A bitter and scornful letter from Tacitus: if only there was as much sense as style in what he writes!
He upbraids me for my characterisation of Galba. Galba, he tells me, was a man who belonged to a more virtuous age. In our degenerate time it was his virtues rather than his vices which destroyed him: his old-fashioned inflexibility and his excessive sternness. And so on. The truth is that Tacitus himself has a view of Rome which was out of date centuries ago. He would play Cato charging the great Scipio with treason because he introduced Greek culture to Rome.
In any case, I have my own opinion concerning antique virtue, which is that it was deficient in generosity and humanity, rooted in fear of the gods who, in truth, no more concern themselves with the fate of men than with the leaves that are torn from the trees by autumn gales; it was narrow and harsh in temper, even to the point of brutality.
Moreover, even Galba understood that the great frame of Empire had rendered Republican institutions inadequate for its government.
Yet this letter disturbed me, more than for some days I dared to admit to myself. Is it because I am no longer a Roman?
I snarled at my woman, betook myself to a wine-shop, and soaked my questioning spirit in liquor. There was a German boy serving whom I had not seen before. Was it because he appeared modest and shy that I commanded a chamber and had the woman of the inn send him to me? Or was it his so red lips and dark troubled eyes that aroused my brief demanding lust? I stripped him of his tunic, ran my hands over his thin body, felt his revulsion, and compelled him to submit. He cried a little when I gave him gold.
'You would not understand,' I said. 'I am searching for something which I lost many years ago.'
His name is Balthus. His arms were so thin I could have cracked them. There was a delicacy to his behaviour that intensified my lust and brought me shame.
Tacitus denies that Galba took Icelus as his lover. He was not that sort of man, he says. Does he not realise that everyone is more complicated in his nature than he would have the world know? Does he not realise that if we knew the thoughts and desires of our companions, we would shun all society?
Balthus is in no way like Titus. But, without Titus, would I have arranged to have him again next week? He was born a slave, I a free man and a Roman noble. But what is freedom, what slavery, when the passions are aroused? Yet I was almost perfunctory when it came to the moment. Afterwards I felt a rare tenderness because I had wronged him.
And actually it was like what I came to feel for Domatilla when I knew we had, without willing it, so deeply wronged each other. I didn't tell Tacitus all I might have said of Piso. I might for instance have mentioned that there were those who said then that the young Piso, only exiled on account of his complicity in his uncle's plot against Nero, was thought by some to have been among those who laid information against the conspirators.
I have no proof that he did so. What I do know is that Lucan distrusted him and expressed jealousy of him. He told me that this was because they had quarrelled over a woman. It may be so. Piso however was never otherwise known to have taken any interest in women. Nor in boys either; I can be sure of that because the first or second occasion I met him at the baths, I embarked on a little flirtation with him – entirely on account of his beauty and before I had taken note of his mean mouth – and he rebuffed me coldly. When I told Titus of this, for in those days I told him everything, or near everything, he was greatly amused and assured me it was common knowledge that Piso was addicted to masturbation because he could never love or trust anyone except himself. Lucan's story he refused to believe.
I shrink from giving my account of the 15th January. Wine is a comforter, wine and my Greek-Scythian woman, Araminta. I rely on her, she satisfies me, she arouses no feeling in me; and that is a species of, at least, contentment.