Nero's Heirs (2 page)

So we had few friends. That is how I came to pass so much of my childhood with Domitian. His circumstances resembled mine. He was boarded with an aunt - a sister of his father - in the Street of the Pomegranates in the sixth region, a neighbourhood little more salubrious or respectable than ours. You may think the distance between our homes makes our companionship surprising, since half the city lay between us. But the explanation is simple. His aunt revered my mother, who had been kind to her (she frequently said) in her days of prosperity. This aunt had buck teeth, stammered, and was nervous of strangers. So she would lead the young Domitian all the way over to Trastevere to pay her respects to my mother. For her part, my mother found the aunt useful. She had few domestic skills herself (how should she have had?), was reluctant to leave our apartment, despised our neighbours, or at least kept her distance from them, which incidentally increased the respect they held her in. Two lonely women, resenting the world, fearing it in the aunt's case, despising it in my mother's, they formed an alliance of convenience.

The child, they say, is father of the man. True, I suppose, though I have known those, myself among them indeed, who react so fiercely against the constraints of their childhood that, in retrospect, it is hard to believe that the adult man grew out of the child.

I could say more on this matter. But you do not wish my autobiography and, indeed, in bitter exile I have no taste to write it.

Domitian then: as a child, he was silent, brooding, resentful. You know how in his time as Emperor he was said to amuse himself by stabbing flies with his pen, so that the joke went round that 'No one was with the Princeps, not even a fly.' The jest was not without substance; he was the kind of little boy who delights in pulling the wings off insects, legs off spiders, and so on. Once, I recall, he brought a live frog to our apartment and proceeded to dismember it. When I begged him to refrain from torturing the beast, and at least to kill it before he anatomised the wretched creature, he muttered, without lifting his shaggy head - you remember how he could never look one in the eye - that he learned more by dissecting what was still alive. He had, he said, a keen interest in the nervous system. I think he was ten at the time.

His shaggy head was then sometimes infested with lice, for his aunt was short-sighted, and indifferent to such matters in any case. He went bald early, as you know; more cause for resentment.

In those days he didn't care for me. I put that wrongly. He disliked me. The reason was simple: my excellence rebuked his incapacity. I learned easily what he struggled to retain. For some years we attended the same schoolmaster, a Greek
grammaticus,
by name Democritos. He was a rough brutal man, fond of the rod. I believe his chief pleasure lay in chastising his unfortunate pupils. Domitian, being slow and of little account socially, was a choice victim. I have often seen his legs run with blood. Furthermore, the terror he displayed when condemned to a beating merely incited our master's ardour. The more Domitian howled for mercy, the harder the strokes fell. Once, at least, the wretched boy pissed himself in his abject fear. This naturally made him an object of mockery to his fellows. You will not be surprised to learn that after he became Emperor he had his agents seek out the now aged Democritos, drag him from the dingy apartment where he lingered, and bring the wretch before his former pupil who, spurning him with his toe, ordered him to be whipped to death. 'For,' he said, 'this man is so fond of the rod that it is only fitting that the rod should be the last thing he experiences in life.'

Curiously, it was this brutal wretch who first awoke in Domitian a warm feeling for myself. One day, when Democritos had been more than usually cruel to him, exceeding even his habitual measure of strokes, and had commanded two of our fellow-pupils to hold the boy up so that he might strike him again, something in me revolted against his barbarity. Perhaps - who knows? - I had long reproached myself for the timidity which I had displayed in tolerating the beast. Be that as it may, I now rose from my desk, ran towards him and, seizing the rod (then at the top of the backstroke) from his hand, turned it on our master, belabouring him about the neck and shoulders. 'See how you relish your own medicine,' I cried. Take that, you brute, and this, and learn to respect free-born Romans, you base Greek slave.' It was a moment of the purest exhilaration I have ever known. It could not last, of course. The brute was stronger than I and, swinging round, felled me with one blow of his fist. Then, calling on his assistant and one of our fellow-pupils to help him, he regained his rod and, when he saw I was held fast over the block, thrashed me with all his infuriated strength. He thrashed me, indeed, till I fainted, and when I recovered my senses it was to find myself alone with Domitian who was sponging my face and muttering his perplexed gratitude for my intervention. We agreed to inform my mother and his aunt of what had happened, and from that day we did not return to the torments of Democritos. From that day also, for two years or more, Domitian gave every sign of being devoted to me. I mention this because you have often observed that nothing is more common than a man's resentment of his benefactor. It wasn't like this in our case. I may say, modestly, that Domitian regarded me as his hero.

The harmony of our relationship was however to be broken. Titus returned to Rome from Africa, where he had been serving as his father's legate. He called, from courtesy, to see my mother.

'My father,' he said, 'sends you - has asked me to convey to you -the assurance of his high regard. He is fully sensible of the debt he owes you for his advancement. He has asked me to say that he is anxious to do whatever is in his power to - oh . . .' He broke off, and, with a sudden smile that seemed to light up our mean apartment, extended his hands in a vaguely helpless gesture and, abandoning his tone of formality, resumed: 'I'm no good at this kind of thing, my lady, though I have been trained in rhetoric. So let me put it in my own words, however loose and lacking in proper formality they may be. He's distressed to have learned of the condition in which you are obliged to live and now I see it for myself, well, I'm horrified, that a lady like you, of your birth, one who has been so kind to us, to me as a child, should be living like this. I remember that when poor Britannicus, my dearest friend, was so cruelly murdered - I can call it murder here, I suppose, though it would be as much as my life is worth to speak the word in other quarters - I remember then that when I wept, you dried my tears and comforted me, and that in the terrible days after, when I became like a little boy again, it was with your help and thanks to your sympathy and wise words that I was able to recover and resume my life. So, to see you confined in this miserable apartment makes me sad. More than that, it disgusts me. So, if there's anything I can do, anything my father can do - not that he can do much because, in my opinion, he clings to office, to his own position and perhaps even to his life by bare fingernails and fortune -well, just let me know. I really am devoted to you and your interest.'

He spoke beautifully, if a little incoherently, but that, it seemed, was evidence of his sincerity. The words tumbled forth, unbidden, straight from the heart, I couldn't doubt. My mother, of course, received them with gracious reserve, as her due. Whatever our circumstances, she was a great lady, a Claudian, while Vespasian and his family were
parvenus - parvenus
moreover who had not actually succeeded in arriving. But she was charmed by Titus nevertheless. Who wasn't in those days?

I have only to close my eyes to see him clearly: tall, long-legged, blond, his hair worn rather long and waved, his skin translucent, despite the African sun, nose short and straight, eyes cornflower blue, lips a little loose, the upper very slightly overhanging the lower, as if stung by a bee. And I can hear him, too: a beautiful voice, rather light, almost girlish in its upper notes, but saved from effeminacy by a few residual long Sabine vowels, caught from his father, or perhaps a childhood nurse. Then, just as his voice was rescued from the suspicion of affectation by this underlying strength, so too his manner, which might have seemed that of the self-consciously elegant dandy, was saved by a certain clumsiness - his feet were too large and he was inclined to knock things over with sudden movement.

I have given myself away, haven't I? Yes, while I listened to him and then poured him wine with a hand that I could not prevent from shaking, I fell headlong in love, as only a fourteen-year-old boy can fall in love, with an intensity in which hero-worship quite superseded any physical desire. I simply wanted to be with him, all the time from then on, to be noticed by him, cherished by him, and permitted to serve him.

I was not disappointed. Titus, though naturally I was ignorant of this, already deserved the reputation that clung to him in later years, of a great
coureur
- I use the Greek because we have no Latin term that so exactly fits - of both boys and women. And, if I may say so, I was in those days worth running after, and accustomed to being eyed and ogled and propositioned at the baths: I was athletic and slim; my face was framed by tumbling black curls, my skin was creamy, my eyes the darkest of browns and large, my nose straight, and my lips - as Titus was to say - were 'made for the madness of kisses'. In short, though I say it myself, in the knowledge that this passage will arouse your stern moralist's disapproval, I was what the pederasts who thronged the baths used to call in my day 'a peach'. I never allowed their admiration to go beyond flirtation, in which like so many pretty boys I excelled, taking a lively delight in fanning an ardour which I had no intention of satisfying. But it was different with Titus, though at first

I took care not to allow him to gain the easy victory that I anticipated with relish.

I dwell on this, because that visit of Titus to my mother would determine the course of my life. It would lead me to action in Judaea, to military renown, to joy and heartache, and I think now that it also aroused Domitian's jealousy - though there were to be other, perhaps more substantial, reasons for that.

But now, when Titus smiled on me and said, 'I've been out of the city for so long, I'm almost a stranger. Will you be my guide, kid?' what could I do but say yes, blushing with delight and hoping that neither my mother nor Titus himself fully comprehended why the colour should flood into my cheeks?

First love . . . no, it is too painful to dwell on now and, besides, my old friend, it is not what you want to hear. You are interested, are you not, in political history.

It was Titus, however, who aroused my interest in that, too. For him dalliance, flirtation, love-making were mere pastimes. Politics was his consuming interest, and it was not long before he began my political education, not without some disparaging remarks about his little brother Domitian, who would, he said, never amount to anything, and was not therefore worth the trouble of trying to enlighten, even on the dangers that threatened their family.

'I have to admit,' he said, 'that my father's position is precarious. He clings to office only because he has not distinguished himself in any way, and so is not seen as a threat by the buffoon on the Palatine' -this being his normal fashion of referring to the Emperor.

Nero, he told me, hated soldiers. He was not only jealous of any who had ever achieved military renown; he both feared and detested them. 'It can't last,' Titus said. 'Rome is its army first and foremost, and it is impossible that the Empire should be governed by a man that the legions have learned to despise.' He smiled and ran his hand through my curls to fondle my cheek, then let his fingers dance along the line of my lips. You won't talk of this, will you, now? It would be as much as my life is worth. In speaking to you in this manner I am indeed putting my life in your hands. But then where could it better be?' I nibbled his finger like a pet dog.

One day that summer Titus sought permission from my mother, to whom he was unfailingly courteous, that I might accompany him for a few days to a villa near Laurentum which belonged to his uncle Flavius Sabinus, who then held the post of Prefect of the City. My mother, who knew and approved of the passionate friendship between me and Titus, naturally consented, though she declined the suggestion that she, too, should accompany us.

'No,' she said, 'such a visit would recall happier days to me, and disturb the accommodation with misfortune which I have made.' My revered mother, for all her virtues, was inclined to take pleasure in her misery.

'Don't you think you should invite Domitian, too?' I said. 'He'll be awfully put out if you don't.'

'Not he. My little brother has already accepted an invitation from his admirer, Claudius Pollio, to join him for a few days hunting in the Alban Hills. It seems that my brother would rather kill wild animals than enjoy the beauties of the seaside and the pleasure it can offer.'

The villa was indeed beautiful. I need not describe it, for you know it well, my dear Tacitus, since it was later bought by our friend Pliny and you have often been a guest there yourself.

So you will recall - though with less immediate pleasure than I do - that portico beyond the garden, that looks out on to the sea which lies below it, separated by a sandy beach and a rocky hillside covered with juniper and thyme. On the terrace before the portico we lay one afternoon after bathing in an air fragrant with the scent of violets. We had lunched on prawns, caught that morning, cheese, olives and the first peaches of the season, and had drunk a flask of Falernian. Titus was in his most affectionate mood, and then we slept a little.