by David Blixt
* * *
Old Sabinus was marched unresisting to the Palatine Hill, where all was peace and calm. Vitellius was seated on a bench, having watched the battle from a comfy folding chair while sipping mulsum. The hot beverage steamed the air before him.
Spying Old Sabinus, he set down his cup and rose to offer an embrace. “I am very sorry, Titus Flavius. This is all due to my – to my cowardice.”
Old Sabinus endured the embrace, but did not return it. Even had his hands not been shackled, he would have refused. When it was done, he looked past the Princeps to the men who were truly in charge. “Let's get this over and done. I wish to make my apologies to the great god in person.”
They obliged him. It took longer than it should have, but the men were angry.
When it was finished, Vitellius returned to his folding chair in time to watch the roof of the temple cave in, crushing anything below. It was nearly noon, yet for once Vitellius found he had no appetite.
* * *
As the service ended, the small band of fugitives joined a group of Isis-worshippers exiting the Iseum, slipping through the throng come to witness the destruction of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Already there were enterprising men in the crowd hawking amulets to ward off the great god's wrath.
“Where now?” said Domitian softly as they emerged onto the Campus Martius, where the crowd was thinner. “We can't go home.”
“To my husband's house,” offered Domitia.
“No,” said Domitian. “We can't put another senator in such a position.” Besides, Domitian didn't want to be beholden to her husband. “What about Cornelius Primus? He owes my father a favour. He's made a fortune supplying mules to the legions.”
Clemens nodded. “I know where he lives. I'll meet you there.”
Domitian frowned. “Where are you going?”
“The girls are still with Caenis. You can't go, but someone has to see your nieces are safe.” It's what my father would have done, he didn't say.
Seeing Clemens' face, Domitian was not inclined to argue. “Stay safe, cos.”
Without another word, Clemens disappeared into the bustle of Rome's streets, pushing his way towards the house of Caenis.
* * *
Summoned in haste, Antonius had force-marched the Flavian army through the night towards Rome, meaning to close the forty-four mile gap by nightfall. They had already traversed thirty-three of those miles when they encountered Cerialis retreating headlong up the via Flaminia. For the first time Antonius could appreciate the need for a chain of command. His subordinate's rashness had cost them an easy victory.
They were still conferring about what to do when word reached them of the assault on the Capitol, the destruction of Jupiter's temple, and the deaths of both Old Sabinus and his consular son. Of Domitian there was no sign.
All this news came by means of ambassadors sent by Vitellius – the Vestal Virgins. These inviolable women devoted their chastity to the gods for a thirty-year contract. Even in these disordered times, violence upon one of them was unthinkable.
Antonius showed them the utmost respect as they begged for peace, then sent them away. “Convey to Aulus Vitellius that the death of Vespasian's brother means there can be no peace. His only option is complete surrender.”
The Flavian troops cheered the decision, their eagerness inspired by their first sight of Rome. It was a huge city, full of riches and pleasure that, but for a little fighting, was theirs to pillage.
For once Antonius intended to show prudence. Encamping his troops on the north side of the Milvian Bridge, he waited for Vitellius to offer his surrender. But the men knew delay would mean no spoils. Praetorian standards across the bridge gave them a pretext for attack, and at last Antonius learned what great commanders know in their bones – that fellow-feeling cannot replace discipline. Had he been more a commander and less a friend, they would have obeyed him. But instead he obeyed them, and allowed them to enter Rome with weapons drawn.
Again fighting was fiercest in the northeast, but by nightfall the Flavian army had forced the Praetorians back inside their own camp. When the walls were breached, the Praetorians fought to the last man, determined to make a glorious end.
Even before the fighting was over, the looting had begun. Antonius tried to contain the damage, which distracted him from his final duty – finding Vitellius.
That task fell to a self-appointed detachment of legionaries. Storming the Palatine, they found the palace entirely deserted except for a lone man with a distended belly hiding in a closet barricaded with mattresses. It took the soldiers several moments before they recognized Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Caesar Augustus, his fat folds trembling. Ignoring his fearful pleas, the soldiers marched him down the hill into the Forum where a mob had gathered – the same mob that only yesterday had refused his abdication. Now they struck him with their open hands, hissed and reviled him. Whenever he lowered his eyes, the soldiers escorting him poked him under the chin with their daggers so that he might meet the gaze of his subjects.
He was marched to the Gemonian Stairs. Gibbering and shaking, Aulus Vitellius was made to kneel. He murmured softly, “But I am still the Princeps.” Above him the ruins of Jupiter's Temple smoked, obscuring the stars that had predicted the disaster of his life.
His death was mercifully brief. The nearest legionary swung his short-bladed sword from left to right, and Vitellius' head fell to the steps. It was snatched up at once and paraded through the streets, along with the body. The head was sent to Antonius as proof. The body was thrown into the Tiber.
This final death left only one Imperator standing, one who had never raised a sword in his own cause. There was no one now to prevent Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus from coming to Rome to take up his new name:
Caesar.
* * *
Clemens arrived at the house of Caenis just as Antonius' men crossed the Milvian Bridge. Fearing the house was still being watched, he scaled the peristyle wall. As he dropped to the ground, Flavia came running up. This time she did not hit him, but threw her arms about his waist. “Clemens! Clemens, you're alive! You came back!”
Appearing at the door, Caenis sighed with heartfelt relief. “Titus Flavius! Thank Jupiter!”
Clemens shook his head tiredly. “I don't think Jupiter is favouring us today.”
The nurse Phyllis appeared. “You're alone? Domitian's not..?”
“Domitian is alive and well. I can't say where,” he added, aware that slaves owned ears.
Caenis sent the girls off in the company of a relieved Phyllis, then drew Clemens to a bench and held his hands in hers. “Tell me.”
Most of it she already knew, as the tale was already spreading through the city. In return she told Clemens the fate of his grandfather. Tried and sentenced in only a few minutes, Old Sabinus had been given over to a mob of Vitellian supporters and stabbed repeatedly. His head had been removed and placed on the Rostra as a warning to other traitors, while his naked torso had been dragged through the streets before being dumped into the Tiber. “They say Vitellius tried to stop it, but was powerless,” added Caenis. She would not play the hypocrite and weep for a man she had not liked.
Yet there were tears hovering near her eyes. Clemens suspected whom they were for. “And my father?”
“Titus Flavius died upon the Capitol. He –”
Realizing she was about to burst into tears, Clemens prayed she could restrain herself, for his sake – her tears would unman him. Voice brisk, he stood. “Lady, the girls bring danger to this house, and to you. If you wish, I shall take them with me when I leave.”
Caenis winked back the moisture in her eyes. “Nonsense. They are dearer to me than family. If anyone attempts to take them from this house, all of feminine Rome will rise up and have their heads. And I don't mean the ones atop their necks!” Clemens smiled absently at the joke. “I'll go help the girls with the cooking. You must be famished. Sit here and rest. No one will disturb you.”
Alone
at last, Clemens held himself together for a few moments more. Then he staggered, falling to his knees. Hot tears flowed down his face, his breathing became ragged. O pater, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I am no Stoic!
Suddenly he felt small hands on his shoulders. The kitchens had not been able to hold his irrepressible cousin Flavia. The eight year-old had slipped back to the small garden, and now wrapped her arms around him. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for your tata.”
In answer, Clemens squeezed her arm. As much as he could offer. It was all she needed. Her words had pierced the black cloak of sorrow that mantled him. A sliver of light in a world gone dark.
“Axios,” said Clemens suddenly. “Axios.”
Epilogue
Outside Rome, the ascension of Vespasian was greeted with neither cheers nor riots, but rather a wary fatigue. Another Caesar? Ho-hum! How long would this one last? Likewise, the near-sack of Rome was viewed as an inevitable end to the events of the last year.
But the destruction of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus shook the Roman world from end to end. A grave portent, it was the ultimate symbol of disorder. To Romans, it mirrored the upheavals of the year. The contracts with Jupiter Best and Greatest were broken, voiding ancient legal agreements between god and man.
Such breaks could be repaired, but that would require concessions and sacrifices. Romans took their gods seriously, yet practically. There was nothing the law could not repair. But what would the gods demand in return?
One thing was certain. Nothing would be exactly as it had been before.
Rome's allies were quiet and fearful, while her enemies saw a symbolic breaking of Rome's power. Britons took heart, German tribes flexed their arms, the Parthians sent out scouts.
In Judea, the rebels rejoiced. For three years now they had feared a siege of Jerusalem, where stood their own most holy shrine. But their Lord had shown his power in preserving their Temple, while at the same time leveling the great temple of their foe.
They rejoiced too soon.
* * *
ROMA, ITALIA
20 DECEMBER 70 AD
The people of Rome found their Saturnalian revels interrupted by funeral games. As gladiatorial combat was not normally a part of the Saturnalia, the lure was irresistible.
But it meant they had to endure a funeral procession and oration. Here came the undertakers, followed by trumpeters and flautists playing their solemn dirges. Next came the professional mourners, women paid to dress all in black and weep real tears for the deceased. These were followed by dancers, all gyrating mystically with cypress branches in their grip.
And here came the ancestors. This was an important part, especially as this was the first funeral for someone in the new Caesar's family. It was a little pathetic to see so few noble forebears. There was Petro, who had fought against the Divine Caesar at Pharsalus. His son followed him, and his son in turn. These had been senators, but not important ones. But they were cheered as if they'd been Pompey or Cato themselves. You never knew who was watching.
All of Rome was present, from the most august senators to the lowliest of the Head Count; from the Knights of the Eighteen to peddlers and tinkers; from the Vestal Virgins to the whores who frequented Venus Erucina. All had come – but not to mourn. They had come to see Caesar, gaze in wonder at their new ruler, and to enjoy the games.
At last came the dead man, in a chariot drawn by twin black horses. Titus Flavius Sabinus. He rode alongside the chariot bearing his father, the cantankerous Old Sabinus. The actor in the wax mask of Old Sabinus had no trouble imitating the spirit of the man. Crotchety, complaining, arrogant, amusing, he was more real than real.
But the younger Sabinus just rode along looking grave. He had been consul, so he dignified his house by wearing consular insignia. But no one truly remembered what he had been like alive, so they could not fault the performance. His wax imago was handsome. He seemed nice enough. Noble, but quiet. Forgettable.
Leading the procession of family mourners was the new Caesar himself. Vespasian strode gravely forward in his black toga, lamenting the loss of his brother on this, the anniversary of his death. Around him walked the rest of the immediate family, all wearing the toga pulla.
Normally there would have been a bier. Instead there were urns. The bodies of Old Sabinus and his son had been too mutilated to embalm, so they had been burned. The ashes had waited a whole year until Vespasian returned to Rome to throw games in honour of his late brother.
Walking between Domitian and Tertius, the folds of his black toga up over his head, Clemens struggled to keep his composure. This was an important day for the family, a political event – the first public display of the Flavians since they had been raised from obscurity. If Titus had been present, it would have been complete. He had sent Clemens and Tertius ahead while he remained to mop up Judea, lingering in the arms of his forgiving Jewish queen. But Titus would be back soon enough. The Senate had just voted him a Triumph.
Following the family were gladiators clad in glorious silver. The tradition of remembering ancestors through combat went back hundreds of years. The first recorded funeral games were thrown by Decimus Junius Brutus Scaeva to honour his dead father. From the original three, it had become standard to have three hundred twenty pairs. As this was a double funeral, there were twice that number, a delight for the crowd who had never before seen so many gladiators all at once.
The trouble was that there was no place to put them. Neither of the Circuses were suitable for gladiators, having been built for chariot racing. Vespasian had solved this dilemma by temporarily tenting over huge portions of the empty Domus Aurea and erecting stands. He was determined to find a better answer.
The procession reached the rostra, the speaker's platform at the heart of the Forum. Vespasian ascended, and Clemens took his place with the rest of his black-clad family in front, creating a wall of night.
Clemens did not listen to the eulogy. He knew it would focus on his grandfather, leaving Clemens' father as an afterthought. Clemens wanted to shout at the crowd, You don't deserve to mourn him! You didn't know him! But he could just as easily have used that reproach on himself. Had he ever truly known his father? He had thought so. Then he had found the scroll his father mentioned in their final moments together.
Reading over Pythia's prophecy, he learned that his father had known he would die for Clemens' sake. What kind of man was able to live up to such a burden? How had Clemens not appreciated his father, until he was gone?
Now Clemens had to justify his father's sacrifice. He swore no vow, made no contracts with any god. This went deeper than any show of devotion. This was his life's goal – to make his father proud.
* * *
Certain he was the lone mourner for his father, Clemens would have been surprised to know there was another in the crowd who had come solely to pay her respects to Sabinus. Perel, the Hebrew slave-girl, had slipped out of the house of Plautius to honour the Roman who had respected her, trusted her, and saved her life.
It was also the closest she could come to a service for her mother. They had never found a body, and though they inquired about her all through the year, at last they had admitted what they already knew. She had died upon the Capitol.
Perel watched as the actor wearing Sabinus' face passed her by. It was a good likeness, but there was something missing – a sad nobility that was hard to identify.
Vespasian finished speaking, and the crowd moved off to the tented pavilions to watch the sport. Perel pressed herself against a wall, letting others pass. Her eyes fell on one of the mourners – Clemens, son of the dead Sabinus.
All at once she realized what it was, the quality that an actor was incapable of showing. Selflessness. The ability to move past one's self for the greater good. Sabinus had owned that look. So too did his son, though she did not think it had been there a year ago. It was a look Perel recognized, because her father had owned it as well. As had her mother.
As soon as the funeral was d
one, Perel returned to her small cubicle in the house of Plautius. Her master and mistress had been at the funeral, and had been invited to the games – though doubtless her mistress would find a way to slip off and be alone with Domitian.
Seth was attending Plautius. The rest of the slaves and freedmen were off celebrating the last day of Saturnalia. Left alone in the household, Perel considered.
The home of the great Roman god was in ruins. David's city was gone, and with it the great Temple of Solomon. The world was disordered. All was in chaos.
But just as the ripest crops grow from the bloodiest ground, something great would emerge from this devastation. All this ravaged earth needed was a seed.
Carefully, reverently, Perel withdrew her copy of her father's memoir from its hiding place. The last words of her father. The memoir of Symeon Petros. The good news of Marcus.
The time to share it with the world was at hand.
FIN
Afterword
HISTORICAL APOLOGIES AND ADDENDUMS
As I mentioned in the foreword, the trouble with this series is that I suffer an over-abundance of rich material: the Great Fire of Rome, the Judean War, the death of Nero, the Year of the Four Emperors, the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem, Masada, the building of the Colosseum, the eruption of Vesuvius, the inaugural games, and then the ending, the moment that inspired me in the first place. So I've carved each one into its own discrete episode, hoping to build with individual bricks the wall I could not create from a single slab.
While I chose to start with the Hebrew twins in STONE & STEEL, this book is not so much a sequel as a co-equal. There are a handful of references in here that won't make much sense unless you've read the other one. But imagine two pillars holding up the world, one in Judea and one in Rome. This is the second pillar, same height as the first, and reaching just as high.
Which leads me to Sabinus and Clemens, and Abigail and Perel.
I made a point of saying that the twins of STONE & STEEL were fictional, which is technically true. But their lives will eventually converge with those of real people, becoming figures known to history, if only vaguely (speaking of vague, I hope you enjoy parsing that statement).
