‘I do hope you’re right, Magnus; somehow I don’t think that I’m nimble enough to wield the assassin’s blade.’
‘Chaerea is,’ Vespasian observed, ‘and with a few more insults like that from Caligula he’ll be ready to. The question is: where will Clemens stand?’ He looked over at the pasty face of the Praetorian prefect and was shocked by the look of devastation on it; next to him Corvinus stood smiling smugly as Caligula approached the group.
‘Agrippina and Julia Livilla,’ Caligula enthused, greeting his sisters with a kiss apiece, ‘I hope that you have learnt your lessons.’
The two women looked none the worse for their recent ordeal.
‘Yes, dear brother,’ Agrippina replied; her sister just nodded. ‘We are all yours again.’
‘Good, my sweet,’ Caligula said, patting the shock of ginger hair sprouting from the head of the baby she held. ‘How is young Lucius Domitius?’
‘He’s strong and wilful.’
‘He’ll need to be strong if I’m forced to banish you to that barren rock where our mother lived out her last days.’ He gently lifted her chin and kissed her mouth. ‘Please don’t make me do that.’ Without waiting for a reply he turned to the woman next to her. ‘Messalina, your brother, Corvinus, has done me a great service. I look forward to welcoming you into my family next month – even if it is to marry this buffoon.’ He looked contemptuously at Claudius, who bowed his head, mumbling his thanks at being noticed.
Messalina smiled, her dark eyes flicked quickly over to Vespasian and held his for an instant while her brother, Corvinus, looked triumphantly at him. Clemens appeared to be struggling to control himself. All around the room the couches were filling up.
Caligula moved on to the fourth and final woman; she was older than the other three and not at all attractive, having the same long face and nose of her half-brother Corbulo.
‘Caesonia Milonia,’ Caligula said, putting his hand on her stomach, ‘how goes your pregnancy?’
‘I carry the child of a god, Divine Gaius, and it thrives.’
‘Of course; but nevertheless I will rest you for now and take my pleasure elsewhere; but first we shall eat.’
Caligula chewed on a swan leg and waved a dismissive hand at the hundreds of senators reclining at the many tables around the room. ‘Look at them all,’ he confided disdainfully to Vespasian and Sabinus on the couch next to him. ‘They all hate me now after what I’ve been doing to them in the last couple of years; but what would they give to be here where you are, next to your Emperor?’
‘You honour us with your favour,’ Vespasian acknowledged, looking at the food on the table in front of him with little appetite.
‘I do; and each one of those sheep is spitting jealous that they aren’t receiving the same treatment. No matter what I do to them they still feign love for me.’
‘It’s not a feigned love, they don’t hate you.’
Caligula looked at Vespasian in amusement. ‘Don’t lie to me, my friend. What do you think I’ve been doing since I became emperor? Ruling justly?’
Vespasian studied Caligula’s face for a moment and was surprised to see his eyes clear and lucid. ‘You have done some great things and next year you will do greater deeds,’ he replied cautiously, trying to put the massacre that day out of his mind.
‘I have; but the greatest thing that I’ve achieved is to hold a mirror up to the Senate so that they can see themselves for what they really are: sycophants and flatterers who know no other way to live. All those years of treason trials when they denounced one another in the hope of gaining favour with Augustus, Tiberius or Sejanus and in the knowledge that if they brought a successful prosecution they would gain the estate of their victim has left them morally bankrupt. It also cost me most of my family and I’m honour bound to avenge them.’
Vespasian and Sabinus looked at each other, both startled that Caligula was confiding in them in a way that had a hint of truth in it.
‘These humiliations have been all about revenge?’ Sabinus asked.
Caligula smiled coldly. ‘Naturally. You see, Vespasian, your brother is not dissembling now; you should try it. Do you think I’m mad?’
The answer stuck in Vespasian’s throat; either way he would condemn himself.
‘Answer! And answer truthfully. Do you think that I’m mad?’
‘Yes, I do, Divine Gaius.’
Caligula burst out laughing but the humour did not reach his eyes. ‘My friend, well done, you are the first person who has told me the truth even though you fear for your life. Of course you think I’m mad, who wouldn’t? And perhaps I am or perhaps I just have no desire for self-control. However, by each seemingly mad act I humiliate the Senate even more; I want to see how low they will stoop and yet still try to flatter me in the hope of favour. As I lay sick, each day they came to my door having offered prayers and sacrifices for my recovery and I knew that they only wanted news of my death. So I decided to make them crawl, make them do what no Roman has ever done: worship a living god. And look at them, they do. But I’m no god; they know that I’m not, and, furthermore, they also know that I know that they know it, and yet we all now maintain the pretence. Even you pretend to my face that I’m a god, don’t you?’
Vespasian swallowed. ‘Yes, Divine Gaius.’
‘Of course you do, you have to preserve yourself. I’m the most powerful man in the world and what is power if you don’t flaunt it? People worship those who hold it out of a desire to be shown favour. It’s deliciously amusing. Do you remember that idiot who offered his life in exchange for mine? He expected reward for such sycophancy but I took him at his word. But then I rewarded with a million sesterces the liar who swore that he saw Drusilla’s spirit rise into the heavens to commune with the gods, so now they don’t know what to do. Sheep! I’ll push them and push them because I can and it pleases and amuses me to do so.’
Vespasian frowned. ‘But one day you’ll push someone too far.’
‘Will I? I don’t think so. If someone did manage to kill me, which would be very difficult, they would themselves die. Who here would do that and lose all his property, thereby making his family destitute? Would you?’
Neither Vespasian nor Sabinus answered.
Caligula sneered and got up. ‘You see, you wouldn’t, would you? You’re both as bad as the rest of them; and I’ll prove it to you.’ He walked over to Corvinus who stood by one of the doors; Clemens was next to him still looking devastated. Music continued to rise from the players nearby. ‘Corvinus, if you please?’
‘A pleasure, Divine Gaius,’ Corvinus said, opening the door and disappearing through it; there was a brief cry before he emerged leading a naked woman roughly by the arm.
‘Clementina!’ Sabinus shouted, leaping up from his couch.
Vespasian slammed a restraining arm across his brother’s chest as he tried to go forward. ‘No!’ he hissed. ‘Caligula’s right, you’ll die and your property would be forfeit; Clementina and the children would be destitute.’
‘Doesn’t that look delicious,’ Caligula said slowly and with palpable relish. ‘Corvinus took it upon himself to fetch her from wherever you’d hidden her, Sabinus, without me even asking him to. Wasn’t that kind of him, Clemens?’
Clemens closed his eyes and breathed deeply, shaking with suppressed fury. Behind the ugly scene the pipes and lyres blended their notes in delicate harmony.
Vespasian held onto Sabinus who still struggled and was now heaving with sobs.
Caligula grabbed Clementina’s wrist. ‘Your husband was only now wondering how he could thank me; how fortunate he is to have found a way so quickly.’ He gave the brothers a malicious, questioning look. ‘Sheep?’
Time seemed to slow; sound became muffled and indistinct as Vespasian suppressed his horror. With his feelings wiped from his face, he held Caligula’s gaze for a moment and knew then that the Emperor had been wrong: he would be killed and his death would be soon; how could it not be so?
But who would stand in his place?
Vespasian turned and stared, his face still impassive, at Claudius, the only direct adult heir of the Julio-Claudian line, twitching and drooling in lust at the sight of Clementina’s body while unconciously cupping Messalina’s breast. He saw Messalina and her brother, Corvinus, both staring at Clemens and then share a brief, satisfied look of ambition. Vespasian understood what Corvinus had knowingly set in motion when he had seized Clementina, the sister of the prefect of the Praetorian Guard, and brought her here for his master to defile – Corvinus knew that Messalina could ultimately benefit, for what choice as emperor was there other than her future husband?
Vespasian looked past Messalina to Caligula’s sister, Agrippina, who was staring with loathing at her while holding her carrot-topped infant – another male heir but far too young. His eyes moved on to Caesonia Milonia, swelling with Caligula’s seed, looking haughtily down her long nose at the other two women, and he knew that the fruit of her belly could not be allowed to survive the Emperor’s death. It would be Claudius, he thought, certain now. He looked back at the malformed man whose erection protruded shamelessly from under his tunic. This would be the best that Caesar’s line could offer. For how long could that be tolerated?
The wavering note of a pipe pierced his consciousness and from that germ the song of the Phoenix filled the silence within his head. Thrasyllus’ prophecy came unbidden behind it and, as his gaze lingered on the heirs of Caesar, Vespasian knew for an instant the question that would one day take him back to the Temple of Amun at Siwa. It disappeared as quickly as it had come as sound flooded back into his ears and time ground back up to its unrelenting pace.
Clementina looked first at her husband and then her brother, her eyes pleading, but they could do nothing as the arbitrator of life and death dragged her out of the dining room.
The door closed; Clementina screamed; Clemens walked over to the brothers and whispered into Sabinus’ ear: ‘Not here, not now, but at a time and place of my choosing, together.’
Sabinus gave the faintest of nods as tears streamed down his face and, for the first time in his life, Vespasian feared for his brother: the man whose sense of honour would be strong enough to overrule his judgement.
And then he began to fear for himself; he knew that when Sabinus next returned to Rome it would be with death in his heart and he, Vespasian, would be forced to make the choice between turning his back on the sacred bonds of blood or aiding his brother in assassinating an emperor.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This historical fiction is based on the writings of Tacitus, Suetonius, Cassius Dio, Josephus and Philo.
The events surrounding the crucifixion of Yeshua are, to say the least, opaque. To my mind motivations and timelines seem to be very confused; no doubt due to ancient writers trying to construct a story piecemeal to suit the agenda of the newly conceived Pauline Christianity. My version of the story is set down with no claims to scholarship; it is purely constructed to have Sabinus witness the birth of a man-made religion that will become an important strand of the story as the series progresses.
I am grateful to A. N. Wilson in his Paul: The Mind of the Apostle for his suggestion of Paulus’ full name and for his intriguing idea that he may have been the Temple guard who had his ear chopped off by Peter and also that he may well have witnessed the crucifixion itself.
There is no evidence that Paulus went to Creta and Cyrenaica in his persecution of Yeshua’s followers. Vespasian was quaestor there in AD 34 or soon after if we follow the dating in Barbara Levick’s excellent biography Vespasian. I chose AD 34 because that was the year, according to Tacitus, that the Phoenix was again reborn – Cassius Dio puts it in AD 36. Tacitus clearly believes in the Phoenix and spends more than half a page describing it.
Silphium was dying out at this time and that would have put quite a strain on the Cyrenaican economy. Nero was said to have been presented with the last plant in existence twenty years later.
I have probably done the Marmaridae a disservice by portraying them as ruthless slavers, for which I apologise.
The Oracle of Amun was in Siwa and Alexander did travel there and was spoken to; he never revealed what he had been told.
Caligula did have a long affair with Macro’s wife, Ennia, and did swear to make her his empress and Macro prefect of Egypt before ordering their suicide for adultery and pandering. Vespasian’s part in the suicide is, of course, fiction.
Poppaeus died a natural death in AD 35 and Tacitus wrote of him that he was up to the task and no more. There is nothing to suggest that he had anything to do with Pomponius’ suicide the year before; that seems to have been Tiberius’ doing.
The Parthian mission did come to Rome at this time and Tiberius backed the claim of Phraates, sparking off two years of Roman intervention in the East under the generalship of Lucius Vitellius, the Governor of Syria. It is my fiction to have Herod Agrippa involved in it, as indeed it was having him in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion and also conspiring with Macro and Poppaeus to grab the eastern provinces.
Sabinus being the aedile in charge of grain is also my invention but he would have achieved that rank at about this time. Tiberius did give a lot of money towards rebuilding the Aventine after a fire in the last months of his reign. Tacitus records that Macro did smother him and Cassius Dio says that Caligula had the Senate overturn his will on the grounds of insanity, which was self-evident because he had named a mere boy as his co-heir.
We get a pleasing clue as to how Vespasian survived Caligula’s reign from Suetonius: he records that Vespasian stood up in the Senate and made a speech thanking the Emperor for inviting him to dinner the previous evening, showing us that he was considered a friend by Caligula and also he realised that abject sycophancy was, indeed, a life-saving fault.
As to Caligula’s excesses: they were many and varied if we are to believe the historians and I have no reason not to, although I am happy to accept that they may have exaggerated. All of the acts that he commits in the book are reported or alluded to by either Suetonius or Cassius Dio – Tacitus’ account being unfortunately lost. I have only exaggerated two points: firstly the extent of his public sex with Drusilla; I can find no record of his building a theatre for these shows, but it has been suggested by some of the more imaginative modern writers on the subject and I liked the idea so I borrowed it. If someone could show me where it is historically documented, I would be only too pleased to learn that it was true! Secondly: Caligula forcing his two other sisters to have sex with the urban poor in the palace is also from similar sources; I included this because it seemed like a good way to combine both his turning the palace into a brothel and also his prostituting his sisters to his friends, both of which are in Suetonius.
Caligula’s illness is mysterious and there have been several theories as to what it was. What is for certain is that he was never the same after. I have shamelessly borrowed Robert Graves’ idea that he thought himself metamorphosed into a god after his recovery, because it was such fun. My thanks to the shade of one of the greatest writers of historical fiction.
Vespasian was the aedile responsible for Rome’s streets during Caligula’s reign. Suetonius makes much out of Caligula, disgusted at the state of the streets, ordering filth to be piled into Vespasian’s toga fold; he claims that it was a sign that Rome would one day fall into Vespasian’s lap. Personally I think that it was a sign that Vespasian did not really care for the job.
Valerius Catullus claimed to have worn himself out buggering Caligula, not Clemens; but it was a nice detail that I wanted to get in.
Antonia was driven to suicide by Caligula’s behaviour and more than likely freed Caenis in her will, as she would have been thirty by then.
Vespasian’s part in fetching Alexander’s breastplate from Alexandria is again my fiction; however, someone had to go and get it, so why not our man? It also puts him in Alexandria for the Jewish riots of AD 38. The riots and Herod Agrippa’s humiliatio
n I based on Josephus’ and Philo’s accounts as well as the excellent Alexandrian Riots of 38 CE and the Persecution of the Jews by Sandra Gambetti. Paulus being there at the time is my fiction, but if he did live for three years in the desert after his Damascene conversion, he would have been reappearing in about AD 38, though probably not in Alexandria.
My favourite comment on the riots comes from Philo, brother of the Alabarch, Alexander, whose main cause for outrage was not so much the killing but the fact that high-status Jews were whipped like common Egyptian peasants in the fields, rather than given the rod as befitted their rank; and then, to compound it all, those whipping them were Greeks of the very lowest class. Disgraceful!
Vespasian must have met Flavia Domitilla during the time span of the book. She was the mistress of Statilius Capella from Sabratha and the daughter of Flavius Liberalis, a quaestor’s clerk who became an equestrian.
Caligula’s bridge over the Bay of Naples must have been a wonderful sight; it did, however, cause a massive food shortage in Italy. The events described are all taken from historical sources; I have only changed it in that it all happens on one day rather than two. Corbulo probably had nothing to do with the building of the road across it, but he did complain about the state of the roads in the Senate and was made road-czar by Caligula for his trouble – perhaps as a joke?
Caligula’s rape of Clementina at the end is fictional but very much in character.
My thanks again to my agent, Ian Drury at Sheil Land Associates, and also to Gaia Banks and Virginia Ascione for their hard work on my behalf in the foreign rights department.
Thanks to Sara O’Keefe and Toby Mundy at Corvus/Atlantic for believing in the Vespasian series and continuing to publish it.
Once again it has been a pleasure to work with my editor, Richenda Todd, who has, as always, made the book much better than I could have done by myself.
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