The Advocate

by Randy Singer

  The next day, January 26, Claudius was escorted back into the Imperial Palace by members of the Praetorian Guard. He was crowned Caesar by the commander of the guard on the balcony of the palace. He immediately announced that the state would give every Praetorian soldier fifteen thousand sestertii, more than ten times a soldier’s annual wages. The Praetorian Guard had made Claudius emperor, and now he was paying them back.

  That same day, the Senate recognized Claudius as emperor and awarded him the customary rights and honors of the principate. Like his nephew before him, Claudius announced an end to the treason trials and said he would burn all criminal records associated with them. He stammered his way through his first speech, announcing his intentions to treat the Senate with great respect.

  That night I lay in bed and tried to sleep for the first time in forty-eight hours. When I closed my eyes, I saw the bloodied corpse of Caligula. I felt my dagger ripping through the intestines of Lucian. I heard the words of Agrippa describing the violent death of a defenseless baby girl.

  Was this what I had become? An assassin? A failed leader of a rebellion? A man who had unleashed horrible evil in the name of justice?

  But what was the alternative? Somebody had to stop the madness. The speech in the Senate that day by Claudius sounded uncomfortably familiar, as if the words from Caligula’s first speech four years earlier had been bottled up and then poured out one more time. Perhaps we had just traded one tyrant for another. Time would tell.

  I dozed in and out that night, haunted by the way events had unfolded, trying hard to convince myself that I had done the right thing. How could Flavia and I have known that Chaerea would rampage through the royal family like a wounded lion? Was it our fault that the Senate had once again shirked their opportunity to seize a historic moment?

  Maybe the Republic was forever dead. But at least I had tried.

  I thought about Flavia. I reminded myself of the senseless death of Mansuetus. Flavia and I had fulfilled our vow. We had no other choice.

  I cursed the name of Caligula and finally fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 67

  I was on the ragged emotional edge for weeks after Caligula died. I couldn’t sleep at night. I kept glancing over my shoulder during the day. I replayed the assassination in my mind a thousand times.

  At first I was sure the Praetorian Guard would be coming for me. I worried that either Chaerea or Sabinus had said something before being executed. Or perhaps one of the Greek choirboys or their leaders could describe me.

  I fretted about Flavia, too. Not only had we been coconspirators in the assassination, but we had both taken risky public stands immediately after Caligula’s death—she in the theater and me at the Rostra.

  Yet Claudius seemed to be an emperor of his word, and I began to think that perhaps there really wouldn’t be more prosecutions for conspiracy or other acts of alleged treason. I began to wonder if I had totally misjudged Claudius. He was ungainly and had a trick knee that sometimes went out on him. His head shook when he got angry, and his voice wailed when he was excited. Yet there was something authentic about the man, and he slowly began winning over the senators. He sat among them when they debated legislation, waiting his turn to speak. He chided them occasionally about their reluctance to debate bills he had introduced. He didn’t ridicule or abuse them. He didn’t love the privileges of his position the way Caligula had.

  Days turned into weeks and eventually into months. I kept my head low and focused on my clients, trying hard to avoid any political controversies. When Flavia and I had put together the plan to assassinate Caligula and restore the Republic, I had reconciled myself to the fact that either our plan would succeed or I would be a dead man. Instead, I was living in an outcome I had never envisioned. The Republic was still dead, but I was alive.

  Even though I was barely in my thirties, I decided that my days attempting to influence Roman politics were over.

  As time moved on, my thoughts turned more and more to Flavia. I would rearrange my schedule to attend the same public ceremonies I knew she would attend. We would catch each other’s gaze, but we were both careful not to linger too long for fear that others might notice. I suspected she had the same concerns I did. If we were seen with each other too soon after the death of Caligula, people might put the pieces together and figure out our conspiracy.

  I wondered if I would spend the rest of my life this paranoid, jumping at every knock at the door, fearing the men behind me on the street were there to arrest me. I started to understand how emperors could go insane.

  It was in the springtime when I heard the shocking news. Seneca had been banished by Claudius. He had been accused of committing adultery with Caligula’s sister, Julia Livilla. The word on the street was that Claudius’s wife had insisted that Seneca be sent away from Rome.

  The news saddened me, both because it demonstrated that Claudius was open to manipulation and because I had never reconciled with Seneca. I decided to show up on the day of his departure for Corsica. Perhaps I could restore our relationship before he set sail.

  When the day arrived, I was surprised that only a handful of Seneca’s clients had made the trip to the harbor to see him off. I thought about the early morning salutationes at his house when dozens of clients had waited each day for his patronage. He was a popular man then. He was learning now who his true friends were.

  I took a seat on a stone wall and waited patiently as he shared private moments with the others. At last, he walked toward me and I stood to greet him. We grasped forearms, and I was struck by the sadness in his droopy eyes. Behind him, his servants were loading crates of his possessions onto a boat. Nobody would ever accuse Seneca of traveling lightly.

  “It was good of you to come,” he said. There was none of the normal mirth in his voice. Of all men, Seneca would miss Rome the most. He thrived on the intrigue, the intellectual debate, and the raw power that settled like fog around the capital. Corsica was no-man’s-land. A true Stoic would love it. Seneca would wither there.

  “I’m sorry, Seneca,” I said. “You deserve better than this.”

  “I’ll have plenty of time to write. Every great philosopher needs time to write.”

  “I wish I could help in some way.” I looked down and kicked a small pebble, wondering whether any of this had to do with the fact that I had named him as a witness in my case against Caligula.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Seneca said. “But it’s not your fault, Theophilus. I brought this on myself.”

  There were always rumors about Seneca and the ladies. I never knew what to believe and what to ignore. It was one of the many contradictions in my friend’s life. A man who preached morality yet evidently violated the marriage contract.

  We talked for a few minutes before some men called out from the shore. It was time to set sail.

  “Watch your back,” Seneca said. He grabbed my shoulders the way a father would his son’s. “And don’t give up on Rome. Don’t give up on the Republic.”

  I nodded. In truth, I had already raised my shield in surrender, but my mentor didn’t need to know that.

  He embraced me and whispered something in my ear that left my jaw hanging open. “I’ve talked to Flavia. She asked me if you were going to propose a marriage to begin after she finishes her duties as a Vestal.”

  I leaned back, my eyes wide. “What did you tell her?”

  “I told her I didn’t know. But if you did, I told her she would never find a better husband.”

  “You told her that?” In my excitement, I raised my voice, and it drew a few stares.

  Seneca kept his voice low, conspiratorial. “Bold times call for bold action,” he said. He slapped me on the arm and turned to leave.

  “Did she say what she would do if I asked?”

  Seneca stopped, pivoting slowly. “She didn’t say, Theophilus. But if you want my advice, you ought to find out.”

  I thanked him for everything. As he walked away, I thought about how much
I would miss him.

  He stopped before boarding the ship. He turned and looked at his assembled friends.

  “I’ll be back,” Seneca promised. “Take care of the place while I’m gone.”

  I didn’t waste any time before writing a letter asking Flavia to meet. I sealed it and found a way to slip it to Rubria. She promised she would give it to Flavia.

  A day later, a courier came back with the reply, sealed with Flavia’s own ring. It contained only directions to a place by the Tiber River along with a date and time. We were to meet in two days at the eighth hour of the night.

  I knew immediately that I wouldn’t be able to eat or sleep for the next forty-eight hours.

  CHAPTER 68

  I went through more parchment in two days than I had when Seneca and I wrote the letter to Tiberius urging him to shut down the games. I tried humor. I tried heartfelt. Next, a combination, resorting to the old formula of making her laugh, then making her cry. But nothing seemed to adequately describe my feelings for Flavia.

  I realized eventually that my feelings couldn’t be scripted. I would have to speak from the heart. Yet even for a trained orator like me, the prospect made me weak in the knees.

  I decided not to bring a ring. It was traditional, once a man and woman were engaged for marriage, to have the woman wear a ring on her third finger. Yet there was nothing traditional about this. A Vestal Virgin couldn’t wear a ring until she had completed her service, could she? For Flavia, that would be six more years. If she said yes, we would have to keep our engagement a secret until just before Flavia finished her term. Her obligation right now was to be married to Rome.

  When I arrived at the designated spot on the night of our meeting, Flavia was already there. I heard her voice as I was picking my way through the trees and underbrush on the banks of the Tiber.

  “Theophilus, over here.”

  I stepped into a small clearing where there were some logs with the sides flattened so they made nice seats. There was a fire pit filled with ashes, and someone had strung a canopy at the side of the clearing to provide shelter from the rain.

  I gave Flavia a kiss on both cheeks. “Is this where you and Mansuetus spent time together?”

  She nodded. “This place is filled with memories,” she said sadly. “I probably should have picked a different spot.”

  We sat on one of the logs. There was a chill in the night air and we moved next to each other, sharing a blanket Flavia had brought.

  “Do you want me to start a fire?” I asked.

  “Better not. It might draw too much attention.”

  The stars were out, and a full moon danced off the ripples of the Tiber. This night and this spot were nearly perfect except that the memories of Mansuetus hung in the air, as tangible and strong as the ancient trees surrounding the clearing. It would feel awkward and disloyal to ask her to marry me here. But I thought about my exchange with Seneca, and I knew that this might be my one and only chance.

  We talked for a long time first. We were both cautiously optimistic that our role in the conspiracy against Caligula would never be discovered. She told me firsthand about the horror in the theater that day and the way Rubria and others had helped her protect the senators.

  “If Chaerea hadn’t executed Caesonia and Drusilla the way he did, we might have pulled it off,” I said. “Sentiment was beginning to turn our way.”

  “We unleashed a lot of anger that day,” Flavia said. Her voice was melancholy, and I wondered if she was having second thoughts.

  “Would you do it again?”

  She thought about it for a while. In her eyes I could see the memories darken her thoughts. “For the sake of Mansuetus, yes. But I wouldn’t enlist the others. I wouldn’t try to restore the Republic.”

  A million thoughts danced across my mind as we talked. I thought about the first time I had laid eyes on her, my will melting as she discussed the games with Seneca and me. I thought about how my feelings for her would never go away. I remembered that night at the funeral of Mansuetus when our blood mingled and I saw a steely determination harden her face. Her eyes were sadder now, more resigned to the pain of life, but every bit as hauntingly beautiful.

  I wanted to change the subject to something more uplifting. “What are you going to do when you finish your service as a Vestal?” I asked.

  She had been playing with a twig, and she tossed it into the ashes. She reached over and took one of my hands, a natural and small gesture, but it made my heart race.

  “I’m not sure yet. For the last year I’ve just been hoping to survive. I’d like to travel. The Parthenon in Greece. The pyramids in Egypt. The ruins of the hanging gardens in Babylon. I’d like to see the world. I’d like to taste the wines in the four corners of the empire.”

  There was an awkward silence as I tried to figure out what to say next. Part of me wanted to tell her those were my dreams too, but the truth was that I had a strong and visceral love for the city of Rome. I had been to the provinces, and they didn’t live up to expectations. But I would follow Flavia to the ends of the earth if that’s what it took.

  I expressed none of those thoughts. Instead, I asked a single question that mattered more to me than anything else. “Alone?”

  “I guess. I don’t know.”

  I was so nervous, I shivered in the cold. I was a twelve-year-old schoolboy again, raising my hand for the first time to answer a question posed by Seneca. An uncertain young advocate with buckling knees arguing his first maiestas trial. A lowly equestrian meeting a beautiful Vestal.

  “We could travel together,” I managed. Since the earth didn’t swallow me and Flavia didn’t bolt away, I decided to continue. “I’m not sure how to say this, and I’ve actually tried to write it down a hundred ways, so I guess I’ll just blurt it out.”

  I looked at Flavia and she turned to me. I couldn’t read her expression and decided to speak before I lost my courage.

  “I want to marry you, Flavia. So I’m asking you to be my wife once your time as a Vestal is over.”

  And there it was. The world’s most inelegant proposal. A man who had studied advocacy his entire life, and the one little speech that mattered more to him than any other could have been scripted by a seven-year-old.

  “Marry you?” she asked, her eyes wide.

  “I’ve loved you since the first time we met,” I admitted. “I never said anything because I knew you were in love with Mansuetus. And maybe I should hold my tongue now. But, Flavia, I would never be able to forgive myself if I didn’t at least try. And when Seneca told me a few days ago that you had asked about my intentions—”

  “Seneca? What does Seneca have to do with this?”

  It took my nervous mind a split second to process what she had just said. She had no idea what I was talking about—she hadn’t said anything to Seneca! This was truly catching her off guard. I wanted to strangle my mentor, but that thought could wait.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Except that sometimes Seneca has this knack for saying profound things. Like marriage should be a matter of the heart and not a contract for social status.”

  “Seneca said that?”

  “Well . . . not really. But he should have.”

  She smiled, and the look relaxed me.

  “I think Seneca is right, or at least he could have been right if he had said that,” she said, looking down at the ground in front of her. “But I’ll be thirty-nine when my time as a Vestal is over. I knew as a young girl that my life would be spent in service to Rome. That being a Vestal meant I would likely never be a matron of my own family. Childbirth at thirty-nine is no small thing.”

  “But not impossible,” I said quickly. “And what does it matter? There are plenty of young women with whom I could start a family. But I don’t love them, Flavia. I love you. Even if it were just the two of us, I want to grow old with you.”

  “A lot could happen in six years.”

  “I’ve waited eleven. I can wait six more.”
/>   She looked at me with those dark-brown eyes, and I wanted to believe she was softening. I gently placed my hand under her chin and leaned in so our lips were just a few inches apart.

  “Forget about children and our age and how many years it will be until we are joined as husband and wife, and just answer one question,” I said. “Do you love me? Maybe not the same way you loved Mansuetus. But do you love me?”

  In response, she leaned in and gave me a kiss. She placed her hand on the back of my head, gently holding me until I relaxed and enjoyed the greatest moment of my life.

  When we pulled back, she shivered a little as if overcome with emotion. She wrapped her arms around herself and leaned against my side, and I held her there. In the silence I could tell she was thinking, and my own mind raced with visions of what those thoughts might be.

  When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. “I remember the last night I was with him,” she said. “Right here. Just the two of us. He said he’d quit fighting as soon as he earned his freedom. We made plans together. On these same logs. We promised each other I would walk out of the House of Vestal on my last day and follow him to his own home, where we would consummate our marriage. All of Rome would talk of nothing else. A Vestal and Rome’s most popular gladiator. And now he’s gone.”

  Her voice broke, and I knew that she was crying. I reached over and wiped away a tear.

  “You’re a good man, Theophilus,” she said. “But this is all happening so fast. I need time. Even our kiss felt like some kind of betrayal.”

  The words tore at my heart. Not because she still loved Mansuetus but because I had been so blinded by my own desires that I hadn’t understood that. Maybe she would never love me. How could I compete with a ghost?