As was usual on Idus day, except in the summer months, the Senate had assembled at dawn for their meeting in the Curia, which to many people’s annoyance had survived the great fire almost unscathed.
Nero slept so late that he was not in time to take part in the opening ceremonies. But then he arrived, bursting with energy, greeting both the Consuls with a kiss and verbosely apologizing for his late arrival, which was due to vital matters of State.
“But,” he said jokingly, “I am prepared to submit myself to whatever punishment the Senate decides on for my neglect, although I think the fathers will treat me kindly when they have heard what I have to tell them.”
The senators suppressed their yawns and settled themselves more comfortably on their ivory stools, prepared for an hour’s exhibition of eloquence along Seneca’s best lines. But Nero contented himself with a few necessary words on the moral way of life ordained by the gods and the heritage of our forefathers and then came straight to the point.
The devastating fire during the summer, the greatest misfortune ever to have befallen Rome except the ravages of the Gauls, was no punishment meted out by the gods for certain politically necessary events in Rome, as some malevolent persons obstinately asserted, but a deliberate outrage, the most terrible crime ever perpetrated against mankind and the State. The perpetrators of this crime were the so-called Christians, whose unpleasant superstition had silently spread to an unimaginable degree among the criminal elements of Rome and the lowest and most ignorant of the people. Most of the Christians were of foreign origin and could not even speak Latin; immigrant rabble of the kind that was constantly streaming into the city, rootless and with shameless customs, of which the fathers were no doubt aware.
The conspiracy was all the more dangerous since outwardly these contemptible Christians tried to behave irreproachably, enticing the poor with free meals and alms in order to reveal their fearful hatred of mankind in all its hideousness during their mysteries, which were carefully kept secret. At these they ate human flesh and drank human blood. They also practiced witchcraft, apparently cursing the sick and thus ensnaring them in their sorcery. Some of the bewitched had given up all their possessions to aid their criminal purposes.
Nero paused to allow the most enthusiastic senators to exclaim in horror and loathing, as was demantled by his rhetoric. Then he continued.
For moral reasons, he did not wish to, nor could he even, publicly reveal all the horrors that occurred at the Christian mysteries. But the essence was that these Christians, depending on their own eloquence, had set fire to Rome and on orders from their leaders, had then assembled on the hills, jubilantly, to await the coming of a king who would crush Rome and found a new kingdom and condemn all those who thought differendy to the cruelest punishments.
Because of this plan, the Christians had evaded fulfilling their duties as citizens in the service of the State, for however shameful or unbelievable it might sound, a number of citizens, in their foolishness and in the hope of future reward, had joined the conspiracy. Clear signs of the Christians’ hatred of all that others hold sacred were that they did not make offerings to the Roman gods, they looked on the fine arts as noxious and they refused to go to the theater.
The conspiracy had, however, been easily suppressed since these cowardly Christians enthusiastically denounced each other as soon as they were caught. Once he, Nero, had heard of the matter he had immediately taken measures to protect the State and punish the fire-raisers of Rome. He had had excellent support from the Praetorian Prefect, Tigellinus, who had earned full recognition from the Senate.
To give the city fathers time to cogitate on the matter, Nero now went on to give a brief account of the origins of the Christian superstition. It had originally been founded in Galilee by a Jewish troublemaker called Christ. He had been condemned to death as a State criminal by Procurator Pontius Pilate during the reign of Emperor Tiberius, and the resultant disturbances had then been temporarily suppressed. But by spreading the rumor that this criminal had risen from the dead, his disciples revived the superstition in Judaea, from whence it had spread farther and farther like a creeping plague.
The Jews disowned the Christian superstition, said Nero, and they could not be accused of this conspiracy, as certain people had done in their prejudiced hatred of the Jews. On the contrary, the Jews lived under the protection of their special rights and to a great extent governed by their own wise council as useful inhabitants of Rome.
This statement was not met with much response from the Senate. The Senate had never approved of the exceptional rights which many Emperors had granted the Jews in Rome and often reconfirmed. Why should we tolerate a State within the State?
“Nero is often said to be too humane in his punishment of criminals,” Nero continued emphatically. “It is said that he is allowing the strict customs of our forefathers to be forgotten and that he tempts youth into an effeminate life instead of cultivating military virtues. The moment has now come to show that Nero is not afraid to see blood, as has been whispered by certain soured Stoics.
“An unprecedented crime demands an unprecedented punishment. Nero has called on his artistic imagination to assist in offering the Senate and the people of Rome a spectacle such as he hopes will never be forgotten in the annals of Rome. Respected fathers, with your own eyes you will see in my circus how Nero punishes the Christians, the enemies of mankind.”
After having spoken about himself formally in the third person, he then turned to the first person and jestingly suggested, with humble respect, that all other matters be postponed until the next meeting of the Senate, and that the city fathers could now go to the circus, presuming, of course, that the Consuls had no objections.
The Consuls thanked Nero on behalf of their offices for his foresight and swift action in preserving the fatherland from the threat of danger, and expressed their pleasure that he had found the true instigators of the fire of Rome. This was useful to the State in that it once and for all forestalled the many foolish rumors that were circulating. The Consuls suggested on their part that a summary of Nero’s speech should be published in the State notices and approved the suggestion to close the meeting. In accordance with their duty, they asked whether any of the venerable fathers might possibly wish to say anything, although they thought everything was quite clear.
Senator Paetus Thrasea, whose vanity had been pricked by Nero’s thrust at sour Stoics; asked for the floor and suggested mockingly that the Senate should at the same time decide on the necessary thanksgiving offerings to the gods in connection with the averting of this great danger.
Thanksgiving offerings had already been carried out for a number of other infamous deeds. Why should the Christians be less of a reason? Nero seemed to fear witchcraft as much as antagonism to shows. Nero pretended not to hear, but just stamped his foot to hurry the whole matter along, and the Senate hastily voted for this customary thanksgiving to Jupiter Custos and the other gods. The Consuls asked impatiently if anyone else wished to speak.
Then, quite against his usual practice, my father, Marcus Mezentius Manilianus, rose to his feet so that his voice should be heard better, and stammeringly asked for the right to speak. Several senators sitting near him pulled at his toga and whispered to him to keep quiet, for it appeared to them that he was drunk. But my father gathered his toga around his arms and began to speak, his bald head trembling with rage.
“Consuls, fathers, you Nero, the leader of your equals,” he said. “You all know that I have seldom opened my mouth at the sessions of the Senate. I cannot boast of any great wisdom, although I have for seventeen years given my best for the common good in the committee on Eastern affairs. I have seen and heard much that has been infamous and unholy in this memorable Curia, but my old eyes have never witnessed anything so shameful as that which I have seen this morning. Have we sunk so low that the Senate of Rome sits in silence and agrees to the execution of what is, as far as I know, thousands of men and women, among them hundreds of citizens and even a few knights, in the cruelest possible way, on evidence not proven, without legal trial, as if it were all a simple routine matter?”
Cries of disapproval were heard, and Tigellinus was permitted to give an explanation.
“There is not a single knight among them,” he said. “Or if there is, then he has kept his rank secret in shame for his crime.”
“Do I understand from what you say,” asked Nero with ill-concealed impatience, “that you doubt my honor and sense of justice, Marcus Manilianus?”
“I’ve had enough,” my father went on, “of swallowing the waters of the Roman sewers so that they choke me. But now I shall bear witness that I myself was in Jerusalem and Galilee in the days of Pontius Pilate and saw with my own eyes Jesus of Nazareth being crucified, he who is not only called Christ, but who really is Christ and the Son of God, for I also saw with my own eyes that his tomb was empty and that he had risen from the dead on the third day, regardless of all the lies of the Jews.”
Many cried out that my father had gone mad, but the most inquisitive demantled that he should go on. In fact most of the senators bore a grudge against Nero and against the Imperial powers in general. Always remember that, Julius, my son.
So my father was allowed to continue.
“In silence,” he said, “and in all my human weakness, I acknowledged him as Christ long ago, although in my own life I have not been able to keep his message. But I think he will forgive me my sins and perhaps allow me a small place in his kingdom, whatever that kingdom looks like, and on that I am not yet clear. I think it is a kingdom of mercy, of peace and of clarity, here or there, or somewhere else. But this kingdom has no political significance. So the Christians have no political aims either, other than that they think that the only true freedom for a human being lies in Christ and by following his way. The ways can be many and I shall not become involved in their differences, but I believe that they all lead to his kingdom in the end. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, have mercy on my sinful soul.”
The Consuls interrupted him now, for he was wandering off the point and beginning to philosophize.
“I do not wish to try your patience with nonsense,” said Nero in his turn. “Marcus Manilianus has said what he has to say. On my part, I have always considered that my father, the god Claudius, was mad when he had his wife Messalina and so many noblemen executed that he had to fill the Senate with so many useless members. Marcus Manilianus’ own words prove that he is not worthy of his purple braid nor his red boots. Obviously his mind is confused and why this is so, I cannot guess. I suggest that in consideration for his bald head, we simply separate him from our circle and send him to some distant resort where his mental health will be restored. On this matter, we are presumably unanimous and need not vote.”
But several senators wished to annoy Nero, as long as someone else took the consequences. So they called on Marcus to continue, if he still had anything to say. Paetus Thrasea took the floor first.
“Naturally,” he said with feigned innocence, “we are all agreed that Marcus Mezentius is out of his mind. But divine madness sometimes makes people into seers. Perhaps he has this gift thanks to his Etruscan forefathers. If he does not believe that the Christians set fire to Rome, however probable this may seem from what we have heard, then perhaps he will tell us who the real instigators were?”
“Mock as you please, Paetus Thrasea,” said my father angrily, “but your end is also near. One does not need the gifts of a seer to see that I accuse no one of the fire of Rome, not even Nero, however much many of you would like to hear such an accusation made publicly and not merely in whispers. But I do not know Nero. I simply believe and assure you all that the Christians are innocent of the fire of Rome. I know them.”
Nero shook his head sadly and raised one hand.
“I made it quite clear that I do not accuse all the Christians in Rome of the fire,” he said. “I have condemned them as public enemies on sufficient grounds. If Marcus Manilianus wishes to claim that he himself is a public enemy, then the matter becomes serious and can no longer be defended on the grounds of mental derangement.”
But Nero was profoundly mistaken if he thought he could frighten my father into silence. My father was a stubborn man in spite of his good nature and quietness.
“One night,” he went on, “by the lake in Galilee, I met a fisherman who had been scourged. I have reason to believe that he was the risen Jesus of Nazareth. He promised me that I should die for the glorification of his name. I did not understand him then, but thought he was prophesying something evil. Now I understand and I thank him for his good prophecy. To the glory of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, I wish to state that I am a Christian and share in their baptism, their spirit and their holy meals. I shall be subjected to the same punishment as they. And further, I wish to tell you, respected fathers, in case you do not yet know it, that Nero himself is the greatest enemy of mankind. You too are enemies of mankind as long as you endure his insane tyranny.”
Nero whispered to the Consuls, who immediately declared the meeting secret, so that Rome should not be subjected to the shame of a member of the Senate being exposed by his hatred of mankind as a spokesman for a frightening superstition. My father had his own way. Considering a vote unnecessary, the Consul declared that the Senate had decided to strip Marcus Mezentius Manilianus of his broad purple band and his red laced boots.
In front of the assembled Senate, two senators appointed by the Consuls removed toga and tunic from my father, his red boots were drawn from his feet and his ivory stool was smashed to pieces. After this had taken place in complete silence, suddenly Senator Pudens Pub-licola rose to his feet and in a trembling voice announced that he too was a Christian.
But his elderly friends grabbed him and forcibly pulled him down into his place, covering his mouth with their hands as they shouted and laughed together to drown his words. Nero said that enough disgrace had already fallen on the Senate, that the meeting was now closed, and no notice need be taken of an old man’s gabbling. Pudens was a Valerian and a Publicolian. My father was only an insignificant Manilianus by adoption.
Tigellinus now called in the centurion who was on guard in the Curia arcade, told him to take ten Praetorians and remove my father to the nearest place of execution outside the city walls, avoiding attracting attention at all costs.
To be just, he should have been taken to the circus to be executed in the same way as the other Christians, but to avoid scandal, it was better to have him taken outside the city walls in secret. There he would be decapitated with a sword.
Naturally the centurion and his men were furious, for they were afraid they would be too late for the show in the circus. As my father was now quite naked, they snatched a cape from a slave who had been standing staring at the senators leaving the Curia, and flung it over him. The slave began running after my father, whimpering and trying to retrieve his only piece of clothing.
The wives of the senators were sitting waiting in their husbands’ sedans. Because of the long journey they had to make, the idea was that the procession, with senators and matrons separated, would form just outside the circus, to which the image of the gods of Rome had already been borne on their cushions. Tullia became impatient when nothing was heard of my father and stepped out of her sedan to go and find him. She had thought that he had behaved oddly in other ways the night before.
When Tullia asked after her husband, not one of the senators dared answer her, for that part of the meeting had been declared secret and they had sworn an oath on it. The confusion was increased when Pudens loudly demantled to be taken home since he did not wish to witness the infamous circus show.
Several senators who were secretly in sympathy with the Christians and hated Nero and respected my father’s manly behavior, although they thought him a little mad, were encouraged to follow Pudens’ example and stay away from the procession.
As Tullia scuttled back and forth outside the Curia like an agitated hen, loudly complaining about my father’s absentmindedness and dilatoriness, she caught sight of a plaintive slave and an old man with a slave cape over his shoulders being led away by some Praetorians. When she got nearer, she recognized my father and, utterly dumbfounded, stopped with her arms outstretched, barring their way.
“What on earth are you up to again, Marcus?” she asked. “Whatever is all this about? I’m not forcing you to go to the circus if you find it so distasteful. There are others here who are not going. Come, let’s go home quietly if you like. I won’t even quarrel with you.”
The centurion, in his haste, struck her with his stave and told her to be off. At first Tullia could not believe her ears, but then she was so angry she rushed at him in order to scratch the eyes out of his stupid head, at the same time crying out that he would immediately be clapped in irons for daring to touch the wife of a senator.
And so the scandal became public. Several women got out of their sedans, ignoring their husbands’ protests, and hurried to Tullia’s assistance. When this well-dressed group of women surrounded the Praetorians, all loudly asking what had happened and what it was all about, my father was troubled by the attention they were attracting and turned to speak to Tullia.
“I am no longer a senator,” he said. “I am going with the centurion of my own free will. Remember your rank and don’t shriek like a fishwife. As far as I am concerned, you can go alone to the circus. I don’t think there’s anything to stop you.”
“Hercules save me,” said Tullia, bursting into tears, “no one has ever called me a fishwife before. If you’re so offended by what I said about your Christians last night, then you might have said so straight out instead of sulking all evening. There’s nothing worse than a man who won’t speak out, but just remains as dumb as an ox for days and days.”
Several senators’ wives laughingly agreed in an attempt to smooth things over.
“That’s right, Manilianus,” they said. “You needn’t throw away your ivory stool just because of a little squabble. Stop this foolishness now and forgive Tullia if she’s hurt you in some way. You are man and wife, after all, and you’ve grown gray respectably together over the years.”
Tullia was deeply offended and snatched her festive veil from her head.
“Look for yourselves, you old gossips,” she cried, “and see if I’ve got as much as one single gray hair in my head. And it’s not dyed either, although I do use Arabian rinses, of course, to bring out the natural color of my hair. All that nonsense about dyeing it is just envy and slander.”
“This is a solemn moment in my life,” my father said to the centurion, “perhaps the most solemn ever. I cannot endure this female chatter a moment longer. Take me away from this dreadful noise as you have been ordered to.”
But the women were still all around them and the centurion did not dare order his men to make a way for them by force for he had already been reprimantled for simply touching Tullia. Besides, he was not quite sure what was happening.
When Tigellinus noticed the crowd gathering and the noise increasing, he pushed his way through to my father, his face gray with anger, and he struck Tullia in the chest with his fist.
“Get to Orcus, you damned bitch,” he said. “You’re no senator’s wife any longer and you’re not protected by rank. If you don’t keep your mouth shut at once, I’ll have you arrested for disturbing the peace and insulting the Senate.”
Tullia turned deathly pale when she saw that he was serious, but her sudden fear did not affect her pride.
“Servant of the devil,” she swore, in her haste remembering only the ways of speech of my father’s friends. “Stick to haggling over horses and fornicating with pretty boys. You’re overstepping your authority when you strike a Roman woman in front of the Curia. Only the City Prefect has the right to arrest me. Your own crude behavior will arouse more anger than my polite request to know what is going on and where my husband is going with his guard of honor. I’ll appeal to the Emperor.”
Nero had already reprimantled Tigellinus for mismanaging the arrest of the Christians and Tigellinus was annoyed about this. So he pointed to the Curia.
“Nero is still there,” he sneered. “Hurry up and appeal to him. He knows what’s going on.”
“Don’t throw your life away just for my sake, my dear Tullia,” my father warned her. “And don’t spoil the last moments of my life. Forgive me if I have hurt you, and forgive me for not being the husband you wished for. You have always been a good wife to me, although we’ve disagreed on so many things.”
Tullia was so happy that she completely forgot Tigellinus and flung her arms around my father.
“Did you really say ‘my dear Tullia’?” she cried. “Wait just a moment and I’ll soon be back.”
Smiling tearfully, she went across to Nero, who was looking discomfited, and greeted him respectfully.
“Be so gracious as to explain to me,” she said, “what kind of unfortunate misunderstanding this is. Everything can be remedied with good will on both sides.”
“Your husband has deeply offended me,” said Nero, “but that I can, of course, forgive him. Unfortunately he has also publicly declared in front of the Senate that he is a Christian. The Senate has removed from him his rank and office and condemned him to be executed by the sword as a public enemy. Be so good as to keep silent, for we wish to avoid public scandal. I have nothing against you. You may retain your property, but your husband’s property must be confiscated by the State because of his crime.”
Tullia refused to believe her ears.
“Well, these are fine times!” she cried. “Is there no other charge against my husband except that in his softheadedness he’s gone and become a Christian?”
“It is the same punishment for all Christians, because of their ill-deeds,” Nero said impatiently. “Go away now, and don’t bother me any more, for you can see I am in a hurry. My duty to the State demands that I lead the procession to the circus in my capacity as first citizen.”
Then Tullia tossed her head proudly, without a thought for the slack skin around her chin.
“I have a very varied life behind me,” she cried, “and I have not always behaved as well as one might expect a woman of my position to do. But I am a Roman woman and I shall go with my husband, wherever he goes. Where Gaius is, there is also Gaia. I, too, am a Christian and now acknowledge it publicly.”
This was not true. On the contrary, she had constantly poisoned my father’s life with her perpetual nagging and her contempt for his Christian friends. But now she turned to face-the inquisitive crowd.
“Hear me,” she cried out aloud, “you, the Senate and the people of Rome. I, Tullia Manilia, formerly Valeria, formerly Sulia, am a Christian. Long live Christ of Nazareth and his kingdom.”
To make doubly sure, she then cried “Hallelujah,” for she had heard the Jews repeat that word at their meetings at my father’s house during their arguments with other Christians about the different ways.
Fortunately her voice did not carry very far and Tigellinus covered her mouth with his hand. When the senators’ wives noticed how angry Nero had become, they hurriedly went back to their sedans, simmering with curiosity, to extract the truth of what had happened in the Senate from their husbands at the first opportunity. Nero only just managed to maintain his dignity.
“You shall have your own way then, insane woman,” he said, “as long as you keep your mouth shut. It would be just if I sent you to the circus to be punished with the others, but you are much too ugly and wrinkled to act as Dirce. So, like your husband, you may feel the sword, but for that you have the esteem of your forefathers to thank, not me.”
Tullia had made the scandal so public that with the best will in the world, Nero would not have dared send a dismissed senator’s spouse to the wild animals in front of the people. As the Praetorians led Tullia back through the crowd to my father, Nero vented his rage on Tigellinus and ordered him to have my father’s household arrested and to have every one of them who admitted to being a Christian taken straight to the circus. At the same time the magistrates’ men were to seal the house and confiscate all papers connected with my father’s and Tullia’s fortunes.
“And don’t you touch it,” Nero said warningly. “I consider myself to be their heir, as you force me into police duties by neglecting yours.”
The only thing that consoled him in his rage was the thought of my father’s and Tullia’s huge wealth.
Some anxious Christians still stood outside the Curia, hoping to the last that the authority of the Senate would save the condemned Christians from the horror of the circus. Among them was a youth who wore a narrow red band and who had not hurried to the circus to ensure himself a place among the always overcrowded seats of the knights.
When the Praetorians, with the centurion in the lead, escorted my father and Tullia to the nearest execution place, he followed them, together with several other Christians. The Praetorians discussed how they could complete their task in the shortest possible time and be in time for the show, and they decided to head for the Ostian gate and implement the execution by the burial monument. This was not really an official place of execution, but it was at least outside the walls.
“If it isn’t a place of execution, then we’ll make it into one now,” they joked. “Then the lady won’t have to walk so far in her gold sandals.”
Tullia snapped back that she could walk as far as her husband without any difficulty and no one could prevent her from doing so. As evidence of her strength, she supported my father, who, weighed down by his years, unused to physical exertion and weary from a whole night’s drinking, soon began to waver. Yet he had been neither drunk nor confused when he had risen to speak in the Senate, but had been carefully prepared for the event.
This was revealed at the search of his house. Obviously he had for several weeks been putting his financial affairs in order and he had spent his last night burning all his account books and the list of his freedmen together with his correspondence with them. My father had always kept quiet about his affairs and on the whole had not regarded his freedman’s property as his own, although naturally, so that they should not be offended, he had accepted the gifts they sent him.
Not until long afterwards did I learn that he had sent his loyal freedmen huge sums of money in cash so that the assets of his estate should not be revealed by any money orders. The magistrates had great trouble setding the estate, and in the end Nero received nothing of value except Tullia’s large country property which they had been forced to own in Italy for the sake of his office as senator, and then of course the house in Viminalis with its objets d’art, gold, silver and glass.
The most aggravating thing for the magistrates was that because of Nero’s hasty command, the Praetorians arrested everyone in the household who admitted to being Christian so that they would not disgrace my father. Among them were the Procurator and both scribes, whose deaths Nero bitterly regretted afterwards. In all, thirty people were taken to the circus from my father’s house.
From my point of view, the worst thing was that my son Jucundus and the aged Barbus were among those captured. After his burns from the fire, Jucundus was so crippled that he could move only with great effort on crutches, so he was taken to the circus in a sedan with Tullia’s aged nurse. This woman was certainly not a good person and she had a foul mouth, but she had willingly admitted to being a Christian when she heard that Tullia had done the same.
None of them realized why they had been ordered to the circus until they found themselves imprisoned in the stables. On the way there, they had still believed that Nero wished the Christians to witness the punishment of the instigators of the fire of Rome. The Praetorians were in such a hurry that they had not considered it necessary to inform them.
At the Ostian gate, where there were many souvenir shops, innkeepers with stalls, and sedans for hire, all of which had escaped the fire, my father suddenly stopped and said that he was very thirsty and wished to refresh himself with some wine before his execution. He offered to buy some for the Praetorians too, to compensate them for the trouble he and his wife were causing them on this festive day. Tullia had plenty of silver pieces with her, which in accordance with her position would have been thrown out among the people at the procession.
The innkeeper hurriedly fetched his best wine jars from the cellar and they all drink some wine, for the Praetorians were also hot in the warm autumn weather. As my father now stood outside all rank, he could with good conscience also invite the Christians who had followed him, and in addition some countrymen who, unaware of the feast day, had come into the city in vain to sell fruit.
After a few cups of wine, Tullia became sullen and in her usual way asked whether it was really necessary that my father again get drunk, and in bad company too.
“Dear Tullia,” my father remarked gently, “try to remember that I no longer have any rank. In fact, as we are both under sentence of death, we are more wretched than these friendly people who are kind enough to drink with us. My body is weak. I have never pretended to be a brave man. The wine disperses the unpleasant feeling I have at the back of my neck. Most pleasing to me is the thought that for once I need not give a single thought to my stomach and the bitter hangover of tomorrow, which you have always made so much worse with your biting words. But we’ll forget such things now, my dearest Tullia.
“Think of these honorable soldiers too,” he went on, even more eagerly, “who because of us are missing the many exciting sights as the Christians in Nero’s circus step into the kingdom through the mouths of wild animals, through flames and on crosses, and in all the other ways which Nero, with his artistic talents, can think of. Please don’t let me prevent you from singing, my men, should you feel like it. Leave your woman-stories until tonight though, as my virtuous wife is present. For me this is a day of great joy, for now at last a prophecy is being fulfilled which has bothered my head for nearly thirty-five years. Let us then drink, dear brothers, and you, my good wife, to the glory of the name of Christ. I don’t think he would mind, considering the moment and the situation. As far as I am concerned, he has many worse things to judge, so this innocent drinking bout will not increase my guilt gready. I have always been a weak and selfish man. I have no other defense except that he was born as a man to seek out the intractable and the poorly fleeced sheep as well. I have a vague memory of a story about how he once went out in the middle of the night to look for a stray sheep which he thought was worth more than the whole of the rest of the flock.”
The Praetorians listened attentively.
“There’s a lot in what you say, noble Manilianus,” they said. “In the legion, too, it is the weakest and the slowest who are the pacemakers and who decide the battle. And one can’t leave a wounded or a surrounded comrade in the lurch, even if it means risking a whole maniple. Ambushes, of course, are another matter.”
They began to compare their scars and talk about their exploits in Britain, Germany, in the Danube countries and in Armenia, as a result of which they had been posted as Praetorians in the capital. My father took the opportunity to speak to his wife.
“Why did you say you were a Christian?” he said. “You don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God and the savior of the world. It wasn’t necessary. You’ve not even been baptized. At holy communion you took part reluctantly just to do your duty as hostess, but you’ve never tasted the bread and wine that has been blessed in the name of Christ. It hurts me that I’ve dragged you into this without cause. I thought quite seriously that as a widow you could live the life you preferred. You’d soon find another and better husband, for you are still beautiful in my eyes and well preserved for your age, and wealthy as well. I thought there would certainly be a rush of suitors to your house when the mourning period was over. That thought didn’t even make me jealous, for your happiness is more important to me than mine. We never agreed on Christ and his kingdom.”
“I’ll be just as good a Christian as you are, my dear Marcus,” Tullia said crossly, “when I die with you for the glory of the name of Christ. I’ve given my property to the poor to please you when I could no longer bear your eternal sulks. Haven’t you noticed that I’ve not reproached you in the slightest, although you’ve disgraced our name in the Senate with your dreadful obstinacy? I’ve my own views on your foolish behavior, but at a time like this, I’ll hold my tongue so as not to hurt you yet again.”
She softened, and winding her arms about my father’s neck, she kissed him and wet his cheeks with her tears.
“I’m not afraid to die,” she told him, “as long as I can die with you, Marcus. I can’t endure the thought of being a widow after you. You’re the only man I’ve ever really loved, although I had to divorce two and follow one to the grave before I found you again. You abandoned me cruelly once, without the slightest thought for my feelings. I went all the way to Egypt after you. I know I had other reasons for going as well, but you yourself had a Jewish girl with you in Galilee and then that horrible Myrina, of whose good reputation I have yet to be convinced even if you erect a hundred statues of her in all the market squares in Asia. But then I’ve had my weaknesses too. The main thing is that you love me and tell me I’m beautiful, although my hair is dyed and my chin slack and my mouth full of ivory teeth.”
As they talked together, the Christian youth with the narrow band on his tunic, encouraged by the wine, asked the centurion whether he had orders to capture other Christians that he met. The centurion denied this emphatically and said that he had only been ordered to execute my father and Tullia, and in the greatest possible secrecy.
Then the young knight said that he was a Christian and he suggested to my father that they should eat the holy Christian meal together and strengthen my father’s spirit, although they could not do so behind locked doors and it was not yet evening. But perhaps it could be managed, he said, considering the circumstances.
The centurion said that he had no objections and he did not fear witchcraft; indeed he was curious, for so much was being said about the Christians”. My father agreed willingly, but asked the youth to bless the bread and wine.
“I can’t do it myself,” he said, “perhaps because of my own vanity and stubbornness, but the spirit came to the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth at that time in Jerusalem and they baptized great numbers of peoples so that they all received the same spirit. I wished with all my heart to be baptized with the others, but they refused me because I was not circumcised, and they also asked me to keep silent about things I didn’t understand. I’ve remembered their commands all my life and I’ve never instructed anyone, except occasionally to tell of things, perhaps mistakenly, I myself have seen, or things I know are true, or to correct certain misunderstandings. I was baptized here in Rome, when Cephas in his goodness asked me to forgive his curtness that time. He has always stood in debt to me because once on the mountain in Galilee, I lent him my donkey so that he could send his mother-in-law home to Capernaum when she had hurt her foot and I was on my way to Jerusalem. Forgive my garrulousness. I see the soldiers are looking up at the sky. Babbling on about the past is an old man’s weakness. I think wine loosens my tongue much too much.”
They knelt, Tullia too, and with a few words the knight blessed the bread and the wine to the flesh and blood of Christ. They received grace with tears in dieir eyes and then kissed each other tenderly. Tullia said that she felt a trembling within her as if it were a foretaste of paradise. She was going there, hand in hand with my father, or wherever else he was going.
The Praetorians admitted that they could not see anything evil in this witchcraft. Then the centurion coughed meaningfully, after once again looking upward. My father hastily paid the bill, left a generous tip and gave the rest of the money to be divided among the centurion and the Praetorians, asking once more for their forgiveness for causing them so much trouble and blessing them in the name of Christ. The centurion delicately suggested that perhaps it would be best if they now moved behind the burial monument, for he had orders to accomplish his task as discreetly as possible.
The Christian knight now burst out weeping and said that when he had blessed the bread and wine, he had suddenly felt such certainty and knowledge that he no longer wished to wait out the rest of his years. He was tormented by the thought of so many humble Christians being allowed to suffer in the circus for the sake of the name of Christ, and perhaps he himself would not be able to stand fast in the approaching oppression. So he asked the centurion to allow him to take man’s most wonderful journey by cutting off his head too. He was as guilty as the other Christians, and the same punishment should come to him as to them.
The centurion marveled, but after a moment’s thought, admitted that he would probably not be failing in his duty in the slightest if he permitted the young man to die together with my father and Tullia. The result of this was that some listeners who had been sitting alongside the company eagerly begged for the same joy. I must add that I was told that my father had invited them all to liberal quantities of wine.
But the centurion refused firmly and said that his favor had its limits. One extra person he could execute and enter in his report, but to put several to death would attract attention and bring with it unnecessary wax-tablet filling, and his writing was not as good as it might be.
Instead he admitted that everything he had seen and heard had made such an impression on him that he would very much like to hear more about these things sometime. Christ was evidently a powerful god, if he could make death into a joy to his followers. At least, he had never heard of anyone who would be willing to die voluntarily, for instance, for Jupiter, nor even Bacchus. Although possibly Venus would be another matter.
The Praetorians took my father, Tullia and the knight, whose name the centurion drunkenly scratched on his wax tablet at the last minute, behind the monument and picked out the best swordsman, who would be able to sever their heads from their bodies with one blow. My father and Tullia died kneeling, hand in hand. One of the Christians who witnessed it all, and afterwards told me about it, maintained that the earth trembled and the sky opened in flames, dazzling the countrymen. But I expect he said that to please me or else he had dreamed it.
The Praetorians drew lots on who would have to stay behind to guard the bodies until relatives took charge of them. When those standing around saw this, they offered to see to the bodies, for all Christians were brothers and in that way each other’s relatives. The centurion regarded this statement as legally doubtful but accepted the offer gratefully, for he did not want to rob the guard of the pleasure of the circus show. It was about midday when they marched at the double back to the city and then to the circus on the other side of the river, in the hope of still getting a standing place among the other Praetorians.
The Christians took care of the bodies of my father, Tullia and the young knight. Out of consideration for the ancient family he belonged to, I shall not give the knight’s name, for he was the only son of elderly parents and he caused them great grief by his insane act. They had spoiled him and overlooked his association with Christians in the hope that in time he would forget such foolishness, in the way that young men in general, as soon as they marry, forget their barren philosophical speculations.
The bodies were tended with respect and buried uncremated in the earth. So my father did not use the burial place he had bought near the royal tombs in Caere, but I do not think he would have minded. At that time the Christians had begun to cut underground galleries and chambers and to bury their dead there. It is said that they hold their secret meetings in these underground places. This is considered sure evidence that their faith is corrupt since they do not respect the rest of their own dead. But by all means respect the catacombs, Julius, my son, and leave them in peace when your time comes, for in one of them lies your father’s father, awaiting the day of resurrection.
At midday, the distribution of food baskets began at the circus. Nero, dressed as a charioteer, had his snow-white team gallop twice around the arena with his golden chariot, as he greeted the jubilant crowd and wished them good appetite. Lots were thrown into the crowd too, but not as wastefully as before since Nero’s huge building operations were causing him financial difficulties. He hoped that this unusual show would recompense the people for their trouble, and in this he was, of course, right.
By that time I had calmed down and felt fairly satisfied, although the main part of the show after the meal break was my responsibility. In fact the theatrical displays which Nero had thought out were rather a failure from the audience point of view. I think the fault lay with the theater people, who had absolutely no idea of the Christians’ way of thinking.
In some ways, I am not competent to criticize, but I think the crowd would have been dissatisfied with the morning’s performance if my wild hounds had not excelled themselves right at the beginning, immediately after the procession of the gods and the Senate, and the reading of Nero’s speech in a shortened form. Thirty or so Christians in wild animal skins were driven into the arena and then a score of hounds let loose among them.
The hounds accomplished their task excellently once they had tasted blood and they did not shrink from attacking people. They chased the fleeing Christians across the arena, skillfully felled them with a vicious snap in the leg and then without a second’s hesitation made straight for the throats of their victims, without wasting unnecessary time biting and worrying. They had been starved and had not had a morning meal, but they did not stop to eat their victims, at the most contenting themselves with licking up a little blood to quench their thirst and then at once taking up the hunt again. I gave the hound trainer the highest praise.
The wedding of the Danaides did not at all turn out as it should have. The Christian youths and maidens in their costumes were not willing to perform the wedding dances, but stood listlessly in a huddle in the arena. The professional actors had to join in to compensate for their lack of enthusiasm. The idea had been that after the wedding, the brides were to have killed their bridegrooms in different ways, as the daughters of Danaus had done. But the Christian maidens flatly refused to kill anyone, although the youths would have had an easy death in that way.
The Caronians had to club some of them to death and the rest were tied firmly between bundles of sticks together with the other criminals waiting for the fire to be lit. I must admit that the crowd did have a good laugh when the Danaides rushed backwards and forwards between the fire and the arena water buckets with their sieves, trying to extinguish it. The screams of pain from the burning Christians were so penetrating that the sounds of the water-organ and the other instruments could not drown them. That spurred the girls into action.
Finally, a beautifully decorated wooden house with old men and women Christians chained to all the windows and doorways was set alight and gave a faithful picture of the horrors of the great fire as the flames began to lick their limbs. Many of those trying to extinguish the fire lost their lives when they quite unnecessarily flung down their sieves and threw themselves into the flames in a vain attempt to drag out their parents or brothers and sisters.
The entire circus, especially the upper rows of seats where the simplest people were sitting, spluttered with laughter. But several senators ostentatiously turned their faces away. Critical remarks on the unnecessary cruelty were heard from the knights, although of course, the best punishment for the fire-raisers of Rome was that they should be burned alive.
While this was going on, the people who had been arrested at my father’s house on Viminalis arrived and were hustled in with the rest of the condemned prisoners. When Barbus and Jucundus realized what was to happen, they tried vainly to have a word with me. The guards pretended not to hear them, for many of the prisoners pleaded all manner of pretexts when the screams began to be heard down in the cellars and the stables.
They were already divided into different displays and the groups were separated for the sake of order, so I had no reason to go down there. I had to rely on the experienced menagerie foremen and stay in my seat of honor as the organizer of the animal displays to receive the applause. I would not have had time to go down, even if I had had a message that someone wished to speak to me.
In addition, Jucundus, confused and uncertain on his crutches, was more or less convinced that a certain brotherhood, in fact insignificant, which he had formed with some Eastern boys at the Palatine school had been discovered and now he was to receive his rightful punishment. These youngsters, in their foolish youthful way, were in favor of crushing Parthia and setting up the capital in the East. In some ways, this was what Nero also sometimes considered when he was tired of the Senate. The difference lay only in that the Romans were to be ignored after a successful war in Parthia and the ruling power was to be transferred to the old Eastern royal families.
Naturally no one would have taken such boyish ideas seriously had they come to light, for boys will always be boys. But Jucundus, who was only fifteen and had just received the man-toga, was so conceited that he thought he was being punished for political conspiracy.
When Jucundus realized he was to die, he confided in Barbus, and since they had been unable to get in touch with me, they decided to die honorably together. And I do not know if I could have helped them even if I had known of their fate, for Nero was embittered by my father’s public insult in front of the Senate.
For practical reasons, I had arranged things so that for the whole of the second half of the program there would be wild animals in the arena. To lend variety and excitement to the show, I had decided to arm the Christians who wished to fight the animals. But I could only distribute swords, daggers and spiked clubs, which those who wanted them received at the entrance of the arena.
Jucundus and Barbus announced that they had chosen lions and swords and they had their way at once, for unfortunately most of the Christians were not willing to perform and only a few stated their wishes. Most of them wished to offer no resistance and to go to paradise as easily as possible. After the interval, to cheer the crowd up, I sent a group of Christians in animal skins out into the arena and another pack of hounds after them. But this time the hounds did not obey the whis-des, and having accomplished their task, stayed where they were, rushing around on the sand. I had no objection any longer, save that these harrier hounds were expensive beasts and should not be killed unnecessarily.
Then it was the turn of our three wild lions. They were handsome animals and I had good reason to be proud of them. On the advice of my experienced subordinates, I had kept a group of feeble old men, old women, cripples and half-grown children for the lions, for according to my information, nothing amuses the crowd more or arouses louder laughter than when dwarfs and cripples flee from wild animals. For this reason, Jucundus was well suited to the lions.
First the group had to be assembled, limping and hopping into the center of the arena, the hound trainers protecting them with their whips. Fortunately the hounds showed no interest in them because they were not in animal skins. Then Jucundus and Barbus stepped into the arena with their swords, leading the ten or so other armed Christians.
The crowd broke into a howl of laughter at the sight of this youngster, jogging along on his crutches, and the toothless old man presenting arms with his sword in front of the Imperial box. I was upset by this demonstration from the spectators and glanced at Nero. I suspect that he was offended by the laughter and my faulty judgment, although I could not have foreseen this, but he managed to keep a good countenance and laugh with them.
I must admit that I myself was irresistibly amused by Jucundus’ and Barbus’ conceited performance until I recognized them. But as they plodded out into the middle of the arena and arranged the other armed Christians in a circle around the older people and the children, I did not know who they were at all.
I could not have imagined anything so impossible as my own son and my most faithful servant ending up with the wild animals. Indeed, for a moment I wondered who had thought up the bright idea of putting these two comical creatures in the lead of those who were to fight the lions.
I think both Jucundus and Barbus were deeply offended by the spectators’ laughter. They had chosen the lions because Barbus had told Jucundus how in my youth I had captured a lion with my bare hands near Antioch. On the same occasion, he himself had shown great audacity and thus he considered that Hons were the wild animals about which he knew most.
For safety’s sake, he told Jucundus to put his crutches down and kneel behind him, so that he would not be immediately knocked over when the lions attacked, for he wished to protect Jucundus with his own body, to give him an opportunity to show his courage. I think that Barbus, in exchange for Jucundus’ confidence, had told him that I was his real father. No one else but my father and Barbus knew this. I had not even told Claudia of the consequences of my youthful lapse, although I had boasted to her about Lugunda when I had first returned from Britain.
When the lions’ gate was opened, Jucundus tried to attract my at-trillion by calling out to me and cheerfully swinging his sword to show me he was not afraid. And then the scales fell from my eyes and I recognized him and Barbus. It felt as if my stomach had fallen right down into my knees. In my despair, I cried out something about stopping the show.
Fortunately no one heard my order in the general hubbub, for when llie great lions rushed into the arena, the crowd shouted with delight and many spectators rose to their feet to get a better view. If I had slopped the show at its most exciting moment to save Jucundus, Nero would probably have been so angry that he would have sent me down into the arena as father to my son, and I do not see that that would have benefited anyone. As soon as I could collect my wits a bit I had myself under control again and was pleased that no one had heard my cry in that moment of despair.
Sabina, who regarded the lions as her property, had used every means she and Epaphroditus could imagine to excite them and arouse their lust for blood. Thus the three handsome creatures rushed into the arena so wildly that at the sudden change from darkness to sunlight, the largest lion stumbled over some smoking brands, rolled over and scorched its mane. Naturally it became angrier than ever, although no damage was done. The lions were dazzled by the light, increasing the general tension as they padded around roaring, without at first noticing the group of Christians in the middle of the arena, but occasionally ripping down a few of those who had been crucified on the protective fence.
Meanwhile Barbus had thought to run and fetch a smoldering piece of wood and encouraged the other armed Christians to do the same. By swinging the piece of wood in the air and blowing on it, he made it flare up and thus had a torch in his left hand and a sword in his right with which to meet the lion. A couple of the others managed to do the same before the lion noticed their running figures and struck one of them to the ground from behind without even giving him time to use his sword. Shouts of disgust came from the spectators who thought he had turned his back on the lion out of fear, although he was only running as fast as he could to get back to the unarmed Christians to protect them with his torch.
Then the hounds roaming around the arena unexpectedly became involved in the game. Responding to their training, they formed into a pack and fearlessly began to attack the lions from the rear. Thus it was easy for the Christians to defend themselves at first, for the lions had to keep whipping around with snarls of fury to shake off the hounds. With the help of a little luck, Barbus succeeded in poking out an eye of one lion before he fell, and Jucundus thrust his sword into its stomach and wounded it severely.
As the lion rolled on the ground and tore out its own guts, Jucundus dragged himself nearer on his knees and managed to give it a death blow, but the lion’s death throes ripped his scalp so that he was blinded by the blood. The crowd applauded him vigorously.
After fumbling for Barbus and realizing he was dead, Jucundus picked up the torch and swung it blindly as he tried to wipe the blood from his eyes with his sword hand. One of the other lions scorched its nose on the torch and was frightened, thinking it was an animal trainer’s red-hot iron it had to contend with, and turned away after easier prey. I began to fear that the display would fail and that I had relied too much on the Christians’ lack of skill with weapons.
But there were not many hounds left. They soon tired, so the two remaining lions could finish them off before hurling themselves onto the Christians. The hounds were so fearless that not one of them fled with its tail between its legs. One lion snapped the spine of the last hound with a skillful blow of its paw, so that the hound lay howling. One or two dog-lovers in the crowd rose to their feet and shouted that this was much too cruel a game. One must not torment dogs. One of the Christians put a merciful end to the animal’s suffering with a thrust from his sword.
Jucundus was still fighting. A Christian with a spiked club, seeing that he was the most skilled swordsman of them all, stepped forward to protect him from the rear. Together they managed to wound one of the lions severely. The crowd was so delighted that one or two thumbs were already turned upward, but this was of course to no avail and premature. Jucundus met his death.
The rest became uninteresting slaughter as the two lions attacked the unprotected huddle of Christians, who did not even run away, which might have amused the crowd. They remained standing close together so that the lions had to tear them away one by one. I was hurriedly forced to order in two bears to help the lions. At the very end, when all the Christians had been torn to death, the lions and the bears had a tremendous batde; and the wounded lion especially received huge applause for its blind courage.
I was upset by Jucundus’ death, although by then I already knew of certain events in Tigellinus’ garden during the fire of Rome, which meant that Jucundus deserved his punishment. But I shall return to that later. Now the responsibility for the show was mine, and it had to go on. Just then, one of the slaves from my country place in Caere came up to me, radiant with joy, and told me that Claudia had borne me a fine boy that same morning. Mother and child were well and Claudia was asking for my agreement to call the boy Clement.
I could see it only as a favorable omen that just as my son Jucundus had lost his life in a courageous battle with the lion, I had received the news that I had another son. The name Clement, the mild one, I did not think appropriate, considering the circumstances at the time I had heard of his birth, but in my joy I thought it best that Claudia should have her own way in the matter, for I knew only too well that there was a great deal of explaining to do to her later. And in my heart, I have been calling you Julius, my only son, for ten years.
The program went on with considerable variety for the whole afternoon. Naturally many surprises occurred, for they can never be avoided when wild animals are in the arena. These surprises were mostly fortunate ones and were credited to my organizing ability. Many bets were laid among the spectators and several fights broke out in the crowd, as always happens at these shows.
The sun was already beginning to sink as the show reached its peak with the Dirces and the Hyrcanian bulls. The delight of the crowd knew no bounds when all the arena gates were flung open at once and about thirty bulls rushed in, each with a scantily dressed girl tied to its horns. Out of sheer envy, the theater people had wished to receive the honor of this number, and after a long argument I had left the tying on of the girls to them and of course they and their helpers had made a wretched job of it, so that finally I had to ask my experienced herdsmen to help.
The block of stone I had taken so much trouble to have dragged into the arena turned out to be useless. As the theater people bellowed the saga of Dirce into megaphones to the crowd, the bulls effortlessly shook the girls off their horns, tossed them up into the air and gored them to death. Only two of them eventually crushed their Dirces to death against the stone as they should have done and as the myth demands, but this failure was not nly fault.
The remaining Christians were now driven out to the bulls. To my delight they abandoned their general indifference and behaved with incredible courage, as if suddenly seized with a longing for death, hurling themselves as if in a race straight at the bulls and flinging themselves onto their horns. The crowd shouted their acclaim and even began to feel a little sympathy for them.
But when this game came to an end, the bulls began to gore the crucified, knocking over the crosses and butting the protective fence with such force that those sitting nearest seriously began to fear that it would not hold. But the games were over now.
After a glance at the sky, I was able to heave a sigh of relief and order the bowmen to kill off the bulls. This they did so skillfully and courageously, often in close combat, that the spectators gave them their grateful applause as well, although I had feared that this necessary final number would bore the crowd.
Tigellinus had wanted to burn the protective fence with its nailed Christians at the very end, but Nero would not agree in case the fire spread and destroyed his circus. As the crowd streamed out through all the entrances, several Praetorians went around the arena killing the Christians with their lances, for Nero considered it reasonable that they should not suffer any longer than the Christians who had been burned at the stake or killed by the wild animals.
If anyone wonders why I did not spare my valuable wild bulls, then I shall say that it would have been stupid and lowered the whole value of the show if some of the crowd had been encouraged to stay on during the evening to watch the long and dreary business of capturing them. The bulls were so wild that several keepers at the menagerie might have lost their lives. But anyhow I was going to send such a colossal bill to Nero for my animals that I did not mourn the loss of my Hyrcanian bulls.
Tigellinus, who always had to be to the fore, thought he had the best of the day’s surprises prepared for the people as the crowd now hurried to the festive meal Nero had promised everyone in Agrippina’s gardens. He had used his right of jurisdiction outside the walls and had ordered that the park should be illuminated by the three thousand Christians who had been separated from the rest in the morning and put under guard in the gardens. There simply was no room for a circus show including five thousand people in the arena.
While the show had been in progress, poles and posts had been erected along the park roads and around the pools, and then the Christians had been chained to them. When there were no more iron chains left, the remainder were nailed to them through their hands.
Then the Christians were smeared with pitch and wax, of which Tigellinus’ procurator had, after a great deal of trouble, obtained a few loads. This would not be sufficient for any lasting illumination, so oil and such had also to be used. And on top of this, the Praetorians who had been allotted the task were disgruntled at missing the circus show, having instead to dig holes and erect poles in the heat of the autumn sun.
So when the’ crowd hurriedly left the circus to go to the meal as darkness fell, the Praetorians ran on ahead and set fire to the living torches along the route. They burned with screams of pain and a spreading suffocating stench, and the people did not really appreciate this incredible sight. Indeed, the more educated among them lost appetite because of the unpleasant smell of burning human flesh and began to go home. Others feared the fire might spread through the gardens when drops of burning pitch and wax scattered on the dry grass as the Christians writhed and struggled. Many people burned their feet as they tried to stamp out the smoking embers around the poles.
Thus when Nero, still dressed as a charioteer, came driving along the roads flanked by these human torches, he did not receive the acclaim he had expected. Instead, a sullen silence was maintained, and he saw several senators on their way back to the city.
He stepped down from his chariot to go to the people and press their hands, but there was no laughter at his jokes. When he tried to make Petronius stay, the latter said that he had endured a dull show for friendship’s sake, but there were limits to what his stomach would tolerate. He did not feel like eating even the very best steak in the world if it were spiced with the sickly fumes of human flesh.
Nero chewed his lips, his mouth swollen, and in his charioteer’s costume he looked more like a muscular, sweaty wrestler. He realized he had to find something else to amuse the people to make up for Tigellinus’ tasteless arrangements. To add to everything else, half-burned people began to fall from the poles as their ropes were scorched away and others in their pain tore loose their nailed hands and rushed flaming into the crowd.
Their pain-filled, shrieking, creeping, tumbling figures, hardly even human any longer, aroused nothing but terror and loathing. Angrily, Nero ordered them to be killed at once, together with those who were screaming loudly on their poles, disturbing his orchestra and its artistic playing.
He gave orders to have as much incense burned as could be found and for the park to be sprayed with perfume which had originally been intended for the guests. Everyone knows what this extravagance must have cost, not to mention all the ruined iron chains.
For my part, I was still busy with my duties at the circus, having briefly received the congratulations for a successful show from the more notable spectators. After that I hurried down to the arena to supervise the Caronians’ work with their clubs, but more than anything else to gather up what still remained of Jucundus and Barbus.
I found them quite easily. To my surprise, I found a Christian youth in the middle of all the torn bodies, his head in his hands and completely unhurt. When he had wiped away the blood that had poured over him, he had neither bite, scratch nor grazes from kicks on him. He stared dully up at the evening stars and asked whether he were in paradise. Then he told me he had thrown himself down in the sand, refusing to aggravate the wild animals by offering resistance. It was understandable that he had been saved, for neither lions nor wild bulls normally touch a person who acts as if he were dead. Many men trying to capture them have saved their lives in the same way.
I regarded his escape as a kind of omen and put my own cloak over his shoulders to save him from the Caronians’ clubs. I received my reward for this, for he could give me an exact account of everything Jucundus and Barbus had done and what they had discussed among the other prisoners.
The space had been so tight-packed with Christians that they had not even been able to sit down, and quite by chance the youth had found himself jammed next to Jucundus. Then too, Barbus had grown slighdy deaf in his old age and had had to tell Jucundus to speak up as he whispered his story of the foolish conspiracy among the boys.
The Christian youth regarded his escape as a miracle and said that Christ must have needed him for other purposes, although he had hoped to find himself in paradise with the other Christians by the evening. So I gave him some clothes, of which there were plenty, and saw to it that he was released unharmed through a side entrance of the circus.
He hoped that Christ would bless me for my mercifulness and my good deed and assured me that he believed that even I should one day find the true way. He innocendy told me that he had been a disciple of Paul and had been baptized Clement. This extraordinary coincidence made it easier for me to give way to Claudia’s whim that my son should be called Clement.
The young Christian misunderstood my surprise and explained apologetically that he was by no means especially good-tempered, but indeed had to practice humility to do penance for his impetuousness. This was why he had thrown himself down and refused to meet evil with evil. So he blessed me once again for my goodness and went into Rome along the road lit by human torches. But he was so certain that Christ needed him for some task to come that he probably did not grieve for long over not being allowed to accompany the others to paradise.
I met him again about three years later when in the course of my duties I was forced to mediate in the internal disputes of the Christians, in which I considered I ought to support Cletus. It was a question of who should inherit the shepherd’s stave after Linus. I thought that Clement was still much too young and I think he realized this himself later during his exercises in humility.
His turn will no doubt come one day, but you need not bother ‘ about that, Julius. The Christians have no political significance, in that their religion cannot hold out against the other Eastern religions. But never persecute them all the same, but leave them in peace, for the sake of your grandmother, Myrina, even if they do provoke you sometimes.
I had the remains of Jucundus and Barbus wrapped in a cloth. I also gave several frightened people permission to see to the remains of their kin if they could find them. I did not wish to accept the many gifts that were offered to me in exchange. Most of the bodies had to be taken off to a mass grave near the execution place of the lower orders, fortunately near at hand.
So I was able to hurry to Nero’s feast with a clear conscience and there, at the sight of Tigellinus’ reeking horrors, express my disapproval of his high-handedness. I had already calculated that there would be insufficient food for the huge number of spectators, so I had hurriedly had my wild bulls skinned and dismembered so that I could on my own behalf invite the people to eat the good meat.
But my appetite waned as first several senators glanced oddly at me and even turned their backs on me without returning my greeting, and then Nero thanked me for my part in the show with a surprising lack of enthusiasm and somewhat guiltily. Only then did I hear from his lips of the sentence on my father and Tullia, for Jucundus’ and Barbus’ unexpected appearance in the arena had remained a riddle to me despite the young Christian’s story. I had meant to ask Nero in biting tones, when he was in a favorable mood, how it was possible that a youth who was the adoptive son of a senator could be thrown to the wild animals among the Christians.
Nero described my father’s mental confusion at the meeting of the Senate that morning.
“He insulted me before the whole of the Senate,” he said, “but I did not condemn him. His own brothers in office pronounced the sentence unanimously, so that there was not even any need to take a vote. A senator cannot be condemned, even by the Emperor, without the other senators first being heard. Your stepmother turned the whole thing into a public scandal by her uncontrolled behavior, although with your reputation in mind, I should have preferred to keep the matter secret. The British youth whom your father had adopted took his duties to him far too seriously and declared himself a Christian. Otherwise he would never have been taken to the circus, although he was a cripple and would never have been any use as a knight. It’s no use grieving over his death, for your father was going to disinherit you, presumably because of the state of his mind. Actually you’ll lose nothing, although I’m bound to confiscate your father’s fortune. You know the trouble I’m having finding money to be able to live decently eventually.”
I thought it safest to explain that my father had handed over some of my inheritance seventeen years earlier, for me to fulfill the income demands of the Noble Order of Knights. But I had sold the sites on Aventine before the houses on them had been destroyed by the fire, and I had at first received large sums from my father for the menagerie, but Nero himself had benefited from that at the amphitheater shows.
Nero replied magnanimously that he had no thought of demanding the inheritance I had received so long ago, since he considered that my father’s estate would be quite sufficient and both the State treasury and his own building enterprises would receive a share. Indeed, he gave me permission to select a few souvenirs from my father’s house, as long as I let the magistrates list them first.
To avoid all possible suspicions later, I felt bound to admit that my father had, among other things, given me a goblet which was of great value to me personally. Nero was curious at first, but lost all interest when I told him it was only a wooden mug.
I realized then what danger I had been in because of my father’s insulting behavior, and I added hastily that this time I would not charge Nero a single sesterce for my wild animals and other expenses, as I knew very well that he needed every coin he could find to acquire a dwelling worthy of him. Indeed, I also gave him the rest of the meat from the wild bulls to offer to the people and suggested that he should sell the huge store of clothes that was still at the circus, as well as the jewelry and buckles that had been collected from the prisoners. Perhaps in this way he could pay for a few columns in the new arcade which was to link the buildings on Palatine and Coelius with the Golden Palace on Esquiline.
Nero was delighted and promised to remember my generosity. He was relieved that I had not reproached him for the deaths of my father and the person he thought was my stepbrother, and now acknowledged fully the part I had played in the show, admitting that the theater people had failed miserably and that Tigellinus had merely caused annoyance. The only thing he thought had been successful, apart from the wild animals, was the splendid music from the water-organ and the orchestra, the careful arrangements for which he himself had made.
I thought the clamor of the music had but disturbed the animals and distracted the crowd from some of the climaxes in the show, but this was only my personal opinion and I did not express it. I thought myself incompetent to judge the indifferent results of his efforts when my own had been so successful.
Despite all this, I was diepressed and had no appetite. As soon as I was no longer observed by envious eyes, I made an offering to my father and drank two goblets of wine. I sent my runner to find out where my father had been executed and the whereabouts of his and Tullia’s bodies. But they were not to be found, as I have already related.
I had to content myself with cremating Jucundus’ and Barbus’ remains in the morning on a hurriedly made pyre. I thought Barbus had earned the right to a pyre similar to my son’s by his loyalty and long service. When I had the last flames extinguished with wine, I gathered their ashes myself and placed them in an urn.
Later I put the urn in a mausoleum in Caere I had had built on the burial site my father had once bought. Jucundus was of old Etruscan blood on my father’s side and his mother, Lugunda, was of noble British stock. Barbus, on his side, had shown loyalty unto death, a sign of a certain nobility of mind. On the lid of their urn is a bronze Etruscan cockerel which crows eternal life for them, as you will see one day, Julius, when you go to Caere with the remains of your wretched, perplexed and unworthy father.
I was forced to take part in Nero’s banquet so as not to offend him by leaving early. I will gladly admit that he was very successful with the small displays he had arranged in illuminated places in the park-beautiful dancing, satyrs chasing nymphs among the bushes, a scene with Apollo and Daphne, and other things which might entertain the people and encourage a more fastidious audience to frivolous thoughts. The meal was plentiful, with the help of the meat from the bulls, and the fountains filled the pools with wine which was unmixed with water.
As the instigators of the fire had received their due punishment and all had been atoned for, the foremost ladies in Rome, together with all the colleges of priests, had arranged a superb conciliatory meal which became the climax of the feast in the gardens. For this purpose both the most sacred white stone cones had secretly been fetched from their temples.
They were now placed upon their sacred cushions in an illuminated tent, garlanded by the women and offered the traditional sacred meal, I watched with curiosity, remembering that the Romans had inherited this mystery from the Etruscans, and I fervently joined in with the holy laughter together with the senators and knights. The people were not allowed to laugh. Then the front of the tent flap was drawn across the opening and a little later the lights which shone through the canvas were suddenly extinguished without anyone touching them. We all heaved a sigh of relief at the success of the ceremony, which had been accomplished as tradition demantled.
While the stone cones, or the gods they represented, remained in the dark tent after the sacred meal, to embrace each other on their sacred cushions to the progress of Rome, Nero arranged a satyric play to counteract all this holiness. The only thing that can be laid against him is that he himself felt obliged to take part in it, in the belief that in this way he was gaining the favor of the people.
So, on an open stage, accompanied by profane wedding hymns, he had himself dressed as a bride and hid his face behind a scarlet veil. Skillfully imitating a woman’s voice, he then sang the customary lament. He was led to the bridal bed by Pythagoras, a handsome slave in bridegroom’s costume. A goddess appeared to console and advise the frightened bride. Whimpering with terror, Nero allowed the bridegroom to untie the two knots in the girdle and, virtually undressed, they finally sank onto the bed in each other’s arms.
Nero imitated a terrified maiden’s whimpers and squeals so well that the audience rocked with laughter, at which he went on to whimper with feigned pleasure, so that many noble ladies blushed and covered their eyes with their hands. Both he and Pythagoras carried out their roles so skillfully that it looked as if they had practiced the scene beforehand.
Nevertheless, Poppaea was so angry about this display that shortly afterward she left the banquet. An additional reason was, of course, that she was three months pregnant again and had to be careful of her health, and the exciting daylong circus show had fatigued her.
Nero did not mind that she left. Indeed, he took the opportunity, as the guests became more and more intoxicated, to lead various lewd games in dark corners of the park. He had invited all the women from the brothels the fire had spared and had generously paid their fees out of his own pocket. But there were many noble ladies and frivolous married men and women who partook in these games under the protection of darkness. Finally the bushes were full of rustling sounds, and the lustful grunts of drunkards and women’s cries could be heard everywhere.
I left to set Jucundus’ and Barbus’ funeral pyre alight. As I sprinkled their ashes with wine, I thought of Lugunda and my youth in Britain, when I had still been sensitive, so receptive to goodness and so innocent that I had vomited when I had killed my first Briton. At the same time that morning, although I did not know it then, Nero returned to Esquiline to sleep, soiled and dirty, and with his wine-soaked wreath askew.
Poppaea, easily irritated in the way pregnant women are, had lain awake, waiting for him to return, and she now directed some rough wifely words at him. In his fuddled state, Nero was seized with such rage that he kicked her in the stomach and then fell into bed in the deep sleep of a drunkard. The following day he did not even remember what had happened until he heard that Poppaea had had a miscarriage. She was very ill and it became apparent that not even the best doctors in Rome could help her, not to mention her old Jewish women with their magic formulae and witchcraft.
All honor to Poppaea, it should be mentioned that she did not once reproach Nero when she realized that her condition was hopeless. Indeed, even as she was dying, she tried to console him in his conscience-stricken state of sclf-rcproach by reminding him that she had always wanted to die before her beauty faded. She wished Nero to remember her until his dying day as she looked now, her tempting beauty intact, loved by Nero in spite of his action, which might have happened to any faithful married couple. Naturally Nero would have to marry again for political reasons, but all Poppaea wished was that Nero should not act too quickly in this, and that he should not have her body cremated. Poppaea wished to be buried in the Jewish way.
For political reasons, Nero could not have her buried with the rituals of the Jewish religion, but he did allow the Jewish women to gather around her body for the customary laments. He had Poppaea embalmed in the Eastern way and without demur sent the gifts she had willed to the temple in Jerusalem and the synagogues in Rome.
In the forum he made a memorial speech to the Senate and the people in honor of Poppaea, and he himself wept with emotion as he detailed the particular points of her beauty from her golden curls to her rosy toenails. A funeral procession took her embalmed body in a glass coffin to the mausoleum of the god Augustus. Many people were affronted by this, for Nero had not even given his own mother a place in the mausoleum, not to mention his consort, Octavia. Save for the Jews, the people did not mourn for Poppaea. She had no longer been content with silver horseshoes but had begun to shoe her mules with gold, and she had aroused bad blood with her eternal baths in asses’ milk.
I myself grieved that the enchanting Poppaea had died so young. She had always been friendly toward me and would probably have confirmed this friendship in my arms at one time, had I had the sense to ask her boldly to do so. She was not so virtuous as I had at first believed when I had fallen so blindly in love with her, but unfortunately I did not see that until she had married Otho.
Now I have told you all this, I must go on to tell you about your mother, Claudia, and her attitude toward me. At the same time I must describe my part in the Pisonian conspiracy and its exposure. That is perhaps an even more painful task.
But I shall do my best, as I have done up to now, to describe everything moderately honestly, without justifying myself too much. Perhaps you will learn something of the weaknesses of man when you read this one day, Julius, my son. Despise me if you wish. I shall lose nothing by that. I shall never forget that cold clear look of a fourteen-year-old that you gave me, when your mother forced you to come and see your despicably wealthy and despicably foolish father at this distant resort where I am trying to cure my ailment. It was a chilling look, sterner than the worst winds of winter. But then you are a Julian, of divine blood, and I am only a Minutus Manilianus.
Book XI
Antonia
Naturally I wanted to acknowledge you officially as my son and give you the name Claudia had requested, but I thought it wiser to let a little time go by first so that your mother had time to calm down.
I could not prevent Claudia in Caere finding out about what had happened in Rome and how I had unwillingly, on Nero’s orders, been forced to organize the execution of the Christians in an appropriate manner. Of course, I had also sent some Christians to the security of my country property, and warned others, and I had perhaps saved Cephas’ life by frightening Tigellinus with his reputation for sorcery.
But I knew Claudia’s violent temper and I also knew how wives in general misconstrue their husbands’ actions without considering the necessary demands of politics and other such things which only men understand. So I considered it best to allow Claudia to come to her senses and consider what she had heard.
In addition I had so many impending duties in Rome that I could not immediately travel to Caere. Replacing the stock of wild animals at the menagerie and getting compensation for my other animal losses required all my energies. But I must admit that I had begun to feel a certain distaste for the menagerie in general, especially when I thought of Claudia.
Aunt Laelia’s unexpected suicide was another unavoidable obstacle to my journey. I did my best to keep it secret, but nonetheless it gave rise to more gossip about me than ever. I still cannot understand why Laelia took her own life, if it was not just her confused state of mind. I presume my father’s dismissal as a senator and his execution were such a blow to her reason, that out of some kind of misguided sense of honor she felt duty bound to commit suicide. Perhaps in her distorted state of mind, she considered that I should have done the same out of respect for the Emperor and the Senate, and wished to set me a good Roman example.
She persuaded her equally confused servant woman to open her veins, and when her aged blood refused to flow even in a hot bath, she finally suffocated herself with fumes from the charcoal brazier she always had in her room, for like all old people she always felt the cold. She ordered the servant woman to block all the cracks in the doors and windows carefully from the outside. She was still rational enough to do this.
I did not miss her until the following day when the servant came and asked me whether she should not now air the room. I could not bring myself to reproach this simple, toothless old woman who kept saying that she had been forced to obey her mistress’s orders. I was much too shaken by this new disgrace which had befallen my reputation and my name.
Naturally I had Aunt Laelia’s body cremated with full family honors and I made a memorial speech to her at a private funeral feast, although it was difficult to do so, for I was very angry. It was also difficult to find anything to say about Aunt Laelia’s life and her good points. I did not invite Claudia to the memorial celebrations as she had only just risen from the childbed, but I wrote to her and told her about this sad event and explained why I had still to remain in the city.
To tell the truth, I had a great deal to endure at that time. The courageous conduct of the Christians in the circus and their inhuman punishment, which had provoked loathing in our pampered youth, already influenced by Greek culture, had created secret sympathy for the Christians in the most unexpected quarters, in which Nero’s accusations were not believed. I lost many friends who I had thought faithful to me.
As evidence of their distortions and ill-will, I shall relate how it was said that I had denounced my stepbrother Jucundus as a Christian because I was afraid I should have to share my inheritance from my father with him. My father, who had already disowned me because of my bad reputation, was said to have intentionally arranged for his fortune to be taken by the State, just so that I should not have a share in it. What would they have thought up if they had known that Jucundus was my own son? I was talked about in society in this false and hostile way, so I can only guess what was said about me among the Christians. Naturally-I avoided them as much as I could so that I should not be suspected of favoring them.
The general feeling was such that I could not show myself in the streets without sufficient escort. Even Nero thought it as well to let it he known that although he had shown clearly enough that he could be stern if necessary, he was now considering abolishing capital punishment throughout the country. After that no one, even in the provinces, could be sentenced to death, even for the worst crimes. Instead the condemned were sent to forced labor to rebuild Rome, mostly Nero’s new palace, which he had now begun to call the Golden Palace, and the Great Circus.
This statement was not made from mildness and love of mankind. Nero was beginning to run very seriously short of money and needed free labor for the hardest work. The Senate confirmed the order, although during the discussion many of the fathers gave stern warnings against the consequences of abolishing the death sentence and considered that both crime and other godlessness would increase.
The general atmosphere of irritability and discontent did not result solely from the punishment of the Christians, for this had been but a pretext for many people who required an outlet for their hatred of the ruling power. Only now did the taxes necessary for the rebuilding of Rome and Nero’s own building plans begin to make themselves fully felt at all levels of society. The price of grain had of course been raised after the first emergency measures and even the slaves were made to feel the gradual decreases in the distributions of bread, garlic and oil.
Naturally a whole Empire could afford the building of a Golden Palace, especially since Nero sensibly spread the work over several years, although he hurried the building on as much as possible. He said that at first he would be content with a reasonable banqueting hall and a few bedrooms, and the necessary arcade for representations. But Nero had no head for figures, and in the way of artists, would not listen patiently to informed people’s explanations. He took money wherever he could extract it, without thinking of the consequences.
In return, he appeared as a singer and an actor at several theater performances and invited the ordinary people to them. In his vanity, he thought that his splendid voice and the pleasure of seeing him on the stage in different roles would make people forget their own not inconsiderable material sacrifices, which would become as nothing beside this great art. In this he was profoundly mistaken.
Many unmusical people of standing began to regard these eternal performances as an insufferable nuisance which was difficult to escape, for Nero, at the slightest sign, would perform encores long into the night.
Pleading several reasons, and of course with you in mind, I managed to persuade Claudia to stay in the healthy air of Caere for nearly three months. I did not read her bitter letters too carefully and simply replied that I would bring her and you to Rome as soon as my duties permitted it and I thought it favorable from the point of view of her security.
Actually, after the circus show the Christians were persecuted little, if at all, as long as they behaved themselves. But generally speaking they were understandably frightened by the apparently chance mass punishment and they kept silent and hidden away.
When they assembled in their secret meeting places underground, they soon began quarreling bitterly among themselves again and asked each other why the denouncements had been so numerous and why Paul’s followers had denounced Cephas’ followers and vice versa. Inevitably, they divided up into closed secret societies. The weakest among them were seized with despair, no longer knowing which was the best way to follow Christ. They avoided the fanatics and retired into their own loneliness.
In the end, Claudia returned to Rome of her own accord, accompanied by her own Christian servants and all the refugees to whom I had offered sanctuary on my farms in exchange for a little work from them. I hurried to meet her with a cry of joy, but at first she would not even show you to me, but ordered the nurse to take you into the house away from my evil eyes.
She told her companions to surround the house so that I should not get away. I must admit that, after consulting the household gods and my guardian spirit, I too momentarily feared for my life when I remembered that your mother is a daughter of Claudius and has inherited her father’s ruthless and capricious nature.
But after looking about the house, Claudia became comparatively reasonable and said that she wished to have a serious talk with me. I assured her that nothing would please me more, as long as all the vessels and souvenir daggers were first removed from the room.
Naturally Claudia accused me of being a murderer, a simple assassin with blood on my hands, and maintained that my adoptive brother’s blood cried to heaven, accusing me before God. Through my lust to kill, I had brought the wrath of Jesus of Nazareth down on my head.
In fact I was relieved to note that she did not know Jucundus was my son, for women are often frighteningly perceptive in such matters. I was much more affronted by her insane accusation that Aunt Laelia had committed suicide because of me. But I told her that I would forgive her these evil words and I also told her to ask Cephas, for instance, about how much I had done for the Christians and to save him from Tigellinus’ clutches.
“You mustn’t believe only Prisca and Aquila and some others whose names I won’t bother to mention,” I said. “I know they are followers of Paul. And take note too that I have helped Paul in his day to escape several charges. He’s not even sought after in Iberia at present because, partly thanks to me, Nero no longer wishes to hear about the Christians.”
“I’ll believe whom I like,” said Claudia angrily. ‘You always wriggle out of things. I can’t think how I can go on living with a man like you, with your hands dripping with the blood of the faithful. There’s nothing I regret more than that you are the father of my son.”
I thought perhaps I had better not remind her of who it had been who had first come to my bed and that it was I who had at her pressing request made an honest woman of her by secretly marrying her. Fortunately the secret documents which had been left in the keeping of the Vestals had been destroyed in the fire, and the State archives had also been burned down; thus I had no need to fear that my marriage would be revealed. So I was sensible and kept my mouth shut, for I could read an obvious wish to negotiate in your mother’s words.
Claudia laid down her conditions. I must improve my way of life inasmuch as that was possible for a godless person like myself. I must also ask Christ for forgiveness for my ill deeds, and first and foremost I must leave the menagerie and the office of superintendent without delay.
“If you won’t think of me and my reputation, then at least you might think of your son and his future,” said Claudia. “Your son is one of the last people in Rome who has both Julian and Claudian blood in his veins. For his sake, you must obtain a position of standing so that as a man he need not know of your shameful past.”
Claudia thought I would resist her with all my strength because I had put so much money into the menagerie and my wild animals, and won such acclaim at the amphitheater for my shows. So I found myself in an advantageous position to negotiate with her on the future. I had myself decided to leave the menagerie, although not, of course, because of the slaughter of the Christians at the circus. I had been against that from the start, but had of necessity been forced to organize the task as appropriately as possible despite the great effort and shortage of time involved. I see no reason why I should be ashamed of that.
The most important reason was that I had to come to some financial agreement with my first wife, Flavia Sabina. It had been easy for me to promise her half my fortune when Epaphroditus had been throttling me, but as time went by, I felt more and more antipathy to this thought.
As I now had a son whom I could be quite certain was my own, I also considered it unjust that my little five-year-old illegitimate Lausus should one day inherit as much as he would. I had nothing against Lausus as such, but as the years went by he grew more and more dark-skinned and more and more curly-headed, so that sometimes I was ashamed that I had to allow him to use my name.
On the other hand, I knew very well that the powerful Epaphroditus was completely in Sabina’s hands, and Sabina was sufficiently ruthless to have me murdered if I bargained too far. But I had thought out an excellent plan to be rid of my problem and had in preparation even talked about it to Sabina.
Epaphroditus had received his freedman’s stave and citizenship from Nero himself long before I had any idea of the relationship between him and Sabina. Not that Sabina had not lain with other animal trainers now and again as well, but after our divorce, Epaphroditus had held a surprisingly tight rein on her and had beaten her now and again, much to her satisfaction.
I had decided to give to Sabina the entire menagerie with its slaves, wild animals, contracts and all, and to suggest to Nero that he appoint Epaphroditus as superintendent in my place. Epaphroditus was a citizen, but for the sake of my own reputation it was important that my successor should also be a member of the Noble Order of Knights.
If I could persuade Nero to have an African enrolled into the roll of knights for the first time in the history of Rome, then Sabina could be legally married to him. This would be all the easier now that her father had disowned her and there would be no Flavian family opposition to stop the marriage. In exchange for this, Sabina had promised to adopt Lausus and give up his right to inherit from my estate. But she would not believe that Nero would appoint a man who was at least half Negro to be a Roman knight.
Nevertheless, I knew Nero, and had all too often heard him boast that nothing was impossible for him. As an artist and friend of mankind he did not regard a colored skin or even Jewishness as an obstacle to State office. In the African provinces many colored men had long since acquired the rank of knight in their home cities, via wealth or military merits.
When I agreed to Claudia’s conciliatory suggestions, apparently hesitantly and complaining of my losses, not only had I nothing to lose, but I was also escaping considerable financial sacrifices: Sabina’s demands and those of my son Lausus. It was worth doing one’s best for all this, although I gloomily prophesied to Claudia that Nero would be offended at my resigning from an office he had appointed me to. I would be in disfavor and perhaps would even be risking my life.
Claudia replied with a smile that I need no longer bother about Nero’s favor since I had already endangered my life by bringing a son with Claudian blood in him into the world. Her remark brought a cold shiver to the back of my neck, but now she graciously agreed to show you to me as we were reconciled.
So I plucked up my courage and asked Sabina, Epaphroditus and Lausus to come with me, and asked for an audience with Nero in the completed part of the Golden Palace on one of those afternoons when I could count on his having finished his meal and refreshing bath and continuing his drinking and pleasures late into the night. Artists were just completing the murals in the corridors, and the circular banqueting hall, glittering with gold and ivory, was still only half finished.
You were a beautiful, faultless child, gazing far away with your dark blue eyes and gripping hard on my thumb with your small fingers, as if you wished to rob me of my gold ring at once. You took my heart anyhow, and nothing like that had ever happened to me before. You are my son and you can do nothing about it.
Nero was just planning a giant statue of himself which was to be erected in front of the link arcade. He showed me the drawings and drew attention to the sculptor in such a flattering way that he introduced the craftsman to me, as if we were of the same rank. I was not offended, for the main thing was that Nero should be in a good mood.
He willingly sent the craftsman away when I asked to speak to him alone, and then looked guilty, rubbing his chin and admitting that he too had some things to talk to me about. He had been putting them off for fear I should be annoyed.
I explained verbosely to him how I had long and faithfully sacrificed myself to the care of the menagerie in Rome and that I now felt that this task was beyond me, especially in view of the new menagerie which was being built in connection with the Golden Palace. I felt that I could not manage this task which demantled artistic taste, so I should be extremely grateful if he could release me from the office.
When Nero noticed the trend my long speech was taking, his face cleared and he burst out laughing in relief and slapped me on the back in the most friendly way as a sign of his favor.
“Don’t worry, Minutus,” he said. “I shall grant your request. All the better as I’ve been looking for some excuse to dismiss you from the office at the menagerie. Ever since the autumn, influential people have been attacking me about the excessively cruel show you arranged and demanding that you should be dismissed as a punishment for the poor taste you showed. I must admit that certain details in the show were rather unappetizing, although the fire-raisers certainly deserved their punishment. I’m glad that you yourself see that your position has become untenable. I had no idea you would abuse my confidence and arrange for your own stepbrother to be thrown to the wild animals because of some dispute over inheritance.”
I opened my mouth to deny this insane accusation, but Nero went on without stopping.
“Your father’s estate,” he said, “is so complicated and his affairs so obscure that I have not even received a return on my outlay yet. It is whispered that in complete agreement with your father, you have smuggled out most of his fortune to cheat the State and me. But I don’t believe this of you, for I know you and your father did not get on together. Otherwise I’d be forced to banish you from Rome. I strongly suspect your father’s sister, who had to commit suicide to avoid punishment. I hope you’ve nothing against my asking the magistrates to take a look at your own books. I would never do such a thing if I weren’t so short of money all the time because of certain people’s advice. They sit hugging the money bags and refuse to help the Emperor to acquire a decent place to live in. Believe it or not, not even Seneca took the trouble to send more than ten million sesterces, he who in his time pretended to want to give me everything he possessed, knowing per-fecdy well that for political reasons I couldn’t accept it. Pallas sits on his money like a fat bitch. I’ve heard it said of you that a few months before the fire you sold all your apartment houses and sites in the parts of the city which were most affected by the fire and bought cheap land in Ostia which has since become unexpectedly valuable. Such foresight looks suspicious. If I did not know you, I might accuse you of taking part in the Christian conspiracy.”
He burst out laughing. I took the chance of remarking stiffly that of course my fortune was always at his disposal, but that I was not as wealthy as people made out. In that respect I could not be mentioned in the same breath as men like Seneca and Pallas. But Nero patted me on the shoulder.
“Don’t be angry at my little joke, Minutus,” he said. “It’s better for your own sake that you should know what is gossiped about you. An Emperor is in a difficult position. He has to listen to everyone and never knows whose intentions are sincere. But my own judgment tells me that you are more stupid than farsighted, so I cannot behave so badly as to confiscate your property just because of gossip and your father’s crimes. It will be punishment enough that I have dismissed you from office for incompetence. But I don’t know whom to appoint in your place. There are no applicants for such an office which has no political significance.”
I could have said one or two things on its significance, but instead I took the opportunity to suggest that the menagerie be turned over to Sabina and Epaphroditus. In that case I would not demand any compensation and the magistrates need not bother about my accounts. Such a measure would not appeal to me, as an honest man. But first it would be necessary to promote Epaphroditus to a knight.
“There is not a word in any of the laws about the color of a Roman knight’s skin,” I said. “The only condition is a certain wealth and annual income, though of course it depends on your favor whom you appoint. And to Nero nothing is impossible, I know that. But if you think you could consider my suggestion, let me summon Epaphroditus and Sabina. They can speak for themselves.”
Nero knew Epaphroditus by sight and by reputation, and had probably laughed over my gullibility together with my other friends before my divorce. Now it amused him that I was putting in a word for Epaphroditus. He seemed even more amused when Sabina led Lausus in by the hand and he could compare the color of the boy’s skin and hair with Epaphroditus’.
I think all this simply strengthened Nero’s belief that I was a stupid and gullible man. But I only benefited from this. I could not under any circumstances allow the magistrates to look into my accounts, and if he believed that Epaphroditus had feathered his own nest at my expense, that was his business.
In fact Nero was attracted by the idea of showing his power to the Noble Order of Knights by having Epaphroditus’ name put in the rolls of the temple of Castor and Pollux. He was clever enough to know what such a measure would yield in the African provinces. He would show in this way that Roman citizens were equal under his rule, regardless of the color of their skin and their origins, and that he really was without prejudice.
So everything was successful. At the same time, Nero gave his consent to Sabina and Epaphroditus marrying and adopting the boy who had hitherto been registered as my son.
“But I’ll allow him to go on using the name Lausus in memory of you, noble Manilianus,” said Nero mockingly. “It is nice of you to hand over the boy completely to his mother and stepfather. It shows that you respect mother love and ignore your own feelings, although the boy is as like you as two peas in a pod.”
If I thought I had played a joke on Sabina by off-loading the burden of the menagerie on to her, then I was deceiving myself. Nero took a liking for Epaphroditus and had even his most exorbitant bills paid. Epaphroditus saw to it that the animals in the new menagerie in the Golden Palace were to drink out of marble troughs, and the panther cages had silver bars. Nero paid without a murmur, although I had had to pay the huge water bills from my own pocket when the city water supplies had been reorganized after the fire.
Epaphroditus knew how to arrange certain special animal displays for Nero which amused Nero, but I cannot describe them for reasons of decency. In a very short time Epaphroditus became a wealthy man and one of Nero’s favorites, thanks to the menagerie.
My dismissal put an end to the stone-throwing at me in the streets. People began to laugh at me instead and I regained some of my former friends, who magnanimously considered they ought to show pity for me now that I had fallen into disfavor and was an object of fun. I did not complain, for it is better to be laughed at than to be hated by everyone. Claudia, of course, being a woman, did not understand my reasonable attitude, but begged me to improve my reputation for the sake of my son. I tried to be tolerant toward her.
My patience was stretched to breaking point. In her maternal pride, Claudia wished to invite both Antonia and Rubria, the eldest of the Vestals, to your naming day so that I should legitimatize you in front of them, since old Paulina had died in the fire and could not be our witness. Claudia had realized what the destruction of the Vestal archives meant.
She said that it would be kept secret, of course, but in any case wanted a couple of reliable Christian men to be present. Time and time again she told me that the Christians more than anyone else had learned to keep their mouths shut because of their secret meetings. I thought they were the worst informers and chatterboxes. And Antonia and Rubria were women. To initiate them into it all seemed to me to be the same as getting up on the roof and shouting out my son’s descent all over the city.
But Claudia was stubborn, despite my warnings. Of course in itself, it was a great honor that Antonia, Claudius’ legal daughter, should acknowledge Claudia as her half sister and also take you and give you the name Antonianus in memory of both herself and your great ancestor Marcus Antonius. It was more frightening that she promised to remember you in her will.
“Don’t even talk about wills,” I cried, to keep her off the subject. “You are many years younger than Claudia and a woman in the best years of her life. In fact we are contemporaries, but Claudia is over forty, since she is about five years older than I am. I shall not even consider making a will for many years yet.”
Claudia did not like my remark, but Antonia stretched her slim body and gave me a veiled look with her arrogant eyes.
“I think I’m quite well preserved for my age,” she said, “although your Claudia is beginning to look a little worn, if one can put it that way. Sometimes I miss the company of a lively man. I am lonely after my marriages, which both ended in murder, for people are afraid of Nero and avoid me. If only they knew.”
I saw that she was burning to talk abut something. Claudia also became inquisitive. Only old Rubria smiled her wise old Vestal smile. We did not have to encourage Antonia much for her to tell us with feigned modesty that with great tenacity Nero had several times asked her to be his consort.
“Naturally I could not agree to that,” said Antonia. “I told him straight out that my half brother Britannicus and my half sister Octavia stood out all too clearly in my mind. Out of sensitivity, I said nothing of his mother, Agrippina, although as niece of my father she was my cousin and so a cousin of yours, my dearest Claudia.”
At the memory of Agrippina’s death I had a sudden attack of coughing and Claudia had to thump me on the back and warn me against emptying my wine goblet with such haste. I was wise enough to remember my father’s unfortunate fate when he had in his confusion in the Senate brought about his own ruin.
Still coughing, I asked Antonia what Nero had given as a reason for his proposal. She fluttered her blue-shadowed eyes and looked down at the floor.
“Nero told me that he had loved me secretly for a long time,” she said. “He said that that was the only reason why he had borne such a grudge against my dead husband Cornelius Sulla, whom he thought was much too unenterprising a husband for me. Perhaps that excuses his behavior toward Sulla, although officially he stated only political reasons for having Sulla murdered in our modest home in Massilia. Between ourselves, I can admit that my husband had in fact secret connections with the commantlers of the legions in Germany.”
When she had in this way shown that she completely trusted us as her relatives, she went on: “I am woman enough to be a little touched by Nero’s open admission. It’s a pity that he’s so untrustworthy and that I hate him so bitterly, for he can be sympathetic when he wants to be. But I kept my head and referred to the age difference between us, although it is no greater than that between you and Claudia. I have been used to regarding Nero as a nasty boy since childhood. And naturally, the memory of Britannicus is an insurmountable obstacle, even if I might forgive him for what he did to Octavia. Octavia was herself responsible in that she seduced Anicetus.”
I did not tell her what a clever actor Nero could be when it was a question of his own advantage. With his position in mind, it would of course have been very valuable with regard to the Senate and the people if he were able to be allied to the Claudians in yet a third way through Antonia.
The thought of this depressed me and in my heart I did not want you ever to be disgraced in public by your father’s descent. By secret means I had acquired the letters, together with other documents, which my father, before I was born, had written but had never sent to Tullia from Jerusalem and Galilee. From them it appeared that my father, seriously confused by his unhappy love, through a forged will and Tullia’s betrayal of him, had descended to believing everything the Jews had told him, even hallucinations. The saddest thing from my point of view was that the letters revealed my mother’s past. She was no more than a simple acrobatic dancer whom my father had freed. No more was known about her descent than that she came from the Greek islands.
So her statue in Myrina in Asia and all the papers my father had acquired in Antioch on her descent were simply dust thrown in people’s eyes to ensure my future. The letters made me wonder whether I was even born in wedlock or whether my father, after my mother’s death, had acquired the evidence by bribing the authorities in Damascus. Thanks to Jucundus, I myself had found how easy it was to arrange such things if one had money and influence.
I had not mentioned my father’s letters and documents to Claudia. Among the papers, which from a financial point of view were very valuable, there were also a number of notes in Aramaic on the life of Jesus of Nazareth, written by a Jewish customs official who had been an acquaintance of my father’s. I felt I could not destroy them, so I hid them away together with the letters in my most secret hiding place where I had certain papers which would not tolerate the light of day.
I tried to overcome my depression and raised my goblet in honor of Antonia because she had so sensitively succeeded in repudiating Nero’s approaches. She finally admitted that she had given him a kiss or two, in a sisterly way, so that he would not be too indignant at her refusal.
Antonia forgot her harassing suggestions about remembering you in her will. We took you on our knees in turn, despite your violent kicks and screams. So you received the names Clement Claudius Antonianus Manilianus, and that was a sufficiently burdensome heritage for an infant. I gave up my idea of calling you Marcus as well, in memory of my father, which I had thought of doing before Antonia came with her suggestion.
When Antonia left for home in her sedan that night she took farewell of me with a sisterly kiss, as we were legally if also secretly related to one another, and asked me to call her sister-in-law in future when we met alone. Warmed by her friendliness, I eagerly returned her kiss. I did so gladly. I was a trifle drunk.
Again she complained of her loneliness and hoped that I, now that we were related, would come and see her sometimes. I did not necessarily have to take Claudia with me since she had so much to do with the boy, and our large house and her years were probably beginning to weigh on her. She was, however, by descent the most noble lady alive in Rome.
But before I can tell you how our friendship developed, I must return to the affairs of Rome.
In his need for money, Nero tired of the complaints from the provinces and the bitter criticism of the purchase tax from businessmen. He decided to rid himself quite illegally of his problems by cutting the Gordian knot. I do not know who suggested the plan to him, as I was not in on the secrets of the temple of Juno Moneta. Anyhow, whoever it was, he far more than the Christians deserved to be thrown to the wild animals as a public enemy.
In all secrecy, Nero borrowed the votive gifts of gold and silver from the gods of Rome; that is, set up Jupiter Capitolinus as mortgager and himself borrowed from Jupiter. Of course he had a legal right to do this, although the gods did not approve. After the fire, he had had all the melted metal, which was not all pure gold and silver but contained some bronze, collected. Now he melted it all together and day and night had new gold and silver pieces struck in the temple of Juno Moneta, coins which contained a fifth less gold and silver than before. The pieces were both lighter and, because of all the copper in them, duller than the previous brilliant coins.
The minting of these coins took place in complete secrecy and under strict guard, with the excuse that the affairs of Juno Moneta were never public, but of course rumors still reached the ears of the bankers. I myself began to prick up my ears when coins began to be in short supply and everyone began pressing with money orders or asking for a month’s grace before paying for larger purchases.
I did not believe the rumor for I regarded myself as Nero’s friend and could not believe that he, an artist and not a businessman, could have been guilty of such a terrible crime as intentional forgery of coins, especially since ordinary people had been crucified when they had made a coin or two for their own use. But I followed everyone else’s example and saved as much coinage as possible. I did not even embark on the customary contracts for corn and oil, although this gave rise to animosity among my customers.
The financial confusion became worse and prices rose day by day before Nero released his forged coins into circulation and announced that the old coins must be exchanged for new ones within a certain time, after which anyone found with the old coins would be regarded as an enemy of the State. Only taxes and duty could be paid with old coins.
To the shame of Rome, I must admit that the Senate confirmed this order by a considerable majority. So one cannot blame Nero alone for this crime against all decency and business customs.
The senators who voted for Nero justified their action by asserting that the rebuilding of Rome demantled a fundamental operation. They maintained that the rich would suffer more from this exchange of coins, because the rich owned more coinage than the poor and Nero did not consider it worth forging copper coins. This was nonsense. The senators’ property mostly consists of land, if they do not do business through their freedmen, and every one of the voting senators had had time to place such good gold and silver coins as they owned in safety.
Even the simplest country people were clever enough to hide their savings in clay pots and bury them in the earth. Altogether about a quarter of the coins that were in circulation were exchanged for the new ones. Of course, it should be noted that a great deal of Roman coinage had spread to the barbarian countries and all the way to India and China.
This unimaginable crime of Nero’s made many people think again, people who had understood and for political reasons forgiven him even the murder of his mother. The members of the Order of Knights who were in business, and the wealthy freedmen who controlled all business life, found cause to reconsider their political views because the new coinage reduced the whole of the public economy to confusion. Even experienced businessmen suffered stinging losses because of the change.
Only those who led a frivolous life, the idlers who were always in debt, were delighted with this move and admired Nero more than ever, for now they could pay their debts with money which was worth a fifth less than before. The clinking of citterns by long-haired singers of lampooning songs about rich men’s houses and in front of the exchanges, irritated me too. After this, all the aesthetes were more convinced than ever that nothing was impossible to Nero. They thought he was favoring the poor at the expense of the rich and had the courage to treat the Senate as he wished to. There were many senators’ sons among these flabby youths.
Hoarding of the old coinage was so general that no right-thinking person could regard it as a crime. It did not help that poor market traders and country people were imprisoned or sent to forced labor. Nero was forced to make temporary departures from his usual mild methods and threaten the coin hoarders with the death sentence. Nevertheless, no one was executed, for in the depths of his soul Nero realized that he himself was the criminal and not the poor who were attempting to hide the few genuine silver pieces which were their life’s savings.
I myself came to my senses and had one of my freedmen hurriedly form a bank and rent an exchange stand in the forum, since it was now a matter of such widespread exchange of money that the State was forced to turn to private bankers to achieve its purpose. They even received compensation for their trouble when the old coinage was delivered to the State treasury.
So no one was surprised when my freedman, in order to compete with the old established bankers who in the first confusion were not entirely clear as to what was going on, promised up to five percent in additional payments at the exchange of old coins for the new. He explained to his customers that he was doing this to acquire a reputation for his business and to help those without private means.
Shoemakers, coppersmiths and stonecutters queued up in front of his table while the old bankers watched gloomily from their own empty ones. Thanks to my freedman, within a few weeks I had received full recompense for my own exchange losses, despite the fact that he himself had privately been forced to give certain sums to the Juno Moneta college of priests, owing to the suspicion that he had not accounted for all the good coinage he had received.
At this time I secretly went into my room many times, locked the door and drank from my goblet of Fortuna, for I thought I needed some good luck. I forgave my mother in my heart for her low origins, for I too was half Greek through her and this brought me luck in business. It is said that a Greek can even cheat a Jew in business, but I do not believe this myself.
But on my father’s side I am a genuine Roman, descended from the Etruscan kings, and this can be proved in Caere. So I hold honesty in business very highly. My freedman’s exchange affairs and my earlier double accounting for the menagerie concerned only the State treasury, and were acts of self-defense on the part of an honest man, struggling against tyrannical taxation. Otherwise no sound business life would be possible.
For instance, I have never allowed my freedmen to mix chalk into the flour or mountain oils into the cooking oil, as certain insolent upstarts have succeeded in doing. Besides, one can easily be crucified for doing that. I once mentioned the matter to Fenius Rufus when he was the senior supervisor for the grain stores and mills, naturally without mentioning any names. He warned me then and said that no one in his position could afford to ignore the doctoring of grain, whoever the person was. Some sea-damaged cargoes might possibly be approved by the State, if this were of help to a friend in need. But he could go no further. Sighing, he admitted that despite his high office, he had to remain rather poor.
From Fenius Rufus my thoughts go to Tigellinus. He was now being discussed unfavorably before Nero. Whispered warnings were made that Nero was risking his reputation by favoring him and associating with him, and it was pointed out that Tigellinus had grown rich much too quickly after his appointment as City Prefect. Nero’s many gifts could not explain this away, even if Nero did make a habit of making his friends so rich that they were not tempted by bribes in the offices he appointed them to. What the friendship was like, no one really knows, but I must say I do not think an Emperor ever has any real friends.
The worst accusation leveled against Tigellinus in Nero’s view was that he had once secretly been Agrippina’s lover and thus had been banished from Rome in his youth. When Agrippina became consort to Claudius, she had arranged for Tigellinus to return, as she did for Seneca, who had had an equally doubtful relationship with Agrippina’s sister. I do not really believe the relationship between Tigellinus and Agrippina continued afterwards, at least not as long as Claudius was alive, but he had always had a weakness for her, although for political reasons he had not been able to prevent murder.
For many reasons Nero decided it would be wise to reinstate Fenius Rufus as deputy Prefect of the Praetorians alongside Tigellinus. He was given the overseas cases to deal with, while Tigellinus looked after the military side. Tigellinus was understandably embittered by this, for his best source of income now ran dry. I know from my own experience that no one is ever so rich that he does not wish to see his wealth further increased. This is not nonsense, but one of the things a fortune inevitably brings with it, and something against which one is powerless.
Because of the uneasy state of financial affairs, prices continued to rise and by considerably more than the fifth by which Nero had lowered the value of money. Nero issued many edicts to try to keep prices under control and punish usurers, but the result was that the goods simply vanished from the shops. In the halls and marketplaces the people were soon unable to buy their green vegetables, meat, lentils and root vegetables, but had to go out into the country or turn to tradesmen who crept around at dusk from house to house with their baskets, defying the magistrates by selling at high prices.
There was no real shortage of things. It was just that no one wanted to sell his goods at unnaturally forced prices, but preferred to be idle or lock up their stores. If, for instance, one needed new sandals for formal occasions, or a good tunic, or even a buckle, one had to beg and plead with a merchant to bring what one was asking for out from under the counter and then break the law by paying the right price for it.
For all these reasons, the Pisonian conspiracy spread like wildfire when it became known that a few resolute men within the Order of Knights were prepared to seize power and overthrow Nero, as soon as they could decide how the power would be shared and who should replace the Emperor. The economic crisis made the conspiracy seem Rome’s only salvation and everyone rushed to join it. Even Nero’s closest friends thought it safe to give their support to it, since it seemed evident that the conspiracy would succeed as discontent was rife both in Rome and in the provinces and there was more than enough money to pay the bonuses to the Praetorians.
Fenius Rufus, who was still in charge of the grain stores in addition to holding his Prefect’s office since no other honest man could be found, unhesitatingly joined the conspiracy. Due to the artificial lowering of the price of corn, he had suffered great losses and was deeply in debt. Nero refused to consider the State’s making up the difference between the true price of grain and its forced price. Nor would the growers in Egypt and Africa sell their grain at this price, but either stored it or did not even sow their fields.
Apart from Rufus, the Praetorian tribunes and the centurions were quite openly involved in the conspiracy, the Praetorians naturally being bitter that their pay was in the new coinage and with no increase. The conspirators were so certain they would succeed that they sought to keep the whole enterprise inside Rome, save for a few strategically important Italian cities. They therefore refused help from powerful men in the provinces and in this way offended many important people.
In my view, their greatest fault lay in that they thought they did not need the support of the legions, which they could have got quite easily in Germany and Britain. Corbulo in the East would hardly have become involved in it since he was completely absorbed by his Parthian war, and was also quite without political ambitions. I think he was one of the few people who never even heard the rumors about the plan.
As I had put my affairs in order, perhaps I did not think sufficiently about the needs of the people. On my part I was seized with a kind of spring enchantment. I was thirty-five years old, past bothering with immature girls except possibly as a passing pleasure, but at an age when a man is ripe for true passion and wishes for an experienced Woman of equal birth as a companion.
I still find it difficult to write openly about these things. Perhaps it will suffice to say that, avoiding any unnecessary publicity, I began to visit Antonia’s house quite often. We had so much to talk to each other about that sometimes I could not leave her handsome house on Palatine until dawn. She was a daughter of Claudius and thus had some of Marcus Antonius’ tainted blood in her. And she was an Aelius on her mother’s side as well. Her mother was the adoptive sister of Sejanus. That should be sufficient explanation for anyone who knows.
Your mother was also Claudius’ daughter, and I must admit that after bearing you and after her former hard life, she had calmed down considerably. She no longer shared my bed. Indeed, I seemed to suffer from a kind of deficiency disease in this respect until my friendship with Antonia cured me.
It was at dawn one spring morning, when the birds had just begun to sing and the flowers were fragrant in Antonia’s beautiful garden, from which all traces of the fire had now been erased by new bushes and whole trees, that I first heard about Piso’s conspiracy from Antonia. Exhausted from the joy and friendship, I was standing hand in hand with her, leaning against one of the slender pillars in her summer house, unable to drag myself away from her, although we had begun to say farewell to each other at least two hours earlier.
“Minutus, my dearest,” she said. Perhaps I am wrong to repeat her confession word for word, but on the other hand I have written things in connection with Sabina which might make an ignoramus doubt my manhood. “Oh, my dearest,” she said then. “No man has ever been so tender and good to me and known how to take me in his arms so wonderfully as you have. So I know I shall love you now, always and eternally. I should like us to meet after death as shades in the Elysian fields.”
“Why do you talk of Elysium?” I asked, thrusting out my chest. ‘We are happy now. Indeed I am happier than I have ever been before. Don’t let us think of Charon, although I’m willing to have a gold piece put in my mouth when I die to pay him in a way which is worthy of you.”
She squeezed my hand in her slim fingers.
“Minutus,” she said, “I can no longer hide anything from you, nor do I want to. And I do not know which of us is nearer to death, you or I. Nero’s time is running out. I should not want you to fall with him.”
I was dumbfounded. Then Antonia related in swift whispers all that she knew about the conspiracy and its leaders. She admitted that she had promised, when the moment was ripe and Nero was dead, as Claudius’ daughter, to go with the new Emperor to the Praetorian camp and put in a good word for him with the veterans. Naturally a gift of money would convince them even more than a few modest words from the noblest lady in Rome.
“In fact I fear not so much for my own life as for yours, my dearest,” said Antonia. “You are known as one of Nero’s friends and you have done little to make useful connections for the future. For understandable reasons, the people will demand blood when Nero is dead. And public security will demand a certain amount of bloodshed to strengthen law and order. I shouldn’t want you to lose your dear head or a crowd to trample you to death in the forum according to the secret instructions which must be given to the people when we go to the Praetorian camp.”
When I remained dumb, my head spinning and my knees weak, Antonia grew impatient and stamped her lovely foot.
“Don’t you see?” she said. “The conspiracy is so widespread and discontent so general that the plan can be put into action any day now. Every sensible man is trying to join for his own advantage. It is sheer bluff that they are still pretending to discuss how, where and when Nero could best be murdered. That can be done anytime. Several of his best friends are with us and have taken the oath. Of your own friends I shall name only Senecio, Petronius and Lucanus. The fleet in Misenum is with us. Epicharis, whom you must know from hearsay, has seduced Volucius Proculus, just as Octavia in her time tried to seduce Anicetus.”
“I know Proculus,” I said shortly.
“Of course you do,” said Antonia with sudden insight. “He was involved in my stepmother’s murder. Don’t worry, dearest. I had no feelings for Agrippina. On the contrary, she treated me even more badly, if that is possible, than Britannicus and Octavia. It was only from a sense of propriety that I did not want to take part in the thank-offerings after her death. You mustn’t be afraid of that old story. I suggest that you join the conspiracy as soon as possible and save your life. If you delay too long, then I cannot help you.”
To tell the truth, my first thought was of course to rush straight to Nero and tell him of the danger threatening him. Then I would be certain of his favor for the rest of my life. However, Antonia was sufficiently experienced to be able to read the hesitation in my face. She stroked the tips of her fingers along my lips, and, with her head on one side and her gown slipping from her firm bosom, she spoke again.
“But you can’t betray me, Minutus, can you?” she said. “No, that would be impossible when we love each other so completely. We were born for each other, as you’ve said so often in the intoxication of the moment.”
“Of course not,” I hurried to assure her. “That would never occur to me.” She had to laugh and then shrugged her shoulders as I went on irritably: “What was that you said about bluff?”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought a great deal about the whole thing,” said Antonia. “The most important thing for me, as for the other conspirators, is not the actual murder of Nero but who shall be helped into power after his death. That’s what the conspirators are trying to settle night after night. Everyone has his own ideas on the subject.”
“Gaius Piso,” I said critically. “I don’t really understand why he of all people should be the leader. True, he is a senator and a Calpurnian and is handsome. But I don’t understand what you see in him, Antonia dear, to such an extent that you’d risk your life for a man like him to go with him to the Praetorian camp.”
To be strictly accurate, I felt a stab of jealousy deep inside me. I knew Antonia and also knew that she was not so temperate as one might believe from her posture and dignified appearance. She was considerably more experienced than I was in all things, although I thought I knew a good deal. So I watched her expression carefully. She enjoyed my jealousy, burst out laughing and gave me a light slap on the cheek.
“Oh, Minutus, what on earth are you thinking about me?” she said. “I’d never creep into the bed of a man like Piso just for my own benefit, you must know me well enough to know that. I choose for myself whom I shall love and have always done so. And it’s not Piso in particular I’ve tied myself to. He’s a kind of screen for the time being. He’s stupid enough that he doesn’t suspect that the others are already intriguing behind his back. In fact the question of the use of substituting a comedian for a cittern-player has already been put. Piso has appeared in public in the theater and thus damaged his reputation just as Nero has. There are others who want to bring the republic back again and give all the power to the Senate. That insane idea would soon throw the country into civil war. I am telling you this so that you will understand what conflicting interests are involved and why Nero’s murder must be postponed. I myself have said that nothing will persuade me to go to the Praetorians for the sake of the Senate. That would not befit the daughter of an Emperor.”
She looked at me thoughtfully and read my thoughts.
“I know what you are thinking,” she said. “But I can assure you that for political reasons it is too early even to think of your son Claudius Antonianus. He is but an infant and Claudia’s reputation is so doubtful that I do not think your son can be considered until he has the man-toga and Claudia is dead. Then it would be easier for me to acknowledge him as my nephew. But if you yourself were to find a place in Piso’s conspiracy, then you’d be able to improve your own position and create a political career for yourself to help Claudius Antonianus while he is still a minor. We’d be wisest to let Claudia live and look after the boy’s upbringing for the time being, don’t you think, my dearest? It would be much too obvious if I adopted him as soon as Nero was dead or he became my son in some other way.”
For the first time Antonia implied that despite my poor reputation and my low origins, she would be willing to marry me one day. I had not even dared think about such an honor, even in our most intimate moments. I noticed that I flushed and was even less able to speak than I had been when she had begun to talk about the conspiracy. Antonia looked at me smilingly, stood on her toes and kissed me on my lips as she let her soft silky hair brush my throat.
“I’ve told you I love you, Minutus,” she whispered in my ear. “I love you more than anything for your diffidence and the way you underestimate your own worth. You are a man, a wonderful man and the kind of man from whom a wise woman expects the highest.”
This struck me as ambiguous and not as flattering to me as Antonia perhaps thought. But it was true. Both Sabina and Claudia had treated me in such a way that I had always given way to their wills for the sake of peace. I thought Antonia conducted herself more worthily. I do not know how it came about that we once again went indoors to bid each other farewell.
It was daylight and the garden slaves were already at work when I finally staggered to my sedan, my head whirling and my knees shaking, wondering whether I could stand so much love for fifteen years until you received your man-toga.
In any case, I was now deeply involved in the Pisonian conspiracy and had sworn with a thousand kisses to do my best to acquire a position in which I could do my best for Antonia. I think I even promised to murder Nero myself if necessary. But Antonia did not think it necessary for me to risk my valuable head. She explained pedantically that it would not be suitable for a future Emperor’s father personally to take part in the murder of an Emperor. It was a bad precedent and might be fateful for you one day, my son.
I was probably happier that hot spring than I had ever been before in my life. I was well, strong, and by Roman standards relatively uncor-rupted, and I could enjoy my passion to the full. It was also as if everything I undertook succeeded and bore rich harvests, as happens only once in a man’s life. I lived in a dream and the only thing that disturbed me was Claudia’s insistent curiosity about where I was going and from where I had come. I did not like always lying to her, especially as women are often instinctively perceptive in these matters.
I got in touch with Fenius Rufus at first, for I had befriended him in connection with my grain deals. One could call our friendship a golden mutual society. Hesitantly, he revealed that he was bound to the Pisonian conspiracy and listed the names of the Praetorians, tribunes and centurions who had sworn an oath to obey him and him alone after Nero had been disposed of.
Rufus was obviously relieved to notice that I had found out about the conspiracy on my own. He apologized several times and assured me that he had been bound by his oath not to tell me before. He promised to put a word in for me with Piso and the other leaders of the conspiracy. It was not Rufus’ fault that the arrogant Piso and other Calpurnians treated me with superiority. I should have been offended had I been more sensitive.
They did not even bother about the money I offered to put at the disposal of the conspiracy, but said that they already had enough. Neither did they fear I would denounce them, so certain were they of victory. Indeed, Piso himself said in his insolent way that he knew me and my reputation sufficiently well to guess that I was going to keep quiet to save my own skin. My friendship with Petronius and young Lucanus helped a little, and I was allowed to take the oath and meet Epicharis, that secretive Roman woman whose influence and part in the conspiracy I did not then fully realize.
When I had gone so far, one day to my surprise, Claudia brought the matter up. In a roundabout and involved way she questioned me until she at least realized that I was not going to run straight to Nero to report what she had to say. She was both relieved and surprised when
I smiled pityingly and told her that I had long since taken an oath to overthrow the tyrant for the sake of the freedom of the fatherland.
“I can’t imagine why they took a man like you,” said Claudia. “They had better act quickly or their plans will be known everywhere. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard. I’d never have believed it, even of you. Are you really prepared to betray Nero just like that, when he’s done so much for you and regards you as his friend?”
Retaining my dignity, I remarked gendy that it had been Nero’s own conduct that had made me think of the common good rather than of a friendship which had injured me in many ways. Personally I had not suffered much from the monetary reforms, thanks to my own watchfulness. But the weeping of widows and orphans echoed in my ears, and when I thought of the miseries of the country people and the small craftsmen I was prepared to sacrifice my honor if necessary on the altar of the fatherland, for the good of all the Roman people.
I had kept my opinions from Claudia because I had been afraid that she would try to stop my fearlessly risking my life for freedom. Now I hoped that she would at last understand that I had kept silent about my activities to avoid dragging her into these dangerous conspiracies.
Claudia was still suspicious, for she knew me well. But she had to admit I had done the right thing. After hesitating for a long time, she herself had thought of persuading me, if necessary even of forcing me, to join the conspiracy for the sake of my own and your future.
“You must have noticed that I have not bothered you with the Christians for a long time,” said Claudia. “There is no longer any reason why they should be allowed to meet secretly in our house. They have their own safe places, so it is not necessary to expose my son Clement to that danger, even if I myself am not afraid to admit I am a Christian. And the Christians have shown themselves to be weak and indecisive. To get rid of Nero would be to their advantage and would at the same time be a kind of Christian vengeance for his evil deeds. But just imagine, they won’t have anything to do with the conspiracy, although it looks as if it could not fail. I don’t understand them any longer. They just say one must not kill and that revenge is not theirs.”
“Good god of Hercules,” I said in astonishment. “Are you mad? Only a woman would take it into her head to involve the Christians in something in which there are already too many contributors. No one would want them in anyhow, I can assure you. That would force the new Emperor to promise them privileges beforehand. The independent position of the Jews is more than enough already.”
“One can always ask,” snapped Claudia. “It would do no harm. But they say that they have never become involved in politics before and are thinking of obeying the legal ruler in the future, whoever he is. They have their own kingdom which will come, but I’m beginning to tire of waiting for it. As a daughter of Claudius and the mother of my son, I must think a little about the earthly powers too. I think Cephas is cowardly, always going on about obedience and keeping out of State affairs. The invisible kingdom is a fine and good thing. But since becoming a mother, I have become remote from it and feel more like a Roman than a Christian. These confusing circumstances offer us the best possible chance to change the world, now that everyone wants nothing but peace and order.”
“What do you mean by changing the world?” I asked distrustfully. “Are you bravely prepared to hurl thousands, perhaps millions of people into starvation, misery and violent death just to create a favorable political climate for your son until he receives his toga?”
“The republic and freedom are values for which many brave men have been prepared to sacrifice their lives,” said Claudia. “My father Claudius often spoke with great respect of the republic and had been prepared to bring it back if only it had been possible. He said so many a time in his long speeches in the Curia when he complained of the heavy burden of an absolute ruler.”
“You yourself have many a time said that your father was a crazy, unjust and cruel old man,” I said angrily. “Remember the first time we met, when you spat on his statue in the library? To reinstate the republic is an impossible idea. It hasn’t enough support. The question is only who shall be Emperor. Piso thinks I’m much too insignificant and no doubt you think so too. Whom had you thought of?”
Claudia stared thoughtfully at me.
“What do you say to Seneca?” she said, with feigned innocence.
At first the idea dumbfounded me.
“What good would it do to exchange a cittern-player for a philosopher?” I asked. But when I thought about it further, I realized that it was a clever suggestion. Both the people and the provinces agreed that Nero’s first five years, when Seneca had ruled, were the happiest Rome had ever known. It still stands out as a golden time, now when we have to pay taxes even to sit in public privies.
Seneca was immensely rich-three hundred million sesterces was most people’s guess. I thought I knew better. And best of all, Seneca was already sixty years old. Thanks to his Stoic way of life, he would easily live for another fifteen years. Even if he did live out in the country, keeping away from the Senate for health reasons and but seldom visiting the city, all this was nothing but a pretext to calm Nero.
In fact the diet he had had to keep to because of his stomach complaint had done him good. He had grown thinner and become more energetic, no longer panting as he walked, nor did he have those fat pendulous cheeks, so unsuited to a philosopher, any longer. He might rule well, persecuting no one, and as an experienced businessman could put Rome’s economic life back on its feet and fill the State treasury instead of wasting it. When his time came, he might even voluntarily hand over power to some youth who had been brought up in his own spirit.
Seneca’s mild disposition and love of mankind did not differ greatly from the Christian teaching. In a work on natural history he had just completed, he had implied that there are secret forces hidden in nature and the universe which are above human understanding so that the lasting and the visible are really like a thin veil hiding something invisible.
When I had got so far with my thoughts, I suddenly clapped my hands together in surprise.
“Claudia!” I cried. “You’re a political genius and I apologize for my unpleasant words.”
Naturally I did not tell her that by suggesting Seneca and then supporting him, I could then acquire the key position I needed in the conspiracy. Later I could be sure of Seneca’s gratitude and I was in some ways one of his old pupils, and also in Corinth I had been tribune under his brother and enjoyed his complete confidence in secret affairs of State. Seneca’s cousin, young Lucan, had been one of my best friends ever since I had praised his poems. I am no poet myself.
We talked about this together in the greatest harmony, Claudia and I. We both found more and more good points to our case and became more and more delighted with it as we drank some wine together. Claudia fetched the wine quite of her own accord and did not reprove me for drinking deeply in my excitement. Finally we went to bed and for the first time in a long while I fulfilled my marital duties toward her, to calm finally any suspicions she might have.
When I awoke later at her side, my head hot with enthusiasm and wine, I thought almost with sorrow how I should one day have to free myself of your mother for your sake. An ordinary divorce would not do for Antonia. Claudia would have to die. But there were ten or fifteen years until then, and much could happen. Many spring floods would flow beneath the bridges of the Tiber, I said to myself consolingly. There were epidemics, plagues, unexpected accidents and above all the Parcae guiding the fates of mankind. I had no need to grieve beforehand for the inevitable and how it would happen.
Claudia’s plan was so self-evident and excellent that I did not consider it necessary to tell Antonia about it. We were forced to meet seldom and in secret so that there would be no malicious talk which might arouse the suspicions of Nero who, of course, had to keep an eye on Antonia.
I went to see Seneca at once on the pretext that I had business to see to in Praeneste and was simply making a courtesy visit on my way. For safety’s sake I arranged to have something to do in Praeneste.
Seneca received me in a most friendly manner. I could see he was living a luxurious and comfortable life in the country with his wife, who was half his age. At first he muttered about the pains of old age and so on, but when he realized I really had an errand to carry out, the old fox took me to a distant summerhouse where he retreated from the world to dictate his books to a scribe and to lead the life of an ascetic.
As evidence of this and of other things too, he showed me a stream from which he could scoop running drinking water with his cupped hand, and some fruit trees from which he could choose what he ate, and he also told me how his wife Paulina had learned to grind their corn with a handmill and make his bread herself. I recognized these signs and realized he lived in constant fear of being poisoned. In his need for money, Nero might be tempted by his old tutor’s property and even find it politically necessary to rid himself of him. Seneca still had many friends who respected him as a philosopher and a statesman, but for safety’s sake he seldom received guests.
I came straight to the point and asked whether Seneca would be willing to receive the Imperial office after Nero and bring peace and order back to the country. He need not be involved in Nero’s death. All he need do was be present in the city on a certain day, prepared to go to the Praetorians with his money bags ready. I had reckoned that thirty million sesterces would be enough, if every man, for instance, received two thousand and tribunes and centurions in equivalent grades more according to rank and position.
Fenius Rufus did not want any payment. All he asked was that the State should compensate him later for the losses he had suffered in the grain trade through Nero’s caprices. In that case, it would be enough that his debts were paid within a reasonable time. I hurriedly added that I should be prepared to raise some of the money if Seneca did not wish to provide the entire sum for financial reasons.
Seneca straightened up and looked at me with frighteningly cold eyes containing not an iota of love of mankind.
“I know you inside out, Minutus,” he said. “So my first thought was that Nero had sent you here to test my loyalty in some cunning manner, since you are the most suitable of all his friends for that purpose. But you obviously know much too much about the conspiracy since you can repeat so many names. If you were an informer, then several heads would already have rolled. I am not asking you for your motives, but only who has given you the authority to turn to me.”
I told him that no one had done so. Indeed, this was completely my own idea, for I regarded him as the best and noblest man to rule over Rome and thought I could find widespread support for him among the conspirators if I received his approval to it. Seneca calmed down a little.
“Don’t think you are the first to turn to me in this matter,” he said. “Piso’s nearest man, Antonius Natalis, whom you know, was here quite recently to inquire after my poor health and why I refused so definitely to receive Piso and deal with him openly. But I have no reason to support a man like Piso. So I replied that middlemen are evil and personal contact less suitable, but that my own life after this would be dependent on Piso’s safety. And so it is. If the conspiracy is exposed, from which may the inexplicable God protect us all, then a careless visit to me would alone be enough to doom me to destruction.
“The murder of Nero is more than just contemplated,” he went on thoughtfully. “Piso would find his best opportunity at his villa in Baiae. Nero often visits it without a guard, to bathe and amuse himself. But Piso says hypocritically that he cannot violate the sanctity of a meal and the rules of hospitality by murdering a guest, as if a man like Piso ever worshiped any gods. In fact Nero’s murder would give offense in many quarters. Lucius Silanus, for instance, has wisely refused to approve such a fearful crime as murdering the Emperor. Piso himself has passed over Consul Atticus Vestinus because Vestinus is an industrious man who might really try to reinstate the republic. As Consul he would have good opportunities to take over power after a murder.”
I realized that Seneca knew more about the conspiracy than I did, and that as an experienced statesman he had carefully weighed the situation. So I apologized to him for having disturbed him, however well-meaningly, and I assured him that in any case he need not worry where I was concerned. I had business to do in Praeneste and it was only natural for an old pupil to make a diversion to inquire after his former tutor’s health.
I was given the impression that Seneca was not pleased when I referred to myself as a former pupil. But he looked at me with compassion when he spoke again.
“I shall say to you,” he said, “the same as I tried to teach Nero. One can hide one’s real characteristics for a while with dissimulation and servility. But in the end the act is always exposed and the sheepskin falls from the wolf. Nero has wolf blood in his veins, however much of an actor he is. So have you, Minutus, but of a more cowardly wolf.”
I did not know whether to feel proud or offended by his words. I asked in passing whether he believed that Antonia was involved in the conspiracy and was supporting Piso. Seneca shook his rumpled head warningly.
“If I were you,” he said, “I should never trust Aelia Antonia in anything. The name alone is frightening. In her is united the tainted blood of two ancient and dangerous families. I know things about her youth of which I do not wish to speak. I am simply warning you. In the name of all the gods, don’t let her join the conspiracy. You are mad if you do. She is more ambitious for power than Agrippina, who did have her good sides despite what she did.”
Seneca’s warning struck me, but I was dazzled by love and thought he was speaking from envy. A statesman who has been prematurely thrust to one side is usually bitter toward everyone. As a philosopher too, Seneca might be considered a disappointed man. In his heyday he had not been at all as prominent as he had led people to believe. I thought he was the right man to talk of dissimulation, for he himself was master of this.
As we parted, Seneca admitted that he did not believe his chances were great if a coup came about, but he was prepared to arrive in Rome on a certain day to be present and if necessary give his support to Piso, for he was sure that Piso in his vanity and extravagance would soon make things impossible. Perhaps then the time would be favorable for Seneca.
“I live in daily danger of my life anyhow,” he said with a bitter smile, “so have nothing to lose by showing myself. If Piso gains power, then I’ve shown my support for him. If the conspiracy is exposed, a frightening prospect, then I shall die all the same. But the wise man does not fear death. It is the debt which mankind has to pay some day. It is not very important whether it happens now or later.”
For me this was what was important. So I went to Praeneste in a downhearted mood, pondering his ill-omened words. I thought I had better take some precautions in case the conspiracy was exposed. A wise man does not put all his eggs in one basket.
I still think that the rebellion should have been started in the provinces with the support of the legions, and not in Rome. It would of course have led to bloodshed, but that is what soldiers are paid for, and in Rome no one would have been in any danger. But vanity, selfishness and ambition are always stronger than good sense.
The landslide began in Misenum. Proculus did not seem to have been sufficiently rewarded for his services in connection with the murder of Agrippina. In fact he was incompetent as a fleet commantler as well, however little this demands of a man. Anicetus was only an ex-hairdresser but he still managed to keep the fleet seaworthy with the help of his experienced captains.
Proculus relied on his own judgment and, against all good advice, sent the fleet to sea. About a score of ships were driven onto the rocks at a point near Misenum and were sunk with all hands. Crews can always be replaced but warships are extremely expensive toys.
Nero was understandably furious, although Proculus could point to his orders. Nero asked whether Proculus was prepared to jump in the sea on his orders, and Proculus admitted that he would be forced to weigh such an order, for he could not swim. Nero remarked bitingly that it would be best if he weighed other orders in the same way, for nature’s orders at sea were better even than Nero’s. Nero could easily find another commantler, but to build twenty new warships would be too expensive. He would postpone the matter until after the completion of the Golden Palace.
This naturally offended Proculus deeply so that he fell for Epicharis’ enchantments. Epicharis was a very beautiful woman and well schooled in the art of love. As far as I know she had practiced no other art before she was brought into the conspiracy. Many people were surprised at her unexpected political enthusiasm when she bitingly exhorted the conspirators to act swiftly.
But I think that Nero had once offended Epicharis when he had wished to try her skill and afterwards had in his thoughtless way disparaged it. This Epicharis could not forgive and she had been brooding on her revenge ever since.
Epicharis grew tired of all the excuses for delaying matters in Rome and demantled that Proculus should mobilize his ships and sail to Ostia. Proculus had a better idea. Epicharis, a careful woman, had not told him the names of all the conspirators so that he did not know how widespread the conspiracy was. So he chose between the certain and the uncertain when he thought the first informer would be the best rewarded.
He hurried to Nero in Rome to tell him what he knew. Nero, in his vanity and conviction of his own popularity, did not at first take much notice, especially as the information was indefinite. Naturally he had Epicharis arrested and handed over to Tigellinus to be questioned under torture. This was an art of which Tigellinus was a complete master when it came to a beautiful woman. Since he had become bisexual he had borne a grudge against women and enjoyed seeing them tortured.
But Epicharis held out, denying everything and maintaining that Proculus was talking nothing but nonsense. And she told the Praetorians so much about Tigellinus’ unnatural leanings that Tigellinus lost interest in the interrogation and let the matter drop. But Epicharis had been so ill-treated by then, she could no longer walk.
The conspirators moved quickly when they heard that Epicharis had been arrested. The whole city was terror-stricken, for a large number of people were involved and feared for their lives. A centurion who had been bribed by Piso tried to murder Epicharis in the prison, for the conspirators did not trust a woman to hold her tongue. The prison guards stopped him, for Epicharis had roused considerable sympathy among the Praetorians with her extraordinary stories of Tigellinus’ private life.
The April feast of Ceres was to be celebrated the following day and races were to be held in the half-finished circus in honor of the Earth Goddess. The conspirators thought that that was the best place to set their plan into action. Nero had so much room to move about in the Golden Palace with its huge gardens, that he no longer showed himself about the city.
It was hurriedly decided that the conspirators should place themselves as near Nero as possible at the great circus. Lateranus, a fearless giant of a man, would at a suitable moment throw himself at Nero’s feet as if to ask a favor, and thus pull him down. When Nero was on the ground, the tribunes and centurions among the conspirators and any others who were courageous enough were to pretend to hurry to his assistance and then stab him to death.
Flavius Scevinus asked to be allowed to give Nero the first blow. For him, related as he was to the City Prefect, my ex-father-in-law, it was easy to get close to Nero. He was considered so effeminate and profligate that not even Nero would think ill of him. In fact he was a little mad and often suffered from hallucinations. I do not wish to speak ill of the Flavians here, but Flavius Scevinus thought that he had found one of Fortuna’s own daggers in some ancient temple, and he always carried it on him. His visions told him that the dagger was a sign that he had been selected for great deeds. He had no doubt whatsoever of his good fortune when he volunteered to give the first stab.
Piso was to wait by the Ceres temple. Fenius Rufus and other conspirators would fetch him from there and go with him to the Praetorians together with Antonia. Not even Tigellinus was expected to offer resistance if Nero were dead, for he was a wise and farsighted man. The conspirators had in fact decided to execute him as soon as they had seized power to please the people, but then Tigellinus could not know that beforehand.
The plan had been skillfully laid and was a good one in every way. Its only failing was that it went awry.
Book XII
The Informer
On the evening before the feast of Ceres, after close consultation with Antonius Natalis, and after the rest of us had already left Piso’s house, Flavius Scevinus went home and gloomily began to dictate his will. As he dictated, he drew his famous lucky dagger from its sheath and noticed that the battered weapon was much too blunt from sheer age. He gave it to his freedman Milichus to sharpen and told him with frighten-ingly confused words and large gestures to keep quiet about the matter, thus arousing Milichus’ suspicions.
Scevinus, against his usual habit, then ordered a festive meal for his entire household, during which he freed several of his slaves, weeping gently with artificial gaiety, and distributed gifts of money to the others. After the meal he broke down and in tears asked Milichus to prepare bandages and medicine to stem the flow of blood. This finally convinced Milichus that something evil was afoot. Perhaps he had already heard mention of the conspiracy, for who had not?
For safety’s sake he asked his wife’s advice. Like a sensible woman, she convinced him that the first to come to the mill is the first to have his corn ground. This was a matter of his own life. Several other freedmen and slaves had heard and seen the same as he had, so there was no point in keeping silent. Indeed, Milichus had every reason to hasten to be the first informer. At that moment it was not necessary to think of his conscience, his master’s life and his debt of gratitude for his freedom. The rich reward to come would gradually extinguish all such thoughts.
Milichus found it difficult to leave the house, for Scevinus could not go to sleep, however much he had drunk. Scevinus’ wife, Atria Gallia, famed for her beauty, divorces and frivolous life, and inflamed by the festive meal, also made demands on Milichus which Milichus’ wife was forced to overlook, and with which Scevinus for private reasons felt he could not interfere. I imagine that this was an important factor in the advice Milichus’ wife gave her husband. I have pointed this out to excuse her.
Not until dawn did Milichus have time to go to Servilius’ gardens with the dagger of Fortuna hidden under his cloak as material evidence. But the guards naturally did not even let this freed slave in and least of all were they going to allow him to meet Nero early in the morning before the feast of Ceres. At that moment Epaphroditus happened to arrive at the Palace with a couple of leopard cubs which he had orders to deliver to Nero in good time. Nero was to present them to Consul Vestinus’ wife, Statilia Messalina, to whom he happened to be paying court, so that during the races she would be able to parade these beautiful pets in the Consuls’ box. Epaphroditus noticed the argument at the gate and hurried over to calm the guards, who were beating Milichus with the shafts of their lances to make him be quiet, for when he had not been let in, Milichus had desperately begun to call to Nero at the top of his voice.
I wonder whether Fortuna has ever before or since shown me her face more clearly. I was allowed to see more clearly than ever that magnanimity and generosity can be rewarded in this life. Epaphroditus recognized Milichus as the freedman of Flavius Scevinus, who was a relative of his wife Sabina’s, and so he helped him. When Milichus had related his errand, Epaphroditus at once understood the significance of what he had heard. Remembering his debt of gratitude to me, he at once sent the slave who had been leading the leopards to tell me what was going on. After he had done that, he had Nero awakened and took the leopard cubs and Milichus straight to Nero’s enormous bed.
Epaphroditus’ slave woke me from my deepest sleep and his message soon brought me to my feet. I threw a cloak over myself, and unshaven and without food, ran back to Servilius’ gardens with him.
The running left me so out of breath that I firmly decided to take up physical cxcrcises at the stadium again and to begin to ride regularly, should my life by some lucky chance be spared. As I ran, I was also forced to evaluate the whole situation rapidly and think out which people it would be most advantageous for me to denounce.
When I arrived at the Palace, Nero was still in a bad temper over his sudden awakening, although he should have been up already because of the feast of Ceres. Yawning, he played with the leopard cubs in his great silken bed and in his vanity refused at first to believe the stammering freedman’s despairing explanations. Nevertheless he had had a message sent to Tigellinus asking to speak to Epicharis again, and the Praetorians were on their way to arrest Flavius Scevinus and bring him before Nero to explain his suspicious behavior. After chattering about the will and the bandages, Milichus remembered that his wife had exhorted him to tell of their master’s long conversation with Piso’s confidant, Natalis. But Nero waved his hand impatiently. “Natalis can come and explain the matter himself,” he said. “But I must start dressing soon for the Ceres feast.”
Despite his apparent indifference, he felt the tip of the bronze ver-digrised dagger with his thumb and probably experienced in his lively imagination what it would feel like to have it suddenly plunged into his muscular chest. So he was more benevolent toward me when I arrived, panting and wiping the sweat from my forehead, to explain that I had something so important to tell him that it could not brook a moment’s delay.
I swiftly told him of the conspirators’ plan to murder him and unhesitatingly named Piso and his collaborator Lateranus as the leaders. Nothing could save them any longer anyhow. All the time, I was standing as if on red hot ambers at the thought of what Epicharis would say to escape further torture, now that the conspiracy was exposed anyhow.
The leopard cubs gave me the fortunate idea of denouncing Consul Vestinus, with the thought of Nero’s interest in Vestinus’ wife in mind. Actually we had not bothered to take Vestinus into the conspiracy at all because of his republican views. At this Nero grew serious. That a serving Consul should be involved in a conspiracy and a murder plot was serious enough. He began to chew his lips and his chin began to tremble like a sorrowing child’s, so certain had he been of his popularity among the people.
On the whole I denounced members of the Senate from preference, for it was my filial duty to avenge my father’s fate since the Senate had unanimously, without even voting on it, condemned him to death, and as a result my own son Jucundus had also lost his life to the wild animals. Clearly I owed the senators nothing. And for my own plans it would be best that a few places in the Senate should be vacant.
After listing a few names, I made a swift decision and denounced Seneca as well. He himself had openly admitted that his life depended on Piso’s safety, so nothing could have saved him either. It was counted to my credit that I was the first to inform on such a powerful man. Naturally I did not mention my visit to Seneca’s house.
At first Nero seemed unwilling to believe me. Nevertheless he skillfully registered horror and astonishment at such cruel treachery on the part of his old tutor, who had only Nero to thank for his great wealth and his success in office. Seneca had left his position in the government of his own accord and thus had no reason to bear Nero a grudge. Nero even wept a few tears and flung the leopards to the floor as he despairingly asked why he was so hated despite doing everything he could for the people and the Senate of Rome, sacrificing his own comfort to carry the heavy burden of Imperial duties.
“Why didn’t they say something to me?” he complained. “I’ve said innumerable times that I should prefer to be relieved of power, since I can support myself as an artist anywhere in the world. Why do they hate me so?”
It would have been both pointless and dangerous to begin to explain to him. Fortunately Tigellinus and Flavius Scevinus arrived at that moment and it was announced that Epicharis was waiting in her sedan in the garden.
Nero thought it wisest to pretend at first to be ignorant of the true scope of the conspiracy. He wished to question Flavius Scevinus and Milichus in each other’s presence. He asked me to leave and I was glad to go, for in that way I was given an opportunity to warn Epicharis and agree on whom else to denounce. As I left, I noticed that Nero called in his German guards with a malicious glance at Tigellinus.
The memory of Sejanus’ conspiracy against Tiberius still remains and since then no Emperor has relied blindly on the Praetorian Prefect. So there are usually two of them, to keep an eye on each other. Nero had restored this security measure when he had recently appointed Fenius Rufus as Tigellinus’ colleague, but he had chosen the wrong person. However, I had no thought of denouncing Fenius Rufus, who was my friend. Indeed, I decided to do all I could to keep his name from being dragged in by mistake. I wanted to talk to Epicharis about this, too.
Her sedan was standing on the ground with the curtains carefully drawn and the slaves resting on the grass, but both the guards refused to let me see the prisoner. Nero’s new coins, however, served a purpose. The guards withdrew and I drew back the curtain.
“Epicharis,” I whispered. “I am your friend. I’ve something important to tell you.”
But Epicharis did not reply. Then I saw that during her journey she had loosened her bloodstained bandage, which some kindly guard had given her, tied a noose around her neck and fastened the other end to a crossbar on the sedan. Thus with the help of her own weight, and weakened by torture, she had managed to strangle herself, no doubt because she feared that she would be unable to endure yet another interrogation. When I had made certain she was dead, I cried out to the guards in surprise and showed them what had happened. Inwardly I praised this anything but respectable woman for her nobility. By committing suicide, she had saved herself from informing on her fellow criminals and had given me a free hand.
The guards were naturally frightened of being punished for dieir carelessness. But there was no time for such things. Nero had begun to act and did not want to be bothered with insignificant details. Epicharis’ suicide finally convinced him of the conspiracy and the fleet’s part in it. For my part, I must admit that the sight of Epicharis’ lacerated breasts and limbs made me feel so sick that I vomited on the grass by the sedan, although I had eaten nothing that morning.
Of course this was also because of my sudden fright and equally sudden relief at this noble woman’s courage. With her death, she gave me a key position in the exposure of the conspiracy. Out of sheer gratitude I had her buried at my expense when her former friends, for understandable reasons, could not do so. Indeed, they were soon in need of burial themselves.
As Nero was cleverly questioning Scevinus, the latter regained control of himself, and manfully looking Nero straight in the eye, assured him of his innocence. For a moment Nero vacillated in his suspicions.
“That dagger,” said Scevinus contemptuously, “has always been a sacred hereditary gift in my family and it normally lies about in my bedroom. This wretched slave, who has spat in my bed and now fears his punishment, took it away secretly. I have rewritten my will many times, as every sensible person does when circumstances change. Nor is it the first time I’ve freed slaves, as Milichus himself bears witness. I have also given money away before. Last night I was more generous than usual because I was rather drunk, and because of my debts, I thought my creditors would not approve all the clauses in the old will. So I thought I would change it. The talk about bandages is some sort of crazy invention of Milichus’. I should be accusing him here, not he me. You’ll soon find out why that cursed slave is afraid of me if you question my wife for a while. For the sake of my reputation, I haven’t wished to expose their insult to my marriage bed. If it has come to the point where I, an innocent man, am accused of plotting murder, then it’s time to speak out.”
He made a mistake by talking about his debts. Nero drew the correct conclusion that Scevinus had nothing to lose and everything to gain by the conspiracy if he stood on the verge of bankruptcy. So he questioned Scevinus and Natalis separately on what they had discussed for so long the previous evening. Naturally they had quite different stories to tell, for neither of them had thought of preparing for interrogation.
Tigellinus had them shown the iron collar, the metal claws and other instruments of torture, and did not even have to touch them. Natalis was the first to break down and he knew most of what there was to tell about the conspiracy and hoped to gain something by voluntarily confessing. He denounced his dear Piso and several others, also mentioning his connection with Seneca. I was thankful for my good fortune in having been able to denounce Seneca before him.
When Scevinus heard that Natalis had confessed, he abandoned his vain hopes, revealed his own part, and among others, denounced Sene-cio, Lucanus, Petronius and unfortunately also myself. In this case it was relatively simple for me to say that I had taken part in the meeting of the day before only to acquire definite information about the conspiracy to be able to save the Emperor’s life by pretending to support Piso.
From caution I had not insisted on contributing to the sums collected for the Praetorians, so I could freely inform on those who had put up the thirty million. Nero was pleased to have so easily acquired such an addition to his meager treasury, although later he gathered in a hundred times that sum by confiscating the property of the culprits. Seneca and Pallas alone contributed at least a thousand million sesterces I believe.
For the sake of his reputation, Nero did not wish the people to know how widespread the conspiracy truly was or how bitterly he was hated by the aristocracy, for they might think they had reason for such hatred. And Nero’s private life could not stand up to any closer scrutiny.
To disperse the rumors, he later thought it as well to marry Statilia Messalina, who was, after all, a Julian and thus much more aristocratic than Poppaea. Both she and Nero were very grateful to me when I quite by chance gave Nero an opportunity to be rid of her husband, Consul Vestinus. Nero had long shown an interest in her, but Statilia Messalina had thought she stood no chance against Antonia. The whole city knew that Nero had proposed to Antonia for political reasons, and most reasonable people thought that Antonia would gradually give in, although for reasons of decency she had to reject him at first.
When Nero realized the size of the conspiracy, he at first thought of canceling the whole of the feast of Ceres, but Tigellinus and I persuaded him that it would be unwise. It would be better to occupy the city, and Ostia too because of the fleet, while the people were watching the races. It would be easy to arrest all the senators and knights involved at the circus without attracting attention, before they had time to flee the city and seek shelter with the legions.
Piso must be arrested at once. Dazzled by his own ambitions, he had already gone to wait outside the temple of Ceres with his escort. There he heard of Milichus’ denouncement and about the arrest of Scevinus and Natalis. He hurriedly turned back, although the bravest in his following demantled that he should go to the Praetorian camp at once with his money, or at least speak in the forum and call the people to his aid.
Swift action might even then have tipped the scales of Fortuna in his favor. Fenius Rufus was still at the camp, with Tigellinus temporarily out of the way, and several tribunes and centurions were in on the conspiracy. Even if the soldiers betrayed him and the people abandoned him, he would at least have died honorably in a bold attempt, showing himself worthy of his ancestors and winning a reputation for fighting for freedom and posterity.
But Piso was useless for the task allotted to him, as I have already explained. After a moment’s indecisive hesitation he simply went home. Seeing this, his friends went off in different directions to try to save what was left to save.
Lateranus’ house was the only one in which anyone put up any real resistance. As a result, Lateranus was dragged to the slaves’ execution place despite his rank of Consul. Tribune Statius hacked his head off with such haste that he injured his own hand. But Lateranus was the only conspirator to hold his tongue, not even revealing that Statius himself was involved in the conspiracy. Hence the latter’s haste.
Everyone talked willingly and denounced others before his own death, the poet Lucanus even denouncing his mother, and Junius Gallio, my former friend from Corinth, his own brother Seneca. At the next meeting of the Senate, Gallio was openly accused of fratricide and it was said that he was even more involved than Seneca, but Nero pretended not to hear. Lucanus’s mother was also left in peace, although she had always spoken ill of Nero and called him that shameless cittern-player in order to enhance her son’s reputation as a poet.
It would take far too long to list all the important people who either were executed or commited suicide, although Nero showed leniency by limiting the number of prosecutions. But he was no more than human and it would have been too much to ask that in choosing those to be prosecuted he should not pay attention to earlier affronts and his constant need for money.
The city was full of corpses. Of these brave men I shall mention only Subrius Flavus. When Nero asked him how he had been able to forget his military oath, he replied openly, “You had no more faithful soldier than I as long as you were worthy of my love. I began to hate you when you murdered your mother and your wife and appeared as a charioteer, clown and fire-raiser.”
Understandably angered by such outspokenness, Nero ordered a Negro whom he had promoted to centurion to take Subrius to the nearest field and do what had to be done. The Negro obeyed the order and hurriedly had a grave dug in the field. Flavus saw that the grave was much too shallow and remarked mockingly to the soldiers who were laughing around him, “That black can’t even dig a regulation grave.” The Negro centurion was so frightened by Subrius Flavus’ noble origins that his hand shook when Flavus boldly stretched out his neck, and he only just managed to sever the head from the body with two strokes.
Fenius Rufus survived until quite a late stage, but in the end it began to annoy those being interrogated that he should appear as their judge. He was denounced by so many people that Nero had to believe them, although as prosecutor Fenius Rufus had tried to show sternness in order to escape suspicion himself. On Nero’s orders he was knocked down in the middle of an interrogation and tied up by a powerful soldier. He lost his life like the others, to my great sorrow for we were good friends, and a much more selfish man became superintendent of the State grain stores after him. But he had only his own weakness to thank, since he had had an excellent opportunity to intervene in the course of events.
Seneca had come to the Ceres feast when he heard what had happened and he stayed in a house he owned within the city near the fourth milestone. Nero sent tribune Gavius Silvanus from his own lifeguard to ask Seneca what he had to say in his defense with reference to Natalis’ confession. Silvanus had the house surrounded and stepped indoors just as Seneca and his wife and a couple of friends, in a somewhat tense atmosphere, were about to have a meal.
Seneca calmly went on with his meal, replying as if in passing that Natalis had visited him as an envoy from Piso to complain that he had not replied to any of Piso’s invitations. Seneca had then referred politely to his health; he had no reason to begin supporting someone at his own expense. Silvanus had to be content with that answer.
When Nero asked whether Seneca had made any preparations to end his life voluntarily, Silvanus had to admit that he had not been able to detect any signs of fear in him. Nero was forced to send Silvanus back to Seneca to say that he must die. It was a distasteful order for Nero. For the sake of his own reputation he would have preferred his old tutor to have chosen his own way out.
To show how Nero’s life still stood in the balance, it must be said that Silvanus went straight to Fenius Rufus in the Praetorian camp after receiving this order, told him about it and asked whether it should be obeyed. Silvanus himself was one of the conspirators. Rufus still might have proclaimed Seneca Emperor, bribed the Praetorians and resorted to armed uprising had he considered that he himself, because of his position, was unable to murder Nero.
Afterwards I thought about his various possible courses of action. The Praetorians would hardly have been all that pleased to set up a philosopher on the throne in place of a cittern-player, but they loathed Tigellinus and would probably have assisted in his downfall because of his ruthless discipline. Everyone knew about Seneca’s immense wealth and they would have been able to push up the bribes quite high.
Rufus had yet another reason for supporting Seneca. He was originally of Jewish descent, hailing from Jerusalem, but he had tried to keep his origins secret because of his high office. His father was a freedman, who in his time had been a grain merchant in Cyrene and who, when his son moved to Rome, had used his money to persuade the Fenians to adopt him. Rufus had received an excellent Jewish upbringing and had been successful, thanks to his talents and his business skill.
I do not know why his father, Simon, had wished his son to be a Roman, but I am quite certain that Fenius Rufus was in sympathy with the Christians. My father had once told me that Rufus’ father had had to carry Jesus of Nazareth’s cross to the execution place in Jerusalem, but I did not remember that then. In his confused letters from Jerusalem, I also found Simon of Cyrene’s name mentioned and I guessed that my father had helped Rufus to become adopted and to hide his origins. Perhaps that was also why I had found it so easy to win Rufus’ friendship just when I needed it, when I started dealing in grain.
Seneca on the Imperial throne would have been of such great political advantage to the Christians that it would have been worth relinquishing a few principles to achieve it. For Fenius Rufus it was probably a very different choice, but he was an excellent lawyer and grain merchant and not a soldier. So he could not make that determining decision, but relied on not being exposed. He told Silvanus to obey Nero.
To Silvanus’ honor it must be said that he was ashamed to confront Seneca himself, but sent a centurion with the message. So many edifying things have been written on Seneca’s calmness in the face of death that it is not worth saying much about his death. Anyhow, I do not think it was very pleasant of him to try to frighten his young wife, who still had her life before her, into dying with him.
Of course he consoled her first, according to what his friends said, and made her promise not to go into permanent mourning for him but to lessen her sense of loss by thinking of Seneca’s pursuit of virtue which had been his life. After making her relent, he then in the same breath described his fears for what would happen to her when she fell into the hands of the blood-thirsty Nero. Paulina then said she would prefer to die with her husband.
“I have shown you a way to make your life easier,” said Seneca, “but your yourself prefer an honorable death, and I cannot think that you are choosing wrongly. Let us both show equally great strength in the moment of parting.”
He hurriedly bade the centurion open their veins with a quick slash, so that Paulina would have no time to change her mind.
But Nero had nothing against Paulina. He had expressly ordered her to be spared, for he usually tried to avoid unnecessary cruelty in his sentences for his own reputation’s sake. The centurion was forced to obey Seneca because of his position, but he was careful not to injure Paulina’s tendons or artery when he cut her arm.
Seneca’s body was sufficiently weakened by age and his diet that his blood flowed sluggishly. He did not get into a hot bath as he should have done, but just dictated some corrections to his collected writings to his scribe. When Paulina disturbed him with her weeping, he asked her impatiendy to go into the next room, justifying himself by saying that he did not wish to weaken Paulina’s steadfastness by letting her see how much he was suffering.
In the room next door, on the soldier’s commands, Seneca’s slaves immediately bandaged Paulina’s wrists and stopped the bleeding. Paulina made no objections. So the boundless conceit of an author saved Paulina’s life.
Like many Stoics, Seneca was afraid of physical pain, so he asked his personal physician for some numbing poison such as the Athenians had given Socrates. Perhaps Seneca wished posterity to remember him as an equal to Socrates. When he had finished dictating and the centurion had begun to become impatient, he at last went to his hot bath and then to the household steam bath which was filled with so much steam that he was suffocated. His body was quietly cremated without ceremonies, as he had ordained, making a virtue of a necessity. Nero would never have permitted a public funeral for fear of demonstrations.
Thanks to the centurion, Paulina lived on for many years. She grew as pale as a ghost and it was said that she was secretly converted to Christianity. I am telling you what I have heard. I myself had no desire to get in touch with this grief-stricken widow, and any sensible person will know the reason why. It was not until after her death that I had my freedman’s publishing house take over Seneca’s collected works.
My friend, the author Petronius Arbiter, died, as his reputation demantled, after an excellent banquet for his friends at which he smashed every one of the objets d’art he had collected, so that Nero should not have them. Nero was especially grieved about two incomparable crystal goblets which he had always envied Petronius.
Petronius satisfied his own vanity as an author by putting in his will a careful catalogue of Nero’s vices and the people with whom he had practiced them, to the extent of mentioning all the times, places and names so that no one should suspect him of drawing too much on his imagination. As a writer he perhaps exaggerated to cause more amusement when he later read out his will to his friends as he gradually bled to death. He had himself bandaged up once or twice in order, as he said, to make the most of death as well.
His will he had sent to Nero. I think it was a pity that he would not allow anyone to make a copy of it, but he thought he owed this to Nero for the sake of their old friendship. Petronius was a fine man, the finest I have ever met I think, however crude his stories were.
He could not invite me to his farewell feast, but I was not offended. He had a message sent to me to say that he fully understood my behavior and would probably have done the same himself if he had had the opportunity. On his part, he would have liked to invite me too, but he had guessed that I would not feel at home with certain of his friends. I still have his sensitive letter and will always remember him as a friend.
But why list the downfall or exile of so many acquaintances, noble friends and respected men during that year and the next? It is more agreeable to tell of the rewards which Nero distributed to those who had distinguished themselves in the suppression of the conspiracy. He gave the Praetorians the same sum of two thousand sesterces per man as the conspirators had promised them. He also raised their pay by deciding that from then on they would receive their grain free whereas hitherto they had had to buy it at ordinary market prices. Tigellinus and two others received the right to a triumph, and triumph statues of them were erected in Palatine.
I myself insinuated to Nero that the Senate had become a little thin and that my father’s place still remained empty. There was a great need for a man on the Eastern committee who, like my father, could advise on Jewish affairs and who could mediate between the State and the Jews’ interests in connection with their special position. From Nero’s point of view it would be politically farsighted to appoint senators who had demonstrated their loyalty to him by their actions, for the Senate had in many ways shown itself-to be unreliable and still in sympathy with republicanism.
Nero was astonished and said that he could not yet appoint anyone with such a bad reputation as mine as senator. The Censors would interfere. In addition, after this conspiracy, he had lost his faith in mankind and no longer trusted anyone, not even me.
I spoke energetically for my case and said that in Caere and elsewhere in Italy I owned the property necessary for the rank of senator. At the same time it was also my good fortune that the lawsuit my father had brought in Britain on Jucundus’ behalf, in connection with his inheritance from his mother, was completed after long delays and adjustments in that country. Britons can also inherit on the distaff side, and Lugunda had been of noble birth as well as a hare-priestess.
Lugunda herself, her parents and her brothers had all been killed in the rebellion. Jucundus had been the only heir and also, as the adoptive son of a senator, a trustworthy Roman. The new King of the Icenis had approved his legal claim. In war compensation he had also received, in addition to a great deal of land, some grazing lands in the neighboring country of the Catavelaunias, for they had been involved in the rebellion too and this compensation cost the Iceni king nothing.
He wrote a personal letter to me and asked me in exchange to try to persuade Seneca to lower at least slightly his exorbitant rates of interest which were threatening to cripple the reviving economic life of Britain. I was Jucundus’ legal heir, for my father had adopted Jucundus.
So I used the opportunity to have this inheritance approved by Nero. He would actually have had the right to confiscate it because of my father’s offenses. But now because of the conspiracy, Nero for once had money in such quantities that he had no reason to be difficult. In return I revealed Seneca’s huge investments in Britain and advised Nero to lower the rates of interest to a reasonable level to enhance his own reputation. Nero decided that usury did not befit an Emperor and abolished the payment of interest completely to help Britain on to her feet.
This measure alone raised the value of my British inheritance, for the taxes were also lowered. To my delight I was the first to be able to inform the King of the Icenis of this matter and hence acquired an excellent reputation in Britain and because of this was later elected to the Senate committee for British affairs. On the committee I brought about much which was useful to both the Britons and myself.
To handle my property there, I was forced to summon my cleverest freedmen from Caere and send them to Britain to make the cultivation of the land there profitable in the Roman way and fatten good cattle which could be sold to the legions. Later on, they married respected British women, were extremely successful and ended as governors in Lu-gundanum, the town I had founded in memory of my British wife.
The agriculture and cattle-raising they managed brought in great profits until envious neighbors learned to imitate them. This part of my fortune had nevertheless always done very well indeed, even with my freedmen’s share of the profits deducted. I do not think they cheated me very much, although they both became extremely rich in a very short time. I had trained diem to follow my own example in business. Honesty, within sensible and reasonable limits, is always the best policy compared with shortsighted policies which may bring in immediate profits.
Thus I could declare property in Britain as well as Italy when it came to my appointment as senator. In this way I became a senator, as Claudia wished. And nothing was said against me, other than that I was not of the prescribed age. To this remark the Senate laughed loudly, for there had been so many exceptions to the age-limit rule in the past that die whole matter had lost its significance. In addition, everyone knew what the speaker had wished to bring up against me but did not dare. At Nero’s suggestion, I was more or less unanimously appointed to the high office of senator. I did not bother to remember who had voted against me, for one of them came smiling up to me after the meeting and explained that it is always best for the authority of the Senate that less important suggestions by the Emperor did not receive unanimous support. This I did remember with gratitude.
I have told you so many details of what happened in connection with the Pisonian conspiracy, not to defend myself-for I have no reason to do that-but to postpone for as long as possible what is most painful. You will no doubt guess that I mean Antonia. The tears come to my eyes still, after all these years, when I think of her fate.
Soon after Piso’s suicide, Nero put Antonia’s house on Palatine under guard. He had heard from all too many quarters that Antonia had agreed to follow the usurper to the Praetorian camp. There was even a rumor going around that Piso had promised to divorce his wife and marry Antonia when he became Emperor, but I thought I knew better, as long as Antonia, from love of myself and thought for your future, did not eventually consider such a marriage necessary for political reasons.
I was allowed only one more night with Antonia. That night cost me a million sesterces, the price of the guards’ fear of Nero and Tigellinus. But I was more than glad to give this sum of money. What does money mean against love and passion? I should gladly have given all my possessions to have been able to save Antonia’s life. Or at least a very large part of my possessions. But it could not be done.
During that night of melancholy we seriously planned to abandon everything and attempt to flee together to India, where I had business connections. But it was too far away. We saw that we should soon be caught, for Antonia’s features were known to every Roman, even in the provinces, because of the many statues of her, and no disguise would hide her noble figure for long.
Weeping and embracing, we relinquished all false hopes. Antonia assured me tenderly that she would die bravely and gladly, because for once in her life she had experienced true love. She admitted openly that she had thought of approving me as her consort, if destiny had so wished it, after Claudia had died in some way or other. This assurance of hers is the greatest honor I have ever received in my life. I do not think I am doing wrong in telling you. I do not want to boast about it; simply to show you that she really did love me.
During our last night she talked long and feverishly, telling me of her childhood and her uncle, Sejanus-who, she said, was to have made Claudius Emperor if he had managed to murder Tiberius and get the support of the Senate. Then Rome would have escaped the terrible reign of Gaius Caligula. But fate wished otherwise, and Antonia admitted that Claudius had not then been mature enough to rule. He did nothing but play dice, drink and drive Antonia’s mother to the verge of bankruptcy.
We sat hand in hand for the whole of that night, talking together while death stood waiting on the threshold. The knowledge of this gave our kisses a flavor of blood and brought stinging tears to my eyes. Such a night a person experiences only once in his life and he never forgets it. Afterwards every other pleasure and every other enjoyment is but a reflection. After Antonia I have never really loved another woman.
As the irretrievable moments rushed away and the morning dawned all too soon, Antonia finally made a strange suggestion to me, which at first dumbfounded me although I had to admit its wisdom after my first objections. We both knew we should have no further opportunity to meet. Her death was so inevitable that not even Fortuna could save her now.
So she did not wish to extend her painful waiting, but suggested that I, in addition to the others who had already done so, should also denounce her to Nero. This would hasten her death, finally free me of any suspicions Nero might have and secure your future.
The very thought of such a denouncement was distasteful to me, but Antonia persuaded me and finally I agreed to her suggestion.
On the threshold of her bedroom she gave me some sound advice about certain ancient families with whom I should make connections of friendship for your sake, and others whom for the same reason I should do all I could to keep from power and office, if not in other ways ruin them as best I could.
With tears glittering in her eyes she said she regretted her own death only because she would have been so happy, when the time came, to have had a share in choosing a suitable bride for you, with the future in mind. There are not many left in Rome. Antonia urged me to arrange your betrothal in good time and use my judgment when the right girl was twelve years old. But you take no notice of my reasonable suggestions.
The guards grew uneasy and came and hurried me. We had to part. I shall always remember Antonia’s tearful, smiling, beautiful, noble face, haggard after the night. But I had an even better plan. It made it easier for me to leave her, although the steps I took were the heaviest of my life.
I did not want to go home, nor to see Claudia, nor even you, my son. I whiled away the time by walking around the gardens of Palatine. I stood for a moment leaning against a scorched ancient pine tree, which incredibly was still alive. I looked to the east and to the west, to the north and to the south. Even if all of it were mine one day, I thought, I should exchange the whole earth for a single one of Antonia’s kisses and all the pearls of India for the whiteness of her limbs, for love blinds a man wonderfully in this way.
In reality Antonia was older than I and her best years were behind her. Her thin face bore lines of experience and suffering and she could have been a little plumper here and there. But to me this thinness only emphasized her enchantment. The trembling of her nostrils and her skin was the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced.
In ecstasy, I stared down at the forum at my feet, at its ancient buildings, at the new Rome rising from the ashes and ruins, at the buildings of Nero’s Golden Palace which glittered in the sunrise over on Esquiline. I was not really thinking of sites and business, although it did occur to me that my old house on Aventine had become too cramped and that for your sake I should have to acquire a new and more worthy house, as near to the Golden Palace as possible.
I turned away and went down from Palatine to cross over to the Golden Palace and seek audience at Nero’s morning reception. If I were to denounce Antonia, then I had to hurry so that no one did so before me. At the thought of the insanity of life, I burst out laughing, so that I was walking half-laughing, half-weeping, like a man in ecstasy.
Mimdus absurdus, the world is absurd, I repeated aloud to myself, as if I had found a new and astonishing truth. But in my state it seemed the greatest wisdom, though I calmed down later on and thought better of it.
My head cooled a little as I greeted the waiting people in the reception room, for I seemed to see animal heads on them all. This was such an astonishing sight that I had to brush my hand across my eyes.
In the glittering silver ivory salon, its floor decorated with a huge mosaic portraying a banquet of the gods, many people were gathered, pa-tiendy waiting until midday for a glimpse of Nero. The whole of the animal world was there, from a camel and a hedgehog to bulls and pigs. Tigellinus seemed to be so obviously a thin tiger to me that I clapped my hand to my mouth when I greeted him to stop myself from laughing aloud.
This strange delusion, which was probably caused by lack of sleep, love and my inner tension, passed when Nero allowed me to enter his bedroom before all the others, after I had sent a message to say my information was very important. He had had Acte as his bed companion. This showed that he had wearied of his vices and wished to return to natural habits, which happened sometimes.
I did not see Nero as an animal. Indeed, he seemed to me to be suffering, a man in despair from distrust, or perhaps a spoiled overfed child who could not understand why other people thought he was evil when he himself wished no one ill and was also a great singer, perhaps the greatest of his time, as he himself believed. I am no judge, for I am rather unmusical.
Anyhow, when I arrived, Nero was just doing the singing exercises he did every morning. His voice penetrated right through the whole of the Golden Palace. In between he gargled. Nero did not even dare eat fruit because some physician had said that it was not good for his voice. I think an apple or a few grapes are good with the usual morning honey-bread and also assist digestion, which is important for anyone who lives rather well after a certain age.
When I spoke Antonia’s name, my voice trembling and stammering, Nero’s salt gargle fastened in his throat, and he coughed as if he were about to choke. Acte had to thump him on the back and he was furious and chased her out of the room.
“What have you got to say about Antonia, you damned informer?” asked Nero, when Acte had gone and he could talk again.
I confessed that hitherto I had kept it from him that Antonia had been involved in Piso’s conspiracy, out of respect for her father Emperor Claudius, who in his time had been kind enough to give me the name Lausus when I received my man-toga. But my conscience would not leave me in peace when it came to Nero’s safety.
I threw myself onto my knees and told him that Antonia had many a time summoned me at night and with promises of rewards and high office, had tried to persuade me to join the conspiracy. She considered that as a close friend to Nero, I had excellent opportunities to plan to murder him with poison or a dagger.
To add salt to his wounds, I also told him that Antonia had promised to marry Piso after the coup. This absurd rumor wounded his vanity more than anything else, for Antonia had rejected Nero in a most decisive manner.
But Nero was doubtful still and did not trust me. It seemed to be beyond his understanding that a woman such as Antonia could have shown confidence in me, who in his eyes was an insignificant person.
He now had me arrested and put under the guard of the centurion on duty in the Palace, in one of the uncompleted rooms in which a well-known craftsman was doing a magnificent painting of the duel between Achilles and Hector on the walls of Troy. Nero was a Julian and wished to remind his guests that he was descended from an improper relationship between the Trojan Aeneas and Venus. So he never worshiped in the temple of Vulcan, for instance, but always spoke disparagingly of Vulcan. The influential guild of smiths did not like this at all.
The smell of paint irritated me as much as the artist’s self-conscious performance. He would not permit me to talk to my guard even in whispers, in case we disturbed him in his important work. I was affronted that Nero had not put me under the guard of a tribune so that I had to make do with the company of a centurion, although he was a Roman knight. To pass the time and soothe my inner tension, we could have talked about horses if only that conceited craftsman had not forbidden it.
I dared not insult him, for he was high in Nero’s favor. Nero treated him with respect and had given him citizenship. So he always painted dressed in a toga, however absurd it looked. Nero had once even said that he would be glad to promote him to the rank of knight, but nevertheless had not done so. A colored animal trainer was one thing, but a craftsman who painted pictures as a profession-no, there are limits. Even Nero realized this.
I had to wait until the afternoon, but Nero did have food sent to me from his own table, so I was not all that anxious. The centurion and I played dice in silence and we drank some wine, though not enough to intoxicate him since he was on duty. I took the opportunity to send a message to Claudia to say that I had been arrested as a suspect.
Although your mother knew perfectly well I had to secure your future, in her woman’s way she did not like the politically necessary role of informer. I now wished to make her a little anxious for my safety, although I myself was not as anxious as I led her to understand in the message. But then I knew Nero’s whims and did not trust his advisers, not even Tigellinus, although for several reasons he owed me a debt of gratitude.
I was temptingly wealthy, even if I had done my best to hide the true size of my fortune. I remembered uneasily the death of Consul Vestinus, whom we had not even taken into the conspiracy. Fortunately, I knew that Statilia Messalina was on my side for this very reason.
Of course, no marriage had yet taken place between her and Nero, for the laws prescribe a waiting period of nine months, but Statilia was preparing a brilliant wedding feast anyhow, and Nero had already had a foretaste of her charms while Vestinus was still alive. Nero had presumably turned to Acte when Statilia was making sacrifices to the Moon Goddess to make herself a better woman. I knew Acte was sympathetic toward the Christian teaching, and she tried to strengthen Nero’s good qualities, which indeed he possessed, though the task was probably beyond any woman.
Statilia did the opposite. She was the first woman in Rome to introduce the originally German fashion of wearing her left breast bared. She could afford to do this, for she was proud of her well-shaped breasts. Women who were less well equipped by nature were affronted by this new fashion and thought it indecent, as if there were something evil in showing a lovely breast. Even the priestesses at public sacrifices and the Vestals themselves appear on some occasions with their breasts bared, so the habit is more hallowed by a thousand years of tradition rather than indecent in any way.
By the evening, Tigellinus had gathered sufficient evidence of Antonia’s part in the conspiracy from the men who were still alive in Tul-lianum. Two cowardly informers had hastened up as well, to receive a share in the reward. Unblinkingly, they swore that Antonia really had promised to marry Piso as soon as he could rid himself of his wife, and that they had even exchanged betrothal gifts. At the search of Antonia’s house, a necklace of Indian rubies bought secredy by Piso from a Syrian goldsmith was found. How it came to be in Antonia’s house I do not know, nor do I wish to know.
All this evidence convinced Nero. He put on an act of despair, though naturally he was secretly pleased to have a legal reason for killing Antonia. To show me favor he invited me to see the menagerie in his new garden, where Epaphroditus had arranged a private display for his amusement. I was surprised to see some naked boys and girls tied to posts near the lion cages. Epaphroditus was equipped with an animal trainer’s red-hot iron and a sword at his side, but he made a sign to me that I need not worry.
To tell the truth, I was quite frightened when a dull roar was suddenly heard and a lion came rushing toward the posts, its tail thrashing. It rose on its hind legs to claw at the naked victims and sniffed at their sex organs in a disgusting way. To my astonishment the youngsters suffered no injuries at all as they twisted and turned in terror. When the lion had calmed down a little, Epaphroditus stepped forward and thrust his sword into its belly so that the blood spattered forth and the lion tumbled over, kicking its paws about in the air and dying as credibly as one could wish for.
When the boys and girls had been released and led away, still shaking with fright, Nero crept out of the lion’s head and asked proudly whether he had managed to convince me with his acting, despite my experience with wild animals. Of course, I assured him that I had believed in the lion.
Nero showed me the steel springs and technical equipment of the lion costume, as well as the bag of blood which Epaphroditus had punctured with his sword. I have often wondered since about this absurd game, which seemed to give Nero great satisfaction but which he was in some way ashamed of and allowed only a few of his friends to see.
When he had in this way shown his confidence in me, he looked at me cunningly with feigned placidness.
“There is evidence of Antonia’s guilt,” he said, “and I must believe it, however much I may grieve that she has to die. She is, after all, my half sister. You were the one to open my eyes. So you shall have the honor of going to her and opening her veins. If I allowed her to do it voluntarily I should not be making a public affair of it. My own reputation is at stake too. I shall give her a State burial and have her urn put in the god Augustus’ mausoleum. I shall tell the Senate and the people that she committed suicide while her mind was confused, in order to be spared a fatal disease. One can always find a reason as long as she behaves and makes no fuss.”
I was so surprised that my words fastened in my throat, for Nero had forestalled me. I had thought of asking him for the favor of taking the message to Antonia myself, to be able to spend the last moments with her and hold her hand as the blood left her lovely body. This had helped me endure the tension of that long day.
Nero misunderstood my silence. He laughed, slapped me on the back and said contemptuously, “I realize that you think it unpleasant to have to reveal yourself as an informer to Antonia. You must have had something between you at your secret meetings. I know Antonia.”
But I do not seriously believe he imagined that Antonia would have lowered herself to a man like me when she had rejected Nero himself.
By sending me to Antonia, Nero thought he was humiliating me, for inwardly he despised all informers. But there are differences between informers, as I think I have shown in my story. My own motives were more noble than selfish. I was thinking of you my son, and through you of the future of the Julian family. To preserve my life was less important to me. Nero, however, by mistake granted me the greatest joy I could have hoped for at the moment when he thought he was humiliating me.
This I saw in Antonia’s radiant face when once again she saw me after believing that we had parted forever. I do not think anyone has received a sentence of death with such outstretched arms, such radiant eyes and smiling face. She showed her joy so openly that I at once told the tribune and his soldiers to go away. It would be sufficient if they guarded the house from outside.
I knew that Nero was impatiently waiting for the news of Antonia’s death. It was not easy for him either. But I presumed that he realized it might take some time to persuade Antonia to commit suicide without a fuss. Of course we did not need to say a single word, but Nero could not know that.
I did not want to waste precious time by asking Antonia about Piso’s necklace, although I felt burning jealousy over it. We sank together once again into our last embrace, though I perhaps, exhausted by tension and lack of sleep, did not excel as a lover, but we could relax together in each other’s arms, as close as two people can come to each other.
Meanwhile her slave-woman prepared a hot bath in her porphyritic pool. Naked, she went into the bathroom before me and asked me with tears in her eyes to do everything as swiftly as possible. I opened the vein in the fold of her elbow as tenderly and painlessly as I could with a sharp knife in the hot water. She tried to ignore the pain so as not to hurt me, but could not keep back a slight groan.
When the blood began to well up to the surface of the water and color the balsam-scented bath red, Antonia asked me to forgive her for her weakness, and told me that because of her rich and sheltered life, she had never become used to even the least unpleasantness. She used to stick pins into the breast of the slave-woman who brushed her fair hair if the woman pulled it.
As I held Antonia, leaning over her bath, one arm around the back of her neck, my mouth against hers, her hand in mine, my own life seemed so worthless that I asked to be allowed to die with her.
“That’s the greatest courtesy any man has ever paid me,” she whispered in a feeble voice, kissing my ear. “But you must go on living for the sake of our son. Don’t forget all the advice I have given you for his future. And remember, too, to put one of your old Etruscan gold pieces in my mouth before my jaw is bound and I am made ready for the pyre. That will be the most beloved and the last gift I shall receive from you, although I have to give it to Charon to pay him. He’ll know then to treat me according to my rank. I should not want to be crowded by the mob on the ferry.”
A moment later her lips parted under mine and her grip on my hand loosened. But I continued to hold her slim fingers and kiss her beloved face until the end came.
When she was dead and I could not feel the smallest breath, I carried her bloodstained body back to the bed and quickly washed the bloodstains from myself. To my delight I saw that Antonia used my Gallic freedman’s latest Egyptian soap. Naturally it was not exactly Egyptian, but manufactured in Rome like all his other soaps and popular tooth powders. But people paid more for soaps if he gave them fine names.
After I had dressed, I called in the centurion and the soldiers to witness that Antonia had voluntarily committed suicide, and then I left her body to the slave-woman, after first putting into her mouth one of the ancient gold pieces which my freedman had found in some old graves in Caere. I asked her steward to see that it was not stolen, for I had to hurry back to Nero.
In the tension of waiting, Nero had drunk quite a quantity of wine after his lion game, and he thanked me in surprise for having fulfilled my unpleasant task so rapidly. Once again he assured me that I could retain my inherited land in Britain and he himself would put in a word for me in the Curia so that I should receive a senator’s stool. But I have told you about that. I am relieved to have got the saddest part of my story written down.
Compared with all that, it seemed a mere bagatelle when two weeks later I nearly lost my life because of Antonia. Fortunately I had friends who informed me of the investigations Nero had started in connection with Antonia’s will. In this way I could prepare Claudia in time, although the whole of my plan was distasteful to her.
I still do not know why Antonia, an experienced and politically minded woman, felt she had to remember you in her will, although I had warned her against just that. Before her death I did not mention her will again. We had other things to talk about and to be honest, I completely forgot about the thoughtless promise she had made when she wanted you to take the name of Antonianus.
Now I had to be rid of Rubria immediately, for as the eldest of the Vestals, she was the only legal witness to your real origins. I do not wish to tell you any more of my meeting with her. All I shall say is that before that I had to go and see old Locusta in the pleasant country place which Nero had given her. In the garden she and her pupils cultivated many medicinal herbs while, with superstitious thoroughness, she observed the positions of the stars and the phases of the moon at the sowing and harvesting of her seeds and roots.
To my delight, Rubria’s unexpected death did not arouse any surprise among the physicians. Her face had not even darkened, so well had Locusta developed her art in her old age. But Nero was glad to allow her to test some of her medicines on certain criminals who deserved nothing better.
My visit to Rubria did not lead to any questions, for she usually had many visitors in the Vestals’ atrium. So I was able to wall into my secret hiding place the sealed document in which she had certified Claudia’s descent, repeated the confession of the dead Paulina and confirmed that Antonia had regarded your mother Claudia as her real half sister, and in confirmation had given you the name Antonianus.
From several outward signs I noticed beforehand that I had fallen in disfavor and so was not surprised when Nero summoned me. Indeed, I thought I was well prepared.
“Tell me about your marriage, Manilianus,” said Nero, chewing his lips, his chin trembling a little, “as I know nothing about it. Try to give me a credible explanation of why Antonia has remembered your son in her will and has even given him her own name. I did not even know you had a son except Epaphroditus’ bastard.”
I avoided his eyes and tried to the best of my ability to tremble with fright, and I must say that I did not have to make all that great an effort to do so. Nero thought I was hiding something.
“I should have understood if Antonia had been content to leave the boy just her Uncle Sejanus’ signet ring,” Nero went on. “But it’s incredible that she has left him some of the Julian family jewels which she inherited from Claudius’ mother, old Antonia. Included in them, among other things, is a shoulder insignia which the god Augustus is said to have worn in the field and at State sacrificial ceremonies. Even more extraordinary is that your marriage is not written in any of the books and your son is not in the new census, not to mention the rolls of the Noble Order of Knights, although the prescribed time has long since run out. There’s something very fishy about the whole thing.”
I threw myself down at his feet and cried out in feigned regret, “My conscience has been troubling me about it, but I am so ashamed that I’ve never been able to reveal it to any of my friends. My wife Claudia is a Jewess.”
Nero burst into such a violent laugh of relief that his thick body shook and tears came to his eyes. He never liked to send people to their deaths on mere suspicion, least of all his real friends.
“But Minutus,” he said reproachfully, when he could speak again, “to be a Jew is no shame in itself. You know perfecdy well how much Jewish blood has been mixed into the best families for hundreds of years. For my dearest Poppaea’s sake, I cannot regard the Jews as any worse than other people. I even tolerate them in the State service, within reasonable limits, of course. While I rule everyone is regarded as equal as human beings, whether Roman, Greek, black or white. So I tolerate Jews too.”
I rose and looked suitably sorrowful and embarrassed.
“If that were all, then I should not hesitate to introduce my wife to you and my friends,” I said, “but she is descended from slaves too. Her parents were poor freedmen of Claudius’ mother, Antonia, that is, your grandmother in some ways. That’s why she’s called Claudia. You must see why I am ashamed of her. Perhaps that’s why Antonia wanted to give the boy some cheap jewelry in memory of her grandmother. It was my wife who wanted him to be called Antonianus.
“But still,” I went on, trembling with excitement and anger, “that will, which came as a complete surprise to me, is just an attack of Antonia’s boundless ill-will, to bring me under suspicion. She knew I had denounced Scevinus, Piso and the others, although she could not have known that for your safety and driven by my conscience I should be forced to denounce her as well. In truth, I do not regret that in the slightest”
Nero frowned thoughtfully and I saw that his distrust had again been aroused.
“I’d better confess at once that I have a certain interest in the Jewish faith,” I said quickly. “That’s no crime, even if it is not suitable to a man in my position. Such things are best left to women. But my wife is intolerably stubborn. She’s always forcing me to go to the Julius synagogue. Other Romans do that too. Its members shave, dress like ordinary people and go to the theater.”
Nero went on staring gloomily at me.
“Your explanation might be true,” he said, “but it is very unfortunate that Antonia witnessed this codicil over six months ago. She could not have had any idea then that you would appear as a simple informer of the Pisonian conspiracy.”
I realized I should have to confess even more. I was prepared for this, though naturally I tried to avoid it at first so as not to arouse Nero’s suspicions by my sudden candor. He always believed that everyone was hiding something from him.
I stared at the floor and scraped my feet on the mosaic portraying Mars and Venus embracing one another, entangled in Vulcan’s copper net, which I thought most appropriate for the occasion. I rubbed my hands together and struggled for words.
“Tell me everything,” Nero said sharply. “Otherwise I’ll have your brand-new boots removed from you. The Senate would like that, as you know.”
“My lord,” I cried, “I am putting my trust in your magnanimity and sensitivity! Keep my shameful secret to yourself, and please don’t mention it to my wife under any circumstances. Her jealousy is intolerable. She is of that age and I do not really understand how I became entangled with her.”
Nero soon realized that a juicy tidbit was coming and he licked his lips.
“It is said that Jewesses have special qualities in bed,” he said. “Naturally you have also found her Jewish connections useful. You can’t deceive me. I promise nothing. Tell me.”
“In her ambitious way,” I stammered, “my wife had the idea that we should invite Antonia when we were giving our son his name, and in the presence of witnesses I took him on my knee and acknowledged him.”
“As you once acknowledged Lausus,” remarked Nero jokingly. “But go on.”
“I did not imagine that Antonia would come,” I said, “even for a nephew of one of her grandmother’s freedmen. But at that time she had little company and needed a change. For decency’s sake she brought Rubria with her, the Vestal, who, I might mention in passing, became drunk during the evening. I can only believe that Antonia had heard something favorable about me and out of curiosity wished to meet me, though perhaps she was already looking for friends and supporters for her future aims. When she had drunk quite a bit of wine, she led me to understand that I was welcome to her home on Palatine, but preferably without my wife.”
Nero flushed and he leaned forward to hear better.
“I am sufficiently conceited to have felt honored by her invitation,” I went on, “though I thought it was due to the wine or some other cause. But I went there one evening and she received me with unexpected friendliness. No, my lord, I daren’t go on.”
“Don’t be shy,” said Nero. “I know about some of your visits to her. They are said to have lasted through to the morning. In fact I wondered slighdy whether your son could have been borne by Antonia. But I gather he is already seven months old. And everyone knows Antonia was as scraggy as an old cow.”
Blushing furiously, I admitted that Antonia had shown me considerable hospitality in her bed, too, and had become so attached to me that she wished to see more of me, although because of my wife I was very frightened that such a relationship might be discovered. But perhaps I had satisfied Antonia’s needs so well that she wished to remember my son in her will when she could not leave me anything for reasons of decency.
Nero laughed and slapped his knees.
“The old tart!” he shouted. “Well, well, she lowered herself to go with you, did she? But you weren’t the only one. Believe it or not, she tried with me once when I happened to caress her a bit. I was drunk of course, but I remember her sharp nose and thin lips as she hung around my neck and tried to kiss me. After that she spread an absurd story that I had proposed to her. Piso’s necklace says enough of her depravity. She probably slept with slaves too, if there was nothing better within reach. So you were good enough too.”
I could not help clenching my fists, but I managed to keep my mouth shut.
“Statilia Messalina is very pleased with Piso’s necklace,” said Nero. “She even has her nipples painted the same color as those blood rubies.”
Nero was so delighted with his own ingenuity that I felt the worst danger was over. He grew cheerful and relieved, but it was peculiar to his sense of humor that he wished to punish me for my secrets in some way that would make me look foolish all over the city. He thought for a moment.
“Naturally,” he then said, “I should like to meet your wife and see for myself that she is a Jewess. And I should also like to question the witnesses who were present when your son received his name. They are Jews too, I suppose. I’ll make inquiries at the Julius Caesar synagogue to see how faithful you have been there. Meanwhile you can do me the service of having yourself circumcised, just to simplify matters. Your wife will be pleased about that. I think it’s just and reasonable that you should be punished on the part of the body with which you have violated my half sister. Be thankful that I’m in a good mood and am letting you off lightly.”
I was appalled and degraded myself by begging him not to insult me so terribly. But I myself had put my head into the noose. Nero was all the more delighted when he saw my horror, and put his hand consolingly on my shoulder.
“It’ll be a good thing to have someone who is circumcised in the Senate, looking after the interests of the Jews, for then they won’t have to have others going behind my back any longer. Go now and see that it is done. Then bring your wife here with the witnesses, and come yourself if you can walk. I want to see that you’ve obeyed my order myself.”
I had to go home and tell Claudia and the two witnesses, who were waiting in fear and trembling for my return, that we were to meet in the reception room of the Golden Palace in a short while. Then I went to the Praetorian camp to talk to a field surgeon who verbosely informed me that he could do the little operation without the slightest difficulty. During his service in Africa, he had performed it on many legionaries and centurions who had wearied of the eternal inflammations caused by sand. He still had the tube that was needed.
For the sake of my reputation I did not wish to be treated by the Jews. In this I made a big mistake, for they would have been incomparably more skillful. I courageously endured the field surgeon’s dirty tube and blunt knife, but the wound healed badly and soon festered, so that for a long time I lost all desire even to look at a woman.
I have never really been myself again since then, although some women have seemed very inquisitive about my scarred organ. I am only human, but I think their pleasure was greater than mine. This has had the advantage of helping me to live a reasonably virtuous life.
I am not ashamed to talk about this, for everyone knows about Nero’s cruel joke at my expense and I have a nickname because of it, which I shall not mention for decency’s sake.
But your mother had no idea what to expect of Nero, however much I had tried to prepare her for her part. When I returned from the Praetorian camp, limping and deathly white, Claudia did not even ask what was wrong with me, but simply thought I feared Nero’s wrath. Both the Jewish Christians were also very frightened, of course, however much I tried to encourage them and remind them of the gifts I had promised them.
Nero needed only to take one look at Claudia.
“A Jewish hag,” he shouted at once. “I can see that from her eyebrows and her thick lips, not to mention her nose. She’s got gray hair too. The Jews go gray young because of some Egyptian curse, I’ve heard say. It’s amazing that she could have had a child at that age. But they breed, the Jews.”
Claudia trembled with rage, but remained silent for your sake. Then both the Jews swore on sacred oaths of the temple in Jerusalem that they knew Claudia’s origins and that she was a Jewess, born of Jewish parents but of an especially respected Jewish family whose ancestors had come to Rome as slaves in the time of Pompey. Antonia had honored my son’s naming with her presence and allowed him to be called Antonianus in memory of her grandmother.
This interrogation lulled Nero’s suspicions. Both the Christian Jews had in fact committed perjury, but I had chosen them because they belonged to a certain Christian sect which for some reason believed that Jesus of Nazareth had forbidden all kinds of oaths. They held to their beliefs and said that they were committing a sin by taking an oath so that it did not make any difference whether the oath were true or false. They were sacrificing themselves by taking this oath for the sake of my son, in the hope that Jesus of Nazareth would forgive them because of their good intentions.
But Nero would not have been Nero if he had not glanced at me with a humorous glint in his eye and said, “My dear Domina Claudia, or Serenissima I should say, since your husband, despite all his abominations, has managed to acquire his purple boots. Well, Domina Claudia, I suppose you know that your husband took this opportunity to have a secret relationship with my unfortunate half sister, Antonia. I have witnesses to the fact that night after night they fornicated together in a summerhouse in her garden. I was forced to keep an eye on her so that she did not cause a scandal with her depravity.”
Claudia blanched when she heard this. She must have realized from my expression that Nero was telling the truth. She herself had persecuted me with her chatter until I had succeeded in throwing dust in her eyes by explaining that I was taking part in the Pisonian conspiracy, whose meetings were held at night.
Claudia raised her hand and slapped my face so that the sound echoed. I humbly turned the other cheek as Jesus of Nazareth says one should do, and Claudia raised her other hand and split my eardrum on that side. I have been a little deaf ever since. Then she burst out into such a flood of invective that I could hardly believe that it came from her mouth. I should say that I was more successful in following the teaching of Christ than she was, by sensibly keeping silent.
Claudia hurled such a downpour of crude curses on both myself and the dead Antonia that Nero had to stop her. Nothing but good of the dead, he reminded her. For the sake of her own health, Claudia should remember that Antonia was Nero’s own half sister and so he could not allow others to speak ill of her.
To appease Claudia and appeal to her compassion, I flung up my mantle, raised my tunic and showed her the bloodstained bandage about my organ, telling her that I had endured punishment enough for my faults. Nero forced me to undo the bandage, painful as this was, so that he could see for himself that I had not tried to deceive him by winding a bloodstained cloth around an uninjured organ.
“Are you really so stupid,” he said after looking at it, “that you rushed straight off and had yourself circumcised? I was only joking and regretted what I had said after you had gone. But I must admit that you faithfully obey my orders, Minutus.”
Claudia was not sorry for me. Indeed, she clapped her hands together and praised Nero for finding a punishment which she would never have dreamed of thinking up. For me it was punishment enough to be married to Claudia. I think she has never forgiven me for being unfaithful to her with Antonia. She has nagged at me about this for years, when a reasonable woman would have forgotten such a temporary lapse by her husband.
Nero considered the matter was now closed and after sending Claudia and the two Jews away, went on to talk of other things without the slightest sympathy for me.
“As you know, the Senate has decided on thank-offerings for the exposure of the conspiracy,” he began, “I myself have decided to build Ceres a temple which befits her. The other one was burned by the cursed Christian fire-raisers and I haven’t had time to plan a new one, as my hands are full with the rebuilding of Rome. But the cult center of Ceres has been on Aventine since time immemorial. I have not been able to find a large enough site there, so to restore our mutual confidence and set seal on our friendship, I’m sure you’d be willing to present your house and garden on Aventine to Ceres. It’s the best possible place. Don’t be surprised if the slaves have already begun to pull down the house when you get home. The matter is urgent and I was sure of your approval.”
In this way Nero forced me to give him the Manilianus’ old family house without the slightest compensation. I could not summon up any overwhelming joy over this favor, for I knew he would take the honor on himself and not even mention my name when the temple was dedicated. Bitterly I asked him where he thought I was going to put my bed and my possessions in the present housing shortage.
“Of course,” said Nero. “I hadn’t thought of that. But your father’s, or rather Tullia’s, house is still empty. I haven’t been able to sell it because it is haunted.”
I replied that I was not going to spend huge sums on a haunted house which I did not want. I also explained how decayed it was and how ill-planned it had been in the first place, and that now, untouched for years, it had a wild garden which would be far too expensive to keep up in view of the new water taxes.
Nero listened, enjoying my description.
“As evidence of my friendship,” he said, “I had thought of selling you the house at a reasonable piice. But it disgusts me that you insolently and unworthily begin to bargain before I’ve even mentioned a price. I no longer regret having asked you to get yourself circumcised. To show you that Nero is Nero, I hereby present you with your father’s house. I refuse to lower myself by haggling with you.”
Naturally I thanked Nero with all my heart, although he was not giving me the house for nothing, but in exchange for my old house on Aventine. Sufficient that I gained on the exchange.
I thought with satisfaction that Tullia’s house was almost worth circumcision, and that thought still consoled me when I sickened with fever. I myself had done my best to stop the house being sold by spreading rumors about ghosts and having a couple of slaves rattle pan lids and thump furniture at night in the abandoned house. We Romans are superstitious when it comes to ghosts and the dead.
So now I can with good conscience go on to tell you about Nero’s victorious progress through Greece, about the regrettable deaths of Cephas and Paul and about how I came to take part in the siege of Jerusalem.
Book XIII
Nero
The suppression of the Pisonian conspiracy continued for nearly two years and extended to those wealthy men in the provinces and allied states who had evidently known what was happening but had said nothing. Merciful though Nero was in replacing the death sentence with exile wherever possible, thanks to the conspiracy he managed to put the State finances into some kind of order despite his enormous expenses.
In fact the preparations for war against Parthia accounted for the greater part of the State income. Nero was quite moderate in his living habits for an Emperor, compared with some of the wealthy and newly rich in Rome. Due to the influence of the dead Petronius, Nero attempted to replace the vulgarity of Rome’s upstarts with good taste, though of course he often made mistakes now that he no longer had Petronius to consult.
To Nero’s credit it should be said that he did not, for instance, burden the State treasury with more than the costs of transport when he replaced the works of art which had been destroyed by the fire with new statues and objets d’art. He sent an arts commission to Achaia and Asia to search every town of any size and send the best sculpture they could find back to the Golden Palace.
This aroused considerable discontent among the Greeks, and in Per-gamon there was even an armed uprising. But the commission completed its task so well that even in Athens they discovered irreplaceable statues and paintings dating from the time when Greece had been a great power, though Athens had of course been thoroughly plundered during the Roman conquest.
In newly prosperous Corinth too, where once hardly a stone had been left untouched, they found treasures, for the wealthy merchants and shipowners had done a good job building their collections over the years. And in the islands, which had not hitherto been searched for works of art for Rome, old statues were found which deserved the place of honor they were given in the great rooms and arcades of the Golden Palace.
The Palace was so large that it remained spacious although the commission sent one shipload of objects after another to it. Some of the sculptures which Nero thought less worthy he gave to his friends, for he himself wished only for the very best of ancient art. In this way I acquired my marble Aphrodite which is by Phidias and whose colors are marvelously preserved. I still set great store by it, despite your grimaces. Try to calculate some time what it would fetch if I had to sell it at a public auction to pay for your racing stable.
Because of the coming war with Parthia and to calm his own conscience, Nero revoked his monetary reforms and had full-weight coins struck in the temple of Juno Moneta as gold and silver flowed into the State treasury. The legions which had secretly begun to move eastward to strengthen Corbulo’s forces were discontented with their lessened pay, and while Nero could have raised the soldiers’ pay by a fifth, everyone knew what huge outlays that would have necessitated. So it became cheaper in the long run to restore the value of money. Nero granted the legions certain additional reliefs, just as he had earlier granted the Praetorians free grain.
In fact it was a matter of juggling, an art many a wise man has attempted in vain. I shall say nothing against the State treasury freedmen, whose office is burdensome and who thought out the plan. But personally I thought it scandalous that Nero’s silver coins containing copper had to be exchanged at the rate of ten for eight, so that one received only four new coins for five old ones.
I myself did not suffer, but among the poor this new edict aroused just as much bitterness as Nero’s original reforms. So it did not improve his popularity, although he himself thought it did. Nero never had understood money matters but just followed his clever advisers’ counsel. The legions, however, calmed down when their pay was once again paid in solid silver.
Nero could only shake his head over the state of affairs in the State treasury, although he himself thought he had done everything to improve the position, sacrificing time that could otherwise be spent on his artistic interests by going through provincial tax lists and selecting wealthy people whose property could be confiscated as a punishment for participation in the Pisonian conspiracy.
There was usually evidence. There was always some inappropriate expression of pleasure, or someone who had forgotten Nero’s birthday, or, the worst crime of all, someone who had spoken disparagingly of his singing. No wealthy man’s conscience is ever completely clear. It was even wise to stay awake and refrain from yawning when Nero performed in the theater. Nor would he tolerate anyone leaving noisily in the middle of a performance, even if the person were ill.
To finance the Parthian war he had to levy unreasonably high taxes on luxury goods and as a result such goods were sold clandestinely. Thus surprise inspections had to be arranged in the city shops, and the merchants were annoyed at having their stores confiscated and themselves fined.
Flavius Sabinus, my former father-in-law, was ashamed of these measures, which he was responsible for carrying out as City Prefect, and he was afraid of losing his reputation altogether. Sometimes he had the merchants warned, at least the richer ones, before they were surprised by his inspectors. I know that for certain. And he had no reason to regret his honesty, for he very shortly improved his financial position.
Nero was aided by Statilia Messalina’s vanity. Statilia thought that the color violet suited her best and in this she was quite right. In order to retain this color for herself and no one else, she made Nero forbid the sale of all violet dyes. Naturally this resulted in every Roman woman with any self-respect dressing herself in violet, or at least owning some clothing of this color, though of course only at home and in the company of reliable friends.
This secret trade in violet reached unimaginable proportions and the merchants profited so much from it that they were happy to have their goods confiscated occasionally and now could pay their fines.
Nero was not personally enthusiastic about the war with Parthia, however necessary it seemed to be for Rome’s future to open direct overland trade routes to the East. With you in mind, I gradually came to approve of the plan, however distasteful wars are to me. My father’s freedmen in Antioch made huge sums of money from war supplies and persuaded me to support the plans for a war in my speeches in the committee for Eastern affairs. In itself the plan was reasonable and the time favorable. The suppression of the Parthians will be necessary one day anyhow, if Rome’s security is to be maintained. But I had wished only that it should not happen in my time, and neither did it. The inevitable still lay before us.
Nero agreed when he was told that he could easily leave the actual warfare to Corbulo, but himself as commantler-in-chief in name celebrate the triumph. But I think that he was more tempted by the thought of holding a concert in Ecbatana-so that with his brilliant voice he could win the devotion of his new subjects after the sufferings of war-than by thoughts of a triumph.
None of his advisers considered it necessary to tell him that the Parthians do not particularly like music or regard singing as a pastime worthy of an Emperor. They value riding and archery more, as Crassus in his time bitterly discovered. To be rid of him, your ancestor Julius Caesar sent him to fight the Parthians and the Parthians killed him by pouring molten gold down his throat, so that for once he would have enough. Perhaps it would be a good thing if you remembered this story, my son. If someone must go to Parthia, do not go yourself, but send another.
I need not say anything about the history of Parthia and the Arsa-cidae. It is thick with fratricide, coups d’etat, Eastern cunning and generally speaking, all sorts of things that would never occur here in Rome. No Roman Emperor has ever been publicly murdered except your ancestor Julius Caesar. And he was responsible for his own death by ignoring good counsel, while his murderers honesdy believed they were acting for the good of the fatherland. Gaius Caligula was a case on its own, nor has it ever been quite clear whether Livia poisoned Augustus or whether Caligula strangled Tiberius. Even Agrippina poisoned Claudius without causing unnecessary publicity. Whatever one thinks of these events, they were handled decently, within the family so to speak.
The Arsacidae, on the other hand, regard themselves as the rightful heirs to the former Persian kingdom and boast of their murders and how cleverly they were carried out, and their dynasty has ruled for more than three hundred years. I do not wish to begin to list their involved land intrigues. Certainly they have plenty of experience. It is sufficient that I mention that Vologeses succeeded in establishing his power and became a politically astute opponent to Rome.
To place his brother Tiridates in an embarrassing position Vologeses put him on the throne of Armenia, which during Corbulo’s campaigns had been devastated three times and reconquered again. It was in that same Armenian war that two legions suffered such an ignominious defeat that to maintain discipline Corbulo had to execute every tenth man afterwards by drawing lots. Restoring discipline and the will to fight in the weak Syrian legions required years of work but now it was beginning to bear fruit.
Vologeses had to make the best of a bad job and recognize Armenia as a state allied to Rome in the hope of keeping his brother away from Ecbatana. In the presence of the legions and the cavalry, Tiridates laid his diadem at Nero’s feet. For this purpose a statue of Nero had been erected on a senator’s stool. Tiridates promised on oath that he would personally come to Rome to confirm the alliance and receive the diadem back from Nero’s own hand.
But he was never seen in Rome. In reply to questions, he made a number of evasions and among other things maintained that for religious reasons he could not expose himself to the risks of a sea voyage. When he was asked to travel overland, he pleaded poverty. The rebuilding of Armenia was no doubt occupying all his resources.
Nero regally promised to bear the cost of the land journey for him and his escort on Roman land, but Tiridates still did not come. According to reliable sources, he was making unnecessarily close connections with the remaining Armenian noblemen, after the Romans and the Parthians had alternately competed at executing those who fell into their hands.
In the Senate committee for Eastern affairs we regarded Tiridates’ evasions as questionable. We knew only too well that Parthia’s secret agents had done their best to spread discontent in the Eastern states allied to Rome as well as in the provinces in an effort to put an end to the war. They bribed German tribes to move and thus hinder legion movements eastward, and as far away as in Britain they tried using generous promises to inveigle hostile tribes into rebellion so that we still had to keep four legions in Britain to maintain the peace. As his envoys, Vologeses used wandering Jewish merchants who knew many languages and were used to adapting themselves to new circumstances.
Fortunately I received the news of these intrigues in good time from old Petro in Lugundanum. I had considered that I owed it to Lugunda to name a town after her, because of my inheritance. The town was well chosen and holds a key position in Iceni country. Petro lives there and enjoys a well-earned old-age pension in gratitude for his loyalty, so that I should be able to keep my good connection with the Druids and keep myself informed of what went on in the tribes. Fortunately the Druids did not give their support to the rebellion because certain omens had convinced them that the Roman occupation of their island would not last. I am not superstitious when it comes to my property.
So I let it quietly increase in value in Britain and went on making new investments there.
Anyhow, through my connections with the Druids I heard about the Jewish merchants’ suspected journeys in Britain. On my advice, the Procurator had two of them crucified and the Druids themselves sacrificed two others in wicker baskets to their gods, because the Jews, in spite of their secret assignment, appeared much too self-assured in matters of faith. A legion could then be transferred to the East. I saw no reason for larger movements than that.
Gradually, with a great many security measures, ten legions had been gathered in the East. I shall not list them, for troops on the march had to change their numbers and eagles to lead the Parthian scouts astray. All the same, Vologeses was unnecessarily well informed of the movements and positions of our troops, and he even knew about the grazing land dispute by the Euphrates, which we had meant to put forward to the Senate and people of Rome as a formal reason for war. At a secret meeting of the committee we had granted Corbulo, who still retained his physical strength, the honor of throwing a spear across the Euphrates into the Parthian area, as a declaration of war. Corbulo said in a letter that he could do this, and promised to practice every day so that the spear would not land in the water but would reach as far as the disputed grazing land.
From a military point of view Nero’s long-planned journey to Greece presented an excellent screen for our plans. Not even the Parthians could doubt Nero’s genuine wish to win wreaths for singing at the ancient Greek games. On his journey he had good cause to take one of the Praetorian legions as his escort and leave the other behind to guard his throne.
Tigellinus promised to control Nero’s enemies while he was away, however bitterly he complained at not being allowed the honor of traveling with the Emperor. Naturally everyone who thought himself anything wanted to go with the Emperor to witness his victories in the competitions and generally keep themselves within his view, even those who still did not know of the coming war and the possibilities it offered for distinction. Had they known, perhaps they would have discovered some illness or some other genuine reason for not going.
News of the riots among the Jews in Jerusalem and Galilee, which were naturally encouraged by Parthia, had arrived in Rome. But none of us took them very seriously. There was always trouble in that part of the world, whether Felix or Festus was procurator. But King Herodes Agrippa seemed genuinely worried.
So in the Eastern committee we decided that an entire legion should be sent to Syria to put an end to these disturbances. The legion would at least get some field experience if not much glory, since the Jews, armed with clubs and catapults, would not be able to offer much resistance against an experienced legion.
So at last we left on the journey which Nero had long dreamed of and which was to crown his artistic career. To achieve his goal, he had ordered beforehand that all the Greek competitive games should be held one after another so that as soon as he had arrived he could take part in the competitions.
As far as I know, this is the only time the Olympic Games have had to be moved to an earlier date than the proper one. Everyone must realize the difficulties this caused, even in Greek chronology. Proud of their past, they still reckon their years in olympiads, beginning from the first games in Olympia, although they should be content with just reckoning from the foundation of the city in the Roman way. Then chronology would be standardized. But the Greeks always want to do things in an involved way.
At the last moment, just before their departure, Nero refused to allow Statilia Messalina to accompany him. As a reason, he said that he could not possibly guarantee her safety should war break out. The real reason came to light during the journey. Nero had at last found the person he had for so long been seeking, a person who in every feature resembled Poppaea. He was called Sporus and was unfortunately not a woman, but an indecently beautiful youth.
Nevertheless the boy said that in his heart he felt more like a girl than a boy, so at his request Nero had had a certain operation performed on him and had given him medicine which an Alexandrian physician had prescribed to stop the growth of hair on his chin, to enlarge his breasts and in general develop his aphrodisiac characteristics.
So that I do not have to return to this story again, for it roused much bad blood, I shall mention here that in Corinth, Nero was married to Sporus with all the usual ceremonies, and then treated him as his legal wife. Nero himself maintained that the marriage, with its dowry, veils and wedding procession, was a formality which certain mysteries demantled but which was not rightfully binding in any way. He considered himself bisexual, as are all the male gods. Alexander the Great had secured this view when he was acclaimed a god in Egypt, so Nero considered his leanings as a kind of additional evidence of his divinity.
He was so sure he was right that he put up with the coarsest jokes about Sporus. For fun he once asked a senator who was known as a Stoic what he thought of this marriage. The old man replied, “Everything would be better in the world of man if your father Domitius had had a similar wife.” Nero was not angry, but laughed appreciatively at this jibe.
Enough has been said about Nero’s victories in the Greek music competitions. He brought home over a thousand victory wreaths. Only in the Olympic races did things go badly for him when in a ten-horse team race he was thrown off the chariot at a corner post and only just had time to cut through the reins that were twisted about his waist. Naturally he was badly bruised, but in reward for his boldness, the judges unanimously awarded him a wreath. Nero himself said he could not accept the wreath of victory since he had not completed the race, and he contented himself with the olive wreaths he won in singing and wrestling in Olympia. I tell you this as an example of Nero’s physical courage in genuine danger and in demanding sports.
Nero did his best to show true Greek sporting spirit and did not insult his rivals in the singing competitions as unscrupulously as in Rome. His victories were all the more deserved as he was plagued with ill luck. For a whole week he suffered the torments of toothache, until finally the aching tooth had to be extracted. The tooth broke in the process, in spite of the physician’s skill, and so the roots had to be dug out of his jaw. But Nero manfully endured the pain.
Fortunately the physician could numb the pain a little and Nero made himself as drunk as possible before the operation, as would even the bravest of men before handing himself over to a dentist. People who would know better than I can decide how much his toothache and the swelling affected his voice and his performance.
It seemed to me evidence of Nero’s sporting spirit that when he was offered the opportunity of being initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, he humbly declined the honor on the grounds of his reputation as a matricide. Evil tongues of course made out that he was afraid of the punishment of the gods had he partaken in these most sacred mysteries of all time.
But this was without foundation. Nero knew that he himself was as much a god as the rest of the gods of the country, although he declined this public honor from modesty. A large majority of us in the Senate were prepared to declare him a god in his lifetime, whenever he wished it.
After weighing the matter, I myself also considered it best not to partake in the Eleusinian ceremonies, I explained to the priests in great confidence that I had been most painfully forced to allow my own son to be executed, although I had not known of it myself at the time, so my conscience would not allow me to insult the mysteries with my presence. Thus I managed to avoid offending the sacred priesthood and could say to Nero that out of friendship for him I was abstaining from the mysteries. In this way Nero’s trust in me and my friendship was even more strengthened, and this I was shortly to need.
In fact there would have been far too much to explain to Claudia if I had allowed myself to be initiated. I declined for the sake of peace, even if my heart felt sore afterwards when the other senators, long after their initiation, were obviously glad to have shared in the divine secrets which no one has yet ever dared reveal to outsiders.
And then the unbelievable and infamous news arrived that the Jews had scattered and defeated the Syrian legion, which had fled from Jerusalem. As a votive gift, the Jews had set up the captured legionary Eagle in their temple.
I shall not mention the legion’s number or watchword, for it has been struck from the military rolls, and the Censors still refuse to allow this defeat to be mentioned in the annals of Rome. Historians in general do not like to mention the rebellion of the Jews, although Vespasian and Titus were by no means ashamed of their victory and indeed celebrated a triumph after it. The striking out of the legion was of course partly due to economy when the Parthian war came to nothing.
I admit I needed all my strength of will to meet Nero’s eye when he demantled an account of what had happened from the committee for Eastern affairs. According to him, it was incomprehensible that we had not known that the rebellious Jews had strengthened the walls of Jerusalem and that they had succeeded in acquiring weapons and training troops in secret. The defeat of a whole legion could not be explained in any other way.
As the youngest, I was the one who was pushed forward first to give my opinion, as was customary in war councils. Presumably my colleagues put their trust in my friendship with Nero and did not deliberately wish me ill. And I find it easy to talk.
I referred to the cunning of the Parthians and the huge sums of money which Vologeses had used to tie down Rome’s military strength wherever possible. The Jews had of course been able to buy or simply accept presents of weapons from him, which could easily have been carried along the desert routes to Judaea, unnoticed by our border guards. The Jewish rebels’ faith in their cause was so well known that the fact that the rebellion had been kept secret surprised no one.
The endless troubles while Felix and Festus had been in charge of the governorship in Caesarea had lulled even the most sensible people into a false sense of security. In Judaea, as elsewhere, Roman rule presupposed that we ruled by dividing. “The greatest miracle is,” I said conclusively, “that the violently disunited sections among the Jews have been able to unite into one rebellion.”
I also cautiously referred to the great power of the god of Israel, of which many conclusive examples are to be found in the holy scripts of the Jews, although he has neither an image nor a name.
“But,” I said, “even if much in this matter can be understood, it is impossible to comprehend how Corbulo, in whose hands the war had been left, and despite his military reputation and his successes in Armenia, could have allowed this to happen. The responsibility lies with him and not the Syrian Proconsuls to restore order in Judaea and Galilee so that it can be a support area for further warfare. Evidently Corbulo has directed all his attention to the north and prepared the Hyrcanians for holding the Parthian troops by the sea there. But by devoting all his attention to a small detail in the larger plan, he has lost a general view of the situation, judged the situation wrongly and in this way shown that he is no strategic military leader.”
This in my view was true, and anyhow no friendship bound me to Corbulo whom I did not even know. And anyhow, friendship should stand aside when the State is in danger. That principle is impressed on every senator, and of course there is one’s own life to consider too. We could not afford to spare Corbulo, whatever honors he had brought Rome.
I was bold enough to remark that in my opinion the Parthian war should be postponed until the rebellion in Jerusalem had been suppressed, for this would tie down three of the legions. But fortunately the legions were already collected at their deployment areas and there were sufficient war machines to break through even the strongest of walls. The Jewish rebellion in Jerusalem could be suppressed very swiftly. I thought it much more dangerous that there were Jewish colonies in practically all the cities in the country, not to mention the thirty thousand Jews in Rome.
Nero allowed me to speak my piece and seemed to calm down. I hurriedly added that at least the Jews in the Julius Caesar synagogue were not involved in the rebellion. This I could guarantee personally, even if their temple gifts had obviously been misused to finance the rebellion. “But,” I said, “Poppaea in all innocence sent gifts to the temple in Jerusalem.”
When I fell silent, no one else dared to speak. Nero thought over the matter for a long time, frowning and pulling at his lips, then waved us impatiently away. He had other things to think about, and it would do us good to wait a while and try to guess what our punishment would be for our failure.
In his capacity as Emperor his intention was to appoint a commantler capable of capturing Jerusalem and to give him the necessary troops. Corbulo had already been recalled to account for what had been done and what had not. Postponing the Parthian campaign indefinitely was such a serious decision that Nero would first have to consult the omens and make a sacrifice.
We left somewhat relieved, and I invited my colleagues to a good meal in my quarters. Nevertheless we found it somewhat difficult to swallow our food although my excellent cooks did their best. We talked together excitedly and drank neat wine while my guests put forward such embittered and prejudiced opinions on the Jews that I was forced to defend them.
The Jews certainly had good and creditable sides, and they were in fact only defending the freedom of their own people in this rebellion. In addition, Judaea was the Emperor’s province and not the Senate’s. Nero himself was responsible for the rebellion for appointing a ruthless rogue like Festus as Procurator after Felix.
Perhaps I was too eager in my defense, for my colleagues began to glance at me in surprise as the wine rose to their heads.
“Evidently it is true,” one of them said contemptuously, “when it is said that you are a scarprick.”
I had wanted to keep my unpleasant nickname a secret, but thanks to your bearded friend Juvenal and his verses, everyone knows it. No, I am not blaming you, my son, for deliberately leaving the verse about when you were here last, to please your father. I should indeed know what people think of me and what you think of your father. And poets use far worse words nowadays in what they write to annoy their elders.
As nearly as I can make out, they think they are defending the truth and natural speech to counterbalance the artificial eloquence we have inherited from Seneca. Perhaps they are right. But the beard they have inherited from Titus, who brought the fashion to Rome when he came back home from Jerusalem.
Naturally no one could save Corbulo. Nero did not even wish to set eyes on him again. As soon as he stepped off the warship in Cenchreae, Corbulo received orders to commit suicide.
“If I had had the good fortune to live under other Emperors,” he said, “I should have conquered the whole world for Rome.”
And then he threw himself on his own sword on the quay, after requesting that it should be broken and the pieces thrown into the sea so that it should not fall into unworthy hands. Nevertheless I do not believe he was a good military leader, as was proved by his faulty judgment when the greatest opportunity of his military career came within his reach.
Nero had sufficient sense to resist his desire to hold a concert in Ecbatana. Skilled actor that he was, he succeeded in stumbling convincingly when he made an offering to the omens. Thus we could see with our own eyes that the immortal gods still did not wish Parthia quelled and it would be wisest to postpone the Parthian campaign to avoid devastating misfortunes. It was impossible anyhow, for Vespasian, since he had appeared and carefully acquired information on the Jews’ preparations for war, was demanding at least four legions if he was to capture Jerusalem.
So it was Flavius Vespasian whom Nero capriciously put at the head of the siege of Jerusalem. Vespasian protested, explaining that he was tired of war, he had won sufficient honors in Britain in his time and he regarded himself as an old man. He was perfectly content, he said, to be a member of two colleges of priests.
But, aging and even more unmusical than I, he had once started to nod when Nero was taking part in a singing competition. As a punishment, Nero gave him the task of enduring the trials of a troublesome and ignominious punitive campaign. Nero did weaken in the end when, confronted by Vespasian’s tears, he consoled him by telling him that he was to receive the opportunity of his life to enrich himself at the expense of the Jews. He would then be able to give up dealing in mules, which was unworthy of a senator, and would no longer need to complain of his poverty.
Everyone thought Vespasian’s appointment a sign of Nero’s madness, for Vespasian was despised to such an extent that even Nero’s favorite slaves were offensive to him whenever he showed himself at the Golden Palace. He was invited only once a year, on Nero’s birthday, and that favor cost him free asses for Poppaea and later for Statilia.
Vespasian was in no way involved in Eastern affairs, and it would never have occurred to anyone to suggest him as a member of any committee or confidential task in the Senate. On the other hand, Ostarius, whom Claudius had once mistakenly sent to Britain and who had done well there, would gladly have led the legions to quell the Jewish rebellion as he offered only too often. As a result, Nero became suspicious, with some justification, and ordered him to be executed. And Nero’s trust in Vespasian was increased by Vespasian’s opposition to accepting the assignment, regarding it as a punishment for his drowsiness which he did not cease to curse.
Nero himself was sufficiently doubtful about his choice that he demantled that Vespasian should take his son Titus with him. Titus had also done well in Britain and in his youth had once saved his father’s life. Nero hoped that Titus’ youthful eagerness would encourage Vespasian and help him to carry out the task of capturing Jerusalem within a reasonable time.
Nevertheless he urged Vespasian to avoid unnecessary losses, for he had heard about the strengthening of the walls of Jerusalem. Because of the city’s strategically advantageous position, even Pompey had found it difficult to capture, and Nero considered one could hardly mention the two in one breath.
In Corinth, I had the opportunity of again contacting my old commantler and strengthening our friendship by offering him free use as my guest of Hierex’ fine new house. Vespasian was grateful to me for this. I was the only nobleman on the whole journey who treated the war-weary and simple Vespasian with any decency at all.
I am not particularly prejudiced or fussy in my friends, as my life shows only too well. I regarded my happy youth under his command in Britain as sufficient reason to exchange his rough friendliness then with hospitality which cost me nothing.
I should also mention that I had done everything to spare the Flavians during the Pisonian conspiracy, however difficult this had been in face of Flavius Scevinus’ murder plot. Fortunately he belonged to the worst branch of the Flavian family. I had informed on him, so had a certain right to put in a good word for the other Flavians.
Vespasian never even came under suspicion, for he was so poor he could hardly keep himself in the Senate. I had transferred one of my country properties to his name when the Censors remarked that he no longer fulfilled the conditions of wealth. Anyhow everyone knew him to be an honest man and not even the most wretched informer considered it worth putting his name on a list.
I say all this to show what old and enduring ties I had with the Flavians and how much Vespasian valued my friendship even at the time when one of Nero’s slaves might spit at his feet without being punished, despite his rank of senator and consul. There was no selfishness or self-interest in my friendship. I had long since forgotten the dream I had had when I had been put into a deep sleep by the Druids, though naturally no one believes this. I am regarded as a man who always sees to his own advantage, as can be seen in your friend’s verse too.
At Hierex’ house I had a good opportunity to establish again that “some people are like unpolished jewels in that they can hide brilliant qualities beneath a rough exterior,” as your bearded young friend Decimus Juvenal recently wrote to flatter Emperor Vespasian. I know his kind very well. He has every reason to strive for the Emperor’s favor, for his unwarranted language and insolent verses have caused offense. Not with me, for he is a friend of yours. As young people do, you admire people with the gift of a swift tongue. But remember you are four years younger than that unwashed scamp.
If I am sure of anything, then I am sure Juvenal’s indecent verses will not survive. I have seen so many more brilliant stars flare up and be extinguished. In addition his foolish drinking, his insolent tongue, his way of transforming night to day and his endless plucking at Egyptian tunes will extinguish the last spark of genuine poetry he might possess.
I am not writing this because you allowed me to see a verse a despicable youth had written lampooning me, but because I cannot with a clear conscience consider supporting his efforts by publishing them. I am not that simple. I am only seriously worried about you, my son.
In Corinth I gained Vespasian’s friendship to such an extent that before he went to Egypt to take over the two legions there at the time, he asked me to put my knowledge of Eastern affairs and my good connections with the Jews at his disposal and to accompany him into the field. I declined politely, for it was not really a war but a punitive expedition against rebellious subjects.
After Vespasian had gone, in order to keep his aims secret Nero had the Praetorian legions begin digging the canal at Corinth. This enterprise had already been begun on his orders some time before, but bad omens had forced him to stop. The holes had filled overnight with blood and in the darkness terrible cries, which carried right into the city and frightened the Corinthians, were heard. This is the absolute truth and not just gossip, for I have it from very reliable sources.
Hierex had managed to acquire profitable shares in the tracks along which the ships were hauled across the land. Obviously the owners of these tracks, who had invested large sums in the powerful slaves needed, did not regard the plan to dig a canal with particular approval, Hierex had access to plentiful supplies of fresh blood because in his water-cooled butcher’s shops he also sold meat to the Jews, and thus had to bleed the animals in the Jewish way before cutting up the meat.
He always had tubs of blood. Usually he used it to make blood-pancakes for the slaves in his copper foundry. But on the advice of his business friends, he offered several days’ income in a good cause and had all the blood taken at night and tipped into the holes dug for the canal. His friends arranged for the sighs and wails, which was easily done, as I once told you, when I had arranged for Tullia’s house, after considerable trouble, to become my legal property.
Naturally I did not tell Nero of what I had heard in Hierex’ house, and besides I had no reason to support the building of the canal either. When the Praetorians refused to do the work because of the bad omens and because physical work was distasteful to them, Nero ceremoniously went and dug the first hole with his own hands, watched by the Praetorian troops and the people of Corinth.
He lifted the first basket of earth to his Imperial shoulders and carried it bravely to its place on what was to be the canal bank. No blood was found in this hole and the nighdy wails ceased, so the Praetorians took courage and began to dig. The centurions helped them on with lashes, so that they themselves need not take up a shovel. This also meant that the Praetorians began to bear a bitter grudge against Nero, more so than against Tigellinus who used to punish them with ordinary marching exercises. They preferred to expend their energies on the road rather than with a spade.
After considering the matter carefully, I found valid reasons for telling Hierex to stop taking blood to the canal workings. I did not tell him my real reason; I simply told him that for the sake of his own health and because of Nero, he would be wise to bear the loss like a man.
Hierex followed my advice not only for its own sake but because Nero had begun to put guards there at night to stop people from trespassing in the canal area.
Hierex and his connections with the Jews in Corinth were enormously useful to me when, immediately after the news of the defeat of the legion in Judaea, I had warnings sent out to all the Christian Jews that they would be wise to keep quiet and preferably go into hiding. Nero sent orders to both Italy and all the provinces for the imprisonment and prosecution for treason of every Jewish agitator at the least sign of trouble.
It would be too much to expect that a Roman official would be able to differentiate between heavenly and earthly kingdoms, between Christs and other Messiahs, when it came to agitation. To Roman reasoning, the activities of the Christian Jews were simply political agitation under the cloak of religion. Matters were made worse after the many summary trials of the Christians by their calling Nero the anti-Christ whose appearance Jesus of Nazareth had prophesied. Nero did not in fact mind this nickname, but just said that the Christians obviously regarded him as a god equal to Christ as they honored him with such a splendid name.
In fact the weakness of the Christians lies in that they despise politics and avoid political activities, and instead direct all their hopes on an invisible kingdom, which as far as I can make out could not be any danger to the State. So when their leaders are dead, they will have no future in this world. Their faith will soon disappear because of their internal squabbles in which each man thinks his own beliefs are the true ones. I am convinced of this, whatever your mother says. Women have no political sense.
For my part, I have often talked myself hoarse on behalf of the Christians to demonstrate their political insignificance, whether they are circumcised or not. But it is impossible to explain this to a Roman who has had legal training and experience. He just shakes his head and regards the Christians as politically suspect all the same.
To my sorrow, I did not succeed in saving Paul whose restless temperament forced him to move continuously from country to country. I had received the latest news of him from my oil buyer in Emporiae, a prosperous harbor city which is beginning to become silted up on the north coast of Iberia. He had been driven from there by the faithful Jews in the city, but according to my informer, had not suffered severe injuries.
In Iberia, as in other places, he had been forced to content himself with preaching in the coastal cities which had been founded by the Greeks long ago and still used Greek as their main language, although laws and regulations were of course in Latin and engraved on copper tablets. There are many such large towns along the Iberian coast and thus plenty of opportunities for him to travel. The oil merchant said that he had sailed southward to Mainace, to reach western Iberia, for his restlessness had not lessened.
So he has only himself to blame that my warning did not reach him. He was imprisoned in Troy in Asiatic Bithnya so suddenly that his papers, books and traveling cloak were left in his lodgings. I suppose he had been forced to visit Asia to encourage his converts, whom he thought were being enticed away by wandering preachers. At least he bitterly called many of them lie-prophets-even those who like himself spoke in the name of Christ-though of course they were not so well versed in the divine mysteries as he.
When the news of Paul’s whereabouts arrived in Rome, Cephas’ hiding place was immediately revealed; Paul’s followers thought they owed that to their teacher. Cephas had received my warning in time and left Rome for Puteoli, but had turned back again at the fourth milestone on the via Appia. As a reason, he gave that Jesus of Nazareth had appeared to him in all his glory, which he well remembered and recognized. “Where are you going?” Jesus had asked him. Cephas replied that he had fled from Rome. Then Jesus had said: “Then I myself shall go to Rome to be crucified for the second time.”
Cephas was ashamed and humbly turned back to Rome, although happy to have once again seen his master. In his simplicity, during his journeys with Jesus of Nazareth, Cephas had been the first of all the disciples to recognize and acknowledge him as the Son of God. Because of this, his master had become so attached to him that he called him his chief disciple, not just because of his great strength of body and mind as many still believe.
I am telling you what I have heard, but there are also other versions. The essential thing, however, was that Cephas had experienced a vision of some kind on the via Appia and this helped him toward a final reconciliation with Paul before their deaths. Paul himself had, of course, never set eyes on Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, prompted by a certain envy, Cephas had once said, concerning Paul’s vision, that he did not need to invent stories, since he had known Jesus of Nazareth while he had lived on earth. But these words were spoken when their dispute was at its height. Later, after he had himself experienced a vision, Cephas was ashamed of his accusation and had asked Paul to forgive him.
I was sorry for this simple fisherman who after ten years in Rome still had not learned enough Latin or Greek to be able to manage without an interpreter. This caused a great many misunderstandings. It is even said that he used to quote inaccurately or at least carelessly from the holy scripts of the Jews as with their help he tried to show that Jesus of Nazareth was the true Messiah or Christ, just as if that were important to those who believed he was so. But the Christian Jews have a deep desire to show their learning, disputing over words and their meaning and always referring to their holy scripts.
It would be a good thing to translate them gradually into Latin, so that they would then have an indisputably valid form. Our language is suited to such things. It would put an end to all these insufferable disputes on the correct meaning of words which bring only headaches with them.
But I must return to my story. Out of the inner circle of Jesus of Nazareth’s followers, I managed to save a certain Johannes, who had fled to Ephesus to avoid the persecution of the Jews. I myself have never met him, but he is said to be a mild and gentle man who spends his time writing his memoirs and making speeches of reconciliation to lessen the disunity among the Jews. My father liked him very much. He was denounced during this time of treachery and envy, but the Proconsul in Asia happened to be a friend of mine and contented himself with banishing him temporarily to an island.
I was surprised to hear that there he had written accounts of several stormy visions he had had, although he is said to have calmed down after being allowed to return to Ephesus.
Nero punished the members of the committee for Eastern affairs by sending us back to Rome to see that the Jews there did not rise in armed rebellion. He said derisively that we could perhaps manage that, even if otherwise we had lack of ability. He could not dismiss us from the committee, since that was the Senate’s business, but to please him the Senate made certain changes, although it was hard to find new men who were prepared to sacrifice their time for this thankless task.
So I was no longer on the committee when Nero proclaimed Achaia a free kingdom and returned Greece’s independence to her. The political circumstances were not changed by this, as I had experienced in my youth when I had been a tribune in Corinth. On the other hand the Greeks would now have to choose their own governor, pay for their own campaigns and dig their own canals. Despite this, the measure roused immense joy among the short-sighted Greeks.
I noticed that Nero did not once mention the Roman Senate, but made it clear that Nero and Nero alone had been able to carry out such a declaration of independence. We had heard with our own ears, at the introduction of the building of the Corinthian canal, that Nero hoped that this great enterprise would bring fortune to Achaia and the Roman people, with no mention of the Senate, although this should always be said in official speeches. The correct expression is “the Senate and people of Rome” and so it will always be, however the times change.
So it was not surprising that I began to feel that Orcus was guiding my feet and that Charon was breathing coldly down my neck as I followed the Jews to their death. Many another farsighted senator had felt the same way, although nothing had been said, for who could trust anyone any longer? For safety’s sake, one of us always took a reserve of a million sesterces in gold on a cart when we traveled anywhere.
Nero did not even let us meet him in Naples. He wished to begin his triumphal procession to Rome from there since it was in the theater in Naples that he had first performed in public. Instead of a triumph in the ordinary sense, he wished to make his return to Rome into an artistic procession of triumph to give the people pleasure and a few free days. In itself this was politically wise, especially since the campaigns in the East had failed, but we were not pleased that we had to pull down part of the city wall for his procession. No victor had ever demantled such an honor before, not even Augustus himself at his triumphs. We thought Nero was beginning to show some unpleasant signs of an Eastern autocrat. That will not do for Rome, whatever an unwashed scamp of a boy writes on the decay of our customs.
Not only we, but the people too, and I mean of course all right-thinking citizens, shook our heads at the sight of Nero in Augustus’ sacred triumphal chariot, driving through the breach in the city wall and then straight through the city, followed by wagon-loads of victory wreaths, and instead of soldiers, guard of honor of actors, musicians, singers and dancers from all over the world. Instead of battles, he had had artists paint great canvases and sculpt groups of figures rep-presenting his victories in different singing competitions. He himself was dressed in a purple cloak covered with golden stars and had a double Olympic olive wreath on his head.
In honor of Nero it must also be said that he followed the ancient custom of humbly mounting the steep steps on the Capitoline on his knees to dedicate his best victory wreaths not only to Jupiter Custos, but also to the other important gods of Rome, Juno and Venus. All the same, there were enough wreaths left to cover all the walls of the reception rooms and the circular banqueting hall in the Golden Palace.
Nero’s return home, nevertheless, was not quite so agreeable as an outsider might have thought. Statilia Messalina was a spoiled and weak woman, but a woman all the same, and she would not tolerate Nero giving Sporus exactly the same marital rights as herself, so that he could exchange marital beds according to his whim of the moment. They quarreled so violently that it resounded throughout the Palace, but with Poppaea’s fate still fresh in his mind, Nero dared not kick his wife, and Statilia made the most of this. After a while, in his anger, Nero demantled his victory wreaths back from Juno, and other things which he could not do. In the end he banished Statilia to Antium, but that turned out to be only to her advantage.
Statilia Messalina relives that day today and grieves for Nero, remembering his good points, as befits a widow. She often demonstratively decorates the Domitians’ modest mausoleum, which can easily be seen by Mars field from the Pincian hill, near Lucullus’ gardens, where in my youth I saw the cherry trees bloom with Nero and Agrippina.
Nero’s bones rest in the tomb of the Domitians, it is said. There has been a good deal of trouble in the Eastern provinces over his memory. The people do not believe he is dead, but imagine he will come back again to remind us that his rule was a time of happiness compared with today’s tax-burdened State cupidity.
Now and again an escaped slave appears in the East, proclaiming he is Nero and, of course, the Parthians are always glad to support such attempts at rebellion. We have crucified two false Neros. They were asked to demonstrate their identity by singing, but neither of them proved a singer of Nero’s quality. Anyhow, Statilia remembers him with flowers and decorates his tomb, if it is Nero’s tomb.
Again I had postponed the matter which I find hard to recount by speaking of something else. Thanks to Nero’s triumph and his other political duties, I succeeded in postponing the executions for a long time. But finally the day dawned when we had to put the long-since determined death sentences before Nero. If I had found yet another excuse to postpone them, I myself would have been suspected of being pro-Jewish, even by my colleagues.
To clear our reputation, we in the committee for Eastern affairs had made a thorough investigation into the actual situation within the Jewish colony in Rome and its danger to the security of the State after the Jewish uprising in Jerusalem. Many of us had grown wealthier during these profitable activities. With a clear conscience we could lay a reassuring account before Nero and the Senate.
By a narrow majority we managed to convince the Senate that there should be no real persecution of the Jews, but that we should be content with weeding out suspected elements and talkative agitators. Our suggestion was based on sound reason and was accepted, despite the hatred of the Jews the rebellion in Jerusalem had aroused. To be truthful, I used my own means in preparing the case, because Claudia had so many Jewish Christian friends. For instance, Aquila with his crooked nose and brave Prisca would have certainly been taken with the rest. But I am a hardhearted man, a miser, a rogue who always manages to save himself and for whom your best friend Juvenal has not a good word. I expect my friends pay him well for copies of his verses. There is no joy among human beings like malicious joy. Let us rejoice then, you and I, that your bearded friend can at least pay his debts thanks to me, and without it costing me a thing.
If I were as avaricious as he maintains, then naturally I should buy that cursed verse from him and allow my own publisher to reap the profits. But I am not like Vespasian, who even taxed the water a man makes. We once were discussing funerals, and he asked us how much we thought his funeral would cost the State treasury. We calculated that the ceremonies would come to at least ten million sesterces, a calculation which was not just a compliment but could be proved with the clear figures. Vespasian sighed heavily and said: “Give me a hundred thousand now and you can throw my ashes in the Tiber.”
Naturally we then had to collect a hundred thousand sesterces in his old-fashioned straw hat, so the meal was an expensive one and the food had been nothing to boast about either. Vespasian loves simple honest customs and his own fresh country wine. For the sake of my position, I have many a time had to contribute to the building of his amphitheater. It will be the wonder of the world, and Nero’s Golden Palace will be nothing but a spoiled youth’s finicky mess in comparison.
Why do I keep postponing my story time and time again? It is like having a tooth extracted. Swiftly and speedily, Minutus, and then it is over. And I am not guilty. I did everything I could for them, and no man can do more than that. No power on earth could have saved the lives of Paul and Cephas. Cephas returned to Rome of his own free will, although he could well have gone into hiding through the worst time.
I know that nowadays everyone uses Cephas’ Latin name, Petrus, but I prefer to use his old name which is dear to me. Petrus is a translation of Cephas, which means rock and which name he received from Jesus of Nazareth. I don’t know why. Cephas was no rock in mind; indeed, he was a rough and touchy man who on some occasions behaved in a cowardly way. He even denied all knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth on that last night, and in Antioch he behaved anything but courageously in face of Jacob’s representative who regarded it as a crime against the Jewish laws that he ate with the uncircumcised. But all the same, Cephas was an unforgettable person, or perhaps because of this. How can one know?
It is said of Paul now that he had taken the name Sergius Paulus because Sergius, who was governor of Cyprus, was the most important man he converted. That is quite without foundation. Paul changed his name from Saul long before he met Sergius and only because in Greek it means the insignificant one, the worthless one, just as does my own name Minutus in Latin.
When my father gave me my despicable name, he could have had no idea that he was making me Paul’s namesake. Perhaps it was in part my name which made me begin to write down these memoirs, to show that I am not quite such an insignificant man as I seem. The main reason, however, is because I am here at this resort, drinking mineral water, the physicians watching over my stomach trouble, and at first I could not find any other outlet to satisfy my need for activity. I also thought that you might find it useful to know at least something about your father when you one day come to wall in my ashes in the tomb in Caere.
During Cephas’ and Paul’s long imprisonment, I saw to it that they were well treated, and I arranged for them to meet and talk together, if under guard. As dangerous public enemies they had to be imprisoned in Tullianum, away from the anger of the people. That is not an especially healthy place, although Tullianum naturally has glorious traditions of many hundreds of years’ standing. Jugurtha was strangled there, and there too Vercingetorix’ head was crushed, and Catilina’s friends lost their lives there, and Sejanus’ little daughter was violated there before her execution as the laws prescribe, since Romans never execute a virgin.
Paul seemed to fear a painful death, but in such cases Nero was not small-minded, although he was angry about the Jewish rebellion and regarded all Jewish agitators as to blame for it. Paul was a citizen and had a legal right to be executed by the sword, a right the judges did not question at his last trial. Cephas was sentenced to be crucified according to the law, although I had no wish to inflict such a death on an old man and a friend of my father’s.
I made sure that I could accompany them on their last journey on the fresh summer morning they were taken away to be executed. I had arranged that no other Jews should be crucified at the same time. There were constant crowds on the execution places because of the Jews, but I wanted Paul and Cephas to be allowed to die alone with dignity.
At the road fork to Ostia I had to choose with whom I should go, for it had been decided that Paul would be taken to the same gate at which my father and Tullia had been executed. The judges had ordained that Cephas be taken through the Jewish quarter of the city as a warning and then crucified on the execution place for slaves near Nero’s amphitheater.
Paul was accompanied by his friend the physician Lucas, and I knew Paul would not be offended, for he was a citizen. Cephas needed my protection much more, and I feared too for his companions, Marcus and Linus. So I chose Cephas.
I need not have worried about demonstrations from the Jews. Apart from a few lumps of clay, Cephas had nothing thrown at him. The Jews were very Jewish, and despite their bitter hatred, contented themselves with silently watching a Jewish agitator being taken away to be crucified because of the rebellion in Jerusalem. Cephas had the usual plaque around his neck on which was inscribed in Greek and Latin: Simon Petrus from Capernaum, Galilean, enemy of the people and mankind.
When we had left the city and reached the gardens, the heat began to be oppressive. I saw beads of sweat running down Cephas’ wrinkled forehead and ordered the crossbar of the cross to be taken from him and given to an approaching Jew to carry. The soldiers had a right to do this. I then told Cephas to join me in my sedan for the last stretch, without a thought for the talk this would give rise to afterwards.
But Cephas would not have been Cephas if he had not brusquely replied that he could carry the cross on his broad shoulders to the very end without help. He did not want to sit at my side but preferred, he said, to feel the dust of the road beneath his feet for the last time, and the heat of the sun on his head, in the same way as he had felt them long ago when he had traveled with Jesus of Nazareth along the paths of Galilee. He did not even wish the rope by which he was being led to be loosened, but said that Jesus of Nazareth had foretold this and he did not want to bring shame on the prophecy. Nevertheless he leaned wearily on his worn shepherd’s stave.
When we reached the execution place, which was stinking in the heat of the sun, I asked Cephas if he would like to be scourged first This was a merciful measure to hasten on death, although many barbarians misunderstand this. Cephas replied that scourging would not be necessary, for he had his own plans, but then he changed his mind and said humbly that he would like to go to the end in the same way as many witnesses had before him. Jesus of Nazareth had also been scourged.
But he was in no hurry. I saw a brief smile in his eyes as he turned to his companions, Marcus and Linus.
“Listen, both of you,” he said. “Listen, Marcus, although I have repeated the same thing to you many times before. Listen too, Minutus, if you wish to. Jesus said, ‘The kingdom of God is as when a man sows a seed in the earth, and sleeps and rises, nights and days, and the seed germinates and grows, but he himself does not know how. From the earth, the seed brings forth by itself first the straw, then the ear and then fills the ear with the corn. But when the seed is ripe, he sends the reaper, for then the harvest time has come.’”
He shook his head incredulously, with tears of joy in his eyes, and he laughed joyously.
“And I, foolish creature that I am,” he cried, “did not understand, although I constantly repeated his words. Now I understand at last. The seed is ripe and the reaper is here.”
With a glance at me, he blessed Linus, and passed him his worn stave.
“Watch over my sheep,” he said.
It was as if he wished me to see this and be witness to it. Then he humbly turned to the soldiers, who tied him to a pole and began to scourge him.
Despite his great strength, he could not refrain from groaning. At the lashes of the scourge and the sound of his voice, one of the Jews who had been crucified the day before awoke from his death throes, opened his feverish eyes so that the flies rose, and recognized Cephas, and even then could not refrain from mocking Jesus of Nazareth’s statement that he was Christ. But Cephas was in no mood for discussion.
Instead he told the soldiers, after the scourging, that he should be crucified with his head downward. He did not feel worthy of the honor of being crucified with his head facing heaven as his Lord Jesus, the Son of God, had been. I had to hide a smile.
To the very end Cephas remained the genuine Cephas, whose sound fisherman’s sense was needed to build the kingdom. I realized why Jesus of Nazareth had loved him. In that moment, I loved him myself. It is incomparably easier for an old man to die if he is crucified upside down so that the blood runs to his head and bursts his veins. A merciful unconsciousness will then save him from many hours of suffering.
The soldiers burst out laughing and gladly agreed to his request, for they realized that in this way they would escape guard duty in the heat. As he hung on the cross, Cephas opened his mouth and seemed to attempt to sing something, although I thought he had no great cause to do so.
I asked Marcus what it was that Cephas was trying to say. Marcus told me that Cephas was singing a psalm in which God was leading his faithful to green meadows and refreshing springs. To my joy, Cephas did not have to wait long for his green meadows. After he had lost consciousness, we waited for a while as his body writhed and jerked, and then, impatient with the smell and the flies, I told the centurion to do his duty. He had a soldier break Cephas’ shinbone with a sharp-edged board and himself thrust his sword into Cephas’ neck as he jokingly said that this was slaughter in the Jewish way, in which the blood must be let out before life has gone. A great deal of blood flowed out of the old man. Marcus and Linus promised to see to it that his body was buried in what is now an unused burial ground behind the amphitheater not far away. Linus wept, but Marcus had already wept his tears and was an even-tempered and reliable man. He retained his calm, but his eyes were looking into another world which I could not see.
You must be wondering why I chose to go with Cephas rather than Paul. Paul was at least a Roman citizen and Cephas only an old Jewish fisherman. Perhaps my behavior shows that I do not always act in my own self-interest. Personally I liked Cephas better because he was a sincere and simple man, and in addition, Claudia would never have permitted me to abandon them on their last journey. I do anything for peace at home.
Later I quarreled with Lucas when he demantled to see the Aramaic story which I had inherited from my father and which was written by a customs official, I did not give it to him. Lucas had had two years to talk to eyewitnesses while Paul was in prison in Caesarea in Proconsul Felix* time. I did not think I owed him anything.
Lucas was not such a skilled physician either, although he had studied in Alexandria. I should never have let him treat my own stomach complaint. I suspect that he followed Paul so eagerly because of Paul’s faith-healing, either to learn this art himself or with humble insight into his own shortcomings as a physician. But he could write, though only in the dialect of the market, not in educated Greek.
I have always liked Marcus very much, but Linus, who is younger, has become even dearer to me with the years. In spite of everything, I have been forced to put the Christians’ internal affairs in some kind of order, both for their own sake and to escape official trouble. Cephas in his time introduced certain divisions according to tribes and tried to reconcile their internal quarrels, but an ignorant man such as he cannot possess any real political ability.
I have paid for Cletus’ legal training, in memory of his brave conduct in the Praetorian camp. Perhaps one day he will succeed in establishing satisfactory order among the Christians. Then you would be able to get political support from them. But I have no great hopes of litem. They are what they are.
I am stronger now and the physicians are hopeful. Soon I shall return to Rome from this sulphurous resort, of which I am heartily tired. Naturally I have been keeping an eye on my most important affairs, though the physicians have been unaware of this. But it will be wonderful to taste good wine again, and after all this fasting and water drinking, I shall value the skills of my two cooks more than before. So I will hurry on now, as the worst is over.
When I heard about Julius Vindex’ secret ventures as propraetor, I read the signs of the times without hesitating. I had already realized long before that Piso could have succeeded if only his conceit had not made him despise the support of the legions. After the sudden deaths of Corbulo and Ostarius, the legion commantlers at last began to awaken from their slumber and understand that neither military honors nor unconditional loyalty would save anyone from Nero’s caprices. I had seen this when I left Corinth.
I hurriedly began to sell my property through my bankers and freedmen and to collect cash in gold pieces. Naturally these deals, the reason for which many sensible men did not yet realize, attracted attention among those better informed. I had nothing against that, for I was relying entirely on Nero’s ignorance in money matters.
My actions aroused a certain anxiety in Rome, for the prices of apartments and also of country properties fell considerably. I sold more properties recklessly, although the money is safe in the soil and even makes a profit as long as the cultivation is in the hands of reliable freedmen. I did not bother about the falling prices but went on selling and collecting cash. I knew that one day, if I succeeded in my plan, I should retrieve it all again. The anxiety caused by my activities made financiers reassess the political situation, and in this way I also helped on a good thing.
I sent Claudia and you to my property near Caere and for once made Claudia listen to me and stay there in safety until I sent for her again. As your third birthday was approaching, your mother was very busy. You were not a good boy, and to speak frankly I was tired of your constant running about and noise. As soon as I turned my back, you either fell into a pond or cut yourself. So this too meant I was pleased to go on my journey to secure your future. Because of Claudia, I could not form your character and had to rely on your heredity. Genuine self-discipline always rises from within, and cannot be forced from outside.
It was not difficult to get permission from the Senate and Nero to leave the city and go to Vespasian as his adviser on Jewish matters. On the contrary, I was praised for my willingness to do my best for the State. Nero himself thought that some trustworthy person should keep an eye on Vespasian and get him moving, for he suspected Vespasian of loitering unnecessarily outside the walls of Jerusalem.
As I was a senator, a warship was put at my disposal. Many of my colleagues probably wondered why such a comfort-loving man as myself was content to sleep in a hammock at night, not to mention the wretched food, cramped space and eternal lice of the fleet.
But I had my own reasons. I was so relieved to have at last got my twenty heavy iron chests on board ship that I slept like a log the first night, until the tramp of bare feet on deck woke me. I had three faithful freedmen with me, who took turns in guarding my chests, as well as the usual military guard.
In Caere, I had also armed my slaves, trusting in their loyalty to me. I was not disappointed. Otho’s soldiers did plunder my farm and smash my collection of Greek jars, the value of which they did not realize, but they did not harm either you or Claudia, and this was due to my slaves. There are still innumerable unopened graves in the ground, so I can probably replace my collection of jars.
Fortunately we had good weather, for the autumn storms had not yet begun. I hurried on the journey as much as I could by distributing extra rations of food and wine to the galley slaves at my own expense, however mad this seemed to the naval centurion who relied more on his whip and knew that he could easily replace any slaves he lost en route with Jewish prisoners. I had other reasons. I think one can make people do what one wants with good rather than evil. But I have always been unnecessarily softhearted, as my father was. Remember that I have never once struck you, my insubordinate son. How could I possibly strike a future Emperor?
To pass the time I asked many questions about the fleet during the journey. Among other things I was told why marines, both on board and ashore, had to go barefooted. This I had not known before, but I have wondered about it sometimes. I thought it had something to do with seamanship.
Now I learned how Emperor Claudius had once in the amphitheater been angry when some marines from Ostia, spreading out a sunshade above the spectators’ seats in the middle of a performance, began to demand compensation from him for the marching shoes they had worn out on the way there. So Claudius forbade the use of shoes in the entire fleet and ever since then his orders have been faithfully obeyed. We Romans respect our traditions.
Later on I happened to mention the matter to Vespasian, but he considers it best for the seamen to continue barefoot since they are used to it. It has not done them any harm hitherto. “Why create more expenses in the already huge naval budget?” he said. Thus naval centurions still consider it an honor to go barefooted on duty, although they like to wear soft parade boots on their feet during leaves on shore.
It was a great weight off my mind when I eventually put my valuable chests in the keeping of a well-known banker in Caesarea, safe from the dangers of the sea. Bankers have to trust one another, or no reasonable business life would be possible. Thus I trusted this man although
I knew him only through letters. But his father had in my father’s youth been my father’s banker in Alexandria or had at least sold him travel documents. So we were in a way business friends.
Caesarea was at peace in the sense that the Greek inhabitants had taken the opportunity to kill the city’s Jews, women and small children as well. So there was no trace of the revolt to be seen in the city, except considerable shipping activity and guarded mule caravans carrying equipment to the legions outside Jerusalem. Joppa and Caesarea were the two most important harbors supporting Vespasian.
On the way to Vespasian’s camp outside Jerusalem, I saw how hopeless the situation was for the Jewish civilians who were still left. The Samaritans had also joined in and had cleared their decks. The legionaries themselves did not differentiate between Galileans and Samaritans and Jews in general. Fertile Galilee with its million inhabitants was devastated, to the lasting injury of the Roman kingdom. Of course it did not officially belong to us but had been handed over to Herodes Agrippa to rule because of old ties of friendship.
I took this matter up first when I met Vespasian and Titus. They received me wholeheartedly, for they were curious to know what was happening in Gaul and Rome. Vespasian told me that the legionaries were angry about the fierce resistance the Jews were offering and that they had suffered severe losses from fanatics attacking the roads from their hiding places in the mountains. He had been forced to give his commantlers authority to create peace in the countryside, and a punitive expedition was on its way to destroy one of the Jewish strongpoints by the Dead Sea. Arrows had been shot from the towers and according to reliable sources, injured fanatics had sought refuge there.
I took the opportunity to read them a brief lecture on the Jewish faith and customs and to explain that it was obviously a question of one of the Essene sect’s closed houses into which they withdrew for religious exercises because they did not wish to pay taxes to the temple. The Essenes sought to retreat from the world and were hostile to Jerusalem rather than friendly. There was no reason to persecute them.
They were supported by certain peaceable people in the country who neither could nor wished to be initiated completely, but preferred to lead their modest family lives without harming anyone. If one of these people took in an injured fanatic seeking protection and gave him food and water, then he did this for religious reasons and not in support of the rebellion. From what I had heard from my companions on the journey, these people had also given shelter and food to wounded Roman legionaries and bound up their wounds. So I felt they should not be killed without reason.
Vespasian muttered that in Britain I had not been particularly knowledgeable about warfare, so he had preferred to send me out on pleasure trips about the country and give me the rank of tribune when my father became a senator, more from political reasons than for gain. However, I succeeded in convincing him that it was not worth killing the Jewish country people or burning their humble homes just because they took care of the wounded.
Titus agreed with me, for he was much taken with Herodes Agrip-pa’s sister, Berenice, so was interested in the Jews. Berenice lived inces-tuously with her brother, in the hereditary manner of the Herodians, but Titus said that in that case he must learn to understand the customs of the Jews. He seemed to have hopes that Berenice’s great love for her brother would cool and she would begin to visit him in his comfortable field tent, at least at night when no one would see her. This was a matter I did not think I could become involved in.
I was deeply hurt by Vespasian’s contemptuous words about my travels in Britain. So I remarked that if he had nothing against it, I should like to set out on a similar pleasure trip into Jerusalem to view the defenses of the besieged city with my own eyes and find the cracks which might possibly exist in the strength of the Jews.
It was important to know how many disguised Parthian mercenaries were there to lead the work of strengthening the walls. The Parthians had had a great deal of experience of sieges and defense in Armenia. In any case there were Parthian bowmen in Jerusalem, for it was not advisable to wander within range of the walls. I was not so ignorant of matters of warfare that I believed that inexperienced Jews could suddenly have learned this frightening skill with bow and arrow.
My suggestion made an impression on Vespasian. He peered at me, passed his hand over his mouth and laughingly explained that he could not possibly take the responsibility for a Roman senator’s exposing himself to such danger, if I meant it seriously. If I were taken prisoner then the Jews would demand concessions of him. If I lost my life ignomini-ously, then this would bring shame on Rome and on him. Nero might take it into his head that he had deliberately rid himself of one of Nero’s personal friends.
He looked at me craftily, but I knew his cunning little ways. So I replied that for the good of the State, friendship must stand aside. He had no reason to insult me by calling me a friend of Nero’s. In this respect we need hide nothing from each other. Rome and the future of the fatherland were our guiding lights on the battlefield, where the corpses stank, the carrion birds gorged and legionaries hung like sun-dried sacks from the walls of Jerusalem.
I raised my voice rhetorically as I was in the habit of doing in the Senate. Vespasian patted me on the back in a friendly way with his broad peasant hand and assured me that he in no way doubted my motives and put his trust in my patriotism. Naturally he had not even imagined that I was going to slip into Jerusalem to betray his military secrets; I could not be that mad. But on the torture racks not even a strong man can keep his mouth shut, and the Jews had shown themselves to be skillful interrogators when it came to getting information. He regarded it as his first duty to protect my life and my safety, once I had voluntarily put myself under his protection.
He introduced me to his adviser Josephus, a Jewish rebel leader who had betrayed his friends when they had all decided to commit suicide rather than fall into Roman hands. Josephus had allowed his friends to die and had then surrendered, saving his life by prophesying that one day Vespasian would be Emperor. As a joke, Vespasian had had golden shackles put on him and promised to release him if his prophecy came true. Later, when he was freed, he insolently called himself Flavius Josephus.
From the very first I took an instant dislike to this despicable traitor, and the literary reputation he has since acquired has in no way altered my opinion, in fact to the contrary. In his foolish voluminous work on the Jewish rebellion he overestimates, in my view, the significance of many events, and is much too long-winded in his accounts of details.
My criticism is not in the slightest influenced by the fact that he found no reason to include my name in his book, although it was solely due to me that the siege was continued, once I had seen the circumstances within the walls with my own eyes. It would have been mad for Vespasian, in this political situation, to use his well-trained legions for useless attacks against the unexpectedly strong walls, when a siege and starvation brought about the same result. Unnecessary losses would have made him unpopular with the legionaries, which would have not suited my intentions at all.
But I have never longed for recognition in history, so this despicable Jew’s silence concerning my contribution is unimportant. I never bear grudges toward inferior people and do not usually avenge insults, as long as I am not tempted by an unusually favorable opportunity. I am only human.
Through one of my freedmen, I even offered to publish Flavius Josephus’ books, both The Jewish War and his accounts of the history and customs of the Jews, however many inaccuracies there are in them, but Josephus said that he preferred a Jewish publisher, despite the advantageous conditions I had offered. Later I had a shortened, unauthorized version of The Jewish War brought out, for the book seemed to go very well. My freedmen had his family and his old mother to support, so I did not oppose this suggestion of his, fox someone else would have done the same thing.
I really mention Josephus only because he servilely agreed with Vespasian and opposed my views. He laughed scornfully and said that I obviously did not know what a wasp’s nest I was thinking of sticking my head into. If I somehow got inside the walls of Jerusalem, then I would never get out again alive. After many objections and much prevarication, he nevertheless found me a map of the city. I learned it off by heart while my beard was growing.
A beard in itself is no safe disguise, for the legionaries had followed their fierce opponents’ example and let their beards grow and Vespasian had not punished them for it. He even allowed a legionary to exchange a flogging for a fine. This was one of the reasons why he was so popular, but it was also difficult for him to maintain Roman army regulations in the field, for his own son Titus had cultivated a silky beard to please the lovely Berenice.
Saying that I must find the safest place in which to make my way into the city, I went on a long excursion around Jerusalem and was careful to remain more or less within range of the enemy’s bows and war machines, though naturally I did not risk my life unnecessarily. I had my own reasons for this because of you. So I dressed in strong armor and a helmet, although this equipment made me pant for breath and sweat profusely. But during those days I lost pounds of weight from my plump body so that the straps soon loosened. It did me nothing but good.
On my wanderings I found the Jewish execution place where Jesus of Nazareth had been crucified. The diminutive hill was indeed shaped like a skull, as I had been told, and had received its name from that. I looked for the rocky tomb from which Jesus of Nazareth had risen from the dead on the third day, and it was not difficult to find because the besiegers had cleared the ground and torn up all the bushes so that spies could not sneak out of the city. I found many rocky tombs but could not be certain which of them was the right one, for my father’s account had been vague in these details.
As I dragged myself on, my lungs heaving and armor rattling, the legionaries laughed at me and assured me I should not find a blind angle which would have allowed me to approach right up to the wall in safety, since the Parthians had helped the Jews fortify Jerusalem very skillfully. The legionaries were not very keen to protect me with a shield-roof because these tortoises were usually showered with molten lead from the wall. They asked mockingly why I was not wearing a horsehair plume on my helmet, or my purple band. But I was not that mad, and since I respected the Parthian bowmen, I left my red boots in my tent to avoid boasting of my rank.
I shall always remember the sight of the temple of Jerusalem as it shone on its mountain, high up above the walls, dreamily blue in the morning light, red as blood when the sun had already set in the valley. Herodes’ temple was in truth one of the wonders of the world. After years and years of work it had finally been completed shortly before its destruction. No human eye will ever see it again. It was the Jews’ own fault that it vanished. I did not wish to be part of its destruction.
Certain religious speculations to which I had been devoting myself at that time were naturally due to the fact that I knew I was risking my life for your future and so became softhearted in a manner un-suited to a man of my age. When I thought of Jesus of Nazareth and the Christians, I decided that I should help them to the best of my ability to free themselves from the deadweight of the Jews, which they still, despite Paul and Cephas, dragged along like fetters.
Not that I really believed the Christians had a political future, even under the best possible Emperor, for they were too hostile and disunited among themselves. But because of my father I have a certain weakness for Jesus of Nazareth and his teaching. When my stomach complaint was at its worst, about a year ago, I was even prepared to acknowledge him as the Son of God and the Savior of mankind, if he had mercy on me.
During the evenings I often drank from my mother’s worn old goblet, for I felt I should need all possible luck on my dangerous enterprise. Vespasian still had his grandmother’s buckled old silver goblet and he remembered my plain wooden mug from our time in Britain and admitted that he had begun to feel a paternal friendliness toward me then, because I respected the souvenir of my mother and had not brought silver dishes and gold goblets with me on active service, as many wealthy young knights did when they began their military careers. Such behavior only tempts the enemy and provides loot for the plunderer. As a sign of our lasting friendship, we took turns drinking from our sacred family goblets, for I had good reason to let Vespasian sip from Fortuna’s goblet. He would need all the luck he could find.
I brooded over whether I should dare dress in Jewish costume when I went into the city, but then thought it would be overdoing it, although numerous Jewish merchants had been crucified all over the camp as a warning against stealing up to the walls after dark and passing information on our plans and new military machines.
I wore my helmet, chest harness, armor and leg guards on the day when I finally scrambled to the wall at the place I had decided on. I thought such equipment would protect me from the first blows if I got inside the city. Our guard posts had had orders to send a shower of arrows after me, and by making a great deal of noise, draw the Jews’ attention to my attempt.
They did as they had been ordered so well that I was hit in my heel by an arrow and ever since then have been lame in both legs. I decided to seek out that all too zealous bowman if I returned alive and see to it that he received the severest possible punishment for disobeying clear orders. He had had orders to shoot beyond me, if also as close as possible. But when I finally did return, I was so pleased that I did not bother to find the man, and also my wound contributed to the fact that the Jews believed my story.
After abusing me for a while, the Jews fought off with stones and arrows a Roman patrol trying to pursue and capture me. During this attempt, to my great sorrow, two honest legionaries were killed, and I took it upon myself to support their families later on. They belonged to the 15th legion which had come all the way from Pannonia and they never again saw their beloved muddy banks of the Danube, but died for me in the land of the Jews, which they had already had time to curse a thousand times over.
At my entreaties, the Jews finally lowered a basket from the wall and pulled me up in it. I was so frightened in the swaying basket that I managed to pull the arrow out of my heel without feeling any pain. The barbs, however, stuck in the wound, which soon began to fester, and on my return to the camp I had to seek the help of the field surgeon, roaring with pain as a result, which is probably why I have been lame ever since. My previous experience with field surgeons had been bad enough and should have been a warning to me. • But those scars were my only hope. After venting their anger at my Roman attire, they at last gave me an opportunity to explain that I was circumcised and a convert to Judaism. This they at once confirmed, after which they treated me somewhat better. But I do not like to remember the Parthian centurion, dressed as a Jew, and his fierce interrogation to determine my identity and the truth of my story before he considered he could hand me over to the real Jews,
I shall only mention that torn-out thumbnails grow again quite quickly. I know that from experience. My thumbnails however were not counted as service merit. In such cases military regulations are absurd, for I had much more trouble from my thumbnails than from my excursions around the walls within range of the catapults. Such things are counted as service merits.
To the fanatics’ Council I could produce a testimonial and a secret authority to negotiate from the Julius Caesar synagogue. These valuable papers I had hidden in my clothes and had naturally not shown to Vespasian, for I had been given them in confidence. The Parthian could not read them either, for they were written in the sacred language of the Jews and sealed with the Star of David.
The Council of the synagogue, which is still the most influential in Rome, told in their letter of the great service I had rendered to the Jewry of Rome during the persecution after the revolt in Jerusalem. As one of my services, they mentioned the execution of Paul and Cephas, for they knew that the Jews in Jerusalem hated these plague-spreaders as much as they themselves did. The Council was eager for information of what had happened in Rome, for they had not had any definite news for several months, save for bits received via a few Egyptian pigeons. Titus had tried to stop these too, with trained hawks, and others had had their necks wrung by the starving populace of Jerusalem before they reached the pigeon loft in the temple with their messages.
For safety’s sake I did not reveal that I was a Roman senator, saying that I was an influential knight so that the Jews should not be too tempted. Naturally I assured them that as a new convert, which they could see from my scars, I wished to do everything I could for Jerusalem and the Holy Temple. Thus I had joined Vespasian and his troops as a tribune and let him believe that I could acquire information for him from Jerusalem. The arrow in my heel was sheer bad luck, and the patrol’s attempt to catch me was a cunning feigned attack to bluff the Jews.
My openness made such an impression on the Council that they believed me, as far as is possible in conditions of war. I was allowed to move freely in the city, protected by bearded guards with burning eyes, of whom I was, in fact, more afraid than of the starving inhabitants of the city. I was allowed in the temple, too, as I had been circumcised. So I am one of the last people to have seen the temple of Jerusalem from inside in all its incredible splendor.
With my own eyes I could assure myself that the seven-branched gold candlesticks, the golden vessels and the golden shrewbread were still in their places. They alone were worth an immense fortune, but no one seemed to give a thought to hiding them away. To such an extent did these insane fanatics trust in the sanctity of the temple and their Almighty God. However unbelievable it may sound to a sensible person they had not dared use more than a faction of the immense treasures of the temple to purchase arms and fortifications. The Jews preferred to work themselves to the bone without pay rather than touch the temple treasures, which lay hidden in the middle of the mountain behind armored doors. The whole of the temple mountain is like a hollowed-out honeycomb with its myriad quarters for pilgrims and numerous underground passages. But no one can hide anything so well that no one can find it, provided that more than one man does the hiding and that the hiding place is known to many.
I found this out later when I ferreted out Tigellinus’ secret archives. I thought it important that they should be destroyed for the sake of the authority of the Senate, for in them the political views and personal habits of many members of our oldest families were revealed in a strange light, foolish men who were able to get the people to demand that Tigellinus should be thrown to the wild animals. He would have been incomparably more dangerous dead than alive if his records had fallen into the hands of an unscrupulous person.
Naturally I handed over Tigellinus’ treasure to Vespasian, keeping only a few souvenirs for myself, but I said nothing about the secret papers nor did Vespasian ask about them since he is both wiser and more cunning than his crude exterior indicates. I must admit I handed over the treasure with a heavy heart, for it included the two million sesterces of full-weight gold pieces I had given Tigellinus before leaving Rome as he had been the only man who might have doubted my good intentions and prevented my going. I well remember his distrustful remarks.
“Why,” he asked, “are you giving me such a large sum unasked?”
“To strengthen our friendship,” I replied honestly. “But also because I know you can use this money in the right way if evil times befall. Naturally may all the gods of Rome protect us from such things.”
The money was still there, for he was a miserly man. But he knew how to behave when his time had come. It was he who got the Praetorians to abandon Nero when he realized his own skin was in danger. So at first no one wished him ill, and Galba received him well. It was Otho who had him murdered since he felt all too insecure on the tide of temporary popularity. I have always regretted his quite unnecessary death, for he deserved to see better days after his troubled youth. During Nero’s last years he lived under constant oppression so that he could not sleep and became even harder than before.
But why do I think about him? My most important task in besieged Jerusalem was accomplished in discovering that the temple treasure was still there and intact. Thanks to the completeness of our siege, I knew that not even a rat with a gold piece in its mouth could escape from Jerusalem.
You must understand that because of you and your future, I could not offer Vespasian the loan of the contents of my twenty iron chests in Caesarea to help him to the Imperial throne. I trusted his honesty, but Rome’s finances are in confusion, and civil war imminent. I had to secure my expectations which was the only reason why I risked my life and went to Jerusalem.
Naturally I also collected information on the city’s defenses, on the walls, catapults, food and water supplies, for that too would be to my advantage in my report to Vespasian. The city had more than sufficient water from underground cisterns. Right at the beginning of the siege, Vespasian had hopefully cut off the aqueduct which Procurator Pontius Pilate had had built forty years earlier, and which the Jews had opposed with all their might as they did not want to be dependent on water brought in from outside. This also proved how long the revolt had been prepared, and how long the Jews had awaited a favourable opportunity.
But the city had no stores of provisions. I saw shadow-thin mothers with bony children in their arms, trying in vain to squeeze a last drop of milk from their breasts. I felt sorry for the old people too, for they were given no rations. The fanatics bearing arms and fortifying the walls needed all the food.
At the meat market I saw that a pigeon and a rat were treasures paid for in their weight in silver. There were whole flocks of ewes at the temple for the daily sacrifices to the Jews’ bloodthirsty Jehovah, but the starving crowd did not even try to touch them. They scarcely needed guarding, for they were sacred animals. The priests and members of the Council were, of course, still well-fed.
The sufferings of the Jewish people oppressed me, for in the scales of the inexplicable god, the tears of a Jew presumably weigh as much as those of a Roman, and the tears of children more than those of adults, regardless of language and color of skin. But it was necessary to prolong the siege for political reasons, and the Jews owed their fate to their own stubbornness.
Any Jew who even mentioned capitulation or negotiating with the Romans was immediately executed and I think ended in the meat market, if I may give my own personal opinion. Josephus in his account, and only to arouse compassion, mentions only a few mothers who ate their own children. These things were so common in Jerusalem that even he was forced to mention them, to maintain at least some kind of reputation for historical accuracy.
Later I offered Josephus a reasonable fee for the edition of The Jewish War which my publishing house sold, although we had a legal right to publish it. But Josephus refused the money and in the way all authors do, simply complained about the cuts which I had had made to be able to sell the book better, and my assurances would not convince him that these cuts only improved his intolerably long-winded book. Authors are always conceited.
When we had agreed on what kind of misleading information on the city’s defenses I should bear to Vespasian and the ways in which the Julius Caesar synagogue in Rome could secredy support the Jewish revolt without any risk to themselves, the Jewish Council let me out of the city. Blindfolded, I was taken along an underground passage and pushed out into a quarry among rotting corpses. I scraped the skin off my knees and elbows crawling about in the quarry, and it was not very pleasant to trip and find one’s hand in a swollen corpse, for the Jews had forbidden me to remove the bandage from my eyes until a certain time had gone by. Otherwise they threatened to shoot an arrow straight through my body, without mercy.
Meanwhile they covered the opening to the secret passage so well that we had great difficulty finding it again. But it was finally discovered, since I had to have every hole blocked. The way I returned opened our eyes and taught us to search for outlets from the city in the most unlikely places. With promises of rewards I got the legionaries to dig them out. Nevertheless, in an entire year we found only three. But for some time after my return from Jerusalem I was afraid that the guarantees for your future were lessening. But I need not have worried. The treasure was still there when Titus captured the city, and Vespasian paid his debts.
But thus I spent a whole year in the East, uneasily circling around Vespasian before the time was ripe.