by Kyle Onstott
She was a competent general and she was managing a very difficult campaign whose purpose was to put the emptyheaded Varius on the throne of the Caesars. Dress him in the imperial purple. Circle his head with the golden laurel leaves. Seat him in the ivory curule chair in Rome. Indoctrinate him so thoroughly into the pleasures to be derived from his healthy young body that he would have no desire to interfere with Maesa’s plans for power. Keep him from ever caring for another woman so that there would never be any opposition to her own indomitable will. Install him as High Priest of Elagabalus so that he would be regarded as sacred. Curry favor for him with the army. Keep her daughter Soaemias under her thumb, and keep her other daughter, Mamaea, and her son, Alexianus, away from Varius but never alienate them entirely as Alexianus must be kept in reserve to take Varius’s place if anything should happen to him. Tie Eutychianus and his prestige as Tribune of the Army closer to her cause. These were the immediate problems that Maesa had to face. There were others. There was the Emperor Caracalla!
She waited at the foot of the stairs for Varius and Gannys and for Soaemias and Eutychianus. Her smile was that of an indulgent mother who had discovered her children doing something of which she disapproved but which she did not care to mention. She embraced Varius, inhaling the wine-sodden breath of the boy and returning the slobbering kiss he gave her. He turned and faced Soaemias, threw his arms around her and kissed her, calling her the dearest of all mothers. Comazon held out his arms to the boy and Varius kissed his mother’s lover, but whereas the kiss he had given his mother was a dutiful one, his lips lingered on those of Comazon, until Comazon pushed him gently away, turned his head sideways and whispered in his ear.
“You will be well guarded tonight, dear Varius. The young German has had his drink laced with satyrion.”
“As was my wine too, Eutychianus. Gannys saw to that. I can scarcely wait to get to my room. Will he be waiting for me?”
“He will.” Eutychianus released him and turned him over to Gannys.
“Conduct your master to his room,” Maesa addressed Gannys without looking at him. “Prepare him for bed. And you, Eutychianus and Soaemias, follow me.” She beckoned to them. “A courier from Antioch arrived this afternoon. I have news—important news.”
She led them down the gallery that surrounded the peristylium below, to a door that opened into her own apartments, then took them across her bedroom into a smaller, windowless room which served as a wardrobe. When they were inside, she closed the carved cedar door. It was stifling hot and breathless in the little room. Without a word, she handed Soaemias a peacock feather fan and Eutychianus a linen towel to wipe the beads of perspiration from his forehead.
“I know it is hot in here, but it is safe,” she excused their discomfort. “We have important matters to discuss.” She swept a pile of garments from two chairs for them and seated herself on the edge of a wooden bench which served as a rack for sandals. As Soaemias fanned and Eutychianus mopped his forehead, she continued.
“It was ill-advised to speak of the army at dinner tonight. I felt, however, if I changed the subject it might call even more attention to it. But I do not believe that anything we said could be considered dangerous. We must never discuss such things before slaves.”
“Oh, Mother, don’t be so suspicious!” Soaemias waved the fan frantically. “I know that my Gigex would never repeat a word. He is devoted to me. And as for Gannys . . .”
“I trust that one only because I’ve got enough on him to crucify him tomorrow. Never trust a filthy catamite. They’re unstable. They’ll tum on you in a moment. And as for your black stud, Gigex, remember, he’s only a slave with one thing to recommend him. Don’t think he’s so devoted to you but what he can be bought.”
“My soldier, Publius, is a good boy,” Eutychianus nodded his head. “Like your Gannys, Julia Maesa, I have enough on him to hang him tomorrow. He knows enough to keep silent.”
“Of course I can vouch for old Vatron,” Maesa said, “but I am not sure of Mamaea’s Thracian, or that brat that waits on Alexianus. As for that matter, I’m not sure of Mamaea herself. She wants to put Alexianus on the throne but,” she shook a warning finger at the other two, “he’s too young and, perhaps even more important, she has brought him up to have a mind of his own. Once on the throne, nobody but Mamaea could handle him and that would not agree with our plans.”
“Varius seems more and more amenable,” Eutychianus unhooked the clasp that held his toga over his shoulder and lowered it so that he could mop under his arms, “you will never have any trouble with him.”
Maesa shook her head, her lips grimly together in a thin line.
“No, thanks to the efforts of Soaemias and the ministrations of Gannys, Varius is falling into line. He will never give us any trouble. Give him wine to drink and a man to bed with and he will be contented. Let him have all the pretty clothes he wants and a table full of perfumes and he’ll not care how Rome is governed. Soon he’ll be a priest of Elagabalus and he will delight in the trumpery of temple processions and the fact that he heads them in rare and elegant regalia.”
“Varius will even enjoy prostituting himself on the temple steps at night.” Eutychianus continued to mop.
“And as Emperor of Rome, he will not desire to rule more than the palace itself,” Soaemias looked up at her mother, “while we rule the Empire.”
Maesa nodded briefly.
“The courier?” Eutychianus asked. “Did he bring dispatches?”
Maesa put her fingers to her lips and tiptoed across the room and opened the door quickly. There was nobody on the other side. “I half expected that Thracian of Mamaea’s to come tumbling in.” She shut the door and resumed her seat. “No, the courier brought no dispatches as he had committed his message to memory. As soon as he had finished speaking, a piece of catgut was slipped around his throat from behind and the message perished with him.”
Soaemias threw the fan with a gesture of impatience. It fell to the floor and the slender handle of tortoiseshell broke. “Before we are fried in this miserable room, tell us what he said.”
“You must learn to cultivate patience,” Maesa admonished her gently.
“Patience! I’ll cultivate it on some cool balcony or up on the roof, not here in this oven. Come, Mother, let us get this discussion over with.”
“Agreed.” Maesa lowered her voice and leaned forward. “Caracalla has left Antioch with only a small bodyguard for Edessa.”
Soaemias forgot the discomfort of the heat. “Did you say Emesa, Mother?”
“No, Edessa which is quite another matter.”
“Why does he go there?” Eutychianus asked.
“The astrologers have told him that he must visit the shrine of Luna, the Moon Goddess, at Carrhae.”
“Then he is deserting the worship of Elagabalus. Alas, he is doomed.” Soaemias sank back in her chair.
“You know Caracalla.” Maesa made a disparaging gesture with the palm of her hand. “He’s always been ruled by superstition, ever since he killed Geta. He thinks his brother’s shade is haunting him. Yes, he goes to Carrhae.”
“ ’Twill bring him bad luck to worship the Moon Goddess.”
“Let us hope so. But, here is the important thing. Opellius Macrinus in Antioch plots to murder Caracalla. Macrinus thinks because he is Prefect of the Praetorian Guard he will be next in line for Emperor. Caracalla is losing popularity with the army because he has not given a pay increase for two years. It is the army that has kept him in power. The only reason he wears that silly cape is to identify himself with his soldiers but, as much as they love him, even they have grown tired of his madness. Caracalla’s days are numbered.”
“But if Macrinus succeeds to the purple, then we are lost.” Soaemias was trembling. Suddenly she saw all her carefully laid plans being swept away. She would not be the Divine Augusta, mother of the Emperor. She would never return to the Imperial Palace in Rome to be first lady of the Empire. Instead she would be forced to sta
y here in this backwater of a Syrian city with only her mother and this lout, Eutychianus, for company. Well, she had Gigex! That was one consolation but even Gigex could not recompense her for not becoming the mother of Caesar.
“Macrinus!” Maesa was too much of a lady to spit on the floor but she saved herself from doing so only by swallowing the ready saliva which was in her mouth. “He’s a stupid fool. I hope he does have Caracalla murdered. It will save us from having to do it ourselves and there will be no divine blood on our hands. Macrinus has only his Praetorians to support him. He’ll not last more than a few months then . . .” She stood up and looked over the heads of Eutychianus and Soaemias. Seemingly she saw beyond the stuccoed walls of the hot little room, beyond the fertile plains of seaboard Syria and over the broad expanse of the Mediterranean to where the white marble Palace of the Caesars stood on the Palatine Hill in Rome. “Only a few months and then Varius will wear the golden laurel leaves.”
“If the army so wills,” Eutychianus added.
“The army will,” Maesa came back to the little room. “That is your job, Eutychianus. I cannot do it all.”
“But Varius is not Caracalla’s heir. Caesar has never been willing to sign the adoption papers.”
“Varius is not only Caracalla’s heir but his son—his own son.”
“Mother, don’t be foolish. Varius is the son of Varius Marcellus.”
“Call you me foolish, Soaemias? I would slap your face, were it not that I am too warm to make the effort. Of course he’s Caracalla’s son. Caracalla fathered him one night in Rome when you shared your busy bed with him.”
“And who will believe that?” Soaemias took a long breath and expelled it noisily. “And even if they did, what would that make me?”
“A whore! But it is no more of a disgrace to have slept with Caracalla who, after all, is Emperor of Rome, than it is to have slept with Eutychianus who is only a Tribune, and all Rome knows about that. Certainly it is not half as bad as to abandon yourself to that black stud you gambol with every night. Yes, Soaemias, I say that you slept with Caracalla, not once but many times. I say that as a result of those nights of love for your dear cousin, you birthed Varius and if anyone doubts it they have only to look at the boy. He looks enough like Caracalla to be his own son.”
“Well, he’s his own cousin,” Eutychianus corroborated.
“Once removed,” Maesa added.
“Then I’m to go down in history as the imperial slut?” Soaemias seemed strangely perturbed over her reputation.
“You will and were. Fool!” Maesa reached down and picked up the broken stick of the fan and flung the pieces in Soaemias’s lap. “Utter fool that you are. What care you what a few gabbling tongues say? You will be the Mother Augusta of Rome, when Varius is Emperor. So, you slept with Caracalla! It’s a small price to pay.”
Soaemias got up and walked the few steps to the door. With one hand on the bronze latch, she paused and turned back to face her mother and Eutychianus.
“I shall not have to lie when I say that I slept with my cousin, Caracalla.” She smiled. “I did, many times—and that is one thing, dear mother, you never found out about. Yes, I slept with him and at that time I loved him but,” she laughed aloud, “for the life of me I cannot tell you whether it was before or after Varius was born.”
“And who cares, dear Soaemias?” Eutychianus got up and stood beside her. “Who cares? Both your mother and I can vouch for one thing.”
“What, Eutychianus?”
“That it was before Varius was born, of course.”
Maesa chuckled as she nudged him in the ribs. “Of course it was before, wasn’t it, Eutychianus?”
“It was.”
“Ah but, dear Mother, I have a better witness than either you or Eutychianus. Sempronia Cilia helped me with the rendezvous and each time she arranged for Caracalla to come to my rooms.”
“Sempronia! By all the Gods! Perfect!” Maesa’s chuckle had turned into a loud laugh. “The biggest gossip in all Rome. How does it happen she has kept her mouth closed so long?”
“She never dared speak with Caracalla alive.”
“Then soon she will be spreading it all over Rome. She’s an old busybody but, strangely enough, everyone believes her. Darling,” she wrapped one arm around Soaemias and the other around Eutychianus, “open the door and let’s get out of this place before I melt. You’re not as stupid as I thought you were. So you actually did sleep with Caracalla?”
Soaemias nodded as they stepped into the cooler air.
“And how was be?” Eutychianus smiled as he asked the question.
“Oh, a thousands times better than you, dear Eutychianus, a thousand times better.”
“But not better than the ebon-skinned Gigex?”
Soaemias stroked his cheek with the tip of her finger. “Of course not. That would be impossible.”
5
The road that led from Edessa to Carrhae passed through peaceful country, therefore there was no need for an advance guard and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Emperor of Rome—known to millions as Caracalla from the voluminous soldier’s cape which he always wore—rode ahead of the small detachment of soldiers. He tried hard to be one of them, a soldier among soldiers, and he asked for no special protection. To do so would set him apart and his only desire was to be a soldier and to be accepted as one by the men in the ranks. An Emperor of Rome could only survive through the grace of the army and from the moment he had become Caesar, Caracalla had thought first of himself and then of his army. He had paid them better, fed them better, clothed and quartered them better than any other emperor before him and now . . . he hoped they loved him better but he was not sure.
He was not sure of anything. He never had been since the day his brother Geta ran to their mother’s arms, screaming for safety. But Julia Domna had not been able to protect Geta. The swords had slashed and Geta had died in her arms. If she had resisted she would have died too. Now Caracalla was glad she had lived. He trusted his mother. Well, he trusted her a little more than anyone else, at least enough to leave her in Rome to guard his interests there. No by two-faced Janus, he didn’t trust her. She had loved Geta more than she had ever loved him. She had never forgiven him for murdering his brother.
He had loved Geta too. He remembered the day his father, the Emperor Septimius Severus, had died. It was cold and rainy and bleak, that day in Britain, but he had donned the long cloak of a soldier and had taken Geta by the hand and appeared with him before the army. They had been proclaimed co-emperors of Rome. Geta was a handsome boy. Caracalla had loved him. Then why did he kill him? Why? Because there could be only one emperor in Rome. If he had not killed Geta, Geta would have killed him. But if Geta had killed him, he would not have come back every night to haunt Geta, like Geta’s shade haunted him. Geta’s shade was plotting his death. He knew it. He was never safe. He looked back over his shoulder to the soldiers behind him. Of course he was safe now, out here on the open road, and away from the. confining walls of palaces and barracks. He was alone with his men, his soldiers, his friends. There was nothing for him to fear.
The sun had gone down and there was a chill in the air. Soon they would be stopping for the night and there would be the blaze of the camp fire with its welcome light and heat. The men would talk and Caracalla would pass the wine cups around and later he could roll himself in his long cloak and sleep alongside his soldiers—his friends. Then, Caracalla shivered at the thought of it, Geta would come, pointing the finger of death at him and he would awake screaming.
Yes, the sun had gone down and Elagabalus the Sun God was dead. The sun had perished; the godhead had been slain by the forces of darkness and only the long nightly sacrifice in the holy Temple of the Sun God at Emesa could bring the sun back to life so that he would appear tomorrow morning in all his splendor and all his glory. Night after night, the rites must take place in the temple at Emesa. Emesa! That was where he had banished his Aunt Julia Maesa and her two daughters. And
there were two sons—what were their names? Alexianus and Varius, Alexianus was Soaemias’s son. No, her son’s name was Varius, so Alexianus must be Mamaea’s son. He had never liked Mamaea—she was cold and calculating and she had never liked him. But he remembered Soaemias and her beauty and the warm bed he had shared with her in Rome. Perhaps after his visit to Carrhae was over, he would ride to Emesa and see his family. No, by Elagabalus, he wouldn’t dare to. They would murder him in his bed.
Why did he swear by Elagabalus? The Sun God had deserted him. He, Caracalla, was as divine as the Sun God. He was Caesar, one of the divine Antonines. He was a god himself. So why should he worship Elagabalus when Elagabalus had done nothing for him, had forsaken him? Let the sun die! Forbid the nightly rituals at Emesa that would bring the sun back to life. Let Luna rule! That was where he was going; to the Temple of the Goddess of the Moon, the mighty Luna, at Carrhae. His astrologer had told him to go. Let the worship of Elagabalus be abandoned throughout the Empire and let Luna be the chief goddess of Rome. He could make Luna the most powerful of all the gods if she would only deliver him from Geta. She could! Geta came only at night and Luna ruled the night. How stupid, oh how abysmally stupid he had been all these years to worship the divinity of the sun just because his grandfather had been priest of Elagabalus. And, he was only an honorary priest because he had married and the priests of Elagabalus never married. How could the God of the Sun help him when his godhead struggled for life every night, aided only by the filthy rites at the temple in Emesa.
