Nero's Heirs

by Allan Massie

  Of course I understood the question, as you will, Tacitus, but you may have to remind your readers (if you make use of this dialogue), that there were reputedly two sorts of Claudians: those who served the Republic dutifully, and did the State great service, and those who . . . well, didn't; but were self-willed, domineering, reckless, dangerous to others and to themselves.

  'I am not yet nineteen,' I said. 'It is too early to know.'

  He laughed.

  'I think,' he said, 'that is the most honest thing said to me since I began to play this part; and the wittiest. Usually it is only licensed fools who jest with Emperors. That at least is a tradition not yet abandoned. So your answer pleases me. You're a handsome fellow, too. Come, sit beside me.'

  I obeyed, with misgivings. Not this, I thought. He laughed again, reading my mind.

  You've nothing to fear,' he said. 'I have no intention of practising a perverted species of the lex primae noctis, a custom which, even in its normal form, disgusts me. Women should be won, not taken; that is my opinion as an ageing debauchee, now satiated in the lists of Venus. But I think we could do business.' I remained silent. He questioned this.

  'My mother taught me,' I said, 'that if you have nothing to say, then say nothing.'

  'Good advice. Follow it and you will be a politician. Or a general. Silence is a good weapon. There is nothing so disconcerting as silence. Unfortunately, I have always been talkative. It's done me harm . . .'

  Candour is charming, and to be distrusted.

  'I never had any great taste for boys anyway,' he said. 'When you have learned to enjoy a woman, no boy can ever fully satisfy. Have you discovered that yet? Come, don't blush. The light is dim but I can still feel your blush, there's a glow in your face. You were, I'm told, the lover of Titus, son of Vespasian. Are you that still?'

  I hesitated, like a man on the threshold of a dark house, through which the wind is blowing. Danger can have no smell, not being corporeal; yet often I have scented it. Fear, of course, has a smell -the smell of cold sweat; and danger and fear are close blood-brothers.

  "We were boys,' I said, 'now we are men.'

  'And Titus fucks an Eastern Queen, Berenice, they say. Are you jealous?'

  Titus is my friend. What makes him happy pleases me.'

  You choose your words with care. I like that. My life would have been more fortunate had I possessed that ability.'

  You are Emperor, sir. What more can fortune grant you?'

  'It could start with sleep. Yes, I am Emperor. But for how long? Galba was Emperor. So was Nero, once my friend. So was Claudius, murdered by his wife. At least I have no wife now. I had one once, you know, and loved her, though she was a whore, dissolute as myself in those days. Nero killed her, as an angry child might kill a puppy. Now, I have no wife, nor son either.'

  Jupiter, I thought - this is genuine, Tacitus, I swear it - he's not about to adopt me, is he, make me his Piso. No thanks. But how could I evade him if he made the offer?

  'But your friend Titus still keeps a troupe of dancing-boys, Syrians, they say, and what he does with them requires no guessing. You're not jealous of that either?'

  'If you were not Emperor, sir,' - I couldn't bring myself to say 'my emperor' - and left the answer hanging in the incense-scented air of the little room which now seemed to enfold the pair of us with a nauseating closeness.

  'If I was not Emperor, you would tell me to go hang myself - eh? Is that it? Good. I like your spirit and your unspoken response.'

  He lifted his cup, emptied it in one gulp, as drunkards drink, or men in the grip of sorrow or despair, and passed it to me to fill again.

  'It's a lonely business being Emperor. I've discovered that already, in a matter of weeks. Nero enjoyed it, of course. But then Nero was a fool, a clever and often amusing fool, but still a fool. Tiberius, who was a wise man, loathed it. So my father used to say, and he knew the old man well, and revered him. He used to hint that he might be the Emperor's bastard. I don't know. His father, my grandfather, was a client of the great Livia Augusta. He owed his place in the Senate to her. There are not many men left in Rome who know more about emperors than I do, or what it means to wear the purple.' He paused and drank again. 'I know what you're thinking: that I sought the crown. So I did. Who wouldn't when the chance presents itself? Even that dull fellow Piso yielded to the temptation. Even Vitellius, and of all those I have known, none has been less fitted. But that does not restrain him, and now, thanks to the energy of his legates, Valens and Caecina, he is a danger to me. What do you say?'

  'What can I say? We are reared to thirst for glory, and to compete for posts of honour. Mark Antony was my great-great-uncle, if only by marriage. Is that answer enough?'

  'It will serve. There were two Triumvirates, formed to dominate the State. Each left only one survivor, after terrible wars: first, Caesar, then, Augustus. I should like to avoid war. Romans killing Romans is a beastly business. Civil war sets brother against brother, destroys friendship, which we are also taught to prize. But ... I have sent ambassadors to Vitellius. They have not returned. Perhaps they have chosen to remain in his camp, perhaps they are held there. Who can tell? But the conclusion is clear: Vitellius - or the men who control him - are determined on war, with all its terrible and unknowable consequences. We are perhaps evenly balanced, Vitellius and myself, our forces being equal in strength and valour. But there is a third force in the East, another great army, whose influence may be decisive. Mucianus, Vespasian, your bosom friend Titus - what do they want?'

  'I am not in their confidence, sir. I am not privy to their ambitions.'

  'Don't try to deceive me, boy, don't play the fool with me. . .' A note, as of metal ringing on stone, entered his voice. He pulled himself up to lean on his elbow and regarded me searchingly.

  I felt his power, like the cold wind of winter dawn.

  'Come,' he said, more gently, 'let us understand each other. I've no wish to have secrets between us. We live in evil times, when liberty is perforce constrained. You carry on a regular correspondence with Titus. Sometimes he employs the imperial post, and then his letters are routinely intercepted, deciphered - the code you use is simple and presents no problems to the imperial agents - and copied before being sent on to you. If you examined the seals more closely you would have been suspicious. Sometimes he sends you more private missives by the hand of one of his freedmen. Last week one such was arrested at Brindisi. The threat of torture persuaded him to surrender the letter he was carrying to you. I have read it. While it is not positively seditious, a man more given than I am to seeing conspiracies around him would find there sufficient grounds to order the arrest and even execution of Titus. Here is the letter. You see, he makes no bones about his determination to wear the purple, nor of his expectation that he will do so. 'Otho cannot last,' he says, Vitellius is a clown. The way will soon open before us.' Well, I do not dispute his judgement of my rival, Vitellius. How it disgusts me,' he drank more wine, 'to call that thing my rival. But what do you say? Your friend is rash indeed, his rashness matching even his ambition. And some might call that inordinate. How old is he? Not yet thirty? Twenty-six? Twenty-seven? Too young to be Emperor, too old to be so foolish. What do you say?'

  'It was a private letter. To a friend. People talk loosely to friends. Not all they say is to be taken seriously.'

  'A gallant answer, but you know it won't do.' He took my hand, squeezed it twice, and let it fall. 'I've no wish to quarrel,' he said, 'and I haven't brought you here to punish you, not even to upbraid you for carrying on a correspondence which verges on the treasonable. The times are disturbed. It's no wonder if many men entertain ambitions which at other seasons might be taken as seditious if they found expression. Indeed, I almost admire Titus for his audacity. But it won't do either.'

  He bit his nails, and was silent a long time.

  'Three forces,' he said. 'In any battle of three, it's two against one, unless . . . unless one of the three stands aside and waits to fea
st on the carrion. That wouldn't be your Titus' way, I can tell that. But his father, Vespasian? Nobody ever took much account of Vespasian. Nero thought him a joke, he used to mock his accent, his habit of saying

  o for au, provincial and lower-class. He was in the mule trade once, you know, and his mistress, Caenis, is even commoner than the man himself. Then he offended Nero by falling asleep during his recitals, and even snoring, an act which showed a judgement that was aesthetic rather than prudent. But he's survived. He's a mangy old cur, but a wise dog. Which way will he jump? Will he stay in his kennel? Vespasian puzzles me, and troubles me. I don't reckon on Mucianus, he lives for pleasure, as I once did, and his pleasures are perverted and degenerate as mine weren't. But Vespasian? I'm thinking aloud, boy . . .'

  The thinking aloud was an act, or in part an act. I felt that even then, for I guessed he had already made a decision which he was approaching by this circuitous route. Even so, I was excited by his apparent candour, and felt that I was on the verge of some great enterprise.

  'I need Vespasian,' he said. 'I need Titus. Rome needs them. What Rome does not need is a protracted war, and what Rome may not need is the government of a single person. That's why I've brought you here.

  1 am sending you as my emissary to Vespasian and your friend. I'll furnish you with the quickest and easiest passage. You will have letters to carry, but this is what I want you to say, with all the persuasive eloquence you can muster: that Otho offers an alliance, that he will share the government of the Empire with Vespasian - and also, if they choose, with Titus, or even Mucianus, if Vespasian thinks that necessary, if they will join with me to defeat Vitellius and the German legions. You will say that, though my forces and Vitellius' are evenly matched, I am confident of victory, because I shall be fighting on the defensive, but that Rome requires that this victory is complete, and so I need Vespasian's troops. The Third Triumvirate, tell them that

  He paused. Had he forgotten - did he expect me to have forgotten -what he had said of the first two such compacts?

  'I am sending you,' he said, 'precisely because you are not my boy, but theirs, or Titus' anyway. You understand how I am reposing trust in you? That I have shown you my weakness? Or what men might think my weakness? But remember this: I do it for Rome which cannot afford protracted and terrible wars, but needs stability.'

  'Does Flavius Sabinus know of your intentions, sir?'

  'Sabinus is a man I do not understand, and therefore cannot trust. You will therefore say nothing to him. At an opportune moment, when

  I learn of Vespasian's first response, then I may consult Sabinus. For the moment all must be confidential. My position here in Rome requires that. It is another reason why I have selected you for this mission. If you will forgive me for saying so, you are, on account of your youth, a person of no consequence. Nobody will therefore suspect that your departure is of any significance.'

  I smiled: 'Nobody but my family and friends will notice I am not here.'

  'Oh,' he said, 'I am sure you have admirers who will miss you. And a girl perhaps?' 'Perhaps.'

  He resumed the nibbling of his nails.

  Vespasian has a younger son here in Rome, hasn't he? Domitian? Is that right? I must bring him to the palace and employ him in some way. In some way or other.'

  There was no necessity for him to say that Domitian would be a hostage for the success of my mission. Nor did he need to tell me that I must inform Vespasian that Otho now held Domitian - as a sort of inducement. So I felt no need in my turn to say that, in my opinion, Vespasian had never cared a docken for Domitian: that all his love was given to Titus and all his ambition bound up in him.

  'My secretary will give you a note of your travel arrangements and a letter of transit. You will then be escorted back to your mother's house and leave Rome in the morning. Say nothing to anyone but your mother, and to her say no more than the least that a loving mother need know. My respects to her. Good night, and may the gods grant you safe passage, and us a happy outcome.'

  XIX

  Shall I send that last letter to Tacitus, or not? It would correct his view of Otho which, since this would disturb him, would please me. But I have never, over years of conversations with him, found him willing to credit that I was employed on such a mission. He might not credit it how, assume I have gone soft in the head. That is so often the response of people to what they either don't wish to hear or find impossible to believe.

  It reminds me of a story Vespasian used to take pleasure in telling. His father, after sacrificing one day, was impressed by his inspection of the entrails which, the priest assured him, betokened greatness for his family. Indeed, the priest said, he would have a son who would one day be Emperor. When Sabinus (Vespasian's father, not his brother) passed this good news on to his own mother, the old woman laughed, and said, 'A grandson of mine Emperor? Fancy you going soft in the head before your old ma!'

  Vespasian himself can hardly have believed in the omen, when he was a young and undistinguished soldier, who so mismanaged his affairs that he had to mortgage the estates he inherited from his father. But eventually there were lots of such stories. There was one about a stray dog which picked up a human hand at the crossroads, and carried it into the room where Vespasian was breakfasting and laid it down at his feet. This was significant because a hand is a symbol of power. At the time however he probably cursed the dog for a dirty brute.

  We are all superstitious, even the philosophers among us; and I have been driven to philosophy by misfortune. Titus sometimes said that Fortuna was the only god we need have a care for, and that even that care was vain, since Fortuna took no heed of the actions of mortals, but played dice with our lives.

  I have grown weary of visits to the wine-shop to see the boy Balthus. So I purchased him from the woman, at an exorbitant price which she was able to demand because she saw I was prepared to pay it. I have brought him home and installed him in the chamber next mine. Araminta is indifferent; it is enough for her that she is mistress of the household, and that our sons and daughters grow sturdy.

  It is not lust I feel now for Balthus. That was the brief flurry of old age, like a thunder-storm in fine weather. And the boy himself made clear his repugnance. So I do no more than fondle him. His presence calms me; there is an inner serenity to him. It is better this way. Had I followed the demands of lust, then soon enough habit would have dulled appetite, and I should have been led to that uninteresting port where life lands its exhausted cargo. What I feel for him is different from what I have known before - except perhaps with Domatilla.

  One day I asked him to account for his serenity. How could he, a slave, torn from his own people, look so acceptingly on the world? When I put the question, he was stretched out on a couch, for I find myself allowing him liberties I have never granted another slave; he looked like Hermes, or the young Eros drawing his bowstring, the arrow directed at my heart. But though I might invest him with such fantasies, he was also the thin boy who had recoiled from my touch, and then, knowing his station, submitted, tearfully, to my first advances.

  Now he exclaimed, haltingly, but as one who fears he may not be believed rather than one ashamed of his words, that he trusted in the love of the one true god to deliver him from evil.

  'The one true god?' I asked. 'Who is this strange being? You Germans worship many gods, I know that, spirits of the forest and warriors hurling thunderbolts.'

  'I know better than my people did. I worship God the Father, maker of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ, his only begotten son, and the Holy Spirit that inhabits any heart that opens itself to the Word.'

  You must excuse me,' I said, 'but that sounds like three gods, not one . . . Jesus Christ. . . are you then one of that criminal sect of Jews known as Christians?'

  His dark eyes searched out mine. His tongue flickered over these so red lips that had first aroused me - lips of that strange dark-red, promising the softness of roses - and that promise, as I had learned, was kept. He hesitated,
then confessed, 'I am. But,' he said, 'in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, only those who believe and are saved.'

  I did not understand that 'saved'. I set it aside; that is, I had heard Christians use the word before, and had taken it for esoteric jargon of the sect. But Balthus, in his simplicity, seemed to have an understanding of its import which gave the word a certain concrete reality.

  Then I recalled how, when Nero was alarmed by the Great Fire of Rome, and by the people's anger directed at him, he had seized on these Christians - adherents of a slave religion which our Jewish friend Josephus would, years later, impatiently dismiss as 'a perversion of Judaism, practised by men as mad as those Zealots we destroyed at Masada' - and pronounced them guilty of incendiarism. I was young then, and my mother forbade my attendance at the Games where the Christians were slaughtered, singing hymns (I was told) to their god. 'Crazy folk,' the door-keeper of our insula told me. But not all the care of my mother could shield me from the sight of these depraved wretches (as we took them to be) who were made by Nero into burning candles to light his gardens; the stench of burnt flesh hung in the air for days after; and I often heard Flavius Sabinus say it so disgusted him that, though a soldier, those nights illuminated by flames of flesh cured him of any disposition towards cruelty.

  'What is the basis of this Christianity?' I asked Balthus.

  'In one word,' he said, 'it is Love.'

  That's not so strange then, nor so new. Men have sought and worshipped Love since poets first sang, and before them, I'll be bound.'

  'We do not worship Love, though our God is a God of Love, nor do we seek it. Rather we are filled with love, and expressing it, extend it to each and everyone, and to all mankind as God's creation.'