Does chance govern all? I had a letter from Antonia, my brother's widow, Germanicus' mother, saying she hoped to visit me, perhaps for a few days while she was holidaying at her villa on the Bay of Naples. I was minded to refuse, though I have always liked and admired Antonia. I was afraid that she would plead for her grandsons Nero and Drusus; not for her daughter-in-law Agrippina, I was sure of that, for she had never cared for her. It would have been embarrassing to endure her intercession on their behalf. So I wrote a letter saying I was unwell and unable to receive visitors.
But I did not send it. I was distracted by another letter I had received. This was from Sejanus. He requested that I accord him the tribunician power, that Republican status which Augustus had employed as a device to enable him to initiate and veto legislation and to ensure that his person was sacrosanct, which I had, of course, been granted by him. In fact I had been considering whether this should not be accorded Sejanus; I had hesitated because I knew how much a grant would stimulate discontent and envy. Yet the matter was on my mind. Now, on the other hand, there was something in the tone of Sejanus' letter which was displeasing, a peremptory note, as if he had only to ask to be given what he demanded. There was an underlying suggestion that with this power he would be free of my authority. It was not stated. Perhaps Sejanus himself did not know that it was there, but I caught a whiff of arrogance and impatience and this disquieted me.
In my perturbation, nostalgia invaded me. When I thought of Antonia, I set aside my fears as to what she would request. I was able to forget the sink of political Rome, with its private bureaux of espionage, its stench of conspiracy, its atmosphere infected by suspicion and fear; instead the memory came to me of conversations under chestnut trees, conversations that stretched towards the setting sun, and covered in the most friendly and sincere manner the whole range of human experience. In talking with Antonia, I reflected, I would share again some species of communion with my long-dead brother. And I remembered that in those distant days Antonia and I had been bound together by the purest sort of affection, that between a man and a woman, into which is breathed only the lightest breeze of sexual desire -a desire which, for imperative reasons, will never be translated into action; an affection which floats like a raft on a lake in the sunshine of a summer afternoon that can never end. There was to be a happy day before she arrived. Sigmund had fallen in love with a local girl, a Greek called Euphrosyne, whose father practised as a doctor in Naples, but owned a little villa on Capri, given to him by Augustus in return for some service he had rendered. It would have been a quite unsuitable marriage but for my patronage. Miltiades (the father) would never have consented that his adored daughter should marry anyone so unsuitable as a German freedman, who had, moreover, been a gladiator, if that freedman had not also been my favourite. For my part I was delighted by the match. Euphrosyne was an enchanting girl, with black eyes and a mass of dark curls, a creature made for pleasure, yet tender-hearted and witty. To see them together was a justification of empire, for what but Rome could have brought these two perfect, but contrasting, physical types together? Their happiness and the delight they took in each other enfolded us all. I blessed the marriage, asking only that both remained in my household.
Antonia arrived early, while we were still celebrating. Her hair was white but she retained that serene beauty which she had inherited from her mother, Octavia.
"You must forgive me," she said, "I never keep to my plans exactly, for reasons I shall later explain. Meanwhile, Tiberius, how delightful it is to see you again, looking so well and happy."
"You have come in the middle of a happy occasion," I said, "and your arrival, Antonia, adds to the pleasure." "Ah," she said, "if Rome could see you now, so innocently engaged as a sort of godfather, people would be ashamed of the scurrilous stories they are so fond of retailing." "You risk spoiling my pleasure by mentioning that place."
"That's the last thing I want to do," she replied, but her face clouded. "It's strange," she said, "how we have remained friends." "We have our dear Drusus and many memories in common."
"And yet I cannot turn anywhere without being told that you are the enemy of my family."
"We could never be enemies, Antonia. I remember with the greatest gratitude how you refused to heed the vile rumours about Germanicus' death."
"I knew they were all lies. I knew you could never have a hand in the death of your brother's son. Now two of his grandsons have been imprisoned by your command." "By order of the Senate." "At your request…" "If you had seen the evidence…"
She looked away, her grey eyes filled with tears. A little wind blew whispers of the ocean towards us. The blue-veined marble of the terrace shone like a dull shield in the noon sun. We sat in the shade under an arbour of trailing roses.
"I came a day early," she said, "because I no longer choose to advertise my movements exactly. More than that, I do not dare. And I brought Gaius Caligula with me because…" she paused, and looked me in the eyes with a candid gaze which I was reluctant to meet but from which I could not turn away, "because I am afraid of what may happen to him if he is not with you." She then spoke of Gaius. He was an unsatisfactory youth, moody, disorganised, given to apparently unprovoked outbursts of cackling laughter and fits of temper. He had, she was afraid, a streak of cruelty. (I pictured the boy, his tow-coloured hair wild as a slum-child's, leaping from his seat in the theatre and shrieking, "Kill him, kill him!" as Sigmund lay helpless and terrified on the sand.) Nevertheless, and perhaps precisely because he was difficult, awkward, and given to nervous terrors at night, Antonia loved him; Agrippina, who, having once spoiled him, had come to detest him, had long ago consigned his upbringing to her care, and she felt the special responsibility for him that good women so often feel for their most unsatisfactory child. Now she was afraid on his account.
He had friends, a year or two older than himself for the most part, of good family, but given to dissipation and wild talk. She disapproved of their influence, but her alarm ran deeper.
"I don't know how to say this," she said, "without angering you."
"Antonia, you won't anger me, because I appreciate that you speak out of friendship."
She laid her hand on mine. The bones of old age met in mutual reassurance.
She was suspicious of these friends, some of whom had appeared suddenly, and all the more because she had come to know that much wild talk was exchanged at their drunken suppers. So she had taken steps to enquire about them, and had been alarmed to discover – she hesitated on the word "alarmed" – that two of them had also been intimates of Sejanus. "They were described to me as his proteges. Or else as his creatures." And they maintained relations with him. She had had one of them followed on several mornings after he had attended supper-parties with Gaius, either at her house, or at the home of another member of the group, or at a tavern. On each occasion, he had gone straight to Sejanus' house on the Esquiline, and remained there a long time. "I could only conclude that he had gone there to make a report…"
"Tiberius," she said, "my boy is wild and uncontrolled in his language. He is easily led, because he has no confidence in himself and so is open to flattery. It wouldn't be difficult to lure him into saying stupid things, even engaging in stupid… conspiracies. I am afraid for him, because I believe that one day soon, Sejanus will come to you with evidence, and witnesses to support it, all showing that he has engaged in sedition. That's why I want you to take him into your own household. Permanently." When I didn't answer, she said: "Tiberius, did all the evidence against his brothers, Nero and Drusus, come to you by way of Sejanus…?" "I trust Sejanus…"
"Where there is the most trust, there is also the greatest treachery."
She cleared her throat, a polite preparatory noise. She folded her hands in her lap and sat very straight.
"Nobody else," she said, "will dare to tell you what I am going to say. In giving such entire confidence to that man, you have isolated yourself. He has made of you a mystery at Rome, and mysteries are always feared. You made him what he is, but are you sure he has not escaped your control? When he claims to act in your interests, are you always certain that he is not in reality preferring his own? Agrippina has been your enemy -certainly – she is a foolish and bitter woman – but are you so sure that her sons were not made to appear your enemies, by the contrivance, indeed by the order, of that man? What reason do you have to believe the evidence he offers, when I can show you how that evidence has been concocted?" "He has never told me a lie."
"He has never told you a lie which you have discovered. My poor Tiberius," again she placed her hand on mine, "this is not the first time you have been betrayed by affection, and trusted beyond the moment when reason for trust had vanished. You don't like to hear what I am saying, but if these same thoughts have not come to you in dark moments and been then thrust aside because you find them intolerable, then, mindless of our old, long-enduring friendship, you will act against me. I too will follow the other women of our family to an island prison, and Sejanus will be left master of the field and of your mind. But if I speak to you doubts which you have already entertained in your secret heart, then you will know that they are not vain and unworthy imaginings since they are shared by another. You will know that you are as much his victim as Nero and Drusus or as my poor chick Gaius Caligula may be. If you are not convinced, ask him for a report about the boy. I will wager that he will, with expressions of sorrow, present you with all the evidence he thinks necessary to destroy him. Has it not occurred to you that the chief beneficiary of my grandsons' pretended plots has been that man: Lucius Aelius Sejanus, and none other?" Night closed in about me like a blanket of wet mist. Sleep was denied me; through the dead hours questions, fear and hesitations afflicted me, like nails hammered into my brain. At dawn the chorus of sea-birds circling the cliffs mocked my red-eyed restlessness. Before we separated, Antonia had said: "In Rome men now talk of you as a monster, given over to nameless vices which everyone is yet ready to name. These stories are spread and believed. At a dinner-party the other day, someone remarked that one day, when sacrificing, you took a fancy to the acolyte who carried the casket with the incense, and could hardly wait for the ceremony to end before you hurried the lad out of the temple and assaulted him; then you did the same for his brother, the sacred trumpeter… Who spreads such stories?"
"The Roman people," I said, turning away to hide my feelings, "have ever been scurrilous." "I grant you that."
"They are the kind of stories people invent about men in positions of authority, and which others love to spread. They told like tales of Augustus himself, though nobody who knew him believed them." "But people choose to believe them of you. Why is that?"
For a moment I was tempted to tell her of the vision I had had on the mountainside, and of the promise which the divine boy had made to me. But that promise seemed already a cheat; I was no nearer the peace of mind he had offered me in exchange for my reputation. Besides, Antonia might think I was suffering from the delusions of old age, such as had afflicted Livia. "Perhaps simply because I have withdrawn here," I said.
"That certainly is one cause for credulity. But there is another. When I first heard that story told, I made it my business to track it down. It was said to have come from Quintus Junius Blaesus, who is, as you know, Sejanus' uncle. Do you think such a man – for he is of very little merit and a known coward – would dare to invent such a story, or if he did, would he not be certain that his nephew would support him?"
"But I cannot see that it is in Sejanus' interest to imperil my authority in this manner."
Antonia sighed. "Tiberius," she said. "You are too reasonable. That has always been your fault. You have acquired a reputation for duplicity simply by telling the truth. Don't you see that you consider Sejanus truthful because he has consistently lied to you? As to your question: it is in his interest to have you thought unstable, capricious and cruel, near to madness. In this way anything vicious or unpopular can be laid at your door, while Sejanus acquires the reputation of being the only man capable of restraining your savagery.
"There," she said, "I have proved my own confidence in your continuing virtue, for if I had spoken in this manner to a man who was really as they describe, I fear I should not see tomorrow."
"If you have spoken truth, Antonia," I said, "I would wish that I might not." I yielded nothing to her suspicions in our conversation, and struggled to yield nothing in my sleepless hours. If Sejanus were false then the rock on which I had built my life – not the certainty of his loyalty, but rather my own faith in my knowledge of men – would crumble. For two days I could not bring myself to do anything either to confirm or disprove Antonia's allegations. I pretended that she was here simply on a friendly visit, but I also took the opportunity to watch Gaius Caligula closely. My scrutiny failed to reassure me. Apart from anything else, the boy was obviously unreliable; he would argue a point vehemently, and a few hours later – at the next meal for instance – assert the contrary, without seeming to be aware of any contradiction. So at lunch he quoted Homer, and remarked that there was "Nothing on earth finer than Homeric verse or a Homeric hero", and at dinner remarked that the best thing he knew about Plato was his decision to exclude Homer from The Republic because, as the boy put it, "Poets are liars who tell us life is noble".
Perhaps it isn't, but it is better that young men should think it so, and Gaius was very young, only nineteen.
Then he said that no one should enter marriage a virgin, only to state with quite unnecessary ardour a few hours later that if he discovered that his bride was not a virgin, he would smother her with the pillow of the marriage bed.
I could not ignore Antonia's words, simply because the young man had an unpleasant character. (Another displeasing aspect of this was that, as a result of being educated at Rome with a number of Thracian princes, he had imbibed all sorts of notions about a royal state, and what was due to royalty, that I found offensive.) Accordingly, I wrote to Sejanus in guarded terms. Antonia had brought Gaius here on a visit, I said, and I would be grateful if Sejanus would send me, under seal, a copy of the lad's dossier. There were things about him which I found disturbing, I said.
The courier returned directly. Sejanus wrote that he was alarmed to hear of Gaius' visit. I would see that he was not to be trusted. He was ill-disposed towards me and had often talked of his longing for my death. I should be on my guard against assassination.
He named his witnesses. They were those young noblemen whom, according to Antonia, he had employed to spy on Gaius and, as she insisted, to provoke him to treasonable utterances. "These young men," Sejanus wrote, "were so shocked by the language of the young prince (as he chooses to style himself) that without any prompting on my part, they came voluntarily forward to denounce him."
Once, campaigning in Illyria, I came on a village which had just suffered a small earthquake. Not many people had been killed, but the physical damage was still astonishing. I remember one old woman gazing in wonder at a crevasse which had appeared in the floor of her cottage. The walls still stood, the roof had remained in place, but there was this chasm, but two feet wide, and more than a spear-length deep; her hens and a cockerel had been swallowed up. Some of them had perhaps been smothered; others clucked and squawked in indignant puzzlement, which reproduced, as it were, exactly the expression on the old woman's face. I now shared the sensations of the old woman and her cockerel; life had lost its foundation.
It came to me that I was isolated as never before. I was myself a prisoner, for I had put myself in Sejanus' power. There was not an officer on my staff whom he had not appointed. I could not be certain that my correspondence with provincial governors and military commanders was not subject to scrutiny by Sejanus' agents. Nor indeed could I have any confidence that I received all the letters addressed to me; it was possible that any which Sejanus deemed unsuitable for one reason or another were intercepted and destroyed. Almost everything I knew was what he had allowed me to know, and my knowledge of the world was his.
He had nurtured my every suspicion and now I found myself, as a result of the revelation Antonia had forced upon me, redoubling suspicions. I realised I could be certain of nothing. A few months previously, for example, I had invited an old friend, Pomponius Flaccus, whom I had formerly made Governor of Syria, to spend a few weeks of his retirement as my guest. The invitation was declined: Flaccus was too ill to travel. Now I found myself wondering whether the invitation had been received, or the reply concocted. My suspicions might be unjust in this case; that made no difference to the fact that they were there.
He had taught me to fear others. We had hardly had a single conversation in recent years in which he had not raised the problem of my security or offered me the names of those who were plotting my assassination. Now I learned to fear him in his turn. I had only one advantage. Sejanus had to believe that 1 still trusted him absolutely. It was necessary to confirm him in his confidence. I therefore wrote thanking him for warning me against Gaius and his friends, and for his continued efforts on my behalf. "The only thing," I said, "which enables me to bear the ingratitude and unreliability of men is the trust which I repose in you – the one man who has never let me down." In the same letter I confirmed that he would be my partner in the consulship the following year, and reminded him that I had been sparing in my assumption of that dignity: sharing consulships only with Germanicus and my son Drusus. The implication was, I hoped, clear; they had been my chosen, indeed designated, successors. I had no need to spell out the import of this honour to Sejanus. I held out hints of the tribunician power – "when the time is ripe". I was tempted to satisfy his desire to be granted this, in the hope that such a gift would swathe him in grateful security; but I hesitated, held back by a new fear. Sejanus had schemed to isolate and control me; might he not decide, if protected by this power and assured of this authority, that I had become redundant, and could be safely eliminated? So I promised more than I performed; let him still, I said to myself, have something to hope for from my hand.
It was necessary to reanimate support for my person among the senators. I therefore ordered that the trial of Lucius Arruntius, accused by Sejanus' agents of treason, should be abandoned. There was not, I wrote, sufficient evidence. Taking a risk, I had this letter conveyed to Rome by Sigmund and handed to the consul Memmius in person. Since Memmius was a cousin by marriage of Arruntius I trusted he would obey my instructions without consulting Sejanus. But I had days of alarm till I learned that he had done so, and even more till Sigmund returned safe to Capri.
Let me confess too that I had hesitated before trusting even Sigmund with this message. I felt a warm and tender love for the young man, in the happiness of whose marriage I delighted, and of course I was sure that my confidence in his virtue was well founded. And yet at the same time, I could not be sure. I tormented myself by elaborating methods, cajolements and threats which Sejanus might have employed to suborn the boy. When Sigmund returned, I called him before me in private and heard his report, and embraced him with a warmth that sprang from relief as much as from affection.
I wrote to Sejanus saying that I had heard rumours of mutterings against my authority, even of conspiracies against my person, among the officers of the Praetorians. I would be grateful to him if he would investigate this matter and, before acting, supply me with the names of any whom he had reason to suspect of such disaffection. He replied that he had absolute confidence in almost all these officers whom, he reminded me, he had himself appointed after the most careful scrutiny. Nevertheless any barrel might contain a bad apple, and he could not deny the presence of such. He mentioned a number of names, the chief of which, he said, was one Macro, a Calabrian, "… the sort of man who is discontented with life because no regard which he is paid can ever measure up to his own estimation of his qualities". Moreover, he added, this Macro had been a familiar of first Nero and now Gaius. He was an associate of some of those turbulent young men who had been inciting Gaius to disaffection, and to that treasonable course which he had been pursuing till my invitation to Capri temporarily removed him from such evil influences. "Sigmund," I said, and paused, unable to bring myself to ask him if he loved me, if 1 could trust him, if he would risk his life on my behalf. It has never been in my nature to make such requests of people; never since I was deprived of Vipsania. "Master," he replied, and waited. His lips curved into a smile. "Not 'Master'," I said. "Call no man 'Master', dear boy."
I lay in bed, weak as from a nervous fever. The sunlight streamed into the chamber. It illuminated the golden down of the boy's cheek. I longed for the comfort of his strength, the reassurance of what I could never demand from him. I patted the bed, and indicated that he should perch there.
"You are troubled," he said. "I have known that for a long time. Remember one thing: I owe everything I possess to you, even my life. I can never forget that. Whatever you desire of me, I shall do."
His words shamed me. I think I wept to hear him speak like this. Certainly the easy tears of old age filled my eyes. For a little, I could not speak.
"It is your life," I said, "that I may be asking of you again. But there is no one else whom I dare to trust. Do you fear Sejanus?"
I did not look at him as I asked the question, so that I do not know if his face paled or his eye flashed. "No," he said, "I hate him, but that is different." "You hate him?"
"He forced himself upon me. He made me do things which disgusted me." Sigmund blushed at the memory. "He told me that if I didn't, then he would tell you things which were not true but which he would make you believe. I said you wouldn't, but he assured me that he could always make you believe what he wanted you to believe even when you didn't want to. So, so he made a woman of me, and worse than a woman."
There was nothing I could say of comfort. Things remain with you and cannot be cured by words. But my new anger with Sejanus was fiercer and it was enflamed or corrupted by jealousy or envy, for he had done what I had denied myself. And so I abandoned prudence and told Sigmund what I wanted him to do. Sigmund left the island the next day and journeyed to Rome. He travelled alone, and in disguise. I had given him an imperial pass as protection but told him that he must not use it except in extremity. It was better that his connection with me should be unsuspected. I gave him also my seal ring, and warned him that he would be in danger if it was found on his person, for it would be too easy to charge him with theft. He smiled: "I'll stick it up my arse," he said. I wished I could have brought myself to return his smile. In his absence I received another letter from Sejanus. He purred with pleasure at the honours I had showered on him, the most recent of which was his appointment to the priesthood of the Arval Brethren. He said he was overwhelmed by the honour I had paid him by proposing him as the successor of Germanicus and Drusus as my partner in the consulship. He hinted that the award of the tribunician power would make his satisfaction complete. He spoke of the delight he experienced in his marriage to Julia Livilla and his consciousness of his unworthiness to be a member of the imperial family. Then he announced that Nero was dead: The wretched prince seduced one of his guards and persuaded him to abet his escape from Pontia. The other guards suspected the liaison however and reported it to me. I commanded that a closer watch be kept, and the pair were apprehended as they embarked in a boat. A struggle ensued in which both were killed. I regret to have to inform you that Nero displayed lamentable cowardice in his last moments, and died pleading for his life like a woman. The arrogance of the letter disgusted me.
"It seems," I said to Antonia, "that he no longer troubles himself even to make his story consistent."
"Drusus will be next," she said, "then my poor Gaius, unless you act…"
"What can I do?" I said, for I dared not reveal my plans even to Antonia. Nor could I bring myself to tell her that it was superfluous to murder Drusus. If the reports I received were to be believed, his sufferings had deprived him of his wits. He raved – foul-mouthed filth, mostly directed at me, but also at his mother Agrippina – and refused to eat. When Sigmund arrived in the city he went to a tavern in the Suburra kept by a German of his own tribe, who had been one of my slaves and whom I had established in this occupation after twenty years of honest, if infuriatingly stupid, service. (It is not true, by the way, that all Germans are stupid – some have a tiresome cunning, and some are, like Sigmund, indeed intelligent; yet Romans always think them stupid because even the most intelligent retain a naivety which is foreign to our nature. It arises, I think, from an inability to comprehend the complexity of civilised life and civilised beings, and manifests itself in a dreamy mooniness, which is certainly irritating, and of which even Sigmund is not innocent.)
Sigmund explained to Armin the tavern-keeper that he was in hiding from the police. He knew that Armin would accept this as sufficient reason for subterfuge, but would be alarmed if Sigmund gave any hint of the importance of his mission. Then he explained that the matter could be cleared up if Armin would undertake to get a message to the Praetorian camp. This puzzled Armin who couldn't understand why a fugitive from the law should wish to make such a contact, but when Sigmund said his trouble was all a matter of misunderstanding, Armin nodded his head and agreed to arrange for an intermediary; misunderstandings were the sort of things which Armin could understand. Indeed misunderstandings had always seemed to permeate his life.
So the message was delivered and Sigmund endured anxious hours while he waited to see if the fish would bite. I had instructed him to make the message cryptic; it was framed in such a way as to suggest to Macro that Gaius was threatened with danger and in his terror would denounce him unless he came to his assistance. I told him to put it in this way because there was always – I was sure – a germ of truth in the allegations which Sejanus brought against those whom he had determined to destroy, and I thought Macro would be frightened. I wanted him frightened. He would not dare to be my tool if he was not afraid.
He arrived at the tavern by night, suspicious, heavy-eyed, still crapulous from last night's drinking-bout. When he found only a young German there, he suspected a trick and called for his guards. Sigmund, however, produced my ring. This, I had warned him, was his moment of greatest danger, for Macro might refuse to consider the implications of its being in his possession. Macro's first reaction was indeed to arrest him for theft. He began babbling of treason. "If you talk like that," Sigmund said, "you are baring your own neck for the sword. Sit down." The Praetorian sub-prefect obeyed.
"If I had stolen it," Sigmund said, "I wouldn't be such a fool as to have made arrangements for you to come here, would I?" Macro scratched his head, and said he would like some wine.
"This is a German house," Sigmund said, "you can have a mug of beer."
Then he told him that Sejanus had written to me accusing him of treasonable conspiracy; he was involved in a plot with Gaius against my life. There was enough truth in this for Macro to start trembling.
"The emperor instructed me to inform you," Sigmund said, "that he believes less than half of what he has been told. He has sent me to fetch you to give you an opportunity to put yourself in the right. He says you must immediately arrange for leave and accompany me secretly to Capri." "Secretly?" "Of course…" Macro scratched his cheek and took a long pull of his beer. "Don't you have a letter?" "That's a foolish question." "How do I know this is not a trick?"
"You don't, but you will be in worse trouble if you think it is. If you choose not to accompany me -" Sigmund spread his hands wide – "then he asked me to assure you that he will tell Sejanus to subject you to interrogation."
"When I mentioned that, he was like wax in my hands," Sigmund reported. "The difficult part of our conversation was the first five minutes, as you predicted. But I am not sure, I am not sure that he is the man for you, since he is both a bully and a coward." "He's the only man there is," I replied.
Macro was a lean curly-headed fellow, with an eye that might sparkle, I thought, in other circumstances, and a discontented twist to his mouth. When he spoke of Sejanus, a bitter note entered his voice, which trembled a little, whether with fear or anger or a combination of these two closely allied emotions I could not say. But I could see that he was afraid of me also, and that was good. Indeed, my only danger was that his fear of Sejanus was such that he would betray me to him, despite the prospect of power and glory which 1 dangled before him.
He assured me that, even among the Praetorians, feelings against Sejanus ran high.
"Men say, 'Why is he favoured above us, when he is not better born?' Others, like myself, if I may say so, my lord…?" "Don't address me in that manner."
"I'm sorry, I respect your sentiments of course. Well then, General, others like myself who have transferred to the Praetorians after long service with the northern legions are conscious that we have campaign medals and wide military experience, and are yet subservient to a man whose career has scarcely taken him to the front, who has never seen a real battle, but who has risen by, if you will forgive me, my lord – I mean, General – by political arts."
And then I summoned up courage – the hesitant, self-doubting courage of old age – and told him what I required of him.
He was both excited and terrified by the prospect, and I felt like a man who requires a six on a single throw of the dice. When Macro left the island, I had Sigmund arrange with the master of a fishing-boat that it be held in readiness for me, if necessary; for I knew that, if Macro failed in his enterprise, I would have to flee my home, take refuge with the armies, and hope that I would there find a sufficient remnant of loyalty to rescue the position.
It was a beautiful October, my favourite month. I woke early on the appointed day. By that time Macro should have effected his liaison with the captain of the night-guard, Laco. He had asserted Laco was a man he would trust with his life, which is why we had chosen his term of duty. It was, of course, just what he was doing. I could eat nothing. The sun sparkled on the water below, and the air was crisp. Birds still sang in the gardens. The Senate would meet, I knew, in the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine, since the Senate House was being refurbished. Did this beautiful morning indicate that Apollo favoured our enterprise?
I had not written to Sejanus for ten days. That might have worried him. I had not been able to bring myself to write despite the necessity of keeping him easy. I could not trust myself to write, for memories of what I had felt for him assailed me. Anger would have entered my words. So I took this risk. But Macro would assure him that he had delivered a letter to the consul Memmius, who would act as president of the Senate, and that that letter announced the grant of the tribunician power for which he lusted. He would make his way to the Senate in expectation of glory.
Sigmund appeared on the terrace to tell me that the fishing-boat would be at my service from the middle of that afternoon. "How will you fill the day?" he asked. I had no answer, then or for any subsequent day.
He ordered that a litter be prepared and, without troubling himself to secure my assent, arranged that the household should picnic by the little temple of Apollo which stood on the mountain-top. The air is sweet there, with the scent of thyme, myrtle, marjoram and pine-needles. I let him have his way, but could eat nothing but a few black olives and some cheese. I dared not drink wine.
Memmius would read my letter aloud. Would he have the presence of mind to adapt it, as I had instructed, according to his perception of the mood of the Senate? I pictured Sejanus lolling in his seat, a proud confident lion, as my words of praise buzzed round his head. And then, alert, as I voiced my first criticism. How would the senators react to that?
Gaius began to laugh, an uncontrolled cackle. I glanced across. A lizard was trapped in a little crevasse. It had fallen in backwards, and its forepaws scrabbled desperately at the edge. Gaius prodded at them with a little jewelled dagger, and continued to laugh. I gestured to Sigmund, and he lifted the beast by its neck and shoulders and set it on top of a broken wall; it glanced around, alarmed, and then scurried out of sight. Gaius scowled.
After escorting Sejanus to the Senate, Macro had been instructed to hurry across the city to the Praetorian camp in the old Gardens of Lucullus, and reveal his commission as their new commander. On his way across Rome he would have picked up gold to deliver as the first instalment of a donative, from my banker. He had been nervous about this, but I insisted that it was necessary to give the soldiers tangible proof that I would reward their loyalty. Besides, any man who accepted the gold would be thoroughly compromised and would know that there was no turning back.
The sun climbed to its zenith. The air shimmered. It was the last heat of the year. I plucked a rose and pricked my finger on its thorn. Sigmund stretched out beside me in the shade of the pine trees. He lay on his back, looking up at the latticed sky. Then he closed his eyes and slept. Others of our party slept too. Gaius wandered off towards a shepherd's cottage. A dog barked in the distance, and a cock crew.
It would be over now, one way or another. My heart raced. I pressed my fingers against each other, taking a fierce satisfaction from the skeletal sensation. To a man the senators, the majority of whom owed him favours and had fawned on his greatness, deserted my falling and former friend. They shrank back from him as if they saw in his disgrace the reflection of their own ignominy. But even so Memmius did not dare put my abrupt denunciation to the vote. Then Memmius called on Sejanus to stand. He did not move. The Senate sat in silent terror. The call was repeated. Sejanus remained motionless. At the third demand he stumbled to his feet to find Laco, the captain of the night-watch, ready at his side. Only when Laco placed a restraining arm on him did abuse break out. Then, the spell broken, the senators burst into a babble of accusation and insult.
I like to think he did not understand fully what was happening, that his comprehension was numbed by shock.
He was hustled out, down the ilex-fringed Clivus Palatinus, along the Sacred Way, with the mob apprised, as mobs always quickly are of great and terrible events, jostling him, cursing his tyranny, delighting in his disgrace. Women, it was reported, spat at him, men hurled horse-dung with their abuse. In this way he was bundled into the Mamertine prison under the Capitol and thrust down that narrow twisting stair to the ancient execution chamber of Rome.
By the order of the Senate, after a vote, he was strangled at the fourth hour after noon.
But I could not know this as the sun sank and the air grew cold, and I was jolted down the hillside, with my gaze fixed on the sea and the little harbour where the fishing-smack was pulled up on the shore. I had requested that Sejanus be arrested. The Senate, without prompting, embarked on an orgy of revenge for the indignities they had so sychophantically endured at the hand of my fallen favourite. Neither his family nor his close associates were safe. Even his children were put to death at the Senate's command. After debate it was decided that his thirteen-year-old daughter should first be raped by the public executioner because the law forbade the execution of free-born virgins and, as one senator – a descendant, you will not be surprised to hear, of that pillar of Republican virtue, Marcus Porcius Cato – argued, to transgress this law would carry with it the risk of bringing misfortune on the city. As if we were not all steeped in misfortune!