Nero's Heirs

by Allan Massie

  The creature Asiaticus was summoned from his tavern and restored to favour at court. It was soon understood that only by approaching him could anyone hope to obtain office, preferment or favours. Even some of those who had crawled before Nero were shocked to discover that they must now humiliate themselves before this pimp.

  It was not long before the great army he had brought into the city abandoned all discipline. Their numbers overflowed the camp. So the soldiers were scattered through the city, being billeted, or finding a billet, in porticoes, temples and private lodgings. They were to be found in every tavern. Many did not know where to find their officers or their headquarters; and the centurions had little idea where to seek their troops. Drill was forsaken, the parade ground deserted. Many of the auxiliaries, Germans and Gauls, found quarters or rather, based themselves in Trastevere. They drank the water of the Tiber and, since the summer heats were now upon them, were soon weakened by dysentery and other diseases.

  All this was, however disgraceful, good news for those of us who hoped for Vespasian's victory. Flavius Sabinus, who had sufficiently ingratiated himself with Vitellius to be permitted to retain his post as Prefect of the City, looked on the disintegration of the enemy forces with a caustic smile.

  Since Flavius Sabinus had honoured me with his regard, and included me among the intimate friends with whom he took counsel on his brother's behalf - Domitian was also perforce included, though he contributed little of value to our discussion - I made so bold as to ask him how it was that he had contrived to avoid dismissal from his post; for it was a matter of wonder that he should have retained it, not only on account of his relationship to Vespasian, but more particularly since he was a man whose virtue was acknowledged by all who knew him; and vice, not virtue, was the passport to office in Vitellius' time.

  He was embarrassed by my question, and for a little I thought he would deny me an answer. Then he said:

  'You do well to ask and, if I hesitate to answer, it is because my answer will do me no credit in your eyes. This displeases me, for I have come to recognise your own virtue and abilities. But in shameful times it is sometimes necessary to do what one would be ashamed of, if the world was not what it is. I swallow my pride partly because it is expedient that you yourself should learn what a man may have to do to survive. I learned this myself long ago when Nero was still young. Indeed, before then, in the time of Claudius, when my patron was his freedman Narcissus . . .'

  He paused here, on that name, and fixed me with his mild grey eyes. It occurred to me that he knew that Narcissus was my true father. This was something which was not widely known and, indeed, it was only a few years previously that I had learned it myself. Perhaps now I in turn betrayed some embarrassment, for Flavius Sabinus, as if to calm me, said, 'Narcissus was an able man, and a better man than his reputation might suggest, or indeed than most of those who have found themselves in like positions at court. But that is by the way. Yet it is not entirely so. For I must confess to you that the intermediary I employed to secure my position as City Prefect was Asiaticus.'

  'But I have heard that he is completely loathsome.'

  'Few men are entirely so, though he comes close to it. But it happens that I have myself done him some service in the past as, from what you have learned of him and from what you know of the work of City Prefect, you may imagine it might have been in my power to do. I won't go into the details: an unsavoury case, quite revolting indeed. Why I was of service to him I should prefer not to say, nor how. It suffices that I was. And the creature is not entirely devoid of gratitude, which is why I say he is not, as you put it, "completely loathsome". So he spoke up for me.'

  I couldn't believe that gratitude alone had prompted this, and wondered what other hold Flavius Sabinus might have that would persuade, even compel, Asiaticus to help him now. However it was not for me to probe. I had already learned more than I could have expected to learn, and felt honoured by the old man's confidence in my discretion. Indeed that was evidently so great that he did not demean either of us by asking me to keep his confidence.

  He added: There is another matter. Asiaticus is no fool. He may be wallowing in the sunlight of prosperity now, but such as he never trust the weather to stay fair. He knows he may need my friendship in the future as much I need his now.'

  From this time some half a dozen of us met regularly to consider how Vespasian's cause might be best advanced. These meetings in his aunt's house gave me a further insight into my friend Domitian's unsettled state of mind, his febrile character. On the one hand he was ever eager for positive measures, even rash ones. He would sit picking at the skin of his thumb, and propose plans for fomenting a mutiny among the troops quartered in the city. On the other, he would start and grow pale at any alarm.

  Vitellius, or rather his lieutenants, had reconstituted the Praetorian Guard, formerly distinguished by its loyalty to Otho, by drafting some 20,000 men indiscriminately from the legions and the cavalry.

  'They have no esprit de corps,' Domitian insisted, flourishing the Greek term (though his knowledge of Greek was much inferior to mine and, at that stage in his life he could not converse freely in the language). They are,' he continued, 'a mere rag-bag assembly, open, I have no doubt, to the highest bidder.'

  'And therefore useless,' said Rubrius Gallus, an officer of the city guard in whom Flavius Sabinus had long placed an absolute trust. 'In any case,' he said, 'attempts to suborn them could not be kept secret.'

  'And in the third place,' I said, 'it is Vitellius, not we, who has charge of the imperial treasury and who can top any offer we make to them. He can produce gold now; we, only the promise of future gold.'

  Domitian relapsed into a sulk, for, as you know, he could never thole any dissent from his opinions, nor argue his case in a rational manner.

  Moreover, his eagerness for action was corrupted by his fear that even our conclaves were perilous.

  'If anyone knew we were meeting like this . . .' he would mutter, and draw his forefinger across his throat.

  He spoke truth, without necessity, for none of us doubted the danger that we ran.

  Flavius Sabinus had however a soft spot for his nephew. He considered that Domitian had indeed been unfairly disregarded by Vespasian, and he more than once said to me that, at bottom, the boy was good and not without talent. So he now hastened to apply ointment to Domitian's wounded pride.

  'What you say, nephew, is wise in general, misguided merely in particular. Few parties stand firm in a civil war, for everyone except those of outstanding virtue and those who have strong reason to be attached to one side or the other, stands loose in his allegiance. Since you have studied history, you will recall how L. Domitius

  Ahenobarbus, for example, deserted Mark Antony and crossed over to Octavian Caesar, the future Augustus, though he had received nothing but kindness from Antony, and was trusted by him implicitly. And Ahenobarbus was not an evil man. Treachery is contagious. I have no doubt that the new Praetorians will readily desert Vitellius, when the moment is ripe; but not now, while he is in a position to indulge them. There are others however whose desertion would be more useful, and may be more easily secured.'

  He paused and drank wine, while we kept silent, hearing only the confused night-noise of the city. Someone passed below the house singing a bawdy song about Nero. Two days previously Vitellius had caused an altar to be raised in the Campus Martius, and there performed funeral rites in honour of that Emperor whom he had himself served with such ignoble zeal.

  Flavius Sabinus said: Things are moving. Today Vitellius had word that the 3rd legion has repudiated him and sworn allegiance to Vespasian.'

  'How did he receive the news?'

  'First, I'm told, he staggered and had to be revived with wine. Then he said, "It is only a single legion after all. The others remain loyal.'"

  'What effect did his words have?'

  'His advisers were unsettled. They persuaded him that he must address the troops. Which, eventually, he
did, declaring that vile rumours were being spread by the disbanded Praetorians, which no one should attach any importance to. He was careful not to mention Vespasian, and so gave the impression that he was faced with the mutiny of one legion, not with a challenge to his position. Then soldiers were dispersed through the city with orders to arrest anyone found spreading seditious rumours.'

  'Which,' I said, 'is just the sort of measure to give the rumours life.'

  'Indeed, yes, a good day for us,' Rubrius Callus said.

  'It makes our immediate position all the more dangerous. Domitian is right there.' Flavius smiled at his nephew, as if approving his judgement. 'And he is right, too, in believing that our best course is to seek to detach some men of note from Vitellius. Now it so happens that I know what you may be ignorant of. You are all, of course, aware that Vitellius owes his present position not to his own efforts, which have been feeble and contemptible, but to his generals, Caecina and Valens. What you may not know is that they have come to detest and distrust each other. Caecina in particular is - shall we say? -disillusioned. His efforts have been equal to his colleague's. Yet he finds that Valens is in higher favour with Vitellius. I think we can play on his resentments.'

  The prospect was attractive. I immediately offered to act as an intermediary between Flavius and Caecina.

  Your enthusiasm does you credit,' Flavius said, 'but you will have sufficient nobility of soul not to resent my refusal. Rubrius here is the man for the job. He has served with Caecina in Germany, and earlier, too, in the wars against the Parthian Empire, in which Corbulo won that distinction which made him hateful to Nero. As an old comrade, able to share memories of happier days, he is better placed than you to work upon Caecina's resentments, fears and ambition.'

  So it was decided. A day or two later I watched the German legions and auxiliaries march to the north. Their appearance was very different from that which they had presented in Vitellius' day of triumph. They were not the men they had been. Wasted by disease and enervated by unaccustomed luxury, they seemed a spiritless rabble rather than an army. Grumbles about the heat, the dust and the weight of their baggage rose from the line of march. They looked like men ready to mutiny; and my heart lifted.

  XXXII

  Again I cannot sleep. I lay beside my woman, made perfunctory love to her, relief of the body if not the spirit, and then listened to her regular breathing while my own brain raced, irregularly.

  I rose and, leaving the house, walked down to the river, to a point a few miles before it loses itself in the marshes, forming different streams which make their way severally to the sea. The night was luminous, for a full moon drifted behind thin clouds and, casting deep but wavering shadows, gave all things a new and unexpected shape. It seemed to me that ghostly figures rose out of the mists that clung around the water.

  Near the end of the Jewish Wars, after Titus had taken Jerusalem, and destroyed their temple, which was like no other temple I have known, having no images of the god they worshipped within it, some of the fanatics among the enemy withdrew to a stronghold on a hill, by name Masada. This strange night allowed me to see that place again, though the landscape was so different, being desert, sand and rock, rather than river and marshland. So how this was, I know not; but the vagaries of mind, memory and imagination are incalculable. Perhaps it was not so strange, for the horror of Masada has never left me, and now I knew the need to speak of it.

  So I returned to the house and woke the boy Balthus and, telling him to put on a jacket of sheepskin for the air was chill, brought him with me back down to the river. There was no sense in doing so, for, as I say, there was no similarity to be found between that place and this; and yet it was there that I could speak of that concerning which I had remained silent for so long. The boy sat on the rotted trunk of a fallen tree and listened to what I had to say. Nor had he made any complaint at being torn from sleep.

  The Jewish remnant was there commanded by one Eleazar. He was a son of the man who had provoked the rebellion, and had been raised to be a more passionate Zealot than even his father. These Zealots combined an intense devotion to their nameless god with a savagery and austerity such as I had never witnessed, not even the savagery I had seen in Rome, concerning which I cannot yet bring myself to write my account for Tacitus.

  This Masada, being built on a rock which rises out of the desert, was fortified by nature beyond the skill of the greatest of engineers. So for a long time we besieged it, but we did not dare to try an assault. The rock was encompassed by valleys so deep that, standing above them, one could scarce discern movement at the bottom. Their walls were sheer, and only two narrow paths wound perilously to the summit. We got ourselves nevertheless to an extremity of the rock which is called the White Promontory, and there built, with great labour, an earthwork. . .

  The boy looked puzzled, for he had no knowledge of siegework; and I saw that the description was superfluous, being meaningless to him.

  So I said: 'No matter, it is not of our endeavours to take the place that I wish to speak.' And accordingly I leaped ahead of my tale.

  'We set fire,' I said, 'to the outer wall of the citadel, by piling burning branches against it. At first the wind blew so as to turn our fire against us, but then, by the kindness of the gods, the wind shifted in our favour, and the fire threatened the defenders. So a breach was made and we retired, ready to attack the following day . . .

  'Now, when Eleazar saw that the place could no longer be defended, he did not surrender, as a civilised man would. Instead he addressed, as we subsequently learned, his people, relating the hardships that had befallen the Jewish nation - though he did not say that these had been provoked by him and his like . . . Instead, he said, as we learned, and as Josephus recounts in his History:

  ' "As for those who are dead, we should think them blessed, since they perished in defending the cause of liberty. As for the multitude who have submitted to the Romans, who would not pity their condition, and who would not make haste to die before he was compelled to share their miseries? For some have been put on the rack and tortured with fire and the whips, tortured even unto death. Others have been half-devoured by wild beasts, and yet preserved alive to be more thoroughly devoured in order to make sport for our enemies. And such as are still alive, is not their fate, longing for a death they are denied, the most piteous of all? And where now is Jerusalem the Golden, the city of our fathers, the city to which King David brought the Ark of the Covenant made with Israel? It is now demolished, razed to the ground. The lion and the lizard keep its courts, but the voice of man is silent. Now who is there that revolving these things in his mind, is yet able to bear the light of the sun, though he might live out of danger?"

  'So he went on, for a long time, posing questions, and inciting his followers to mingled fury and distress. They gave themselves up to wailing, and their cries cut the night air and made us fearful.

  'Then, as we learned later, Eleazar said: "We were born to die, as were those whom we have begotten. Nor is it in the power of the most fortunate of our race to avoid death. But other things -abuse and slavery and the sight of our wives and children led away to ignominy - these are not evils such as are natural and necessary to endure. Only those who prefer such miseries to death, on account of their cowardice, need submit to them. Let us, therefore, while we have swords in our hands die before we are enslaved by our enemies, and let us depart from this world, with our wives and children, in a state of freedom. This indeed is what our laws demand of us, and it is what our wives and children long for also. The Lord himself has brought this necessity upon us, while the Romans desire the contrary, and are afraid lest any of us die before we are in their hands. So, let us go, and instead of affording them the pleasure that they hope to receive by having us in their hateful power, let us leave them an example which shall arouse in them astonishment at our escape and admiration for the courage with which we have embraced our destiny."

  When he had finished speaking, there was a de
ep silence, lasting the time it might take a man to harness a horse. Then the men embraced their wives and children, some of whom wept, while others maintained a calm which any Stoic philosopher would admire, and so, drawing their swords, killed them, either by stabbing them or by cutting their throats. Then they piled the bodies of the dead together surrounded by faggots, and set fire to them. Whereupon, since the

  Laws of the Jews, unlike those of all civilised nations, forbid suicide, a dozen men were deputed to slay the remainder. Then the twelve cast lots among themselves to see which should take on the task of executioner of his fellows. When two alone were left they engaged in combat, that each might slay the other, and so both avoid the guilt of self-slaughter. And meanwhile the funeral pyre burned.

  'In the morning we made ready for the assault, putting our armour on, and nerving ourselves for what was to be a terrible battle, since none doubted the fierce tenacity of the enemy. But then, instead of the noise of preparation, we heard an awful silence, and saw smoke rising from the centre of the citadel. So we advanced hesitantly, and breached or scaled the walls, meeting no opposition, and advanced till we came upon the city of the dead. And when we saw them, we were all amazed, and many terrified.'

  I fell silent. The marshlands spread about us, an infinity of waste. A wind blew from the north, not hard but chilling. I sensed the boy pull his cloak more narrowly about him, but I could not look at him to see what effect my words had had. Perhaps, I thought, it is the memory of Masada that denies me sleep at night. But I knew that to be fanciful. I have other crimes on my conscience, and I did nothing at Masada to cause me shame. Yet nowhere have I felt such an expression of contempt for life, such a denial of all that has made Rome what it is. The dead Jews spat in the face of Empire. I have often pondered on that line of Virgil's where he declares Rome's duty to be 'to spare the subject and subdue the proud'. At Masada we were denied the opportunity either to spare or to subdue.