Nero's Heirs (27 page)

'Was Eleazar himself among the dead?' Balthus asked.

'It was assumed so, but many bodies had been destroyed or rendered unrecognisable in the flames.'

'Why do you tell me this?' The boy raised his head as he spoke and his cheek was wet with tears. From the village came the crowing of a cock as the first rays of the rising sun touched the grey east with pink.

What had I to reply? There is a line of Ovid's, from a poem composed in these mournful parts: 'To speak of some fatal evil is alleviation.' I shook my head, having no answer in my own mind. Was there cruelty in my forcing on him this story of the atrocious inhumanity of man? Was it because I resented his air of being at peace with the world, despite his condition, that I wished to destroy what I felt as his reproachful innocence? I had denied myself his body, though it tempted me. Did I now, vengefully, wish to assail his mind with horrors?

I do not think so. Yet, as Cicero once wrote, 'Malice is cunning, and men's reason is deceitful in working mischief

When Titus took and destroyed Jerusalem, with me by his side, he sent me and a freedman called Fronto to determine the fate of the captives. We picked out the tallest and most beautiful, and reserved them for Titus' triumph in Rome. Most of those who were above the age of seventeen we despatched to work as slaves
in
the mines of Egypt, where there was a shortage of labour. Others we sent to provincial cities, to make sport in the arenas. The young boys we reserved for the slave market. There was one lovely Jewish girl who begged with many tears for the life of her beloved, a handsome boy with fine features and red-gold hair. Their beauty won my clemency. Fronto and I drew lots; he got the boy and I the girl. She was my mistress for a month. Then one night she disappeared. Her body was discovered on the edge of the camp. She had been raped and her throat cut. The boy, receiving this news, refused all food and starved himself to death, an act which the Jews do not judge as suicide. His elder brother was one of those who walked, laden with chains, in Titus' triumph, a youth of remarkable beauty.

'I think you are troubled
in
your soul, master,' the boy said. *We have a saying in my country: "Courage is good, but endurance is better.'"

And am I fated to endure, I all but said, seeing that such courage as I once possessed has drained from me. I have become a coward, afraid of my own memories, afraid of Rome's memories also. It seems to me that the most we have done in our mastery of the world is to make a desert and call it peace, and that the only free thing left
in
this Empire of ours is the wind that now blows chill from the north.

I put my hand on the boy's shoulder and did not feel him resist.

'You must return to your sleep,' I said. 'It was wrong in me to have deprived you of it.'

Three cranes rose from the marshes and flew over us, their wings beating slowly. Then they shifted direction and flew into the wind, towards the sea.

You Romans,' the boy said, with a mischievous smile, 'would see an omen there, but they are only birds.'

XXXIII

Can there be a more trying ordeal than to be confined in a city under the government of your enemy while the forces of your ally or leader are campaigning some hundreds of miles away?

That was our position. Vespasian himself had not yet left the East, but the Danube legions had crossed over through the passes of the Pannonian Alps.

They had done so at the urging of Antonius Primus. There had been some who counselled delay. They argued that their forces were inferior in numbers, and advocated holding the mountain passes, but advancing no further till Vespasian, Titus or Mucianus brought up reinforcements. Meanwhile, they said, Vespasian's command of the sea ensured that Italy could be put in a state of siege. But Antonius Primus would have none of this. It was his opinion that delay is dangerous in a civil war. Moreover he despised Vitellius' troops, describing them (I am told) as being 'sunk in sloth, emasculated by the circus, the theatre and the pleasures of the capital'. But he argued that once in camp again, and perhaps strengthened by fresh blood from Gaul and Germany, they would regain their old levels of fitness and become more formidable than they were now. He talked much in this vein and overcame the hesitations of his colleagues.

All this, of course, I learned later in conversation. But you may take it from me, Tacitus, that it is a true account. I suppose you will concoct some stirring speech for Antonius. You will be wise to do so; his own language would be quite unfitted for an elegant History. He was one of the foulest-mouthed brutes I ever encountered.

Meanwhile we waited
in
the city. News was frequent, confused, contradictory, worthy only to be called rumour, never to be trusted. In turbulent times, when no word is to be relied on, men do not stop their ears and choose to believe nothing they are told. On the contrary, they believe anything, the opposite today to what they held incontrovertible truth yesterday.

Since Vitellius had learned of Vespasian's challenge, and had despatched his army to war, Domitian thought it no longer safe to show himself in public. Indeed, he scarcely left his aunt's house, even to visit the barber, and felt himself in danger there, too. He talked often, and nervously, of seeking some more secure hiding-place, either beyond the city or in one of its lowest quarters, taking a room in some noisome and criminal alley which the agents of the State did not dare to penetrate. But the fear of the indignities and dangers to which he might be exposed in such a place restrained him. Some nights he drowned his fear in wine; then, in the morning, shaking - for heavy drinking always disordered his stomach and his nerves - his apprehension redoubled. It seemed terrible to him that the night before he had put himself in a condition which would have made it impossible to attempt to escape his enemies. Titus would have found his fears contemptible; I pitied him. He felt my pity, and resented it.

For my part, I continued to lead as regular a life as was possible
in
the disordered and fevered city. I judged that if I was in danger no concealment could save me; and that I might be in less danger if I evinced no fear or uncertainty - sure signs of guilt. So I frequented the barber, the library and the baths. I attended dinner-parties and theatres and never missed the races at the Circus. When Vitellius was there, he paid little attention to what was happening in the arena, though he was known to be a fervent supporter of the 'Blues', but remained in the rear of his box, and gave himself up to eating and drinking. Yet, when he did stagger to the front and show himself to the crowd, he was greeted with lusty cheers, which were prompted -it seemed to me - by a genuine enthusiasm. The mob is fickle, but Vitellius then enjoyed a popularity denied the Emperor since Nero was a young man. His one public care was to lavish donations on the people and arrange for free banquets. Someone remarked that Rome was in a bad way since the citizens were now habitually as drunk as the Emperor. It was a clever remark, also true, and I could wish it had been mine. But I have never, Tacitus, claimed credit for the
bon mots
or epigrams of others.

The mystery of these days was that Flavius Sabinus retained his office now that there was open war between his brother and Vitellius. I could not understand then how he contrived this, and I cannot enlighten you now. Some said that he was playing a double game. Domitian even went so far as to suggest that his uncle was guilty of treachery; but the boy was in his cups at the time.

Since I know that, if I do not offer some explanation, you will badger me for one in your next letter and, with your admirable pertinacity, refuse to believe that I cannot supply one, I shall advance a possible reason. But it is only a guess, based on no information.

Vitellius, I hazard, had never himself sought the Empire. It had been deposited on him by Caecina and Valens, and he had been too weak - too dazzled perhaps - to decline the perilous honour. But he knew himself to be unfitted for the task. He could not believe he could sustain the role. Brought up in the court, having attended on Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius and Nero, he knew - none better - the instability of Empire; he knew himself also to be inferior, one way or another, to all those he had served, often ignobly. There had doubtless been moments during the advance on Rome when he was carried away by the magnificence of his elevation. But even the most vile of remarks attributed to him - that nothing smelled more sweetly in his nostrils than the corpse of a dead rebel - suggest to me a man forcing himself to play a part which he had not rehearsed and was incapable of bringing off. Vitellius was spendthrift, greedy, lecherous, cowardly, dishonest, without principles of morality; but nothing previously had suggested that he took delight in cruelty. (Or so my mother told me.)

Now, established in Rome, he could do nothing for himself, but must await the outcome of battle. And he was afraid. How, he may have asked himself, in his rare sober moments, could the gods, who had turned from Nero and Galba and Otho, now favour such a man as he knew himself to be? (Like all weak men, Vitellius was superstitious; and throughout these weeks, even the most complaisant of priests found it difficult to present him with favourable omens.)

Feeling, and fearing, the instability of fortune, Vitellius looked apprehensively about him. And his gaze fell on Flavius Sabinus, the brother of his rival. Had Vitellius been a strong man, or had he believed in the valour and constancy of his armies, he would surely have arrested Flavius, even have put him to death, for there could be no doubt that Flavius Sabinus was at the centre of all seditious movements in the city.

But he did not do so. He did not even dismiss him from his post. And I can only think that he already knew that the day was likely when he himself might need a friend in Vespasian's camp or, if not a friend, someone who was under an obligation to him. Certainly it must have occurred to him that if it came to negotiations, his own position would be more secure if an intermediary was there, acceptable to both sides; and no one could fill that role better than Flavius Sabinus.

Having read my attempt at an explanation, you will, Tacitus, doubtless reject it. Your contempt for Vitellius is, I know, so unbounded that you will scorn the suggestion that he was capable of thinking intelligently. You may be right, and it is true, as you will insist, that Vitellius was rarely in a sufficiently sober condition to be able to think straight. All I can say is that no man could have survived the courts of so many Emperors as Vitellius had, without having a keen sense of what was necessary for self-preservation.

The heat of the summer came on. I tried to persuade my mother to retire to her cousin's villa in the hills, as she was now accustomed to do. She refused. 'Things are too interesting here,' she said. Yet she rarely left her apartment.

One day I found Domitian with her there. I assumed he had come in search of me. But this was not the case. It was my mother he had come to talk, or listen, to; and my arrival embarrassed him.

Later my mother said, 'I can't help but feel pity for that boy. He is so uncertain of his place in the world, that I fear for him also. His lack of self-confidence will lead him into mischief. Men who cannot trust themselves are not to be trusted.'

News came which for the moment disturbed the equanimity which Flavius Sabinus had hitherto displayed. Caecina had, as arranged, deserted his master. But he had moved too soon.

One of his friends brought word to Flavius Sabinus, arriving when I was with him in his apartment. The messenger, for such he was, indicated that he wished to speak to Flavius alone. Flavius replied that I was in his confidence and that he had no secrets which he desired to keep from me. At the time I was moved by this expression of trust. Later I thought: he is afraid. He may suspect me of treachery, and so wish to involve me more closely in whatever he plans; or he may fear that, if he excludes me, I shall suspect him of the same, and relay my suspicions to Titus. Thus do evil times corrupt us all; duplicity is common, openness and honesty provoke distrust. In retrospect I was ashamed of the thoughts I entertained. But it was natural that I should do so.

The messenger, still reluctant, at last acceded to Flavius' demand. I would that I could recall exactly what he said, for he spoke with an emotion that I found affecting. But I cannot; and I disdain to follow the example of historians such as Livy who invent speeches for their characters in order that they may display their own mastery of rhetoric.

So I must content myself with giving the sense of what he said.

Caecina had learned of the revolt of the fleet at Ravenna; they had turned against Vitellius. At first their commander, Lucilius Bassus, hesitated. He did not know whether it would prove more dangerous to desert Vitellius or remain loyal. But when he saw that the mutineers were ready to turn on him, he bravely put himself at their head, and proclaimed Vespasian Emperor.

This news persuaded Caecina that the moment to change sides had arrived. So he called those officers and senior centurions whom he thought to be peculiarly attached to himself to a remote corner of the camp, and told them that in his opinion Vespasian had won the game and would prove a worthy emperor. Now that the fleet had changed sides, he said, they could not expect new supplies to reach them. There was nothing to hope for from Gaul or Spain and the capital was in tumult. His words were compelling, and they all swore an oath to Vespasian. The images of Vitellius were cast down and messengers were sent to Antonius Primus, commanding Vespasian's advance-guard, to tell him they were ready to join him.