Nero's Heirs (16 page)

'What is the basis of this Christianity?' I asked Balthus.

'In one word,' he said, 'it is Love.'

That's not so strange then, nor so new. Men have sought and worshipped Love since poets first sang, and before them, I'll be bound.'

'We do not worship Love, though our God is a God of Love, nor do we seek it. Rather we are filled with love, and expressing it, extend it to each and everyone, and to all mankind as God's creation.'

XX

Love. On his voyage back to Syria Titus had called at Cyprus, in order to visit and inspect the great Temple of the Paphian Venus, known to the Greeks as Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love. She is of especial significance to us Romans also as the mother of Aeneas, father of our race, and this temple in Paphos is said to be her oldest place of worship, since, after she rose in birth from the sea, she was wafted thither and, though often found elsewhere, has yet never departed. The temple was consecrated by one Cinyras, many years before the Trojan War, and the sacrifices and divination are still conducted by the descendants of Cinyras. 'Or so they maintain,' Titus told me.

Whatever the truth of this, the place of worship is of unfathomable antiquity, as may be demonstrated by the fact that the image of the goddess is of no human shape; I surmise that the art of sculpture had not yet been learned. Instead, it is a rounded mass rising in the manner of a cone from a broad base to a narrow circumference. No one knows the significance of this now; which again is proof of antiquity. Also it is forbidden to pour, or spill, blood on the altar, the place of sacrifice being fed only with prayers and pure flame. Though it stands exposed to all weathers, yet the altar is never wet with rain.

I mention all this now, in the perplexity occasioned by that conversation with Balthus I have related; and none of this, of course, is for Tacitus who would jeer, having no spirit of the philosopher, at the metaphysical speculations which the contrast between Balthus' words and my memory of Titus' account of his visit to Paphos provokes in me.

When questioned concerning my religious beliefs, I was accustomed for long to brush the interrogation aside with some such remark as, 'My religion is the religion of all sensible men' and, if pressed to elucidate, would add merely, 'Sensible men never tell.' Such a response is satisfying, but unsatisfactory. There are days when I believe in nothing, others when I say that the only real questions are ethical - how we should behave - and since we can know nothing certainly beyond that, all speculation is vain. Yet we are by nature given to both speculation and worship. Titus, who had talked of Fortuna as the only god, nevertheless went out of his way, and at a moment of extreme political urgency, in order to satisfy his curiosity at the oldest of Temples to Venus; and I do not think that his motive was connected with his affair with Queen Berenice, which required no divine sanction and no encouragement, divine or human.

I pressed him on this point. His answers were vague. He talked of'the numinous', a word that to me then was only a word, such as poets use, with no precise meaning, if they are bad poets anyway. That is to say, it is a word which, even if the poet is good, affords one an agreeable shiver of the spine, and no more than that. Yet Titus was no poet. The word meant something to him. I could see that, for it embarrassed him to employ it. And indeed he was embarrassed when I pressed him close on his experience at Paphos.

He said: 'I do not know. But I felt something. Was it what Virgil calls
lacrimae rerum
- the sense of tears in mortal things? Perhaps. I felt greater than myself, and also less. I was inhabited by I know not what. I was assured of a glorious destiny and yet felt that I was drained of all the satisfaction I should have expected to derive from that assurance. In short, dear boy' - he spoke this flippantly as if to divert me from any sense that he was truly serious, but his eyes were clouded as when a man looks inward and is surprised and puzzled by what he sees - 'in short, dear boy, I felt myself to be more than I have ever been, and yet less also.'

What he said made no sense to me, and Titus, embarrassed as if he had been caught in some shameful act, turned away, provoked some diversion, called for wine or suggested play - I forget which. But now, I recalled his words, and the expression on his face, half-proud, half-bemused, and I put what he had said to Balthus, even while I was both irritated and perplexed to think that I sought wisdom from this boy, all the more so since his face, body and manner had first attracted me precisely because they promised an encounter that would for the brief moments of sensual delight annihilate thought and so free me from the disturbances that made demons in my mind.

'Is that what your god - your religion - means to you?'

'I'm not intelligent,' he said. 'I'm not educated. I can't use big words. Not Latin ones anyway. Like that - what was it? - "numinous"? It doesn't mean anything to me. But when I'm with Christ, or when I know Christ is within me, then I know peace. The only thing to be sacrificed is my will, but we say "surrendered", not "sacrificed". That is what I know. Maybe that's why you Romans think ours a slave religion, though there are Romans who follow it. It would give me great joy, master, if you would open your soul to my master, who is Lord of all.'

XXI

There was a reserve in Titus' manner. Though he had embraced me warmly on my arrival, the frank affection characteristic of his letters was missing from his conversation. When I explained how I had come to be there, I felt, sensed, his distrust.

He reclined on a couch and dipped his hand in a bowl of water scented with rose petals.

'My father wants to see you,' he said. 'You haven't met him since you were a small boy, have you?'

During supper he ignored me and carried on a conversation with the Jew Josephus, a lean dark man with a pointed beard. They spoke in Greek, and Josephus' accent being unfamiliar to me, and obscurely provincial, I found it difficult at first to follow his side of the conversation. But it seemed that Titus was more interested in the religious practices of the different Jewish sects than in the disposition of the rebel armies. I wondered if the matter of the talk had been chosen simply to exclude me.

Josephus gave no sign that my presence either interested or disturbed him. As far as he was concerned, I was merely a young Roman noble of neither achievement nor significance. I began to fear his view was justified. My interview with Otho, and the commission he had given me, seemed ridiculous and remote.

Titus said: Your explanations, my dear Josephus, are admirably clear, and it's evident that you yourself are pious in your faith. But hasn't it occurred to you how strange it is that, alone among nations, you refuse to recognise that other gods and other faiths may have their merits -their apprehension of ultimate realities - or that, again alone among nations, you refuse to make an image of your god which may appeal to the senses, and thus stimulate the piety of worshippers?'

I thought: this is deliberately unkind; what have I done to chill the love you have so often protested that you feel for me? It seemed that I had never been to Titus anything more than a sort of toy, a trivial amusement. I bit my lip to prevent it from quivering and tried to conjure up an image of Domatilla. I told myself it was absurd to feel aggrieved, since I had long decided that I wished no further sexual relations with Titus. And yet I wanted him still to admire me, and put me in the centre of his world.

Josephus said: 'You are accustomed to tease me with this question, my lord, which must bore your young friend here excessively.'

That is immaterial,' said Titus. 'In any case it will be good for him to learn that adult men can concern themselves with intellectual matters.'

'I do not understand this "intellectual matters",' Josephus said, 'though of course commentaries on the sacred books require the exercise of the intellectual faculties, faith itself is not a matter of intellect, but of history. The Lord God made a covenant with Israel, and named us his Chosen People.'

'If I may intervene,' I said, aware (with permissible pride) of the purity of my Greek, 'from what I have heard of the present war, it would seem that your god has broken any covenant he may have made with you. For certainly the actions of the rebels seem to be driven by folly, and to be without the sort of wisdom which you might expect from people guided by a god.'

'The Lord chastises those whom he loves,' Josephus said.

Titus smirked. That is the only way to describe his smile.

When we were alone, he said, 'I was nasty to you. You didn't like that. It serves you right. You deserve punishment, for you have disobeyed my instructions.'

'What sort of language is this?' I said. 'Disobey . . . instructions
..
.
am I your servant, your slave? We may no longer be lovers but I thought our friendship secure.'

'I needed you in Rome,' he said, breaking off the leg of a roast pheasant and gnawing it.

'How could I remain in Rome when the Emperor commanded me to come here?'

'Emperor? Otho?'

'Emperor for the time being at least. . . besides, I bring you news of Rome such as it might be dangerous to write . . .' 'So you say. But why should I believe you?'

I wept that night. I am not ashamed to remember, and say so. It seemed that friendship was a mere bubble, and I had trusted in friendship. But the next morning Titus was in a different mood. We rode into the desert. Josephus accompanied us. But this time he was the third member of the party, the superfluous one. Titus talked to me alone, and with a gaiety and affection that caused my last night's fears and misgivings to fall away. I thought: he is a creature of mood, and last night I was merely so unfortunate as to find him in a mood where I had no place.

He pointed to distant hills, rising purple-black against an azure sky.

'That's where the rebels lurk,' he said, 'the so-called Zealots. There are innumerable bands of them couched in those hills like wild beasts. They are fanatics and death means nothing to them. Civilised men respect Death and give him a wide berth, unless Necessity demands otherwise. But these young men - they are mostly very young who form these bands - are infatuated with Death. It makes them difficult to deal with. They don't understand the rational arguments of civilised men. They don't understand that when two opposed interests clash, it is wise and expedient to seek a middle way.'

'Yes,' I said, 'I think that's what Otho is seeking. I found him likeable, you know.'

'Oh,'Titus said, 'almost everybody has always liked Otho. He's never found any difficulty in being liked. It's a matter of whether he deserves respect or trust, and that's rather different.'

A hawk hovered overhead. We drew rein and watched it. Then it dropped true as a stone.

You were always curious, I remember, Tacitus, about this journey of mine to the East. When I told you, once, that I had undertaken it at Otho's command, you were incredulous, and ascribed my statement either to my vanity or my lamentable habit of making jokes. As it happened I was more amused than irritated by your inability to accept the truth. Now I wonder if this lack of simplicity in your nature will impair your History. Do not think me impertinent if I tell you that you are too inclined to look for hidden meanings lurking behind straightforward words and actions. Such are not always there. Lucan once said to me that 'only shallow people do not judge by appearances', and I thought that a characteristically clever-silly remark. But there is something in it. I would never call you shallow, but you suffer from a psychological deformity which apparently makes it impossible for you to accept the simple and obvious explanation.

However I shall give you more details now, instead of teasing you with silences and hints of I-could-if-I-would with which I sought to tantalise you in the past.

The suspicion with which Titus received me was not shared by his father. And yet it is possible that beneath, or rather behind, his bluff, even coarse, exterior Vespasian was a more subtle man than his elder son.

Titus accompanied me to the Governor's palace which Vespasian had made his headquarters. Mucianus was there, too. The generals made a compelling contrast. Vespasian was on his feet when we entered or, rather, bounded to his feet when we were announced; you will not have forgotten how difficult he always found it to keep still, and how he would disrupt the reception of, say, ambassadors by scratching himself, bobbing up and down, pulling his ear, twisting in his seat, and then getting to his feet and circling the chamber. Now he clapped me on the back, ruffled my hair, told me I had grown, looked quite soldierly now (which I didn't, but the compliment pleased me) and then started scratching under his armpits.

Mucianus reclined on a couch, resting against cushions. His long pale fingers, with their painted nails, toyed with the stem of a wine-cup. He fluttered his other hand feebly in my direction.

'Knew yer father, boy,' he said, 'you don't resemble him, fortunate for you. Bit of a shit, yer father, if y' don't mind me sayin' so.'