by Ken Parejko
He spied me coming up the street and stepped into the parade alongside me, matching his stride to mine. We walked this way a while, legs in perfect unison, Vespasian waving and acknowledging the crowd. “Well Gaius my old buddy, how are things?” he said at last. Then as much to the crowd as to me, “Haven't sunk the fleet yet have you?”
I smiled. Today, the first of July, I thought, it’s his tenth anniversary. Jupiter, I said to myself, you've some sense of humor.
Vespasian patted me on the shoulder and stepped aside to watch the parade pass by. When a moment later the aedile who’d organized the ceremony came past he shouted out so everyone could hear.
“Great job!” he said, and turned to the crowd. “Did it up right, eh?” Thousands cheered. “Didn’t spare the purse-strings, did you?” The aedile nodded at the compliment. “Any idea,” Vespasian went on, “what the whole thing cost? I mean, dancers, flowers, bands, bringing in the troops, the whole kit and caboodle?”
“Oh,” the aedile answered proudly, “something near a hundred thousand.”
Vespasian stopped dead still, his body shivering in anger. He raised himself up, shook his fist. “A hundred thousand? Did you hear that?” he shouted to the crowd, which responded with boos and cat-calls.
“A hundred thousand?” It was Vespasian, all right. “Why, I could live off that for ten years! Well, I mean, if I was alive...” The crowd laughed. “Tell you what,” he said, falling in beside the aedile, his arm affectionately on his shoulder, aware that all eyes and ears were on him. “For a thousand I'd let you just pitch me in the Tiber.”
Again the crowd applauded, at this a line for the ages.
Despite myself I was enjoying the ceremony. “Who is he?” I whispered to Marcus Arruntius Aquila, ex-consul, walking beside me.
“Favor. He’s the best,” Arruntius answered, wiping his forehead. “Boy, talk about hot! They say Vespasian chose him himself.” Everything, the gestures, the rough Sabine accent, the erect posture, through the heavy imperial robes the body language of studied irony, it was all perfect; except for the mask, of course, the waxen face-mask made two years ago and set aside for just this occasion. It wasn’t that the mask was not a good likeness. But no one employed the muscles of his face better than Vespasian. You could read -- or misread, if he so meant it -- his every mood in the way his eyes wrinkled, his smile curled ironically or straightforwardly, his cheeks pouted or perked. You couldn’t do that with a mask.
Four weeks had gone by since official couriers thundered up and down the Via Herculano as Vespasian and I struggled to find a time to meet. In the capitol it had been unbearably hot, so he was vacationing in Baia, just a few miles from me. Almost a year had gone by since we'd seen one another, at Puteoli. I looked forward to telling him about the improvements at the harbor, and the latest design we'd come up with for a faster, lighter warship. I'd tell him about the silphium growing in my garden planted from Castor’s last seeds. I'd listen eagerly to that old familiar Sabine voice, rural-rough but wise, about the mare’s-nest of politics in the capitol or an anecdote rich with the foibles of a senator or consul, and surely a few ribald jokes he’d recently heard. No one could tell them like Vespasian.
Finally we’d found a time we could meet. But then Fate played its trump-card. I was getting ready to leave, had already put together a few things to take along, when one of my engineers burst into the room.
Water for the city of Misenum and the fleet was brought by aqueduct down from springs originating in the hills to the northeast. At the terminus of the aqueduct was a huge reservoir, the Piscina Mirabilis, carved into the side of the hill and covered with a stone roof supported by forty-eight gigantic pillars. The entire system was a miracle of engineering. Because nothing was more critical to the fleet than a steady supply of fresh potable water we kept a team of meticulous engineers busy keeping constant watch on the reservoir’s status. Every morning I received a report on how full it was, whether the aqueducts which fed it were leaking, and the condition of the reservoir itself.
The man who burst into my room was following orders. I was to be immediately informed of any sign of a change in the condition of the Piscina, no matter how small. Marks scribed at the juncture of important structural elements would show even the slightest movement of the stones. Recently there had been some anxiety about the Piscina. This had been a summer of more than usual earth tremors and the night before was no exception. Last night’s tremors, the engineer reported, had slightly shifted one of the huge arches supporting the reservoir’s heavy stone roof. Though there seemed no immediate danger he suggested I have a look for myself. I sighed and complained I was about to leave for an audience with the emperor. The engineer insisted we go up and have a look. I turned from him. Out the window of my room I could see the busy harbor and the fleet, all under my care. What would Vespasian have me do? Reluctantly I had to admit he would have me perform my duties. So I summoned yet another courier who headed off towards Baia with a short note to the emperor, full of apologies and a brief explanation of why I couldn't come. Then I made my way from the admiralty to the base of the reservoir where I climbed the long path and then the stairs to the top of the Piscina. From the depths of the reservoir came the sound of the aqueduct splashing into the huge cavity below. I knelt beside a manhole and peered to where an arch met the roof-stones. The man was right. The scribe-marks no longer exactly lined up.
“Have you checked the other marks?” I asked the engineer.
“They’re fine, so far as we can tell.”
“Keep an eye on them,” I told him, raising myself on creaky knees, “and report to me twice a day.”
It was not good, this shift in the arches. For a hundred years there had been no change, and now... I knew the forces at play well enough to realize that if more than one arch shifted by any significant amount the entire structure -- and of course with it the fleet itself -- was threatened. That was something I didn’t want to think about. In fact, my mind was already elsewhere, brooding over the missed appointment with Vespasian.
The Praetorians brought him back from Aquae Cutilae, solemnly and efficiently. Crowds lined the road along the way, mile by slow mile, more and more hundreds joining the procession. By the time he’d made his last entry into the great city he'd ruled for ten years, shy but a week, they were thousands strong, a full army of veterans and recruits bolstered by an army of citizens paying their respects to the great general.
The doors closed and the family home he’d built on the Quirinal swallowed him up. Titus and Domitian prepared the body, dressed him in his Imperial purple. He lay in the home’s atrium on a simple bier, feet towards the doorway, flowers, fruits and seashells arranged around him, symbols of the journey he had begun. The undertakers brought with them four lictors dressed in black and carrying brooms who came to sweep ghosts from the house. But Titus sent them away. A silly superstition, he said. Father would've been disgusted. But he allowed the flute and cymbal- players to fill the air with quiet dirges.
The family moved around him solemnly and respectfully. For two nights and three days they’d kept the torches and incense burning, while the aediles organized the funeral. These were the hot days of high summer, and they had to cool him with ice hurried down from the Alps.
At last all was ready. The procession assembled itself just outside the door. In an order which reminded me of his triumph, I stood among the luminaries of Vespasian’s offices: Josephus, Julius Alexander, Musonius Rufus, Quintillian, Rabirius, Attius Priscus, already overheating in our black woolen togas. Two elegant white mares waited patiently just outside his door, who would pull the tensa, the flower-bedecked chariot with its big statue of Roma. Most emperors' corteges were led by a bevy of actors wearing face-masks of the emperor’s ancestors, here to join in the last rites. But Vespasian’s family was not patrician; there were no imagines to take down from the atrium walls. Roma, he would say, this novus homo, this new man who arose from the wide sea of Roman humanity to become th
eir emperor, Roma is my ancestor. So Roma would lead him to the Temple of Peace, his monument for the ages. Favor stood near me, practicing his lines and his accent, careful to stay in the shade provided by the facade of Vespasian’s house.
When the door came open he was already in the simple casket, plain oak and ebony. The list of veterans and equites who'd volunteered to carry their beloved leader on his last journey reached into the hundreds. From among them the family chose eight who’d fought beside him. Barefoot but otherwise in full battle-dress they hoisted the bier onto their shoulders and carried him feet-first out of his beloved house for the last time, this familiar house where he and I had shared so many hours. The chariot carrying Roma started, the musicians followed, their drums and horns and flutes playing a louder, more martial dirge. The casket followed next. From out of the house stepped Titus and Domitian, then Sabinus’ son and Vespasian's nephew Flavius Sabinus, cousins and more nephews. Once family had fallen in my group stepped in line. We joined Vespasian’s friends Tiberius Julius Lupus, Petilius Cerealis, M. Ulpius Traianus, Nerva, and a half-dozen ex-consuls. We moved slowly on, these closest friends and advisers who ten years before had worked so hard together to plan and carry out Rome’s resurgence. There was little small-talk. We walked quietly, watching ahead as Roma led the wooden coffin slipping down the street like a boat sliding down-river and out to sea. Far behind me came a hundred of Vespasian’s slaves, manumitted in his will and wearing tall pointed caps, symbols of their new freedom, behind them a long line of soldiers and lesser officials following like the wake of a ship.
Huge crowds had gathered wherever there was room, at crossroads and along vacant lots, standing on the steps of temples and offices. They waved, wailed, threw kisses and flowers. I remembered trying to convince Vespasian of how the people loved him. Why to them, you’re a new Augustus, I remembered telling him. Augustus? Vespasian had laughed. Thanks, but no thanks. No. I’m only a mule-dealer and a farmer. And that’s why they loved him, because he was of them, and proud of it. The crowds became thicker as we approached the Forum, pressed close on all sides and at times slowing the progress of the cortege.
We passed the Fields of Unhappiness. Now the haunting open space had a new meaning for me. Now I imagined my friend in his tomb, his and our hopes for the future planted beneath the dry Roman soil.
At last we slowly passed the Augustan forum where the Temple of Mars and busts of many heroes reminded me and the men I walked among of our military past. And I was reminded that though once a farmer, Vespasian had become a great general. One of our greatest.
Past the Augustan forum we passed through Vespasian’s forum, the Templum Pacis. Here we’d spent many hours together, in this oasis of peace and calm in the bustling city. Vespasian may have been of peasant blood but he was no simple man. The Templum Pacis was to remind people that like Augustus he’d brought an era of peace to the city, and like Augustus nailed shut the doors of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus so Apollo could reign over Mars. But Mars was alongside us too, in a massive show of force: a hundred black-draped chariots, each bearing an Imperial standard, the horse’s hooves thundering on the stone streets of the city as they made their circuit of the Temple of Peace and resumed the journey toward the Forum. Mule-dealer, general, emperor.
Now we passed his other great gift to his people, the magnificent amphitheater so huge it had come to be called the Colosseum. Yet more irony. As yet unfinished, he would miss its dedication.
Beyond the Colosseum the procession entered the Via Sacra which lead straight towards he Forum.
Only one arch had shifted. One of forty-eight, and that only the tiniest degree. We measured it three times, to verify it had indeed moved. All the forty-seven others stood stoically bearing the heavy roof, unmoved, unfazed. Fate plays its trump, a column moves but an iota, our meeting is canceled. Vespasian’s reply expressed his own disappointment but looked forward to seeing him at the tenth anniversary celebrations. You were there, the note said, alongside me in Jerusalem and Caesarea. And you will be beside me at our grand celebration.
Missing him put me in an uncharacteristic bad mood. Separated by only a few miles, official duties conspired to keep us apart. Rome would be a circus on Accession Day, visitors and officials from as far as the empire reached competing for an audience with the emperor. I brooded, grunted, wheezed, complained. My aides kept their distance. My mood darkened further the next morning when a note arrived from Domitian that his father had come down with a fever, which had worsened overnight, and so they would return to the capitol.
I let Domitian’s note slip to the floor. My friend, of strong peasant stock, was never ill; this was ominous. Now concern for the Piscina was trumped by concern for him. What should I do? I wanted to be with him. Perhaps it was serious. He was no longer a young man. I hated the prospect of waiting for messages already two days old. I consulted Plinia. The reservoir had settled down, had moved no more. There was nothing keeping me in Misenum. The fleet would just have to run itself for a bit. I decided to go up to Rome.
I hurried to pack, took care of last-minute duties. Another note arrived. Vespasian’s condition had worsened, and on his request they'd taken him up to the estate at Reate. I thought, he will take the baths at Aquae Cutiliae, near his home. Always he praised the baths of Aquae Cutiliae.
While scribbling out last-minute orders my inkwell fell off the table and crashed into a mess on the floor. I seemed at loose ends. Plinia stepped in to help me clean up, then pack.
I brought along the last piece of laser I owned, which Castor’s nephew had given me years before. I knew laser was no cure-all. But it could be effective against fevers, and what better use for the world’s last real laser than to cure your best friend who also happened to be emperor.
Lucius and I stopped in Rome on the way to Aquae Cutiliae. Vespasian’s condition was a carefully-kept secret. We went straight to Josephus’ house for the night and fretted over Vespasian’s condition. Long silences opened up between us. The usual patter about politics or memories from our shared past seemed trivial and inappropriate.
At dinner Josephus sounded anxious. “He’s a strong man, in the hands of the best doctors we have, but somehow, I don’t feel good about this.” I set my spoon down. “The worst of it is, we’re all of us a can-do crowd, and there’s nothing we can do. We just have to wait it out.”
“He’ll be glad to see you,” Josephus added.
“And I him. We missed meeting each other a week ago when he was in Baia. I haven't felt good since.”
I couldn’t sleep, couldn't even concentrate well enough to read. I had a headache, and my breathing was strained. Lucius seemed as worried about me as I was about Vespasian.
The Forum was packed. Here patricians found their reserved seats among the columns and statues of the various temples and basilicas, while the stairways and arcades of the Basilica Aemilia and the Basilica Julia were shoulder to shoulder with publicans. For those in the procession a sea of chairs had been set up, facing the Rostra. It was now nearly mid-day -- the long procession had used up most of the morning -- and getting hotter by the moment. I was not the only one looking ahead longingly at the chairs. Several older men passed out while waiting to find their places and had to be revived.
I felt like a drop of water in a sea of humanity. On every stair, in every conceivable niche, falling back at the edges into waves as far as the eye could see, Rome had come to say goodbye to its own.
I felt giddy from the heat: overweight, asthmatic, and in poor physical condition, I would suffer for Vespasian’s sake. At last I was able to sit, and accepted a glass of chilled water. As I drank I thought I could hear my friend chiding me: “I’ve been telling you, my friend, you ought to take better care of yourself.”
“You're right,” I found myself whispering aloud. The ex-consul Pedius Cascus, sitting next to me asked what I’d said.
“Oh, nothing. Just wishing I wasn’t quite so large.”
“Here,
use this,” Cascus said, offering a fan. “It helps, a little.”
The Forum was hung with garlands and banners, flags, flowers and legionary standards. How could one see all this and not feel proud to be Roman? I stretched my neck to see over those in front, where the dancers, musicians, and the bier bearing the body continued a final circuit around the Forum. I could see the wax image of Vespasian set on a high platform by the Rostra, reclining, looking out over us. A slave-boy was busy fanning it with a tall fan, to cool and keep flies away from the emperor, maintaining the illusion, which Favor’s escapades were meant to create, that he was still alive.
The statue of Roma, an important guest at these monumental events, was carried onto the Rostra and placed in an ivory curile chair. The subject nations, as statues in native dress riding in a chariot, followed the bier around the Forum -- Britons, Jews, Gauls, Dacians, Belgicae, Numidians, Moesians, Egyptians, Arabians, Achaeans, Celts, Carthaginians, Thracians, Phrygians, among others. Then the trophies from the Temple in Jerusalem, some borrowed for the occasion from the Templum Pacis -- the golden Menorah, the holy vestments, the sacred gem-encrusted plates and cups used in sacrifices -- and others like the Book of the Law and the purple awnings from the Sanctuary of the Temple brought from the emperor's house. The statues and trophies were a reminder of Vespasian’s claim to the title of Imperator, victor in battle against Rome’s enemies. Behind the trophies a hundred guilds of the City, as many lictors, scribes and heralds. Behind them the mounted cavalry, magnificent in their full parade dress, and infantry, walking, and a scorpio, one of the artillery Vespasian used so effectively in his campaigns. Finally, at the rear of the procession, a long line of funeral offerings, flowers, busts, ivory images and golden plates commemorating Vespasian’s reign.
