Nero's Heirs (21 page)

'You can't reproach him for that ambition,' he said. 'You were very desirable. You still are, if you don't mind my saying so. To me, you are in that most delicious of stages, no longer a boy, not yet a man. But that's not why I've come here. Oh, if you were to invite me to tumble you on your bed, I should accept, of course. But I don't expect you to do so and, even if you did, and we took pleasure in each other, what would that amount to? The brief opening of a window in the blank wall of weariness, no more than that. For me now, even satisfied lust tastes sour, like new wine poured yesterday, drunk today.'

He fell silent. I could not read his expression, for his face was in half-shadow. A moth fluttered against the lamp, burned its wings and fell to the table.

'"The shadow of a great name",' he said, quoting Lucan. 'I think he meant Caesar, but the great name
in
whose shadow we all live is Rome itself, and Rome is now, like Troy, in flames. Nothing that was Rome remains - except the name. We were Republicans, you know. We dreamed that it might be possible, Nero dead, to restore the Republic. It was only a dream, foolish and insubstantial. We proved that, betraying ourselves and each other in our fear. No one in our generation has the fortitude of our forefathers. They tortured me, you know, but only a little. That was all that was necessary to make me betray Lucan. And Lucan himself tried -
oh,
so meanly - to cast the blame for his conduct on his mother. Perhaps he had Rome in mind. I should like to think so. For we had - it was a bond between us - a certain idea of Rome, which however in no way corresponded to the reality. I crawled to Nero: to save my life which, ever since, has seemed to me worthless. And so now, we are caught up in the struggle between two worthless men, Otho and Vitellius, and I ask myself, does it matter which of them feasts on the dead body of Rome? There's no good answer I can think of. One of them will win, the other lose, and who gives a tinker's cuss? Then your friends, Vespasian and Titus, will engage in a new war.'

What could I reply? The shameful thought came to me that the disillusion, so plangently expressed by Caesius Bassus, might be a ruse, that he might have been sent to prove my loyalty to Otho, and that an unwary word might invite my ruin - arrest, a cursory trial and ignominious death.

He seemed indifferent to my silence.

'We hoped to restore a time when men might think what they wished and say what they thought. Yet, when we came to the test, we stifled our thoughts and said what was required. There was no need of enemies; friends were only too ready to destroy each other. We thought of ourselves as the best but, when even the best are subject to moral corruption, the worst triumph. I have never ceased to reproach myself that I am still alive. Fortune may see to it that this battle tomorrow answers my self-reproach.'

He smiled, and drank more wine.

'Do you know what I am?' he said. 'I am a man with a great future behind him.'

I do not pretend that I recall his every word throughout this conversation which was really a soliloquy, a threnody with corruption as its theme. Yet some of the words are those he spoke, and the sense is all his. So, too, is what I may call the music. It has remained with me all these years, throughout so many vicissitudes, because this poet, whom I scarcely knew, who had singled me out almost by chance, and who met the next day the death he sought, expressed with an irony so detached from his personality as to seem cruel all that I have come to feel concerning the horrors of the age in which we have been condemned to live and in which the reward for virtue has been certain doom.

Before taking his leave, he said, You will have heard that our two emperors, Otho and Vitellius, accuse each other of monstrous debaucheries. Neither is lying. How strange that both should stumble into truth?'

There can be no emotion more debilitating than self-contempt; yet who that ever aspired to virtue can escape it in our time?

Balthus stirs on the rush-matting before the fire. The hound protests and, shifting position, now lies athwart the boy. Waking, the boy's face often wears a troubled look. His eyes are narrowed and there are lines made by anxiety running from them. His mouth hangs a little open, as if he would speak but dare not, as if inviting kisses which nevertheless he would try to ward off. But in sleep he looks contented, contented indeed as the unreflective hound.

He spoke to me earlier this evening of his god, in whom he declares an absolute trust. It appears that the poor child believes that his god has a special care for him, and indeed for all those he terms 'true believers'. He would like me to become one. Yet it is all absurdity. Everyone who has thought about these matters and who has had any experience of life knows that whatever gods exist are perfectly indifferent to the fortunes of men. If they care at all, it is not for our safety, but for our punishment. His Christianity is a slave's religion, and I suppose this is natural. Slaves dare not look reality in the face. They keep their eyes lowered to the ground. No wonder they cherish in their sad deluded hearts some notion of enjoying the favour of the gods in another life.

Strange though that his absurd religion gives him an assurance and a comfort I cannot look to have. In my experience, virtue is punished and crimes rewarded, until hubris overtakes the criminal.

XXVI

I fretted, Tacitus, to be kept at the Emperor's side. Yet there was nothing I could do about it. Otho protested that he needed me. He told me I was his talisman. Yet he spoke in a tone of despondency. Civil war, he told me, was wicked. Neither he nor Vitellius would be forgiven for having subjected Italy to its miseries.

'It is no wonder,' he said, 'that the merchants and common people of the towns already regret Nero. What harm did he do them, they ask, compared to the ruin that the rivalries of Otho and Vitellius threaten to bring on us?'

And it was true, he added, that Nero had directed his cruelties only at members of the senatorial class, and had pleased the populace by the lavish entertainment he had promoted on their behalf.

The Emperor had refused to take the omens on the day assigned to battle, and when the priests who had done so came to inform him of their message, he waved them angrily away. He sent forward a succession of runners urging his brother Titianus and his second-in-command Proculus to make all possible haste towards the confluence of the Po and the Adda, by which march it was hoped that they would cut off the enemy's retreat and draw a circle round their camp. I later learned that Celsus and Paullinus had argued against exposing the troops, who were heavily burdened with baggage, to such a hazardous plan. They would rather we had stood and fought on ground of our own choosing. But Titianus, with all the arrogance of incompetence, waved these arguments aside. He was infatuated with the beauty of his plan, and did not realise that battles are fought
in
the field, not on map-tables. But the disagreement between the generals becoming known, the men were disheartened, and many talked, I am told, of their fear that they had been betrayed.

Towards evening, but while it was still light, the first messengers came to us with reports of a heavy defeat. The army was in headlong flight, they said. Otho received the news without any sign of emotion, and gave gold to the messengers. When he had dismissed them, he said, 'I have never believed in victory, and so it now remains only to die in such a manner as will cause men to speak well of Otho and bring honour, not dishonour, to my house. For a long time I have wished that I had fallen victim to the perverted hatreds of Nero, and been spared this ordeal of being Emperor in name alone.' And he ordered a slave to bring him two daggers, and himself tested their points.

I said nothing to dissuade him. What should I have said?

But then, a centurion of the Praetorians, by name, Plotius Firmus, thrust himself into the presence.

'All is not lost,' he said. 'We've been defeated in a battle, but not a decisive one. The other side got a bloody nose themselves. Their cavalry was scattered. We took the eagle from one of their legions. We have still an army to the south of the Po, not to mention the legions which have remained here with you, my lord, at Bedriacum. What's more the Danube legions are still on the march to our aid. So we can still fight back. All that is required is resolution.'

Soon the centurion was joined by a number of his men. They crowded round Otho, yelling encouragement and swearing that they were ready for another go at the enemy. One young man even threw himself to the ground, and clasping Otho's knees, demanded that he lead them himself back to the field and he was certain they would restore their fallen fortunes.

So Plotius Firmus spoke again, even as Otho tried to disengage himself from his supplicant.

'You must not,' he said, 'desert an army that is so loyal and soldiers so eager to shed their blood on your behalf. There is more virtue in withstanding trouble than in escaping from it. The brave man clings to hope, whatever his ill-fortune. Only cowards yield to fear.'

Otho was embarrassed by these expressions of faith. He had already resigned himself to defeat and death. Indeed, in his own mind, he was dead already. So the call to renew the struggle dismayed him.

But, ever better fitted to put on a public show than to maintain his equanimity in private, he spoke graciously now, thanking the men for what they had said, and assuring them that he was fixed on no course of action, but must consult his generals before coming to a decision. His words could not satisfy, for the soldiers were looking to hear him declare that the war was not to be thought lost as long as men of their calibre were to be found. Therefore, although they accepted his diplomatic speech, many went sorrowful away. And I believe that if he had, after consulting his generals, resolved to renew the war, which was certainly not lost, he might, on account of the chill reception he had given his most enthusiastic troops, have found that their initial ardour had cooled.

Such speculation is vain. Nothing was further from Otho's mind than the struggle. He was already resigned to defeat. I knew that, as soon as he had persuaded Plotius Firmus to lead his Praetorians back to the camp. His body, which had been taut throughout this scene, relaxed. He even smiled. He stretched out his hand and chucked me under the chin, and stroked my cheek.

'You despise me, don't you?' he said.

'I don't understand you,' I replied.

'No,' he said, 'you are young, and brave, as these Praetorians were. But I am weary, and I hold that to expose such courage, such spirit, as yours and theirs to the danger of another battle is to put too high a value on my life and office. The more hope you hold out to me, the more glorious will be my death. I am now at one with Fortune. We have no secrets from each other. I know her cheats and strategems and can turn away from the false hopes she offers. The civil war began with Vitellius; let it end with his triumph. If I now resign myself to death, then Vitellius has no cause to revenge himself on my family and friends. But if I prolong the struggle, and meet again with defeat, then he will feel entitled to carry out a proscription of all who have been dear to me; among whom I include you, dear boy. I die happy in the thought that you, and so many, were happy to risk death for me. But the comedy has been played long enough. It is time to leave the theatre. So, I urge you not to delay here, but to take thought for your own safety, and to remember me as I die rather than as I have lived. I shall say no more. Only cowards talk at length to delay the moment of death. I complain of no one. Only those who seek to live need complain of gods or men.'

No doubt the speech was too long, and seemed all the more so when he had gathered together his staff and repeated it, almost word for word, to them. Yet there was something impressive in his calm demeanour. I admired his resolution, even while I despised the decision that occasioned it. To my mind, it would have been more manly to lead his troops into another battle, which indeed might yet have been won. Even if the cause had been hopeless, yet it seemed to me that an Emperor should die on his feet. Why seek Empire, only to abandon it at the first cold winds of Fortune?

Otho then begged us all to take our leave. It was in our interest, he said, to depart at once, in case Vitellius and his generals should interpret our remaining with Otho as a mark of defiance. He ordered boats and carriages to be made ready and it seemed that he was more assiduous in planning the flight of his entourage than he had ever been in organising his army for battle. He commanded his secretaries, too, to destroy all his correspondence.

'I should not wish,' he said, 'for Vitellius to discover that any of you had abused him in writing to me.'

Then he dismissed us, so that I was not a witness to his death. Nevertheless I later questioned one of his freedmen who attended him to the end. Therefore the account I now give you, Tacitus, is as authentic as any you may receive, even though I was not an eye-witness.

When he was alone, except for his domestic staff, he lay down to rest for a little. But his rest was disturbed when he heard shouts and cries from around the house. He sent to enquire. The soldiers, who refused to believe that Otho had abandoned the struggle, were attempting to prevent anyone from leaving the camp. (I myself had to bribe a surly fellow with five gold pieces before he would let me depart.) Otho rebuked them and said it was his will that his friends should be free to go. Despite this, the detachment of the Guard itself remained with him, though, aware of the hostility that the German legions felt for them, they must have feared their own fate. This was a remarkable example of loyalty. I have never understood what in Otho attracted it. I had come to like him myself, but I had been privileged to be his confidant. The soldiers, on the other hand, were now being abandoned by him.