Rome's Sacred Flame

by Robert Fabbri

  ROME’S SACRED FLAME

  Robert Fabbri read Drama and Theatre at London University and has worked in film and TV for twenty-five years as an assistant director. He has worked on productions such as Hornblower, Hellraiser, Patriot Games and Billy Elliot. His lifelong passion for ancient history inspired him to write the Vespasian series. He lives in London and Berlin.

  Also by Robert Fabbri

  THE VESPASIAN SERIES

  TRIBUNE OF ROME

  ROME’S EXECUTIONER

  FALSE GOD OF ROME

  ROME’S FALLEN EAGLE

  MASTERS OF ROME

  ROME’S LOST SON

  THE FURIES OF ROME

  Coming soon ...

  EMPEROR OF ROME

  SHORT STORIES

  THE CROSSROADS BROTHERHOOD

  THE RACING FACTIONS

  THE DREAMS OF MORPHEUS

  THE ALEXANDRIAN EMBASSY

  THE IMPERIAL TRIUMPH

  THE SUCCESSION

  Also

  ARMINIUS: THE LIMITS OF EMPIRE

  ROME’S SACRED FLAME

  ROBERT

  FABBRI

  First published in hardback in Great Britain in 2018 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

  Copyright © Robert Fabbri, 2018

  The moral right of Robert Fabbri to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  Map copyright © Jeff Edwards

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Hardback ISBN: 978 178 239 7045

  Trade paperback ISBN: 978 178 239 7052

  E-book ISBN: 978 178 239 7076

  Printed in Great Britain

  Corvus

  An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

  Ormond House

  26–27 Boswell Street

  London WC1N 3JZ

  www.corvus-books.co.uk

  For Ian Drury, Gaia Banks, Nicolas Cheetham, Sara O’Keeffe, Toby Mundy and Will Atkinson, with gratitude for the parts you all played in publishing the Vespasian series.

  PROLOGUE

  ROME, NOVEMBER AD 63

  THE CHILD DID live no more than a hundred days; now she was being immortalised in the heavens. Born in January to great rejoicing throughout the Empire, Claudia Augusta, the daughter of the Emperor Nero and his Empress, Poppaea Sabina, had succumbed to a childhood ailment soon after the spring equinox. Divine honours for the late infant had been voted by the Senate to help ease the pain of the mourning father who was as immoderate in his grief at his daughter’s death as he had been in his joy at her birth. And it was with tears streaming down his pale-fleshed cheeks and catching in the golden beard growing beneath his chin that Nero, resplendent in a gold-edged purple toga, took a taper and plunged it into the flame brought from the Temple of Vesta by her six priestesses.

  With folds of their togas draped over their heads, in deference to the latest deity to join Rome’s Pantheon, the assembled senior senators – all former praetors or consuls – watched, with an air of suitable solemnity, as the Emperor touched the burning taper to the kindling piled upon the altar. The fire caught; wisps of smoke spiralled to the roof of the new temple, next to that of Apollo, on the Palatine Hill. Constructed by slaves working day and night in the seven months since the child’s death, and with no expense spared, Nero had personally overseen every lavish detail of the building, devoting most of his time to the project whilst completely neglecting the business of Rome.

  In the front row of the congregation Titus Flavius Sabinus struggled to suppress a fast-rising urge to laugh at the ludicrousness of the ceremony unfolding before him. He had witnessed deifications before and had always found it rather unsettling to think that with a form of words and a fire kindled from Rome’s Sacred Flame, housed in the Temple of Vesta, a dead human being could be resurrected as a god. That was not how gods were made, Sabinus knew: they were born of rock in a cave, as was his Lord Mithras. The idea that a babe who had done little more than suck on its wet-nurse’s teats could be a divine inspiration and required worship was beyond belief and, as the sacrificial ram, bedecked in ribbons, was led forward to the altar to the sonorous imprecations of the two priests of the new cult, Sabinus almost lost the battle with his mirth. ‘The next thing, I suppose, is we’ll have a public holiday in the Divine Claudia Augusta’s honour,’ he whispered under the prayers to his neighbours, Lucius Caesennius Paetus, his son-in-law, and his uncle, Gaius Vespasius Pollo, a magnificently portly man in his seventies with many chins and bellies.

  ‘Hmm? What, dear boy?’ Gaius said, his expression a mask of religious awe.

  Sabinus repeated his assertion.

  ‘In which case I’ll be seated in the most prominent position at the games, having made a more than generous sacrifice to the divine babe, so that the Emperor can witness my piety. Perhaps he’ll be less inclined to invite me to open my veins, having, firstly, made a will in his favour, the next time he has urgent need of funds; and, judging by the quality of the marble and the amount of gold in this temple, that time will come very soon.’ He flicked a carefully tonged dyed-black ringlet of hair away from a kohled, porcine eye and, with exaggerated reverence, watched one priest stun the ram with a mallet an instant before the second slit its throat in a spray of blood that cascaded down into a bronze basin. Disoriented from the blow, the juddering beast slowly gave its life for the sake of an infant goddess who would have had no concept of what sort of creature it was.

  More prayers were intoned as two acolytes rolled the carcass over; with slow precision, the knife was drawn up the belly, skin and ribs pulled back and heart and liver exposed. The Emperor looked on, kneeling, his arms outstretched, tears welling, a picture of grief in the classic mode as depicted by many a famous actor.

  Between them, the priests removed both heart and liver; the former was set sizzling on the growing flames whilst the latter was placed on the altar next to the fire. All watching held their collective breath. Proceeding slowly, so as to build the tension, the priests wiped the blood from their hands and forearms before patting the liver dry and then returning the cloths to the acolytes.

  Now was the moment all had been waiting for; now the time had come to examine the liver. Nero shuddered, his body wracked with sobs as he looked to the sky, grey and brooding, through a window high in the back wall of the temple; he lifted his right arm and slowly clenched his fingers as if trying to grab a hidden thing from out of the air.

  Veneration grew on the countenances of the two priests as they turned the liver over, examining it minutely.

  Nero began to whimper with tension.

  Having scrutinised both sides twice, the priests looked to one another, nodded and then turned to the Emperor.

  ‘Divine Claudia Augusta has been accepted by the gods above and now sits in their midst,’ the elder of the two announced, his voice weighted with reverence.

  With a gasp, Nero fainted – his arms carefully ensuring that he did no damage to his face as it hit the marble floor. The assembled senators broke into cheers of rapture and called on the new goddess to hold her hands over them.

  ‘We shou
ld be very grateful to the gods for accepting their latest little colleague,’ Gaius observed without a trace of irony whilst wholeheartedly joining in with the applause. ‘Perhaps now Nero will have his mind free to concentrate on the business of government.’

  Sabinus slipped the fold of his toga from his head as the religious part of the ceremony was now concluded. ‘I hope so. He hasn’t heard one appeal or taken a petition since construction of this temple began; I’ve at least a hundred convicted or accused citizens from all over the Empire, awaiting their chance to appeal to the Emperor, scattered around the city. It shouldn’t be the business of the prefect of Rome to be acting as a gaoler to common criminals, even if they are citizens.’

  Paetus frowned as he too uncovered his head. ‘Prisoners have always been the prefect’s responsibility.’

  ‘Yes, with the help of one of the praetors, but never so many at once; normally no more than two or three at any one time if the Emperor hears the appeals on a regular basis. I’ve had that odious little Paulus of Tarsus causing no end of trouble, writing his filth in letters to all sorts of people; my agents intercept and destroy most of them but some slip through. When I challenge him about it he says that until Caesar has passed his judgement upon him he has the right to write to anyone he likes even if it’s seditious and attacking the very laws that he’s hiding behind – our laws. But with Nero back I’ll soon have the runt off my hands, and, well ...’ Sabinus glanced with regret at his son-in-law. ‘It also means you’ll have to face him.’

  ‘I was hoping he hadn’t noticed that I was back from Armenia,’ Paetus confided, scowling; his boyish face had been weather-beaten from campaigning in the East, making his pronounced front teeth seem even whiter.

  More thoughts on the subject were cut off as Nero raised both arms, asking for silence that was soon apparent. The emotion of the occasion was too much for him and for a while he stood there breathing deeply and giving his best expressions of relief. ‘My friends,’ he said at last, gathering himself. ‘What a thing we have witnessed here in this place: I, the son of a god and the great-grandson of a god, have now become the father of a goddess. I, your Emperor, have divine seed.’ He turned to his freedman, Epaphroditus, and held out a hand. ‘My cythia.’ From behind the altar the freedman produced the seven-stringed lyre that the Emperor had been studying for five years now. ‘In honour of the day and in praise of my divine daughter sprung from my loins I have composed a paean of thanksgiving.’ He plucked a chord and attempted to sing a note of similar pitch without noticeable success; his voice, husky and weak, struggled to fill the chamber.

  Sabinus grimaced and braced himself. Gaius looked around anxiously for a seat; there were none.

  With two more chords that had no business being played in conjunction, Nero launched into a dirge of disharmony, erratic scanning and stretched rhyme.

  On he went, verse after verse, as the senators stood, listening with the intense looks of those who consider themselves to be in the presence of genius and are unable to believe the good fortune that had brought them to that place.

  But in this they were all experienced: for the past couple of years, Nero had been shamefully performing to small audiences of senators in private, as if he were a slave or a freedman rather than the Emperor of Rome. Since the death of his mother, Agrippina, murdered on his orders, and the sidelining of his tutor, Seneca, who had attempted to keep the young Princeps on a dignified and sober path, Nero had come to realise that there was nothing that he could not do. He had murdered his mother because she annoyed him, his brother because he was a threat to him and, most recently, his wife, Claudia Octavia, so that Poppaea Sabina could take her place – Poppaea’s wedding present had been her predecessor’s head. No one had censured him for these deeds for no one dared. All in the élite of Rome’s society knew that Nero could not bear anyone to think badly of him; he wished only to be universally loved and those who made it obvious that they did not share that view had no business in Nero’s city.

  For Rome now, more than ever, was Nero’s city.

  Gone was the pretence that the Emperor could not take anything he wanted that had been the sleight of hand with which Augustus had cloaked the actuality of his absolute power. Even the brash young Emperor Gaius – known as Caligula, the nickname of his youth – had paid some attention to law in that if he wanted a man’s property he had had the decency to have an ambitious informer trump up a charge of treason against the individual. Now, however, everyone knew the stark reality: everything, ultimately, was the property of the Emperor. For who could argue with a man who had almost ten thousand Praetorian Guardsmen to secure him in power? And who would wish to curb his desires? And if he desired to sing a paean in praise of the goddess sprung from his divine loins then so be it; none of those present gave the slightest sign that what they were listening to was anything other than the greatest composition ever set down, being performed by the most loved man ever to exist.

  So, almost half an hour later, as the paean ground to a grisly end, as unheroic as it was uninspiring, the senators vied with one another to be the first and loudest to congratulate and applaud their virtuoso Emperor who, naturally, was overwhelmed and taken totally by surprise by the enthusiasm of the reception and found it impossible to refuse entreaties of a reprise.

  ‘My friends,’ Nero croaked as the applause died down after the second rendition; his voice raw from much usage. ‘Now I have set my daughter in her rightful place in the heavens and provided her with suitable accommodation here in Rome, my thoughts turn to my own comfort and that of my wife, the Augusta, Poppaea Sabina.’ Raising the back of his hand to his forehead and gazing up to the smoke swirling high above, beneath the ceiling of painted panels set between cedar-wood beams, he let go a melodramatic sigh. ‘But that shall have to wait, dear friends, as I am well aware that my presence is required in the Senate; I shall come immediately. Corbulo’s despatch on the conduct of the renewed war with Parthia in Armenia must be read and our policy and the course of the struggle there be considered, seeing as I was obliged to reinstate him in his eastern command after Lucius Caesennius Paetus’ humiliating defeat by the Parthian king, Vologases.’ He paused for cries of ‘shame’ and ‘disgrace’.

  Paetus stood, stiff-backed, as the insults were hurled at him.

  Sabinus shifted uneasily. ‘I should never have lobbied for that command for him after he stood down from the consulship,’ he muttered to his uncle so that Paetus did not hear. Nero, through jealousy and fear, had removed Corbulo, the greatest general of the age, from overall command of Rome’s forces in Armenia after a series of despatches from which it had been evident that he had done far too good and efficient a job in removing Vologases’ brother, Tiridates, from the Armenian throne and replacing him with Rome’s client, Tigranes. An emperor loves a victory but not necessarily the man who provided it for him and Nero’s lack of thanks had been deafening. Hostilities had flared up again when Vologases had, in turn, removed Tigranes and replaced him with Tiridates. Sabinus had used his influence as prefect of Rome to get Paetus appointed Governor of Cappadocia and to be given two legions in order to bring Armenia back under direct Roman rule; something he had conspicuously failed to do. Corbulo had eventually been authorised to come to his assistance.

  Gaius’ jowls wobbled with indignation. ‘Dear boy, you two brothers are not doing too well with sons-in-law, it has to be said. Vespasian’s lost his whole legion in the Britannic revolt and now your son-in-law takes the gloss off his consulship by surrendering his two legions to the Parthians who then force them to pass under the yoke before allowing them to withdraw from Armenia without their weapons or armour.’

  Nero signalled for quiet and then looked directly at Sabinus even though Paetus was standing right next to him. ‘Now that your son-in-law is recently returned to Rome you can tell him that in honour of my daughter’s deification I will pardon him immediately so that he won’t die of chronic worry as he awaits my verdict, seeing as he is evidently
a man prone to panic.’

  The assembly burst into bellows of laughter; Paetus coloured with impotent rage.

  Sabinus blanched. ‘Indeed, Princeps.’

  Nero gave a smile that more than hinted at the cruelty lurking within him. ‘And then, of course, after the Senate has risen, I shall hear appeals; have all those wishing the benefit of my judgement waiting in the forum, prefect.’

  ‘I shall make the arrangements, Princeps.’

  ‘Good. I will work my fingers to the bone in the service of Rome to the extent that my own comfort will be secondary.’

  This drew mighty cheers from his audience, this time born out of greater sincerity, as, for the first time since the death of his daughter, Nero would be coming to the Senate to tell them how to think.

  ‘It was Corbulo refusing to come to my aid, Father,’ Paetus insisted as he, Sabinus and Gaius, along with the rest of the senators, descended the Palatine.

  ‘But that’s not the version that the Emperor heard,’ Gaius reminded him. ‘We all sat there in the Senate listening to Vologases’ crowing letter about how he magnanimously let you go when he could have crushed you and destroyed both of your legions. Unfortunately that letter arrived well before yours.’

  ‘As did Corbulo’s report,’ Sabinus added, ‘in which he made it abundantly clear that you got yourself into a mess but were too proud to admit it or ask for help; and now the Emperor accuses you, in public, of panicking, and makes you a laughing stock.’

  ‘For which I’ll never forgive him!’

  Gaius winced and looked around in alarm at the other senatorial groups as they turned left, onto the Sacred Way, and headed to the forum. ‘Not so loud, dear boy; that’s the sort of remark that has a habit of coming back on you.’

  Paetus scowled. ‘Well, don’t think I shan’t be avenged for the insult in some way.’

  Sabinus grabbed his son-in-law’s arm and pulled him close. ‘Now listen, Paetus; for the sake of my daughter, you will do nothing stupid, nothing that endangers you. Put all thoughts of vengeance from your mind and concentrate on working your way back into Nero’s favour because, like it or not, he has complete control over every aspect of our lives and is a terrifying creature of whim. Understand?’