a day, and here he was, the subject of a debate in the Roman Senate itself. Hortensius, meanwhile, kept glancing toward the door, and as Cicero began to work toward his