Copyright © 2020 by Debra May Macleod
E-book published in 2020 by Blackstone Publishing
Cover design by Alenka Vdovič Linaschke
Forum Romanum illustration by Ana Rey
Book logo by Jeanine Henning
All rights reserved. This book or any portion
thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner
whatsoever without the express written permission
of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations
in a book review.
Any historical figures and events referenced in this book
are depicted in a fictitious manner. All other characters
and events are products of the author’s imagination, and
any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-09-400026-8
Library e-book ISBN 978-1-09-400025-1
Fiction / Historical / Ancient
CIP data for this book is available
from the Library of Congress
Blackstone Publishing
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Author’s Note
At the front of this book, you’ll find a simplified illustration of the Roman Forum and the structures mentioned in the story.
At the back, I have included a dramatis personae, or cast of characters. You’ll also find other reader-friendly resources there, including the names of the gods and mythical figures mentioned in the book, a glossary of Latin and other important terms, and several illustrations that tie into the story line and that I think you’ll find fascinating.
Thank you for reading.
Prologue
The Campus Sceleratus
The “Evil Field” just inside the city walls of Rome
113 bce
Licinia tasted sour vomit threatening to rise in her throat. The green cypress trees that dotted the landscape and the blue sky overhead swam in and out of her field of vision as she struggled to maintain her balance. She swallowed hard, but her mouth was dry with the thick summer heat and her own stark terror. It felt like a blade was piercing the back of her throat.
A blade. She had prayed to the goddess for a blade. Even criminals and gladiators met death by the quick work of a sword or dagger, yet she, a revered priestess of Vesta, was denied that mercy. Her guards had been as kind to her as their station permitted, yet not one of them had dared to smuggle a blade into her room, no matter how much she begged.
Not one of them had risked providing her with what she needed to end her suffering at once, even when in her most panic-stricken moments she had offered to dishonor herself and her virginal service to the goddess by pleasuring them, however they wanted her to do it, in exchange for even the dullest of kitchen knives.
No doubt they had seen her supposed lover flayed alive in the Forum.
Red spots of blood soaked through the white linen of the stola that clung to her body, the scourge gashes on her back once again opening. The Pontifex Maximus took her arm and pulled her toward a gaping black hole in the ground.
Around it stood several somber priests and two of her fellow Vestals, the docile Flavia and the duteous chief Vestal Tullia, their eyes moist and their palms up in supplication to the goddess.
The black hole was at her feet now. Licinia looked down into the void and felt a rancid mist of cold, dank air rise from its depths and cling to her face. At once gripped by terror and filled with a macabre fascination, she blinked at the blackness. She could just barely make out the first rung of a ladder that extended down, all the way down, to the pitch-black end of her life.
“Protege me, Dea! ” she heard herself cry out. Goddess, protect me!
“Mother Vesta goes with you.”
It was Tullia who had spoken. It was against custom for her to speak to a Vestal condemned to death for incestum—breaking her vow of chastity—but the Pontifex Maximus was in no mood to remind the austere Vestalis Maxima of decorum. This ugly business would be finished soon, but he still had to work with her. No point making matters worse.
The chief priest stepped back and nodded gravely to the executioner, a war-torn Hercules of a man whose body took up the space of two men. He hesitated for a moment—this was a priestess of Vesta after all—and then extended an uncertain hand toward her, urging her to descend the ladder and praying to Mars that she would go willingly.
She rounded on him suddenly. “Do not touch me,” she spat. “I serve the immaculate goddess.”
He pulled back his hand.
“You have served the goddess well,” said the Vestalis Maxima. “May you continue to do so.”
Licinia felt her throat tighten, but she inhaled sharply to stop the tears. She looked at Tullia’s face, expressionless in the glaring sunshine, and then gathered the bottom of her stola in one arm, holding the drapery aside so that she could descend the ladder without tripping on it.
She slipped one sandaled foot into the black void and felt the cool, clammy air envelop the bare skin of her foot and shin. A chill ran up her spine as her foot found the top rung in the blackness. Her other foot followed. She stepped down to the second rung, feeling the raw wounds on her lashed back tug and bleed anew. She stepped down again. The black dirt was at eye level now, and her fingers were stained with soil as she clung to the earth. To life.
It was so strange to be at this angle: staring at the sandaled feet of people who, when this duty was done, would ride back to Rome in their litters, with fresh air still in their lungs, to continue with their day—talking, eating, sleeping, and waking in the morning to the light of dawn. How foreign and impossible those things seemed to her at this moment.
Her body immersed to the neck in Hades, Licinia turned her eyes away. She didn’t want her last image to be the crookedly tied sandals of a priest. What idiot slaves he must have. Either that or they secretly despised their master.
She peeled her eyes open wide, hungry for light as she descended the ladder, rung after rung, into the ever-blackening pit until her feet landed on solid ground. She looked up. The opening to the world above looked like the disk of a full moon shimmering white against the black sky.
Licinia’s heart pounded so hard that her chest and back ached from the pressure. She couldn’t take a deep breath: it was as though a tight band had been wrapped around her upper body. She stood like a statue in the dark, feeling the spindly legs of an unseen insect scurry over her foot, and terrified to look around her. That would make it all too real. And she wasn’t ready for that yet.
The ladder moved upward quickly—too quickly for her to grab onto it. She watched it rise and then disappear into the glaring lightness above and, a moment later, saw a basket descending to her on a long rope. She reached up to catch it in her arms and then removed the items before those above could remove the basket as quickly as they had the ladder.
A round loaf of bread. A small amphora of water. An oil lamp that burned with a small but steady flame.
As she stared into the flame, she heard a grating sound from above and felt soft earth fall onto her veiled head. Her tomb was being sealed.
She looked up. The full moon above gave way to a half-moon, and then to a crescent as the last sliver of light disappeared and she was left with only her pounding fear and the flickering flame. Tullia was right. Vesta was with her. The Vestalis Maxima would have undoubtedly lit the oil lamp with the sacred flame from the temple.
She cradled the small oil lamp in her palm and turned around slowly, as if sensing a ghost standing behind her, to look around the silent, black pit.
> The pit was larger than she had expected and more or less rectangular, with smooth dirt walls. A few steps to her left stood a small couch and on the ground in front of it—Licinia cried out—a body!
It was dressed in a fine stola similar to her own, but that lay disheveled and rotten against decayed flesh and exposed bone. The arms and legs were splayed, and the skull was visible, as was a patch of straggly, long hair. The mouth was open.
Feeling the blood leave her head, Licinia slowly lowered herself to her knees. If she fainted—and she was close to it—she would drop the oil lamp and her only source of light would be lost.
She inhaled a few breaths of the stagnant air and felt it stick in her nostrils like a foul film.
Something caught her eye, and she glanced to her right. Lying against the dirt wall were two more bodies. These were arranged in a more dignified state, their decaying stolas wrapped carefully, respectfully, around them and their veils covering their faces. Dry bone was visible through the fabric.
The chief Vestal’s words echoed in Licinia’s head. You have served the goddess well. May you continue to do so.
Setting the oil lamp gently on the dirt floor, she crept toward the splayed body of the Vestal. She gently put her hands around the bony arms and folded them across the torso and then drew in the decomposed legs.
Gingerly she pulled the old, delicate fabric around the body, doing her best in the dim light to wrap the Vestal with dignity. Once done, she rolled the body until it lay restfully against the other priestesses. Lastly, she covered the dead Vestal’s face with the age-yellowed linen of her veil.
Licinia moved with purpose back to where she had set the water and bread, carrying them to the oil lamp and sitting cross-legged in front of it. She tore a small piece of bread from the fresh loaf and held it above the oil lamp, sprinkling crumbs into the flame.
“Mother Vesta, your humble priestess, who has served you these fifteen years with purity and reverent duty, honors you with this offering. Please light my way to the afterlife.”
The heat of the summer day was a distant memory now as the skin on her bare arms prickled in the cold air of the black pit. The deafening silence of her deep tomb throbbed in her head, yet through it she heard the words of Anaxilaus, her Greek physician.
Do not prolong your suffering by drinking the water they give you. Show Hades you are ready, and he will take you sooner. Even he can have mercy . . . in his way.
She tipped the amphora over and watched the water seep into the dirt, trickling into the underworld.
Forgive me, Goddess, she thought, but my last offering must be to Hades.
Chapter I
Veni, Vidi, Vici
I came, I saw, I conquered.
—Julius Caesar
Rome, 45 BCE
Sixty-eight years later
A red-cloaked legionary soldier stood under the Aquila, the golden Eagle of Rome that was perched loftily atop a tall military staff. He blew his horn and shouted, “All make way for General Gaius Julius Caesar!”
The Forum Romanum was the central hub of Rome’s political, economic, and religious life. Even on a slow day it could be crowded and hectic as everyone from senators in their best white togas to slaves in battered sandals carried on whatever business concerned them.
Today was not a slow day. It was a historic day. It was the day that the masses could finally get their first really good look at their new dictator as he began to make his way along the Via Sacra from the Curia, Rome’s Senate house, to the Temple of Vesta, all against the backdrop of towering, multicolored marble temples and a massive two-story basilica, the long shop-filled arcade of which stretched down the street.
People had come out in droves to watch Caesar stroll down the cobblestone streets of the Forum, under the Eagle, like he owned the world. In fact, he did own it. The powers invested in him as dictator said as much.
Preceded by his bodyguard lictors and surrounded by what looked to be a small army of legionary soldiers in full armor, Caesar waved to those in the crowd who threw flowers at his feet and ignored those who didn’t.
Some loved him. Some hated him. Most couldn’t care either way. As long as their bellies were full and there was wine to be had, as long as those damn unshaven Gauls weren’t shouting war cries at the gates of the city, life was good.
As Caesar’s robust procession made its way past the Basilica Aemilia, several well-placed soldiers unfurled scarlet banners from the arches and columns of its long arcade. The banners dropped down like a series of theater curtains, each one boasting a gold medallion of Venus in its center. Venus, the goddess from whom Caesar claimed to be descended.
“Caesar’s sure putting on a show,” an impressed woman said to her friend.
Her friend leaned in. “Have you heard the song that his soldiers sing about him?”
“No, but I can imagine . . .”
“It goes like this: Home we bring our balding womanizer! Romans, hide your wives away! All the gold you gave him bought him ten more tarts to lay.”
The women laughed in unison, winding their way through the chattering crowds, bumping into bodies and lifting their stolas to avoid dirtying them on the cobblestone until they reached the front of the round, white-marble Temple of Vesta. Green laurel wreaths hung from each of the twenty fluted columns that encircled it.
Inside the temple’s sanctum, where no one but the Vestal Virgins were allowed to go, burned the sacred flame of Vesta, goddess of the home and hearth. Hers was the Eternal Flame that protected the Eternal City. As long as the fire burned, Rome lived, and so the priestesses of Vesta tended the fire day and night.
Intricately carved marble pedestals stood along the winding Via Sacra and around the sacred area of the well-guarded temple. On top of each pedestal was a gleaming bronze bowl that contained a fire lit from the eternal flame inside the sanctum.
The women shouldered through the crowd until they reached one of the firebowls. It was a pleasant February day, but it grew cool when the clouds covered the sun. Surely the goddess wouldn’t mind if they warmed their mortal hands over her immortal flame.
The one who had sung began to sing again, “Julius Caesar, knows how to please her—” but stopped in midsong as one of the embossed bronze doors of the temple opened and a stately woman dressed in a white stola, head veiled, descended the steps. Both women knew her. Everyone knew her. She was the High Priestess Fabiana who had served as Vestalis Maxima, the head of the Vestal order, for decades. The two women and everyone around them lowered themselves to their knees.
As the chief Vestal stood on the bottom marble step, she was immediately joined by two armed centurions, their scarlet cloaks framing her white stola.
The more senior soldier removed his red-plumed helmet and bowed his head. “Great Lady,” he said, “shall we accompany you now?”
“Yes,” said the Vestal. Her voice was lighter than her seventy-six years. “Thank you.”
The splendid trio moved toward the columned portico of the adjacent House of the Vestals, the large, luxurious home only steps away from the temple, where the priestesses lived during their years of service to Rome.
As the Vestal passed by, men and women dropped to their knees before her on the cobblestone, their palms held upward. A chorus of murmurs went up.
Please ask Mother Vesta to protect my son who serves in Gaul . . .
Preserve my family, High Priestess . . .
Bless my daughter’s marriage . . .
My child is sick. Please ask the goddess to save him . . .
The Vestal pulled back the linen palla wrapped around her shoulders to reveal a handful of sacred wafers, the traditional salted-flour offering to the goddess. As she glided past the kneeling supplicants, still accompanied by her gleaming centurions, she placed these wafers into the palms held up to her.
“Offer to the
viva flamma,” she instructed. To the living flame.
The supplicants rose and moved off to the firebowls to make their offerings.
A horn blew again as Caesar’s impressive procession arrived at the portico to the House of the Vestals at the same time as the priestess.
“All make way for General Gaius Julius Caesar!” shouted a soldier, although the Vestal only rolled her eyes at him as if to say, Yes, we can all see him.
More soldiers pushed back the crowd as Caesar, draped in a white toga with a wide purple border that displayed his status and power, held out his arms to the elderly Vestal. Her eye roll softened to a smile and she embraced him.
To her, he was no dictator. He was family.
The ornate wooden doors of the House of the Vestals—deep red, with white and blue rosettes—opened and the centurions stood guard as Caesar and the Vestal passed through into the vestibule.
As they did, one of the soldiers turned to wink at the two gawking women, who were back on their feet and vying for position in the crowded street. His fitted iron breastplate caught the sun, and he puffed out his chest.
“Mea Dea,” one of the women exhaled. “Forget those sweat-stained gladiators clambering in the sand.” She elbowed her friend. “I’ll be picturing that shiny pair of centurions when my husband rolls on top of me tonight.”
* * *
Julius Caesar rested on a cushioned marble bench inside the lush open-sky rectangular courtyard of the multistory House of the Vestals. He grinned inwardly at the impressive gathering of senators, high-ranking priests and other patrician guests who had accepted his invitation to meet here, in the Vestals’ large garden, to celebrate his powerful new status.
“So tell me, Julius,” said Fabiana, “shall I now call you king?”
Caesar smirked. “Are you trying to get me killed, Great Aunt?”
“If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. Now pass me a cup of wine.”
Caesar took a gold cup from a slave’s tray and handed it to the Vestalis Maxima, who sat next to him. “Priestess Fabiana, I need your help.”
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