The Four Emperors

by David Blixt

  None of this mended the mood of Caesar, who normally grinned to see blood spilled and men fighting. But Nero was a great lover of horses, and did not like to see such a magnificent animal slaughtered. When the sacrificial axe had fallen, misting the air with blood, Nero had been seen to weep angry tears.

  Upon entering his domicile, Nero's spirits were restored by the sight of Zenodorus, the Greek sculptor. Shaking off the stray droplets of rain and blood that peppered his hair, Nero rushed forward. “Is it done? The model?”

  “Indeed,” said the Greek, his pleasure in his own creation masking his distaste for his patron. “If you will follow me to the workroom.”

  In moments they were all examining the Greek's creation. Half the size of a man, carved from soft wood, the model depicted Nero as Apollo, the personal god of the Divine Augustus. Nero meant to place himself as a god over Julius Caesar's own heir.

  Circling the model of his own likeness, Nero began to frown.

  “Is something amiss, Caesar?” The query was hopeful. Zenodorus had been literally dragged from his native land to serve this boy-god. If his work was unappreciated, he might be let go.

  “It's very good.” Nero pursed his lips. “Too good! It looks every inch like Apollo. Anyone seeing this will think of Apollo first, me second. And that. Won't. Do!” With the suddenness of inspiration, Nero rounded on Sabinus. “When I had my public audience with King Tiridates, he hailed me as some god of theirs.”

  “Mithras,” supplied Sabinus at once. “The Parthian warrior god. They say he commands the sun, much like Sol Indiges, with aspects of Hercules Invictus. My uncle—”

  Nero's gaze darkened. “Yes? What does the old Muleteer say?”

  Flushing, Sabinus continued. “He says that Mithras has become very popular among our legions in the East.”

  This news quelled Nero's anger. It was irresistible. The springtime visit of submission from the Armenian king, brother to the Parthian king, had left Nero as enamoured of Eastern mysticism as his wife was of Judaism. Combined with the love of the legions, Nero's next command was a foregone conclusion. “Zenodorus, I want to see another model, one with me as this Mithras!”

  Zenodorus masked his disgust with a deeply obsequious bow. “As you command, Caesar.”

  Nero was already out the door. Lingering behind, Sabinus saw the frustrated Greek sculptor lift chisel and hammer. With one sharp blow he struck Nero's face clean from Apollo's frame. It landed on the floor, facing the sky.

  Face turned upwards, thought Sabinus. An ill omen if ever I saw one.

  * * *

  Marcus arrived at the appointed place well after his time. He passed the door with the chalked sign and saw only three others waiting for him, kneeling in prayer. “Where is everyone else?”

  “We are the only ones,” said one of the men, a Roman with a long face. “The others are too frightened to meet.”

  “Or else too dead,” said a Judean with a scar that stretched from his right ear to his nose. “And even if they had come, you're late.”

  Marcus shed his waterproof cloak. “I know it, Seth. But I wanted to stay at the Circus until I was sure—”

  He glanced at the two women in the room, a young lady and her mother. The one had a mournful beauty for one so young. But it was her mother's voice that broke their hearts as she tonelessly said, “He is dead, then.”

  “Yes. I'm sorry, Abigail, Perel. He is dead.” Marcus refrained from saying how he had died. Doubtless they would hear soon enough.

  “The body?” asked the horse-faced man.

  “I saw where they threw it,” said Marcus, catching himself only after he saw Abigail wince. “My apologies. He'll have a proper burial, I promise. Saul, too. The niches are already prepared for their ossilegium.” This was the Hebrew practice in which the deceased's body was placed in the open air of a tomb for a whole year. Then, once the body was decayed, the bones were collected and placed in an ossuary, a special vessel for that purpose.

  The girl called Perel watched Marcus steadily. There was something of greater import than her father's body. “And his memoir?”

  Marcus patted the heavy satchel of wax tablets. “Completed just this morning. I think your father meant to say a little more, but…” He trailed off.

  Perel stepped forward and went up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “Thank you, Marcus. You risked your life for it. Whatever is missing, Seth and mother will supply.”

  Marcus did not wince at the kiss, but only because he had steeled himself. As she stepped back, the lamplight revealed a half a lovely face – a sharp brow, almond eyes, a full mouth. But the other half hung slack, leaving the left side of her face tragically down-turned. It was as though she had peeked at the face of the Divine and been forever scarred.

  Perel turned and knelt across from the horse-faced Roman. “Marcellinus, I was instructed that, should this day come, he wanted you to lead us forward. In place of my father, you must be father to us all now.”

  Taken aback, Marcellinus gestured to the scarred man. “Surely Seth is the better choice. He's the last of the original—”

  “Last, but far from best,” interrupted Seth. “Symeon knew this was true.”

  Marcellinus drew a deep breath. He had first been a disciple of Saul, and come late to the word of Symeon. But he also had just enough pride to want the task, and enough sense to see what it would mean to have a native Roman leading them. “Very well. Though my shoulders are far too narrow for it, I will don Symeon's mantle. A giant's robe on a dwarf,” he added.

  “Perel, Abigail,” said the scarred Seth with urgency, “now that is settled, we three must hurry back to our master. We cannot risk losing either of you.”

  But before they would consent to leave, the women insisted upon hearing Symeon's last words, captured in the wax of Marcus' tablets. When Marcus came to speak of Symeon himself, Abigail said, “You've changed his name.”

  “He wished it,” replied Marcus.

  “I know. His little names for us all. Petronella. Perpetua. But they still sound strange to me.” Abigail wet her lips, and tried speaking it aloud. “Petros. Petrus. Peter.”

  Marcellinus smiled. “I suppose we should change Saul into Paul.”

  Seth snorted. “He always did try to match Symeon's every step.”

  Perel bowed her head. “Let it be. Peter and Paul.”

  Marcus finished reading aloud the last piece of good news Peter had delivered, written down in wax by the hand of Marcus.

  The Gospel of Mark.

  Part One

  The God of War

  “SWIFT THE FLIGHT OF FORTUNE'S FAVOURS.”

  - SENECA

  I

  ROMA, ITALIA

  12 DECEMBER 66 AD

  “Perel! Where is the girl?”

  Abigail was working in the rear yard of the house on the Esquiline Hill when she heard her daughter's name called. At once she rose from the far side of the well, where she had the master's toga stretched across a stone to dry as she applied the whitening chalk. “Domina? May I help?”

  Spying Abigail, the mistress of the house frowned. “I'm going out,” said Domitia Longina, “and I wish Perel to accompany me.”

  Abigail's expression was one of helpful subservience. But her anger must have radiated, for Domitia's eyes narrowed as if she'd been rebuked aloud. Abigail lowered her gaze. It would never do for a slave to insult a senator's wife, let alone the younger daughter of the great general Corbulo.

  Domitia had inherited her father's martial temper, married to a feckless indolence that made her dangerous. “Where is she?”

  “I believe she is cleaning the master's tablinum, domina,” replied Abigail.

  Domitia brightened a little. The mistress liked when Perel was thrust under her husband's nose, dangling bait before him and daring him to swallow it. Disdainful of the man she had been forced to marry, Domitia made it her practice to purchase female slaves that were too old or too hideous to consider bedding. A measure of revenge
.

  Abigail was again thankful to the Lord for how He had marked her only daughter, protecting Perel's virtue at the cost of her vanity. A trade more than fair. Though young at twenty-one, Lucius Aelius Plautius Lamia Aelianus was a fastidious man, and the idea of disease repulsed him. Abigail herself had benefitted, as it was rumored she shared her daughter's illness. In the more than two years of their service under Domitia, neither had been touched. A small blessing, but a most welcome one.

  The sole flaw in Domitia's plan was that her attendants were, of necessity, unbecoming. But this was no impediment to the bold Domitia, who quite enjoyed shocking the rest of the Roman world by walking out with slaves so hideous they made men recoil in horror.

  Of them all, Perel was Domitia's favourite. For Abigail's daughter was still attractive, despite the slack muscles on the left side of her face. It was for this reason that Domitia was seeking Perel, to parade her once again as their mistress sashayed from one house to another, visiting other women her rank, if not her age. Domitia Longina was just one month shy of fourteen.

  As always, Abigail tried to summon the kindness she knew the girl needed. Forced to wed to shore up her father's position in the Senate, Domitia had come to this house at the age of twelve. As the marriage was not firmly lawful until it was consummated, the moment she began to bleed Plautius had gritted his teeth and broken his wife's hymen, then banished her to her own suite of rooms, little caring if he ever saw her again. He had his alliance with the great general, which was all he desired from this marriage.

  For the daughter of the famous Corbulo, great-great-grand-daughter of the Divine Augustus himself, it was hard to say which insult stung worse – the cold way Plautius had bound her to him, or the ease with which he had dismissed her afterwards. Domitia Longina knew her father needed Plautius to ward off a charge of treason. But that did not mean she was willing to be ignored. When she discovered he was taking his pleasure with slave girls, Domitia began an odyssey to remove his pleasure. She could not stop him from visiting whores in the city, but she was unwilling to let him know that kind of peace in this house. She attacked it with the vigour of her father the general and the vindictiveness of a girl her age.

  Abigail was not Domitia's mother, not even of her culture. Still, it was hard not to feel motherly towards this wounded, prideful child, four years younger than her own Perel. The Roman girl deserved compassion and pity.

  Domitia Longina's own family was focused on the mess created by her brother-in-law, the husband of Domitia's elder sister, who was trapped in yet another plot against Nero. This was the third time Corbulo's name had been linked with treason, and twice in two years the links had been close family – first the general's father-in-law, then his daughter's husband. Abigail thought that however lucky he was in war, Senator Corbulo was unlucky in marriages. A trait he had passed on to his daughters.

  And who am I to judge marriages? thought Abigail reprovingly. I have never been married. Yet I at least I knew love, for all that love was a sin…

  Realizing she was shirking her duties, Abigail began again working the chalk into the toga. Domitia frowned. “There isn't an election.”

  Abigail bowed her head. “No, domina.” And even if there were, Plautius was still too young to hold office. By rights, he should not even be in the Senate, but these days those rules were winked at for the right families.

  “Then why are you preparing that?”

  “Master Plautius requested it.”

  Domitia rolled her eyes, having desired gossip rather than a straight answer. But the girl knew better than to press Abigail, who was maddeningly reticent to engage in tittle-tattle. Instead she raised her voice. “Lucius Aelius! Lucius Aelius!”

  She went on shouting until her husband's steward arrived. “May I help you, domina?”

  Domitia Longina glared at the Greek freedman. “I wasn't calling you, Nikandros. I wanted my husband. Lucius Aelius! Lucius Aelius!”

  Far from eager to involve herself, Abigail knelt again to her duty, working the chalk into the fabric of the toga while the steward tried to calm the master's wife. But Domitia refused to be calm. By now the neighbors on each side were certainly hearing the din from the walled yard.

  It was likely this that brought Plautius stalking from his office. “Tace! You sound like a bawling child. Perhaps instead of maids, I should hire you a nurse.”

  Domitia ignored this. “Why are you having your toga whitened?”

  “Never you mind.”

  “I'll keep shouting.”

  Plautius drew near. “Be warned. I am not a servant, afraid to take a hand to you. You are my wife, and know a wife's duty.”

  “How can I do my duty if I don't know what you're planning?”

  “By being calm, modest, and keeping your mouth shut. I do not have the time to indulge the whims of willful children.” Plautius turned to go.

  “I'll scream,” said Domitia. “I'll pretend you're beating me.”

  “The neighbors would applaud,” retorted Plautius. Yet the threat stopped him. “If you must know, your father ordered it. He said there is some news just arrived from the East that will cause a stir.”

  “What news?”

  “He didn't say. But there will be a meeting of the Senate tonight, and perhaps an election tomorrow.”

  “Election for what? Does that means someone has died?”

  “Or been disgraced,” added Plautius darkly.

  That made his wife stop and think. “Not father…”

  Hands whitened to the elbow, Abigail glanced up. This was a fear that shook the whole household on a regular basis. What would happen to them if the mistress' father were charged with treason? It meant interrogation, even torture, to learn if anyone had heard anything incriminating. And slaves could be tortured with impunity.

  “I don't know,” said Plautius, and he became remotely kind, resting a hand on his little wife's shoulder. “I don't think so. That was not the tenor of his note. Rather something has happened, and we must replace someone with a suffectus.” This was a temporary magistrate, elected to fill out another man's term. “Your father holds no office at present, so it can hardly be to replace him. Or me,” he added with a wry smile.

  Domitia nodded, not seeing her husband's kindness, but taking relief in his words nonetheless.

  At that moment Abigail saw Perel entering the yard. As ever, the world seemed brighter when her daughter was present. If my life has been a sin, why did the Lord bless me with such a pearl? To her mind, Pearl was a better name than Perel. But even that was better than the girl's given name, Petronella. If there had been one thing that frustrated Abigail about the love of her life, it was his sense of humour. If he was to be renamed after a rock, his family would be rocks as well. Petronella for his daughter, and Perpetua for his –

  Mistress. I was his mistress. He called me wife, but we both knew what I was. His mistress. Which is as much to say, his whore. Yet I look at her and know I would not change a thing.

  Except perhaps coming to Rome, thought Abigail grimly. Before, I was just a sinner. Now I am a slave.

  Perel walked up to Nikandros and whispered in his ear. Then she stepped back as the steward addressed Plautius. “Domine, your father-in-law has called.”

  At once the fourteen year-old Domitia went tearing off, calling out, “Tata! Tata!” Plautius was more dignified, but he did employ a speedy gait to meet the aging general. Nikandros followed his master, leaving Abigail and Perel alone in the peristyle garden.

  They had nothing to say to the events around them. But for mother and daughter, time together was precious. “May I help you with that, Mama?”

  “You'll get chalk all over you,” replied Abigail. “The mistress wishes to go out this afternoon.”

  “I can change.” Perel knelt beside her mother and took up a fistful of chalk. They toiled together, working the dust into the oblong sheets of thick wool, careful not to white out the broad purple stripe along the edge that marked the w
earer as a senator.

  “Seth says Linus is hosting the next prayer meeting,” said Perel softly.

  “Marcellinus,” corrected Abigail.

  “It is the name he has chosen.”

  Abigail shook her head. “I shall never be used to the informality you young people use.”

  “Mama, even father changed his name.”

  “No,” said Abigail stubbornly, “he took a title. It is different.”

  Perel rolled her eyes, but only a little. “For Linus, it is a title. He doesn't want to sound Tuscan, like his name. And it offers protection. If we refer to him as simply Linus, no one will connect it with Marcellinus.”

  Abigail saw the sense in this. “So long as you stop calling him Papa.”

  Perel shrugged, a teenager's habit. “It makes him happy. And he has taken up Papa's role. He is paterfamilias to us all.”

  “It dishonours your father.”

  Perel bowed her head, but was still young enough to want the last word. “I think it does honour him.”

  “Quiet now,” said Abigail, hearing Plautius returning with his guest.

  Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo entered the enclosed central garden without pause for breath. Fifty-nine years old, he was still trim and fit, and years of warfare on the Parthian border had turned his skin to leather. “…oh, that's not all! For some reasons unknown to man or god, after coming from Syria to aid the incompetent governor, that fool Cestius Gallus retreated from Jerusalem in poor order and allowed the Judeans to fall on his neck. The entire Twelfth Legion was lost.”

  “No!” gasped Domitia, holding her father's hand like a child.

  Chalky hands deep in the woolen folds, both Abigail and Perel stilled at the mention of Jerusalem. News from their homeland? And dire news, from the sound of it.