by Allan Massie
The gathering broke up into little groups. I felt a hand laid on my shoulder. I turned to see Caesius Bassus.
He said, 'So we've made two bad decisions.' He smiled, as if making bad decisions was matter for indifference. 'You're attached to the Emperor's personal staff, 1 think,' he continued. 'So I'm afraid you will see no immediate action. But I hear you have already distinguished yourself. I congratulate you. To display virtue in war is all that is left to us, now that civic virtue has been outlawed. You must not be surprised that I know of your doings. It is not just that they have been much spoken of. I had my eye on you in any case. You were a friend of my friend Lucan, I think.'
'That does me too much honour,' I said. 'I was a mere boy. We were not equals. Therefore we could not be friends.' 'No?' he said, and smiled. 'At any rate, he admired you greatly.' 'I admired his verses,' I said. 'Yes, of course.'
'One of your lines ran in my head as you were reading your general's dispatch.' I quoted it to him.
'Do you know,' he said, 'I can't for the life of me remember the next line. A poet who forgets his own verses – not, I assure you, a being you are often likely to encounter.'
'I'm afraid it's the only line of that poem I know. It was a girl who quoted it to me. The girl I'm in love with actually.'
'Ah, yes, my verses appeal to lovely girls. And to some boys also, I'm glad to say, even some lovely boys.' He laid his hand on my shoulder again, and squeezed it gently.
'I often think I should have died with Lucan. I'm rather ashamed I didn't. Well, I don't suppose it will be long now. Not after the decisions taken here tonight. Take care of yourself, and remember me. Get your girl to recite the rest of the poem. It was rather good, I think. Sad that I've forgotten it myself
That night Otho dictated to me for a long time, letters to the commander of the 14th legion, to Vespasian and to Mucianus. He spoke confidently of his expectation of victory and of how he looked forward to their meeting to discuss the government of the Empire.
But, every few minutes, between phrases, his eyes shifted and he looked into the night.
XXV
I do not know why I sent these last pages, with the record of that conversation with Caesius Bassus, to Tacitus. I regret it. I feel as if I had given something of myself away. But how can that matter? Do I care whether Tacitus thinks well or ill of me? I have no reason to. I am cast up here. He writes again that there is no reason why I should not return to Rome, now that law has been restored, and no one is condemned merely by the caprice of the Emperor. No doubt he speaks truth. He still does not understand that exile has become my choice – or my destiny.
Besides, what would I do in Rome? Who would I know? Who would remember me? Who would greet me kindly?
Even my friendship, such as it is, with Tacitus is one that can be maintained only at a distance, by post. With several hundred miles separating us, I can be amused by his narrow puritan censoriousness. It would bore and irritate me if we met and spent time together. That used not to be so; I was then delighted by his wit and intelligence. But now I could not abide his certainty of being always right, of being justified; I scorn his consciousness of his own virtue. Actually, I find I dislike him. But he amuses me – at a distance.
In his last letter he said, 'You forget that the murder of Galba made Otho odious and terrible.' Strange adjectives to use of that unfortunate man.
Balthus is lying stretched out before the fire, asleep. One of my hounds has placed his leg over the boy's thigh, pushing the skirt of his tunic up to reveal a long line of naked flesh. The skin is pale, though the flames dance red-gold over it. It is deep night. I kept the boy with me rather than being compelled to solitude. Minerva's bird utters its warning cry. Bitterns boom in the reeds by the inland sea. From the bedroom beyond comes the, as it were, answering snores of my woman. She has never had a disturbed night in her life, and she tells me she never dreams. Indeed I once, years ago, had to explain to her what a dream was.
There are pictures in the fire. Some nights they frighten me. Balthus utters a little moan. It sounds contented. But it may have been the hound that uttered.
Two nights after that staff council, I was released by Otho when he declared himself at last ready to retire. He had talked of doing so several times, and I was beginning to think we would see the dawn, as we had done on other occasions. But this night he said, 'I really think I may sleep', and let me go. We were lodged in a villa, from which the owner had fled, or which he had perhaps been persuaded to surrender to the Emperor, and I had secured for myself a little room by the gatehouse.
When I entered, I found Caesius Bassus reclining on my couch with a wine-flask by his side.
'I had your servant stoke the stove,' he said. 'You don't mind that I've come here? Look, I've brought wine.' He poured me a cup. Tm very tired,' I said, ungraciously.
'Who knows? I may be dead tomorrow. I've remembered how that poem goes.' He recited it to me.
'It's good,' he said, 'isn't it? One of my best. I can't think how I came to forget it.'
'It's sad, certainly,' I said, 'and beautiful, like the last colours of the evening sky. But you didn't ride here to recite a poem to me.'
'Why not? I am a poet, after all, with all the poetic vanity. And being a poet, writing poems, that's the best of me, the only good in me, I have often thought. And I was touched that you remembered that line your girl quoted to you, even if you would not perhaps have done so but for the girl. But I admit, the poem was an excuse. I wanted to see you again. To talk. To unburden myself. To speak to someone who knew Lucan and was loved by Lucan, and to kill the night with talk of Lucan, and life, and love and this awful war, this so uncivil civil war.'
'Lucan talked, to seduce me,' I said. 'That was all. He didn't succeed.'
'You can't reproach him for that ambition,' he said. 'You were very desirable. You still are, if you don't mind my saying so. To me, you are in that most delicious of stages, no longer a boy, not yet a man. But that's not why I've come here. Oh, if you were to invite me to tumble you on your bed, I should accept, of course. But I don't expect you to do so and, even if you did, and we took pleasure in each other, what would that amount to? The brief opening of a window in the blank wall of weariness, no more than that. For me now, even satisfied lust tastes sour, like new wine poured yesterday, drunk today.'
He fell silent. I could not read his expression, for his face was in half-shadow. A moth fluttered against the lamp, burned its wings and fell to the table.
'"The shadow of a great name",' he said, quoting Lucan. 'I think he meant Caesar, but the great name in whose shadow we all live is Rome itself, and Rome is now, like Troy, in flames. Nothing that was Rome remains – except the name. We were Republicans, you know. We dreamed that it might be possible, Nero dead, to restore the Republic. It was only a dream, foolish and insubstantial. We proved that, betraying ourselves and each other in our fear. No one in our generation has the fortitude of our forefathers. They tortured me, you know, but only a little. That was all that was necessary to make me betray Lucan. And Lucan himself tried – oh, so meanly – to cast the blame for his conduct on his mother. Perhaps he had Rome in mind. I should like to think so. For we had – it was a bond between us – a certain idea of Rome, which however in no way corresponded to the reality. I crawled to Nero: to save my life which, ever since, has seemed to me worthless. And so now, we are caught up in the struggle between two worthless men, Otho and Vitellius, and I ask myself, does it matter which of them feasts on the dead body of Rome? There's no good answer I can think of. One of them will win, the other lose, and who gives a tinker's cuss? Then your friends, Vespasian and Titus, will engage in a new war.'
What could I reply? The shameful thought came to me that the disillusion, so plangently expressed by Caesius Bassus, might be a ruse, that he might have been sent to prove my loyalty to Otho, and that an unwary word might invite my ruin – arrest, a cursory trial and ignominious death. He seemed indifferent to my silence.
'We hoped to restore a time when men might think what they wished and say what they thought. Yet, when we came to the test, we stifled our thoughts and said what was required. There was no need of enemies; friends were only too ready to destroy each other. We thought of ourselves as the best but, when even the best are subject to moral corruption, the worst triumph. I have never ceased to reproach myself that I am still alive. Fortune may see to it that this battle tomorrow answers my self-reproach.' He smiled, and drank more wine.
'Do you know what I am?' he said. 'I am a man with a great future behind him.'
I do not pretend that I recall his every word throughout this conversation which was really a soliloquy, a threnody with corruption as its theme. Yet some of the words are those he spoke, and the sense is all his. So, too, is what I may call the music. It has remained with me all these years, throughout so many vicissitudes, because this poet, whom I scarcely knew, who had singled me out almost by chance, and who met the next day the death he sought, expressed with an irony so detached from his personality as to seem cruel all that I have come to feel concerning the horrors of the age in which we have been condemned to live and in which the reward for virtue has been certain doom.
Before taking his leave, he said, You will have heard that our two emperors, Otho and Vitellius, accuse each other of monstrous debaucheries. Neither is lying. How strange that both should stumble into truth?'
There can be no emotion more debilitating than self-contempt; yet who that ever aspired to virtue can escape it in our time?
Balthus stirs on the rush-matting before the fire. The hound protests and, shifting position, now lies athwart the boy. Waking, the boy's face often wears a troubled look. His eyes are narrowed and there are lines made by anxiety running from them. His mouth hangs a little open, as if he would speak but dare not, as if inviting kisses which nevertheless he would try to ward off. But in sleep he looks contented, contented indeed as the unreflective hound.
He spoke to me earlier this evening of his god, in whom he declares an absolute trust. It appears that the poor child believes that his god has a special care for him, and indeed for all those he terms 'true believers'. He would like me to become one. Yet it is all absurdity. Everyone who has thought about these matters and who has had any experience of life knows that whatever gods exist are perfectly indifferent to the fortunes of men. If they care at all, it is not for our safety, but for our punishment. His Christianity is a slave's religion, and I suppose this is natural. Slaves dare not look reality in the face. They keep their eyes lowered to the ground. No wonder they cherish in their sad deluded hearts some notion of enjoying the favour of the gods in another life.
Strange though that his absurd religion gives him an assurance and a comfort I cannot look to have. In my experience, virtue is punished and crimes rewarded, until hubris overtakes the criminal.
XXVI
I fretted, Tacitus, to be kept at the Emperor's side. Yet there was nothing I could do about it. Otho protested that he needed me. He told me I was his talisman. Yet he spoke in a tone of despondency. Civil war, he told me, was wicked. Neither he nor Vitellius would be forgiven for having subjected Italy to its miseries.
'It is no wonder,' he said, 'that the merchants and common people of the towns already regret Nero. What harm did he do them, they ask, compared to the ruin that the rivalries of Otho and Vitellius threaten to bring on us?'
And it was true, he added, that Nero had directed his cruelties only at members of the senatorial class, and had pleased the populace by the lavish entertainment he had promoted on their behalf.
The Emperor had refused to take the omens on the day assigned to battle, and when the priests who had done so came to inform him of their message, he waved them angrily away. He sent forward a succession of runners urging his brother Titianus and his second-in-command Proculus to make all possible haste towards the confluence of the Po and the Adda, by which march it was hoped that they would cut off the enemy's retreat and draw a circle round their camp. I later learned that Celsus and Paullinus had argued against exposing the troops, who were heavily burdened with baggage, to such a hazardous plan. They would rather we had stood and fought on ground of our own choosing. But Titianus, with all the arrogance of incompetence, waved these arguments aside. He was infatuated with the beauty of his plan, and did not realise that battles are fought in the field, not on map-tables. But the disagreement between the generals becoming known, the men were disheartened, and many talked, I am told, of their fear that they had been betrayed.
Towards evening, but while it was still light, the first messengers came to us with reports of a heavy defeat. The army was in headlong flight, they said. Otho received the news without any sign of emotion, and gave gold to the messengers. When he had dismissed them, he said, 'I have never believed in victory, and so it now remains only to die in such a manner as will cause men to speak well of Otho and bring honour, not dishonour, to my house. For a long time I have wished that I had fallen victim to the perverted hatreds of Nero, and been spared this ordeal of being Emperor in name alone.' And he ordered a slave to bring him two daggers, and himself tested their points. I said nothing to dissuade him. What should I have said?
But then, a centurion of the Praetorians, by name, Plotius Firmus, thrust himself into the presence.
'All is not lost,' he said. 'We've been defeated in a battle, but not a decisive one. The other side got a bloody nose themselves. Their cavalry was scattered. We took the eagle from one of their legions. We have still an army to the south of the Po, not to mention the legions which have remained here with you, my lord, at Bedriacum. What's more the Danube legions are still on the march to our aid. So we can still fight back. All that is required is resolution.'
Soon the centurion was joined by a number of his men. They crowded round Otho, yelling encouragement and swearing that they were ready for another go at the enemy. One young man even threw himself to the ground, and clasping Otho's knees, demanded that he lead them himself back to the field and he was certain they would restore their fallen fortunes.
So Plotius Firmus spoke again, even as Otho tried to disengage himself from his supplicant.
'You must not,' he said, 'desert an army that is so loyal and soldiers so eager to shed their blood on your behalf. There is more virtue in withstanding trouble than in escaping from it. The brave man clings to hope, whatever his ill-fortune. Only cowards yield to fear.'
Otho was embarrassed by these expressions of faith. He had already resigned himself to defeat and death. Indeed, in his own mind, he was dead already. So the call to renew the struggle dismayed him. But, ever better fitted to put on a public show than to maintain his equanimity in private, he spoke graciously now, thanking the men for what they had said, and assuring them that he was fixed on no course of action, but must consult his generals before coming to a decision. His words could not satisfy, for the soldiers were looking to hear him declare that the war was not to be thought lost as long as men of their calibre were to be found. Therefore, although they accepted his diplomatic speech, many went sorrowful away. And I believe that if he had, after consulting his generals, resolved to renew the war, which was certainly not lost, he might, on account of the chill reception he had given his most enthusiastic troops, have found that their initial ardour had cooled.
Such speculation is vain. Nothing was further from Otho's mind than the struggle. He was already resigned to defeat. I knew that, as soon as he had persuaded Plotius Firmus to lead his Praetorians back to the camp. His body, which had been taut throughout this scene, relaxed. He even smiled. He stretched out his hand and chucked me under the chin, and stroked my cheek. 'You despise me, don't you?' he said. 'I don't understand you,' I replied.
'No,' he said, 'you are young, and brave, as these Praetorians were. But I am weary, and I hold that to expose such courage, such spirit, as yours and theirs to the danger of another battle is to put too high a value on my life and office. The more hope you hold out to
me, the more glorious will be my death. I am now at one with Fortune. We have no secrets from each other. I know her cheats and strategems and can turn away from the false hopes she offers. The civil war began with Vitellius; let it end with his triumph. If I now resign myself to death, then Vitellius has no cause to revenge himself on my family and friends. But if I prolong the struggle, and meet again with defeat, then he will feel entitled to carry out a proscription of all who have been dear to me; among whom I include you, dear boy. I die happy in the thought that you, and so many, were happy to risk death for me. But the comedy has been played long enough. It is time to leave the theatre. So, I urge you not to delay here, but to take thought for your own safety, and to remember me as I die rather than as I have lived. I shall say no more. Only cowards talk at length to delay the moment of death. I complain of no one. Only those who seek to live need complain of gods or men.' No doubt the speech was too long, and seemed all the more so when he had gathered together his staff and repeated it, almost word for word, to them. Yet there was something impressive in his calm demeanour. I admired his resolution, even while I despised the decision that occasioned it. To my mind, it would have been more manly to lead his troops into another battle, which indeed might yet have been won. Even if the cause had been hopeless, yet it seemed to me that an Emperor should die on his feet. Why seek Empire, only to abandon it at the first cold winds of Fortune?
