Rome's executioner v-2

by Robert Fabbri

  Having spent the third night at Fundi they followed the road southwest again back to the sea and then along the coast. The March days were warming up and the sky stayed clear of clouds. The Tyrrhenian Sea sparkled to their right; trading ships and galleys passed to and fro in the busy sea lane between Ostia and Neapolis, now reopened after winter.

  Passing Mount Massicus, they entered Campania and the Falerian wine district. Here the style of buildings became noticeably more Greek, attesting to the mixed ancestry of the Roman citizens of the region.

  They spent the fifth night at the town of Volturnum, situated on the river of the same name, and had a pleasant meal on a vine-shaded terrace watching the fishermen offloading their catch after the day’s fishing at sea, just two miles downstream. Leaving early in the morning, they travelled the last few miles at a decent pace and, as the sun began to sink towards the sea, they passed the Portus Julius — home to the western fleet — and approached the rocky promontory of Misenum, which rose from the sea like the arching back of a mythical sea monster.

  ‘They seemed to be expecting us,’ Magnus commented as the gate to the imperial cliff-top estate was swung closed behind them by two uniformed Praetorians.

  ‘Macro must have sent a message in advance of us,’ Vespasian replied as they rode up the paved path to the villa at the tip of the promontory. ‘He said that his men guarded Misenum.’

  ‘I don’t know whether being guarded by Macro’s men should make me feel safe or not.’

  Vespasian grinned at his friend. ‘I know the feeling; but I can assure you that it’s a lot safer than being guarded by Sejanus’.’

  ‘Let’s hope that it never comes to that,’ Magnus muttered.

  They came to the whitewashed wall surrounding the villa and rode through an arch. Vespasian, along with all of his companions, gasped at the beauty of the place: set almost at the cliff’s edge, the single-storey, pink-marble-walled villa with its terracotta-tiled roof overlooked the glittering bay of Neapolis, which was speckled with ships and dominated by the humped-back mass of Mount Vesuvius rising over four thousand feet from the coastal plain. In front of the villa was a circular pool, fifty feet in diameter, surrounded by a colonnade studded with statues pillaged from Greece and Asia. At its centre was a marble fountain depicting the sea god, Triton; his human torso blended into a fish tail as he seemed to leap from the depths of the pool spurting a gush of water skywards from his upturned mouth whilst brandishing a conch shell in his left hand and, like his father Poseidon, a trident in his right.

  Around the pool the gardens were laid out with a pleasing symmetry. Eight wide, shrub-lined paths emanated at regular intervals from the colonnade and terminated in the circular path, upon which they now stood, that encompassed the whole garden. The path was rimmed with acacias and cypresses with low, stone benches at their feet to provide a shady place to sit and read or just to contemplate the beauty of the setting whilst enjoying the soft sea breeze on your face.

  A girlish scream brought the party out of their silent admiration for the place. Vespasian looked towards the direction of the noise and saw Caligula, on the other side of the pool, running down one of the paths, chased by two young girls; all three were naked.

  As he reached the pool he jumped in and started to wade across; the girls followed him, cupping their hands and splashing water over his back. On reaching the edge he made a show of not being able to climb out and the girls caught him and, jumping all over him, pulled him under. There was a playful thrashing of lithe limbs breaking the surface of the pool until eventually Caligula surfaced and rose to his feet with the youngest girl draped around his neck. He looked towards where Vespasian and his friends sat on their horses and, instantly recognising them, waved.

  ‘At last,’ he called. ‘I’ve been so looking forward to this. Come over.’

  With a degree of trepidation Vespasian led the party to the pool’s edge whilst the girls, with much giggling and squealing, hauled Caligula under again. Vespasian dismounted and approached his friend, who had managed to get to his feet again. Caligula divested himself of the young girls to reveal the most prodigious erection, almost as big as the false phalluses worn by actors in satyr plays: nearly a foot long and with a girth and scrotum to match.

  ‘Vespasian,’ Caligula cried, stepping out of the pool and grasping Vespasian’s forearm; his sunken eyes beamed with delight. ‘It’s good to see you. Look, I’m still alive — how about that? Tiberius hasn’t decided to kill me; in fact quite the opposite, he’s going to make me his heir.’ He gave a short, semi-hysterical laugh. ‘When I’m Emperor I’ll be able to play with my sisters all the time. Drusilla, Livilla, this is my friend Vespasian and his brother Sabinus; you must both be very friendly to them.’

  ‘Drusilla,’ the elder of the two said, holding out her hand; she could not have been more than fifteen. She had a small but not unattractive mouth and slightly chubby cheeks. Her ivory skin glistened with water and her thick black hair hung in damp clumps and stuck to her shoulders. She made no attempt to cover her nakedness and Vespasian was unable to help his eyes drifting over her firm adolescent breasts and down to other points further south. She looked at him with appraising brown eyes as he took her hand.

  ‘I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance,’ he managed to say, tearing his eyes away from her nubile body and meeting hers.

  ‘And I’m Julia Livilla,’ the younger sister said, stepping out of the pool. ‘I enjoy making new friends, especially if they’re friends of dear Gaius.’

  ‘This is a nice Livilla, not like that gruesome aunt of mine,’ Caligula said, stroking her cheek; she clasped her arms around Caligula’s neck and gave him an affectionate kiss on the lips whilst pressing her belly against his persistent erection. She was about two years younger than her sister; she shared Drusilla’s small mouth but had higher, more pronounced cheekbones and a longer, sharper nose. Her breasts had just started to bud on her skinny ribcage.

  Caligula disentangled himself from his sister and greeted Pallas, who managed to act as if there was absolutely nothing amiss, nodded briefly at Magnus and then approached Corbulo, who was standing with his mouth open, goggle-eyed and positively brimming with aristocratic outrage.

  ‘This is Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo,’ Vespasian told Caligula by way of an introduction.

  ‘Hello,’ Caligula exclaimed, and then leapt back into the pool, leaving Corbulo even more speechless than before.

  ‘We shall have dinner soon,’ Caligula said, resurfacing. ‘Back to the house now, my sweets.’

  His sisters giggled, and then, each with a hand grasping his magnificent penis, led their brother back to the villa.

  ‘I’ll find the house steward,’ Pallas said, climbing back up on to the wagon, ‘and get him to organise our rooms and horses.’

  He flicked the reins and the wagon moved off around the pool. Vespasian followed, leading his horse and hoping that Caligula and his sisters would dress for dinner.

  Vespasian stepped out of his room into the courtyard garden to find Clemens sitting with Sabinus on a stone bench under a fig tree. The garden was enclosed only on three sides, the southern end being left open to afford a stunning view over the Bay of Neapolis; in the distance, with its sheer cliffs glowing red in the last rays of the sun, lay Capreae.

  ‘It’s madness over there,’ Clemens said as he clasped Vespasian’s forearm. ‘The old man’s gone quite mad. He’s obsessed by sex, death and astrology to the extent that he thinks about nothing else, apart from the construction of the new villa that he’s building: the Villa Iovis. It’s only half finished but he’s moved into the completed part and has filled it with pornographic mosaics and frescoes. I sometimes wonder whether it might not be a good idea for Sejanus to become Emperor. At least he has Roman values. There’s nothing Greek about him; you wouldn’t find him sodomising the young sons of his supposed friends. And he’d keep death where it belongs: in the arena or on the battlefield.’

  ‘Or in the l
aw courts,’ Vespasian added.

  ‘Yes, well, there’s always going to be an element of that no matter who’s Emperor; but Tiberius goes too far. Our Republican ancestors would fall on their swords for shame if they saw some of the things that I’ve seen in the last few months. One time he got over a thousand slaves and had one of them gutted in front of the rest, who were told that any man who didn’t do as he was ordered would die in the same painful fashion. He then lined them all up and made them masturbate until they were all erect — his young catamites went along the line helping any of them who was having a problem — and then forced them into a long line of buggery; over a thousand of them in a row, can you imagine it?’

  Vespasian, much to his consternation, found himself able to.

  ‘Then,’ Clemens continued, ‘he had a century of Praetorians — infantry, not my cavalry boys — go up and down the line strangling the slaves as they orgasmed and reminding those who hadn’t what would happen to them if they stopped, even if they were pumping a dead man’s arse.’

  ‘That’s not really the action of a Scipio or a Julius Caesar,’ Vespasian agreed.

  ‘What was Tiberius doing whilst all this was going on?’ Sabinus asked, mildly fascinated by the whole image.

  ‘He had the fifteen-year-old son of Lucius Vitellius Veteris fellating him.’

  ‘What about Caligula? Was he there?’ Vespasian asked hoping for an insight into his friend’s eccentric behaviour that afternoon.

  ‘Oh yes, and positively encouraging the old man,’ Clemens replied, shaking his head. ‘He’s worked out that to stay alive around Tiberius you’ve got to seem to be interested in his new hobbies. The first couple of months he was there he was in a constant state of terror, thinking that Tiberius was going to execute him on a whim at any moment, which I think has unhinged him a bit.’

  ‘A bit?’ Vespasian queried. ‘He was having sex with his sisters when we arrived.’

  ‘He’s been doing that for the last couple of years,’ Clemens replied dismissively. ‘He just can’t help himself when it comes to women, including his own blood. What I mean by unhinged is that he seems to find it hard to concentrate on any one thing for too long and he’s become prone to hysterical laughter for no reason; but other than that he’s still very much the same: sexually insatiable but good company and full of life.’

  ‘Well, I’m pleased to hear it,’ Vespasian said, strangely unsurprised by Caligula’s relationship with his sisters; he now understood the reason for Antonia’s disapproval of his visits to Misenum.

  Further discussion of the subject was put off by the arrival of the house steward to announce that dinner was ready. They followed the steward into the villa as the sun finally disappeared beyond the horizon leaving the evening star burning brightly over the placid Tyrrhenian Sea.

  ‘Tiberius doesn’t like to be surprised,’ Caligula announced as the gustatio was cleared away, ‘even if it’s someone with good news or even a present.’ He took a sip of his wine and then laughed briefly, before putting his hand on Vespasian’s, who was reclining to his left on the same couch. ‘Last month a fisherman scaled the cliffs to bring Tiberius the largest mullet I’ve ever seen. The old man was so unnerved by someone being able to get into his presence unannounced that he ordered one of his guards to scrub the man’s face raw with the scales of the fish.’ He paused whilst he adjusted something on Drusilla’s dress; she reclined on Caligula’s right and had her back towards him talking with Corbulo, who was uncomfortably sharing the next couch with a very friendly Julia Livilla.

  ‘Anyway,’ Caligula carried on, happy with whatever adjustment he had just made, ‘the fisherman showed spirit and despite his obvious agony managed to crack a joke.’ He started to giggle almost hysterically and eased himself closer to Drusilla. ‘He said… he said: “Thank the gods that I didn’t offer Caesar the huge crab that I caught.”’ Caligula broke off into peals of laughter whilst seemingly trying to get himself comfortable on the couch. Vespasian joined in the mirth along with Clemens and Sabinus, who reclined on the couch to the left.

  ‘But then…’ Caligula continued as he managed to get himself under control, ‘but then Tiberius orders the crab to be found and has the fisherman’s face rubbed with that; it almost took all his features off.’ Caligula dissolved into hysterical laughter, which ended with a sudden jerk of his lower body and an abrupt grunt of pleasure. He reached for his wine cup. As Caligula drank, Vespasian took the opportunity to raise himself up slightly and look over him at Drusilla. He looked away very quickly. Her stola was raised above her buttocks; Caligula had evidently penetrated her, but, judging from the angle of their bodies, it was not by the standard method. Drusilla was carrying on her conversation with Corbulo as if nothing had happened; from the look on Corbulo’s face Vespasian could guess that he knew perfectly well what was going on.

  ‘So I’ve made sure that Uncle Tiberius is expecting you, without unsettling him,’ Caligula continued as the next course — two large platters of mixed seafood — was served. A soft sea breeze blowing through the open window gently billowed the slaves’ tunics as they padded around the table.

  ‘How?’ Vespasian asked, selecting a crayfish.

  ‘He has an old charletan of an astrologer living over there called Thrasyllus who, incidentally, is the father of the lovely Ennia whom I met at dinner at my grandmother’s house.’

  ‘Macro’s wife?’ Sabinus queried.

  ‘I believe that she is; far too good for him, I’ve a mind to try her myself. Anyway, this Thrasyllus spends most of his time telling Tiberius that he is going to live to oversee the changes that will start when the Phoenix flies again in Egypt in three years’ time.’

  ‘What’s the Phoenix?’ Corbulo asked, anxious to be distracted from the outrage being perpetrated so close to him.

  ‘It’s a bird that has a life cycle of five hundred years, at the end of which it bursts into flames and a new Phoenix is born from its ashes heralding the beginning of a new age. Anyway, Tiberius likes the fact that he’s predicted to live for at least another three years so he listens to Thrasyllus; so I’ve persuaded him to predict that I’ll receive important news from my grandmother brought by a friend.’

  ‘But how will we get to Tiberius?’

  ‘Every morning, after he’s finished his… er… exercises, Tiberius and I go down to the unfinished part of Villa Iovis to check on the progress — he’s particularly interested in a frieze he’s having done in what will be his bedroom. So if we hide you in that room overnight I can warn him that the predicted news from Antonia has arrived and that I feel it’s so important that I think he should hear it; hopefully he’ll consent to seeing you.’

  ‘Just make sure that there’re no mullets or crabs handy,’ Vespasian said, breaking open the crayfish and rubbing his finger up and down the sharp shell.

  Caligula laughed slightly more uproariously than the remark merited and adjusted his position against Drusilla. ‘Crabs!’ he guffawed, passing a whole grilled baby octopus to his sister, who was having trouble reaching the platters on the table.

  Vespasian had noted with a good deal of relief that the siblings seemed content to remain surreptitiously coupled and were not writhing around next to him. Corbulo just carried on staring at them in disbelief and seemed not only to have lost his appetite but also the battle with Julia Livilla, who now rested a friendly hand on his thigh.

  ‘My men meeting you at the cove will take you to the perimeter wall of the Villa Iovis,’ Clemens said, getting the conversation back on track. ‘I’ll join you there once I’ve taken Caligula back to his quarters, and escort you to the room. My men will guard the door to make sure none of the artisans see you in the morning. Once you’ve seen Tiberius you’ll stay in the room until it’s dark and then we’ll get you back to the cove; that way you shouldn’t come to the attention of any of Sejanus’ men.’

  Vespasian and Sabinus both nodded in approval.

  ‘If you think that it’ll work, Cleme
ns,’ Sabinus said, ‘then I’m happy.’

  ‘It’ll work,’ Clemens replied, breaking off a hunk of bread and soaking it in the seafood juice at the bottom of the platter in front of him. ‘The problem’s going to be Tiberius’ state of mind.’

  ‘But Caligula said that he would forewarn him — didn’t you?’ Vespasian nudged his friend, who was now engrossed in feeding Drusilla prawns.

  ‘What?’ Caligula asked, teasing Drusilla with a prawn.

  ‘I said: you were going to forewarn Tiberius so he should be in a decent mood when he sees us.’

  ‘Oh yes, yes, absolutely,’ Caligula replied turning his attention away from his sister. ‘He should be, but that’s just the trouble. Recently, when he’s in a good mood, he’s taken to having people thrown off the cliff-top just for fun; he finds it very amusing. He’s been doing it so regularly to people he’s invited over to the island as guests that he’s even had a unit of marines, armed with clubs, stationed at the base of the cliff to finish off anyone unfortunate enough to survive the fall; he told me that doesn’t want his guests to suffer unnecessarily for his pleasure. That’s why a lot of the people whom he invites over commit suicide rather than accept the invitation.’

  Caligula gave a short high-pitched laugh and went back to feeding Drusilla.