Текст книги "Empire"

Автор книги: Steven Saylor

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Текущая страница: 28 (всего у книги 45 страниц)

AD 88

It was the fifth day before the Ides of Junius, the twentieth anniversary of the death of Titus Pinarius.

As he did every year on this date, Lucius conducted a simple ritual of remembrance before the wax effigy of his father that occupied a niche in the vestibule of his house on the Palatine. He was attended only by the freedman Hilarion, who had been his father’s favourite and who cherished the memory of his old master. In the years since he had been manumitted, Hilarion had married and started his own family, and in many ways was a more devout Roman than Lucius, observing all the holidays and the customary rituals for the benefit of his children. Lucius, since he had little interest in religion and had created no family of his own, observed few ceremonies throughout the year, but he never neglected to note the day of his father’s death.

As happened every year, he felt a little guilty as he honoured the memory of his father. At the age of forty, Lucius had not produced an heir; after he died, who would continue to honor the memory of his father and all his other ancestors? Two of Lucius’s three sisters had children, but they were not Pinarii.

It was also the twentieth anniversary of the death of Nero.

That anniversary was not especially significant for Lucius, except as it related to his own father’s death, but it meant a great deal to Epaphroditus.

To observe the occasion, he had asked Lucius to join him at the tomb of Nero on the Hill of Gardens.

It was a mild, clear day. Lucius decided to walk rather than be carried in a sedan. He told Hilarion to spend the rest of the day with his family if he wished, and set out alone.

Leaving his house, Lucius gazed up at the massive new wings that had recently been added to the imperial palace. Domitian had so enlarged the complex that it now occupied not just the whole southern portion of the Palatine but much of the rest of the hill. He had also given the complex a name; as Nero had called his palace the Golden House, so Domitian called his palace the House of the Flavians. The public rooms were said to be enormous, with soaring vaulted ceilings, while the rooms and gardens where the emperor actually resided were said to be surprisingly small and to lie deep within the palace, accessible only by secret doorways and hidden passages.

Lucius descended the Stairs of Cacus and crossed the marketplace and the Forum. He walked along the huge, cordoned-off area where a saddle of land connecting the Quirinal Hill to the Capitoline was being excavated to make room for a grand new forum that would facilitate passage from the centre of the city to the Field of Mars. The amount of earth being removed was staggering; the buildings that would fill such a space would have to be constructed on a truly monumental scale. This new forum was without doubt the most ambitious of the emperor’s building projects, but it was only one of many. Structures could be seen going up all over the city, and a great many older buildings, still damaged from the fires under Nero and Titus, were at last being restored. Everywhere he went in Roma, Lucius saw cranes and scaffolding and heard foremen shouting orders to their work gangs. The incessant banging of hammers echoed from all directions.

Everywhere, too, he saw the image of the emperor. Monumental statues of Domitian had been placed at every important intersection and in every public square. The statues were of bronze, decorated with gold and silver, and invariably portrayed the emperor in the ornate armour of a triumphing general. Walking across the city, a man was never out of sight of a statue of the emperor; from certain spots, one could see two or even three of them in the distance. There was no place in Roma where a citizen could escape the stern gaze of Domitian.

Along with his statues, Domitian erected commemorative arches all over the city, little replicas of the vast Arch of Titus in the Forum ornamented in the same excessively decorated style. On many of these arches, some brave, seditious wit had scrawled a graffito that consisted of a single word, ARCI – which, when said aloud, could be taken either as the Latin word for “arches” or the Greek word, arkei, meaning “enough!”

Almost as ubiquitous as the statues and the arches, and built on a massive scale, were the altars to Vulcan that Domitian had erected all over the city. The altars had been pledged by Nero, who as Pontifex Maximus had promised that propitiations to Vulcan would prevent a reoccurrence of the Great Fire. Nero had poured his energies into the building of the Golden House instead, and in the chaos that followed his death the plans for the altars had been lost. Vespasian had never seen fit to revive the project, and the result, many thought, had been the extensive fire that damaged the city, especially the Field of Mars, under Titus. Titus renewed the vow to build the altars, but he died before he could commence construction. It was Domitian who at last built the altars. They were enormous, carved from solid blocks of travertine more than twenty feet wide. On the days that animals were sacrificed to Vulcan, huge plumes of smoke could be seen all over the city as the priests appealed to the god to prevent another conflagration.

The devastation of the Field of Mars had allowed Domitian to rebuild the area to his liking. As Lucius crossed the flat expanse, he saw the new temples that dominated the skyline, along with a vast stadium for athletic contests and a grand theatre called the Odeum, intended for musical performances, not for plays. Domitian had banned the public presentation of plays altogether.

As Lucius began to ascend the Hill of Gardens, he saw that a number of other people were walking in the same direction. He noticed more people, and yet more, all converging on the same spot, the street that ran in front of Nero’s family cemetery, which was surrounded by a stone wall. Many in the crowd were dressed in black, as if in mourning. Some carried garlands of flowers.

Most of these people were his age or older – in other words, old enough to remember the days of Nero. Having raised no children, Lucius sometimes forgot that a whole generation had come up behind him that knew only the Flavians. But the predominance of people in their forties or older made the scattered younger faces in the crowd stand out all the more. The older people tended to look serious and somber, while the younger ones exuded a buoyant air of celebration.

Seeing his perplexed expression, a smiling young girl seized his arm. Her clothes were worn but she looked freshly scrubbed, as if she had just come from the baths. She had shimmering red hair and carried a garland of daffodils, violets, and poppies. “Smile, friend!” she said. “Have you not heard the good news?”

“What news?”

“He’s coming back!”

“Who?”

“The Divine Nero, of course.”

Lucius cocked his head. “I don’t recall the Senate voting divine honours to that particular emperor.”

“What does it matter, whether or not a bunch of old fools vote to call a god a god? Nothing the Senate says can change the truth that Nero is a living god.”

“Was a living god, you mean?”

“No!” She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Didn’t you hear what I said? He’s coming back, from the East, where he’s been living all this time. He’ll be here any day now, to reclaim his rightful place as emperor. He shall rebuild the Golden House, and bring about a new Golden Age.”

Lucius stared at her blankly. The girl was quite pretty, even if she was deluded.

She laughed and shook her head. “I see you’re a doubter. Never mind. Put this on his monument today. When he comes, he will know and be pleased with you.” She pulled a daffodil from the garland and handed it to him.

He took the flower from the girl, managed a half-hearted smile, and moved farther into the crowd. Some of the people stood idle and held on to their garlands, waiting for the sepulcher to be opened to the public. Others, who could not stay, were moving as close as they could to lay their garlands against the high wall of stone that surrounded the gravesite. Jostled on all sides, Lucius looked around, hoping to spot Epaphroditus amid the crowd. A wooden gate in the wall opened on creaky hinges and a familiar voice called his name.

Epaphroditus gestured to him from the narrow doorway. Lucius stepped inside. Epaphroditus closed the gate behind him.

“What a crowd!” said Lucius, happy to escape the crush. “Does this happen every year?”

“Yes and no,” said Epaphroditus. “Every year people come to deliver garlands and perform ceremonies of remembrance, but I’ve never seen so many before. It’s because it’s the twentieth anniversary, I suppose.”

They were alone inside the stone enclosure. Nero’s was not the only tomb – this was the family plot of his ancestors on his father’s side – but it was by far the most impressive. The ornate sepulchre containing his ashes was sculpted from rare white porphyry. Before it stood an altar of Luna marble. The exquisite carvings of horses on all four sides were doubly appropriate, since Nero had loved to ride, and horses were a funerary symbol from the most ancient times. Flowers had been laid on the altar, where a smouldering bit of incense overpowered their fragrance with its cloying scent.

“I see you’ve already honored the dead,” said Lucius.

“I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you, Lucius. I have my own key to the gate and let myself in. I wasn’t sure when you’d arrive and I wanted to say a prayer before the gate is opened to the public. In a little while, the people out there will be allowed to pass by the sarcophagus and lay their garlands.”

“There are hundreds of people out there.”

Epaphroditus shook his head. “Like most people, they have the ability to believe two things at once. They will gladly tell you that Nero never died, yet here they are, marking the anniversary of his death and bringing garlands to his tomb. Nero is dead, yet Nero lives.”

“And he’s on his way to Roma right now. Someone just gave me the news, and told me I should make ready for his arrival.”

“A young redhead?”

“Yes, quite pretty and carrying a garland.”

“The same girl talked to me earlier. I didn’t have the heart to tell that I was present when Nero died – much less that he died by my hand.” Epaphroditus frowned. “Curiously enough, my contacts in the imperial house tell me there actually is an impostor claiming to be Nero, somewhere in Syria. He’s not the first such pretender, but this one appears to have serious backing from the Parthians, who may actually give the fellow some military support and make an incursion. If that happens, Domitian is worried that this Nero pretender might cause considerable mischief in the Eastern provinces. There are still a great many people, especially in Judaea, who hate the Flavians – the ones Vespasian and Titus didn’t manage to kill or enslave. And people in that part of the world are always talking about the dead coming back to life.”

“Who is this impostor?”

“I have no idea. The people who’ve seen him say he sings like a lark and looks the very image of Nero.”

“But do these people consider that Nero would be in his fifties now?”

Epaphroditus laughed wistfully. “He would be quite fat and bald, I imagine.”

“How can people believe such a thing, so fervently?”

“Because, Lucius, without the discipline of philosophy to give rigour to their thinking, people can and will believe anything, no matter how absurd. Indeed, the more far-fetched the notion, the more likely they are to believe it. People have grown weary of Domitian. They enjoy the fantasy that Nero will return.”

“Bringing with him a new Golden Age?”

“Why not? Some of the older people out there actually remember the reign of Nero, and they’ll tell you how wonderful it was – though I suspect the nostalgia they feel is not so much for Nero as for their own lost youth. And the younger ones have the natural propensity of youth to believe that a Golden Age must have existed somewhere, at some time – most likely just before they were born – so why not in the days of Nero?”

“Does that mean that a generation from now, people will look back to a so-called Golden Age of Domitian?”

“That’s hard to imagine!”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Lucius. “On the walk here, I saw the hand of the emperor everywhere. His statues, his temples and altars and arches-”

“Arkei!” said Epaphroditus. “People have had enough of Domitian looking over their shoulders.”

“Do you think so? He pleased the people greatly when he added that tier to the Flavian Amphitheatre. You admired the monstrosity before, Epaphroditus, and now there’s more of it to love than ever. No one in Roma need go without a seat.”

“But he banned the public performance of plays,” said Epaphroditus.

“Every actor must suffer for the sin of Paris! But do the people mind? I think not. Why should they wish to see stodgy old dramas and stale comedies when Domitian gives them games instead, and not just games, but the most spectacular ever staged. His marvels eclipse even those his brother presented. He floods the amphitheatre and stages full-scale naval battles, with convicts and slaves fighting for their lives and drowning before our eyes. What play could possibly match such a spectacle? He gives the people freakish delights, like the gladiator shows he holds at night where naked women and dwarves are forced to fight one another by torchlight. What comedy could make people laugh half that much? And from the sky above, figs, dates, and plums rain down on the audience. The spectators think they’ve died and awoken in Elysium.”

“And all the while the emperor sits in his box,” said Epaphroditus, “accompanied by that creature with a too-small head. Is it a child? A dwarf? Is it even human? The two of them whisper to each other and giggle.” He shuddered. “Nero loved beauty and perfection, and his taste in all things was impeccable. Domitian loves excess – too much decoration, too much ornament – and he surrounds himself with human oddities. His behaviour at the games is appalling. Do you remember the day the sky turned black and a tremendous storm blew up? The wind and rain were so fierce that the awnings were useless, and people began to leave the amphitheatre. Domitian ordered his soldiers to block the exits. People weren’t even allowed to take shelter in the stairwells and passages. All Roma sat there and endured the deluge. And when a roar of complaint filled the amphitheatre, the emperor angrily demanded silence – and got it, after enough of the offenders had been thrown into the arena to join the convicts about to be gored by a herd of rampaging aurochs.”

Lucius nodded. “What a bizarre moment that was, sitting in the pouring rain with fifty thousand others, and no one saying a word, while thunder rumbled and lightning tore the sky and men screamed and died down in the arena. Say what you like, it was unforgettable, a day like no other – just what people crave when they go to the amphitheatre. The games are more popular than ever.”

“Because Domitian has reduced the Roman people to the level of dogs. They remain faithful even when their master beats them, as long as he also feeds them.”

“He has the loyalty of the legions as well,” said Lucius, “and that’s where true power lies. It was only when Nero lost control of the legions that he came undone. Nero never led the legions into battle, as Domitian has. And those legions are as loyal to Domitian as they were to his father and his brother. He pays the soldiers well and exempts the veterans from paying taxes.”

“But his wars in Germania and Dacia have ended in stalemates, at best. The death of his general Fuscus and the loss of an eagle standard to the Dacians was a catastrophe.”

“Which Domitian turned to his advantage,” said Lucius. “Just when the threat from Germania had grown stale, the Dacians became the new enemy for Romans to fear and despise. And despite his limited success, he still staged triumphs for himself, parading through the Forum as a conqueror.”

“Though no one is quite sure what he’s conquered. Did you hear the rumour about the supposed captives who were paraded in chains in the German triumph? A source in the imperial household told me they were actually the biggest and brawniest slaves from the palace, dressed in leather pants and blond wigs to look like Germans.”

“That’s the problem with Domitian, isn’t it?” said Lucius. “We never know what’s real and what’s not. All the city is a stage. Everything that happens is a spectacle put on by the emperor. One wonders if he himself knows any longer what’s real.”

“He now signs official letters with the title Dominus and Deus,” said Epaphroditus. “That makes him the first emperor since Caligula to demand to be addressed as the people’s master, and also the first since Caligula to consider himself a living god. He renames months in his honour. We celebrate his birthday not in October but in Domitianus, which is preceded not by September but by Germanicus, in honour of his German triumphs. He goes everywhere accompanied by a huge bodyguard of lictors and wears the costume of a triumphing general on formal occasions, even when he addresses the Senate and should be dressed in a toga, as the first among equals. The laurel wreath hides his baldness.”

“But how can he afford all this – the spectacles, the generous pay for his soldiers, the massive construction projects?”

“That’s a bit of a mystery,” said Epaphroditus. “My sources tell me he manages the treasury himself, obsessively scrutinizing even the smallest expenditures; not a nail is bought without Domitian’s approval. As you can imagine, the accountants and bursars are terrified of him. There’s a good side to that: Domitian has put an end to the corruption and self-enrichment that were so rampant in the flush, freewheeling years of his father’s reign. But my old friends at the treasury believe that the state is headed for bankruptcy, and when that happens, the emperor will hold them to blame. They’re like men awaiting a death sentence, watching sand run through the hourglass – only in this case it’s sesterces running through the emperor’s fingers. They were all hoping that Fuscus might actually conquer Dacia and capture King Decebalus’s treasure, but now there seems no likelihood of that happening.

“Master and God he may call himself, but Domitian fears his underlings as much as they fear him. He sees conspiracies everywhere. Senators are put to death for chance remarks that only a madman would find suspicious. He’s become deeply superstitious: he fears not just daggers and poisons, but enchantments. Did you hear about the woman who was executed because she was seen undressing before a statuette of the emperor? Presumably she was trying to bewitch him, using sex magic.”

Epaphroditus placed his hands upon the sarcophagus of Nero, feeling the coolness of the polished stone. The last bit of incense on the altar had turned to ash, but its fragrance lingered on the air.

“Curiously,” he said, “Domitian now has something in common with Nero that none of us expected: he’s in love with a eunuch.”

“No!”

“Oh yes. Remember the disdain he used to show for his brother’s coterie of eunuchs, and the one laudable achievement of his campaign for morality, his ban on castration? Now Domitian has quite openly fallen in love with a eunuch. The boy’s name is Earinus and he comes from Pergamum. A slave trader unsexed him here in Italy when he was very young, using the hot-water method.”

“What is that?”

“The child sits in a vat of steaming water that softens the scrotum, then his testes are pressed between a finger and thumb until they’re crushed. The method leaves no scar, which many owners find pleasing. The boys subjected to this method must be very young, and they subsequently develop fewer masculine attributes than those who are castrated later in life; some owners find that pleasing, also. A few years ago, Earinus was acquired by the imperial household, where all the most beautiful eunuchs end up. He has a face like Cupid. His hair is a very light blonde, like white gold. He can sing, as well.”

Lucius shook his head. “Imperial eunuchs are always said to have some talent, other than the purpose for which they were made.”

“In the case of Earinus, the boy apparently has a true gift. When he sang for the emperor, Domitian fell for him at once. He dotes on Earinus shamelessly, showering him with gifts, dressing him in the costliest garments, anointing him with the rarest perfumes. For his seventeenth birthday, Domitian manumitted him and gave him a very generous endowment. To mark the occasion, Earinus sent a lock of his blonde hair to a temple in Pergamum. It’s a Greek custom for boys to donate a lock of hair to a temple in their native city when they attain manhood. You may remember that Nero did something of the sort, when he donated a clipping from his first beard to the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline.

“When Earinus sent off the lock of his hair, the court poets fell over one another in the rush to commemorate the event. Our dear Martial wrote some lines comparing Domitian to Jupiter and Earinus to Ganymede – no surprise there – but for sheer sycophancy his rival Statius outdid himself. Statius’s poem is a veritable Aeneid of eunuch-worship. Listen to this.”

Epaphroditus cleared his throat and declaimed.

All previous favourites and flocks of servants stand back

As the new one carries to the mighty leader

The heavy goblet of crystal and agate,

Making the wine sweeter by the touch of his soft white hands.

Boy dear to the gods, chosen the first to drink the vintage,

Blessed to touch so often that mighty right hand

Whose sway the Dacians yearn to know -

Epaphroditus broke off and made a retching sound. “Even Martial never stooped to writing anything as awful as that, though he’s come perilously close.”

“It’s curious,” said Lucius, “how a man as vicious as Domitian can lavish so much affection on a harmless, mutilated boy. It’s almost as if Earinus were a pet.”

“Earinus means ‘springtime’ in Greek. Domitian is almost forty now. Statius says Earinus restores Domitian’s youth, though I imagine the boy only reminds him of it. But you put your finger on something, Lucius. They say the empress is quite aware of Domitian’s passion and that she, too, is quite fond of Earinus. Why not? Better for her if Domitian spends his time courting a eunuch rather than the wife of some senator, or worse, an unmarried girl of childbearing age who might pester him to divorce his wife. The empress has yet to give Domitian another heir to replace his dead son; as long as he spills his seed with a eunuch, no one else will do so. For dynastic purposes, a eunuch is no rival at all. Earinus is more like a pet, as you say, a pretty creature whose company both of them can enjoy.”

“Domitian! What do we make of the man?” said Lucius. “He’s obsessed on the one hand with bureaucratic minutiae, but on the other with a morbid fear of plots and magic. He was once a promiscuous adulterer and now dotes on a eunuch, but he’s determined to criminalize the ‘bed-wrestling’ of others. And this is the man who shapes every facet of the world we live in. He’s in the very air we breathe.”

Epaphroditus sighed. “Enough about the emperor. What about you, Lucius?”

Lucius shrugged. “Nothing in my little world ever changes.”

“Does that mean you’re still seeing her?”

Lucius smiled. “We’re like an old married couple nowadays – if you can imagine a couple married in secret who see each other only a few times a year. The passion is still there, but it burns more steadily, with a lower flame.”

“Like the flame in Vesta’s hearth?”

“If you like. She has even less time to see me, now that she’s become the Virgo Maxima.”

“At such a young age! How old is she now?”

“Thirty-two. And more beautiful than ever.”

Epaphroditus laughed. “You don’t sound like a married man to me. You still sound like a lover.”

“I’m a very lucky man, to know such a woman. Ah, don’t give me that look, Epaphroditus. You need not lecture me again about the risks. I believe I was blessed, not cursed, when Fortune led me to her. I would never have found a love like hers anywhere else.”

“Truly, spoken like a lover. How do you spend the rest of your time?”

“When I’m not hunting at one of my estates, enjoying the fresh air and the thrill of the chase, I do what I must to maintain my fortune. Dealings in real estate and trade aren’t exactly respectable activities for a patrician – large-scale agriculture or state service would be more suitable – but you know I’ve never been a status seeker. Hilarion does most of the actual work. He takes so much pleasure in moving numbers from one column to another, dictating letters to merchants, and issuing instructions to lawyers.”

“Still no politics or public service for you, then?”

“Certainly not! More than ever, it seems to me that the only sensible strategy for a Roman citizen is to attract as little attention to himself as possible. So far, I’ve managed to stay beneath the notice of the emperor. I intend to keep it that way.” Even as Lucius said these words, he felt that he was tempting Fate. He reached inside his toga and touched the fascinum.

Epaphroditus opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to change his mind.

“What is it?” said Lucius.

“I was wondering if you had heard about Catullus?”

Lucius drew a breath. “The emperor’s henchman – the one who led the investigation against the Vestals?”

“And many other investigations in recent years. That seems to be his special gift, an ability to ferret out every secret act and utterance that could bring destruction to another mortal. How Domitian prizes him for it! But now a bit of misfortune has befallen Catullus. He fell gravely ill with a fever and almost died. He’s back on his feet, completely recovered, but he’s completely blind.”

Lucius remembered what Cornelia had said about the man: Everything about Catullus is as cold as ice, except his eyes. I thought his gaze would set me on fire.

“But this is happy news,” Lucius said, though his expression was grim. “Catullus – blind! You should have told me right away.”

Epaphroditus pursed his lips. “Epictetus says that to feel joy at the suffering of another is a sin, like hubris; it invites the retaliation of the gods.”

“Really? All Roma watches and applauds when thousands die in the arena, or when captives are strangled at the end of a triumph, and the gods seem to approve. Why should I not take a little satisfaction at the much-deserved downfall of a monster like Catullus?”

“I’m not sure that blindness has put an end to Catullus. Domitian still counts him among his closest advisers. They say the infirmity has only made him more dangerous.”

Again Lucius felt a superstitious chill. He was reaching to touch the fascinum when they heard the jangling of a key in the lock. The gate opened and an attendant looked inside.

“I shall allow them to enter in a moment,” the man said. “You might want to pay your last respects.”

They turned their attention back to the sarcophagus. While Epaphroditus stood in silence with his hands folded and his eyes downcast, Lucius burned a bit of incense and placed the flower the girl had given him on the altar. He was not really thinking of Nero as he prayed, but of his father, and of Sporus.

They made their way to the gate. The attendant shouted at the crowd to make way for them. As Lucius stepped through the crush, surrounded by the smell of flowers, a hand gripped his arm.

It was the red-haired girl. “Don’t forget,” she cried. “Nero is coming, any day now. Oh, yes, any day now!”