The Splendor Before the Dark

by Margaret George

  Rising, I walked to the nearby house of Augustus, standing proudly on its crest. Much of it had been spared in the Fire, and today all was restored. I had made my peace with my ancestor, and at last I believed he would have been proud of me after all.

  Turning the corner around the house, I went to inspect the sacred laurel grove. But . . . where was it? Had it not always been just behind, and to the side of Augustus’s house? Yes, it had stood there. And now—

  In the knee-high grass I saw them: a row of stumps, long dead. I rushed over to them. Where was mine, where was mine? Had someone cut it? It had survived the Fire and was green and flourishing the last time I had visited it. I pawed through the grass, my purple robe catching on weeds, my heart pounding. Finally I found it. It had not been cut; it had withered. It still had branches at its lower stump, but they had blackened and it had no leaf buds, even though it was almost time for them to open.

  It was dying, almost dead. The others behind it—Claudius’s, Caligula’s, Tiberius’s, Augustus’s—were further along in the process, barely looking like tree trunks at all, but mine was joining them. This was not the work of human hands but a sign from the gods.

  The gods! The omen was lethal. The trees signified the very life of the family of the Claudians and the Julians. I was joining my deceased ancestors, or soon to. I gasped and blinked, hoping to dispel the sight of the shriveled dark leaves, but they refused to vanish.

  I was suddenly very frightened, standing alone in the grove, the wind rustling in the grass around me.

  LXIX

  The eiselasis over, there remained but one other intensely personal task, one I longed to fulfill. Poppaea’s shrine near Naples was now completed and must be dedicated; it would be the last earthly homage I could offer her. Yes, I had declared her a goddess; yes, I had promised the shrine. Now I would crown it by the rites there.

  I took Sporus with me; he would want to be a part of the ceremonies. If people gaped, so be it. The important question was, what would Poppaea think of his being there? I believed she would be touched, as she was very fond of Sporus.

  I left Rome behind, still exhilarated by the reception there but uneasy over whatever lingering resentment there was over the excesses of the freedmen while I had been away. And the sacred laurels . . . I had given orders that mine be tended, fertilized, and watered, in hopes of staving off its demise. Of course, I reassured myself, it truly did not mean doom. There could be another interpretation. I had planted it with Mother; perhaps the withering was reflective of the end of her influence on me, a sign that I was finally free of her and my own man.

  Reaching Naples, we beheld its bay sparkling before us, with its singular singing blue, most sublime of colors, but impossible to capture in paint or tile. As always, the beauty of the site swept over me like a cloud, but one with a dark underside. Poppaea and I had been divinely happy here; now she was divine and I was alone in our favorite site.

  The temple to the Divine Augusta Poppaea Sabina was beautifully simple; it had solid side walls and two columns in front, modeled after the earliest temples in Greece. A large statue of Poppaea filled most of the interior. Around the base ran the dedication, also simple: it stated her titles, adding that she was anointed by the goddess Venus and was the mother of the divine Claudia Augusta and the wife of Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. It omitted the most significant of all: beloved and mourned by her husband.

  I had appointed ten priests to serve in perpetuity in rituals at the shrine, and they stood behind me, intoning prayers and putting the seal of officialdom on the ceremony. But I left them behind me and motioned for Sporus alone to follow me into the dim shrine to see the statue privately. We stepped over the high base and entered the hush of eternity.

  She stood before us, transfigured into Venus herself. But then, she had always been Venus to me, a warm, breathing incarnation of her. Now she was frozen in cold marble. But there was no other form she could continue to exist in.

  “It’s a fine likeness,” said Sporus.

  “Likeness, yes,” I answered. “As you are a likeness. This stirs up less controversy. But your likeness is more of an offering.”

  He blushed. “Mine will perish with me. This will endure.”

  Mother of the divine Claudia Augusta. My only child, my only daughter, ours together. Was that what the withering sacred laurel meant? The end of the dynasty if I did not have children to succeed me?

  Bowing to the statue, we bid her farewell.

  Once we were outside, after bringing the ceremony to an end, only then could I let my thoughts continue along the lines that had sprung up inside the shrine. It was disrespectful to Poppaea to think them near her statue, but the lack of living children was now a problem. I was not so young anymore—I had turned thirty just as I announced the Liberation of Greece. There was unrest in Rome, although so far no rival claimants to my throne. I had taken Statilia to wife partly because of the nagging recognition that I needed an heir. But nothing had come of it thus far. Soon we would be married two years. Did the problem lie with her or with me? Or had some vengeful god decided that I would not have children?

  * * *

  • • •

  I decided to stay in Naples for a while. I wanted to finally catch my breath after the continuous events of the past few years, one after another. The Fire. The conspiracy. The death of Poppaea. The arrival of Tiridates. The Greek trip. One after another, tumbling almost altogether upon me. The truth was, I was tired. I needed to rest. And Naples was the ideal place for it. Except for her ghosts.

  As chance would have it, it was the time of the Festival of Minerva that took place from March nineteenth to the twenty-third. I had thought never to be here at that time again, for that was the time that Mother had met her doom. At my hand. There were still graffiti and placards about it, and there was of course the pronouncement of the oracle at Delphi. It would never fade from public consciousness, as it had never faded from mine. This time nine years ago, the bay looked just as it did today, and looking out over it the deed seemed as close as today.

  Feeling sullen and disaffected, I went to the gymnasium, which was hosting a series of wrestling matches. I was keenly interested in wrestling, and in Greece I had closely observed the best in the world. Watching now would be a distraction and welcome relief from the tenure of my thoughts.

  I was so focused on the match that at first I did not hear the whisper in my ear. The shouts and cheering around me drowned it out. But it was repeated, more insistently. I turned and saw the official courier from Rome.

  He carried dispatches from both Tigellinus and the Senate. I rose and left the meet, thinking, oh, what now? Could I not be left in peace to enjoy a wrestling match?

  His face did not betray the message. He would let the documents do that for him. The first, from Tigellinus, was terse.

  Caesar, there is trouble in Gaul. You should return to Rome as soon as possible.

  The one from the Senate was more detailed, and more alarming.

  The governor of Gaul, Gaius Julius Vindex, has declared an uprising against you. He is calling on surrounding generals in Germany, Spain, and Portugal to join him. His motto is “liberation from the tyrant.”

  “Is there any return message, Caesar?” the courier asked.

  “Not now,” I said. “Later.”

  I was so stunned I could not make a reply then, so I turned away quickly.

  An uprising! In Gaul, that supposedly pacified region. There had not been a rebellion there in years. They enjoyed all the privileges of Roman civilization. Why would this upstart claim he was under the thumb of a tyrant?

  I was not afraid—not yet. There was no chance we could lose that province, the heart of Europe, and surrounded by legions in Germany. But it unnerved me nonetheless. Any rebellion is a threat to the stability of the empire, and we were already engaged in Judea. Vespasian’s campai
gn had its successes, but the war was far from over there.

  I left them and walked down to the quays, where the waves were high and the water was splashing. Cold spray misted my face. The bay was filled with decorated boats and merrymakers. Oh, yes, I remembered that. So happy were they nine years ago in the fateful week of the Festival of Minerva.

  Vindex. Who was Vindex? I knew he was the son of one of the Gallic chieftains admitted to the Senate by Claudius. The family had seemed thoroughly Romanized. But perhaps you can take a barbarian out of the wilds but you cannot take the wilds out of a barbarian.

  There was something else familiar about that name. Was it—could it have been—that he had come on the Greek tour? There were many Romans along, and he was a Roman citizen. Had I met him, talked with him? I conjured up an image of a huge, hulking, hairy man I had seen in the rear of the audience. But that was just the caricature of a barbarian. He was probably more sophisticated than that. After all, his father had been a senator . . . and yes, he himself had even served in the Senate at one point! I remembered that now. No wonder there was something familiar about him. The serpent!

  In any case, it was of no matter. Vindex was no Boudicca, was no Jewish zealot. Those provinces had genuine grievances against Rome, fretting under our yoke, but what gripe did Vindex have?

  * * *

  • • •

  I soon found out. The grievance was not against Roman rule but against me as ruler.

  Two days later another dispatch arrived, forwarded from Rome. An attached note informed me that these dispatches had been made public.

  It is impossible to keep people from knowing about them, so we deemed it better to post them than let popular imagination exaggerate them, wrote Epaphroditus.

  They could hardly have been exaggerated by imagination, as they were an all-out attack on my person.

  Join me in an attack on Nero, because he has destroyed the flower of the Senate and does not preserve even the semblance of sovereignty, Vindex had cried to his followers.

  What did he mean by that? The so-called flower of the Senate (did that include him?) had set out to destroy me, not the other way around.

  I have seen him, my friends and allies—believe me—I have seen that man (if man he is) in the circle of the theater, that is, in the orchestra, sometimes holding the lyre and dressed in loose tunic and buskins, and again wearing high-soled shoes and mask. I have often heard him sing, play the herald, and act in tragedies. Will anyone, then, style such a person Caesar and emperor and Augustus? Never! Let no one abuse those sacred titles. Therefore rise now at length against him; succor yourselves and succor the Romans; liberate the entire world! the rebel had addressed a gathering of his countrymen.

  So I was right. He had been on the Greek tour. He must have been lurking in the audience, thinking his hostile thoughts.

  His language and insults were eerily like those of Boudicca, calling me a woman and unworthy of being a Caesar. Maybe barbarians kept a common sourcebook of phrases for character assassination?

  Who was he surrounded by? Gaul, considered safe, had no legions. Seven legions were guarding the border in Germany, four under the command of Fonteius Capito in Lower Germany, and three—the Fourth, the Twenty-First, and the Twenty-Second—under Verginius Rufus in Upper Germany. There was the one under Galba in Near Spain. Otho in Portugal had only a few men. But it was Verginius in Upper Germany who had the strongest army in the west and was close to Vindex. It would fall to him to put Vindex down. Nothing to worry about.

  In the days following, Vindex roared on, spewing out insults in his speeches to his followers, now reported back to me.

  This Domitius Ahenobarbus, a truly pitiful lyre player, has no right to be your ruler! was one of his diatribes, dutifully forwarded from Rome.

  I was not ashamed of my birth name, but he meant it to delegitimize and question my adoption as a Claudian. And as for the taunt of being a bad musician, he obviously stole that from Boudicca as well. She had also called me “Mistress Domitia.” No originality of thought on his part; he had to filch even his insults from her!

  I was boiling mad now. I must take some action. I retired to my quarters and dictated a formal letter to the Senate, ordering them to put a bounty of ten million sesterces on Vindex’s head. “Avenge the insults to Rome and your emperor!” I commanded them. I threw down the stylus and called for a messenger to deliver it immediately to Rome, riding through the night to do so.

  Then I sat back to wait. I did not have to do so for long.

  A week later the Senate forwarded me Vindex’s response.

  Whoever brings me the head of Nero is welcome to mine in exchange.

  It was time to return to Rome. I had waited too long already, reluctant to leave my favorite city, Naples, and thinking I could manage this crisis from here. I could delay no longer. I must take control.

  * * *

  • • •

  I entered the city on a mild spring day, as sweet as a purring cat. But the news of the Vindex rebellion, public knowledge now, had changed the mood in Rome. I could feel it in the air without even being told; the curious, guarded stares I got as I passed through the streets spoke volumes. I hurried into the palace and called for Tigellinus to meet me immediately in my private office.

  Tigellinus strode in, rasping and coughing. Nonetheless he had enough energy to rant about Vindex.

  “The cur!” he said. “You can’t trust these people, not even after they pretend to be assimilated. They are only waiting to strike, like a wolf brought into a household.”

  I gave a weak laugh. “Perhaps that is why Augustus felt he had the worst of the spoils, when he was awarded the west, with its empty forests and hostile tribes, while Antony got the soft, rich east.”

  “Sometimes I don’t know why we bother with most of the provinces,” he said. “Take Britain, for example. It still doesn’t produce anything to justify the expense of garrisoning it.” He gave a new great hacking cough.

  “Here,” I said, calling for a slave. “Greek honey will soothe you.”

  “I hope it’s not that dreadful pine honey,” he said. “Oh, what an evening that was.”

  Our smiles faded. “Do you think anyone will answer Vindex’s recruitment speeches?” I asked.

  “They already have,” said Tigellinus. “A lot of tribes—possibly as many as a hundred thousand men. But Boudicca had two hundred and fifty thousand. A horde of barbarians can’t overcome a trained army.”

  “I mean—the Romans. If a legion defected, that would be a different story.”

  He thought carefully. “Otho in Portugal has no reason to love you,” he said. “Britain is loyal now. Capito? I don’t know about him. Verginius is the key player. He can easily squash Vindex, but if he joins with him . . .” He coughed again. “Order him to march against Vindex, and see what he does.”

  I did as he advised, immediately drafting orders to Verginius and dispatching them. The soldiers’ recent oath of allegiance to me—would it hold? Tigellinus gave me messages from governors of the other provinces—Aquitania, Lugdunensis in Gaul, Farther Spain, and Belgica. All reported Vindex’s attempts to recruit them to his cause. But there was one gaping omission in these loyal reports. General Galba, governor of Near Spain, was silent.

  I also took measures to mobilize other legions reasonably nearby that could be dispatched to Gaul quickly, from Britain and the newly formed legion originally meant for the Caucasus campaign but never sent.

  Next I convened the Senate, gathering them in haste, summoning as many as were in Rome. The afternoon was drawing to an end before I stood before them. It had been twenty long months since I had last formally addressed them, on the eve of my departure for Greece. To many I was a stranger. Others had visited me in Greece; a very few were old-timers from way back. On either side of me sat the consuls—Galerius Trachalus and Silius Italicus. I was glad
to see Italicus. Not only had he proved himself loyal during my absence, informing Helios of suspicious people, he also wrote poetry, which surprised and pleased me. He nodded to me and smiled.

  I rose and looked out over the faces. Some of them frowned, staring at me. I was wearing the requisite toga, but then—oh, yes, I forgot—my hair was still long. That was it. I tucked it behind my ears and proceeded.

  “Senators, you are well aware of the rebellion of the governor of Lugdunensis Gaul, Gaius Julius Vindex. A man who has sat among you, has called himself your colleague. Now he has betrayed his loyalty to the empire and is attempting to subvert other governors and generals. Rest assured, I have given orders to Rufus Verginius and his legions in Upper Germany to put this rebel down.” The rebellion was old news to them, as the dispatches and edicts of Vindex were public. What they did not know was that I had already taken steps to control it.

  “The criminals will soon be delivered their punishment and die the death that they so thoroughly deserve!” I ended.

  The senators rose and yelled, “Augustus, you will do it!” A pause. “Augustus, you will do it!”

  The wording, and the tense, gave me pause as I realized it could also mean, “Augustus, you will have it happen to you.”

  All their faces turned toward me were benign. I was imagining things. “I have also begun recruiting a new legion from the fleet at Misenum, to be named First Adiutrix, and have sent the Fourteenth Gemina from Britain, under the command of Petronius Turpilianus, to Gaul. The three legions detained for the eastern campaign and the new legio I Italica have been reassigned to the command of Rubrius Gallus and sent north. So fear not, the situation is well in hand.”

  “Augustus, you will do it!” they chorused. You, you, you . . . I didn’t like the twist they gave the word.

  “And so, my friends, let us stand firm in defense of Rome. I will inform you of every new development, and may you do likewise with me. Good night.”