by David Blixt
“I have no idea,” said Sabinus heavily. “They seem to have limitless invention. It's fruitless to speculate.”
That didn't stop Tertius. “Domitian, you must have a good idea. You've been with them for a year.”
Domitian shrugged. “Nero Caesar loves water. He talks of Baiae incessantly.”
That alone was significant. Baiae was a resort near Cumae, where palaces ringed a sparkling bay below high hills. The restorative sulfur baths were famous, a great draw for men eager to ease their bones. However, it was not the baths but rather the inns and taverns that made Baiae famous. Inns and taverns filled with high-end prostitutes of all kinds, food of the kind not even found in Rome, and herbs and cordials that altered the senses more than wine ever could.
Imagining it, Sabinus shuddered. Seneca had gone to Baiae once, for the waters. He'd departed the next day, writing to his friend Lucilius that, 'Baiae is a place to be avoided because, though it has certain natural advantages, luxury has claimed it for her own exclusive resort.' He'd gone on to call it a deversorium vitiorum – a 'lodging-house of vice' – pointing out that one winter there had done more damage to Hannibal than all the Alpine snow. Nero's tutor had ended that letter with a plea to his friend:
Vice, Lucilius, is what I wish you to proceed against, without limit and without end. For it has neither limit nor end. If any vice rend your heart, cast it away from you. If you cannot be rid of it in any other way, pluck out your heart also. Above all, drive pleasures from your sight. Hate them beyond all other things, for they are like the bandits whom the Aegyptians call lovers, who embrace us only to garrote us.
If recreating Baiae was what Nero had planned for them, it was going to be a grueling evening for a Stoic.
“Have you been part of any of these water-sports?” asked Tertius, a strange half-smile on his face.
Domitian reddened. “There was much sport, but never on the water.”
“So you're an old hand at these events,” pressed Titus, trying not to ask about the whores. Almost eighteen, he was not a devout Stoic like his father. But then, reflected Sabinus, at his age I had already met Clemensia. It was not hard to check one's lust when one was truly in love.
Domitian grew sly. “I've been around the track a few times.”
“Ah. And what is it that I hear about…” Tertius trailed off, shooting his father a sidelong glance.
“Jupiter!” snarled Old Sabinus sharply. “Look, wet your cock wherever you please. This is the Saturnalia! No one minds.”
Tertius and Clemens both suppressed grins as they exchanged glances. Sabinus shook his head and continued on. They were passing now through the Subura along the clivus salutis, the most direct route from the Quirinal to the Golden House. Resting in the valley of six of Rome's seven hills, the Subura was the nexus of several roads. It was also the city's slum. There had been several attempts under previous Princeps to rehabilitate this area, to little avail. Not even the fire had cleared out the worst elements. Yet the great Gaius Julius Caesar Dictator had been raised here, in the most unorthodox manner. This fact was a source of intense pride among the lower classes who lived packed together in airless insulae that stretched five and even six stories into the sky. Roman engineering had allowed them to build so high, though a few of the shoddier buildings had a distinct lean to them, resting upon their neighbors for support.
Exiting the Subura, they cut west along the clivus orbus, skirting the rich abodes on the Carinae, and at last joined the Sacred Way which would vomit them out at the north end of Nero's Stagnum.
They heard the festivities long before they saw them. From a mile away one could make out the music, the shouts and screams, the laughter, the splashing. Doubtless they had set up diving platforms in the middle of the water, daring each other to dive from greater and greater heights. That will be the least of my concerns, thought Sabinus as they drew near.
He'd seen the lake many times, of course. Nearly seven hundred feet long and over five hundred feet wide, it stood within a stone's throw of the Palatine Hill. But as they came through the grove of trees that had been planted around it, he gasped. Beside him he heard Clemens make a choked sound, and Domitian's breath likewise caught in his throat.
Amid the splashing figures there were rafts and barges, and a collection of 'inns,' both floating and lining the edges of the stagnum. Already there were cheers and raucous shouts as naked men disported themselves, rowing and swimming from one pleasure house to the next. On one side were a row of well-appointed brothels, with lines of men waiting outside for their turn. Across the width of the lake were more buildings of the same type, but here the professional whores were on display, lounging naked on couches in defiance of the chill December air. Indeed, some were having themselves warmed by the friction of the eager thrusting pelvises of male revelers, sometimes two or three to a woman, though not near so many as waited on the opposite shore. Whatever lay in those huts, it was a powerful attraction.
On the rafts, too, there were copulating couples, great energetic displays of groping and singing and grunting and drinking and vomiting and fighting, all in such a frenzied, sweating, furious way it looked much more like work than pleasure. There were few smiles, though there were plenty of bared teeth and much dark laughter.
But it wasn't the obvious display of vice in the open air for all to see that made Sabinus quail with fear. In the center of the stagnum was a massive structure built of wood but painted to be stone. It floated upon huge bladders filled with air, with the occasional wine-barrel there to support it as well. The paint on the fake pillars was peeling, creating the image of something ancient. The structure was two stories high, with six columns across the front and fifteen along each side.
O Jupiter, no. No. Please, no.
It was a complete recreation of Apollo's temple at Delphi.
Sabinus felt both his sons looking at him. His thoughts echoed theirs. Is this it? Have I, like Corbulo, out-lived my usefulness? Have I risen too high? How is that possible, when I've not risen at all! You bastard, I cannot help that the Oracle called for me! O, Apollo, spare me! Jupiter Optimus Maximus, I beseech you, have mercy!
Sabinus thought of his late wife Clemensia, whose very name meant mercy. And if she no longer lived, she had left behind her sons, one of them with her name, to give him strength. He reached out and put arms about both their shoulders, squeezing them tight.
Having no idea what the structure in the middle of the lake signified, Old Sabinus was watching the frolicking whores, chortling and slapping himself in the groin. “Wake up! This is what you were made for!”
Girding himself for whatever lay ahead, Sabinus led the way across to the edge of the stagnum. Here several men were hauling a body out of the water. A glance told Sabinus the man was dead, stabbed several times in the face and crotch, then slit across the throat. At least, he imagined that was the order it had been done. “We're here as Caesar's guests,” he told the men.
“We all are, aren't we?” retorted one. “Not that it did this irrumator any good, did it? Don't cuts the line, says I! I'll cut what I likes, says he. Then so will I, says I, and draws me knife.” The man brandished the knife in question. “What do you wants me to cut?”
Wanting to take the knife away and offer it back in his liver, Sabinus restrained himself for the sake of the day. Besides, it had been a few years since his military service. Still, he couldn't back down in front of his sons. “I want you to cut the cant. We have been asked to speak with the Princeps. Do you know where he is?”
“A likely story.” Still, the man pointed to a floating yacht made up like an Aegyptian barge with purple sails. Then he and his fellows dragged the corpse away, probably to sell.
They had left behind their raft. Sabinus commandeered it, and with his family on board he began paddling out to the yacht, which was rowing around and around the great fake temple.
“Tigellinus did all this in nine days?” marveled Clemens.
“Surprises me, too,�
�� observed his father. “I had no idea he owned such industry.”
Old Sabinus chuckled. “Depends upon the motivation, I suppose.”
Drawing near the Aegyptian yacht, they were hailed and the rowers were ordered to stop as a plank was lowered. Sabinus made sure he was the first up the ramp to greet whatever torment Caesar had in mind.
Nero was dressed in the synthesis, only his was purple and white. He wore a crown of grape leaves to mark him as the Saturnalicius Princeps, the master of the revels. He rested upon a throne of pillows shaped like stars, stroking his beard. This was another recent, un-Roman affectation. Most Roman nobles eschewed beards, for one cannot trust a man who hides his face. Yet Nero wished to display the reddish tinge to his hair, his link to his birth family, the Ahenobarbi. So Nero had found the ideal solution – a neck-beard. While his cheeks, chin, and lip remained bare, his sideburns stretched down and met under his chin, like the strap to a helmet. It was the most awful facial hair Sabinus had ever beheld, and he dreaded the notion that it would become the new fashion.
Around Nero, Tigellinus, Nymphidius, Lucius and Aulus Vitellius and the rest of the banqueters were feasting in the center of the great yacht, lounging upon gold-fringed blue rugs and multi-coloured pillows around low tables. Sabinus' cousin, the architect Gaudentius, was present as well, though off to one side, clearly discomfited at being invited to share Nero's revels, yet nonetheless delighted to be seen so prominently. As reward for his good work, he had been made a member of the Ordo Equester, a knight of Rome, just one step below senator in terms of prominence. He had arrived, and now had to figure out how to navigate these unfamiliar waters.
Upon the rich rugs done up in the colours of the season, the corpulent Aulus Vitellius was once again begging Nero to be given a governorship. “I put no store in star-charts and predictions, Caesar! And I could easily replace a non-entity like Vindex. Besides, he doesn't even have an army. What harm is there in me governing a land without a legion.”
Sipping his mulsum, Nero reached across to chuck Vitellius under one of his chins. “Not even I am that foolish, Aulus.”
Vitellius was dogged, if hang-dog. “At least I would make no treason, Caesar. I am far too fat and lazy.”
Nero fell on his back and kicked his feet in the air with delight as he howled. Then his tearful eye spied Sabinus and he leapt to his feet with eager glee. “Titus Flavius, Titus Flavius, Titus Flavius, Titus Flavius, and Titus Flavius,” he said, wringing each one by the hand as if he were nothing but a commoner – which today he was. “So very glad you are here. What do you think of her?”
How to answer without answering? “Caesar, I am awestruck.”
“Aren't you, though?” Under his stibium-lined lashes, Nero's gaze was keen. “I made her for you and I.”
“You and I, Caesar?”
“Yes, my manly mimic, you and I. Of every man present, we alone have had the great honour of an audience with Apollo's chief priestess. I don't know what she said to you – and you don't know what she said to me.” Here Nero's glance hardened, fixing itself first on Sabinus, then on Domitian, where he lingered a long moment. Sabinus began to sweat again. Did Nero want to hear the prophecy? Here? Now? What was he saying?
With no warning, Nero Caesar's brow cleared and he smiled expansively. “Rubbish, of course! But you have to admire her theatrics! Did she do the voice for you? Was there smoke and light?”
Sabinus didn't want to answer at all, but had no choice. “Yes, Caesar.”
“And her marvelous nudity, all shriveled and awful. As well as her obvious choice not to bathe! Such an actor! I should ask to take lessons.” The clouds gathered again. “Still, I thought after what she put us both through that we should enjoy a little sport at her expense. So you and I shall take the oracle in hand and make her cry a different tune. I have populated yon temple with priestess of the old sort – young and beautiful. Choose yours, and make this Pythia forget the snake below the ground and fill her mouth with yours instead.” Caesar laughed, but deliberately, watching Sabinus.
Here was that precipice, the teetering edge in that smile that was at once amused and malicious and mercurial and threatening. Forcing himself to laugh, Sabinus said, “Thank you, Caesar.”
“As at Delphi, you can go first.” Nero suddenly snapped his fingers. “Your sons went to Delphi with you, did they not? Well, let them enjoy the fruits of my labour. I spared no expense, you see. I even placed a Delphinian in there to be chosen, and I want my treats to be enjoyed. Domitian, you go, too. And you, Gaudentius! Excellence must be rewarded. No, not you, Titus Flavius,” said Nero, chuckling at Old Sabinus' eager expression. “We must leave youth to youthful endeavors. Come and crush a cup of wine with us while your son, grandsons, nephew, and cousin carve a passage for my coming. Don't fret, though! We'll let you whip your wrinkled flesh into work soon enough!” He pointed towards the bank with the long line of men waiting outside the doors to lavish huts. “See those? They are populated with noble women. Wives, mothers, and daughters of the best Roman blood, given up by their husbands and fathers and sons to anyone's use. The only criteria is they either must be beautiful or distinguished, and they are open to all comers.”
“All comers, ha!” laughed Tigellinus.
Nero ignored him, waxing poetic about the orgy floating by. “Be he servile or hideous or smelly or ancient, be he Roman or Greek or Gaul or even Jew, there is no fear of rejection on this day. A man may enjoy himself wherever he pleases, as often as he pleases! For not a woman among them is allowed to say no. If they do, I'll have them raped and then beheaded. Io Saturnalia!”
“Io, Saturnalia!” cried all the male revelers on shore.
Looking across the water to the lines of 'inns,' Sabinus took a moment to thank Juno that he had no daughters, that his cousin Flavia had died last year, and that both her daughter and Titus' little girl were too young to be desirable.
As he watched, a naked woman came screaming from one of the structures. She was in her thirties, with a body that had borne children, wide in the hips and full breasted. She was bleeding between her legs and from her anus, and her right eye was swollen shut. Far from helping her, the line of waiting men grabbed her and shoved her roughly back up the line and into the door from whence she'd come, pinching and biting and taunting her along the way. At the door she was grasped by the hair and dragged within, still screaming.
Sabinus knew the woman, had all his life. Her name was Faustina, wife of the young consular Marcus Ostorius Scapula, who had once won a grass crown in Britannia, and was now lingering in exile for the crime of excellence. As she disappeared into the 'inn', Faustina screamed her husband's name.
“Remind me to order the brave Marcus Ostorius to fall on his sword,” remarked Nero.
“Before or after he hears of this?” asked Tigellinus with a smirk.
“At the same time, I think,” said Nero. “If he fancies himself a Brutus, then his Lucretia has found her Tarquin. Pass the mulsum, won't you?”
Sabinus felt so sick he could vomit. No wonder the lines on that side of the stagnum were so long. This was permission to indulge their darkest fancies, consequence free. What is wrong with men? For while he could blame Nero and Tigellinus for hatching this hideous notion, they were not forcing these good Roman men to wait in the chill December air for their turn to humiliate and brutalize a noblewoman with their sweaty loins. Worse, those were not simply the lowborn queued up. There were men of the Second and Third classes – and quite a few nobles as well.
How far we have fallen. Nero's reference made that plain. The Republic had been founded upon outrage against rape. During the reign of the last Roman king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the king's son Sextus had raped his cousin's wife, the noble Lucretia. The next day she had called together many noble male witnesses, told her story, and plunged a dagger into her breast. The first Brutus, ancestor to the betrayer of Caesar, had plucked the bloody knife from the dead woman and roused the people to depose the tyrant and
his son.
But instead of becoming a new king himself, Brutus had founded the Republic, the most amazing feat in human history. Representative government. SPQR. Senatus Populusque Romanus. The Senate and People of Rome. No more kings, only citizens, all equal under the law.
For nearly five hundred years, we were those men. Free, noble, and proud. And now we are a nation of rapists. We have returned to the barbaric days of the city's founding, when Romulus and his followers killed the Sabines and raped their women to make more Romans. Born from rape, we had become better men. But barbarism always lies beneath. All it takes, it seems, is permission.
While his mollified father knelt awkwardly onto the purple carpets and accepted a glass goblet from Vitellius, Sabinus crossed to the prow of the barge as Nero ordered it rowed for the mouth of the floating temple. If I were a better man, I would be a Brutus. I would defy Caesar. Not kill him – the first Brutus had that right. Death is un-Roman. I would just defy him, here and now.
But who is there in Rome that would follow me? It would mean my death, my sons' death, and to no purpose. Thank Apollo, Jupiter, and Clementia, this Caesar does not want my death. Only my humiliation. And I will accept it. Does that make me a coward? Or a pragmatist?
Neither, he told himself. I am a Stoic. I endure. It will take a braver man than I to do more.
* * *
Inside the floating temple, three women were having a furious debate. “He will certainly choose the top-most room – it's the highest, the pinnacle, and therefore the best!”
“Everyone knows the Pythia is underground, so it is to the lowest room that he will go.”
“Pfah! He's a man! He'll enter the first door he comes to!”
The first speaker was Domitia Longina, equating height with worth. The second was her sister Corbula, applying reason to this mad enterprise. The third was their friend Verulana, who owned as much disdain for men as she did liking for their company.
