The Course of Honour Read online

  By this time Vespasian himself had become an elder statesman figure, respected for his military past though still disparaged for his unashamed country background. His brother, Sabinus, was regarded in Rome as the more substantial figure. Sabinus had been Governor of Moesia for seven years (though Moesia was not exactly the best-known province in the Empire) and had been Prefect of the City, a very significant post in Rome, to which he was now appointed for the second time. His wife had died. It was a source of regret to Caenis.

  She and Vespasian still lived quietly. These were dark days, reminiscent of the brief dreadful reign of Caligula – but lasting much longer. Nero had begun well as a ruler, under the influence of Seneca and Burrus, though now he had murdered both. Seeking greater extravagance he had first attempted to strangle, then divorced, then executed his blameless young wife, Octavia. He married his fabulously beautiful mistress Poppaea, then kicked her to death, probably by accident, while she was pregnant.

  ‘Sort of little mistake anyone could make!’ Vespasian groaned. ‘Whoops! Careless bloody monster! Lass, was there ever a family so extravagant with other people’s lives?’

  There was worse to come. When Octavia’s elder sister, Claudia Antonia, refused to take Poppaea’s place as his wife, Nero accused her of rebellion and executed her too. In this way Caenis lost all those to whom she owed a duty as relations of her patroness, Antonia. The Flavians were now in every sense her family.

  There was a terrible fire in Rome. Nero was blamed, though few dared breathe the accusation openly. Vespasian and Caenis had been away in the country; they returned to find that after six whole days and nights of conflagration the ancient heart of the city, including many sacred monuments, had been completely swept away while much elsewhere was seriously damaged. The first outbreak had raged from near the Circus Maximus around the Palatine and Caelian Hills, then a second conflagration began north of the Capitol. Shops, mansions, blocks of modest apartments and temples were destroyed, and part of the Palace too. Nothing remained there except rubble and ash. The fire had halted at the foot of the Esquiline. Vespasian’s mansion on the Quirinal was safe; so too the house that Caenis owned outside the Nomentana Gate.

  ‘That place of yours could be a good investment with so many people homeless!’ chortled Vespasian, apparently teasing.

  Caenis only smiled. She never discussed with anybody what she would do – or not do – with her house. Vespasian might have asked her to sell it, but even when he himself was reduced to investing in contracts for the supply of Sabine mules in order to fund his public career, he never imposed on her.

  Now she wondered if he was gazing at her with particular amusement, though it was hard to tell, for his face often lit sweetly when he stopped what he was doing to look up at her. It had become a habit; she thought nothing of it any more, merely accepted this as fortune’s unexpected gift.

  Depressed by the devastation in Rome, they went back to the country. So they missed, and were glad to miss, Nero’s retaliation against the Christians whom he chose to blame for starting the fire. Sabinus, who was still City Prefect, saw it: the wholesale massacres in Nero’s Circus on the Vatican Plain, the men and women torn apart by wild beasts, the human torches burning all night in the Palace Gardens. He heard the screams; he smelt the pitch and seared human flesh. He possessed the Flavian capacity for intense private feeling. He said little, but was deeply affected.

  Nero’s rebuilding of Rome typified the contradictions of his reign. The city itself was newly planned with its monuments restored, while new building regulations specified ways in which private householders must guard against fire. The measures were sensible. The new streetplans were elegant (though everyone hated them). Much of the cost was subsidised by the Emperor.

  At the same time, this was Nero’s opportunity to build the massive new palace complex which he called his Golden House. It enclosed whole farms, vineyards, and a monstrous lake – all in the centre of Rome. In fact the heart of the city was completely taken over by his new residence. The grounds contained a colonnade a third of a mile long. The interior contained a revolving dining room, and other suites both private and public of breath-taking magnificence. The decor included some of the most exquisite painted frescos ever accomplished, with delicate trails of flowers, fauns, cherubs, swags and lattice-work, created with meticulous artistry in the freshest colours, and even executed on corridors so tall that it was impossible to pick out the fine detail with the naked eye. There were marble vestibules, ceilings of fretted ivory, lavish use of gold leaf, and incredible encrustations of jewels. Outside the opulent entrance the Forum was dominated by the Colossus, a gilded statue of the Emperor wearing a sunray crown, which was one hundred and twenty feet high.

  The total cost of the Palace would be enormous; even more bitterly resented was the fact that to create this phenomenon Nero dispossessed many other landowners, who had already lost their property in the Fire; their anger contributed much to his downfall. When he had created his flagrant affront to the austere Roman tradition, he crowed that at last he could begin to live.

  Vespasian said the good thing about the Golden House was that it was so amazing it took your mind off the appalling food and the length of the public dinners, some of which went on from noon to night. Also (said Caenis), it stopped you wondering what potions from the poisoner Lucusta the Emperor might have slipped into your drink.

  This Emperor was not mad as Caligula had been mad. He was extravagant, vicious, self-obsessed, murderous and vain. But Nero was in command of his wits. Caenis judged him the worse for it: he lacked any excuse of delusion or dementia.

  It was two years after the Fire that his interests in chariot-racing and public singing contests brought Nero to Greece. He was to maintain that only the Greeks appreciated his voice; that bore out many Romans’ low opinion of the Greeks. After one abortive attempt to organise a visit, which he cancelled on some whim, he finally arrived to tour the main cities which sponsored musical events. In fact he also toured those whose contests were not due that year, compelling the festivals to be brought forward to accommodate his appearance whatever disruption it caused to the formal calendar.

  By the time he came home he would have collected more than a thousand victory wreaths, including one for a chariot race in which he fell out and never even completed the course. Nero grew so adept at announcing his own victories that he even put himself down for the competition for heralds – which of course he also won. Greek judges demonstrated a keen understanding of imperial requirements. The Emperor was doing his best. He followed a rigorous professional training programme. He lay down with weights on his chest to strengthen his voice. He complied with every rule of etiquette, suffered agonies of stage fright and awaited the judges’ verdicts with a solemnly bowed head even after it had become blatantly apparent what the verdict would always be.

  Those who accompanied him entered the spirit too – if they wanted to avoid strict penalties. Everyone of consequence was expected to attend imperial recitals, and once they turned up they were forbidden to leave until the end. Spies were stationed to check not just who was there, but whether they appeared to be enjoying themselves. Caenis endured this better than most; apart from the fact she had a well-trained face, she chatted to the spies about their work. Others were not so adept at survival. Men were arrested climbing out of the stadium over the back wall. Women gave birth. People died; people pretended to have died in order to obtain the relief of being carried out.

  It was, therefore, doubly unfortunate when a prominent member of the Emperor’s own retinue displayed a clear reluctance to applaud. Sometimes at private functions he got up and left the room. Sometimes he never turned up in the first place. Even in Italy he had already been in trouble when he began to nod at one of Nero’s earliest recitals and was only saved by a reprimand from a freedman who generously woke him up with a sharp prod.

  But character will out. And at one of Nero’s endlessly dreary public recitations in Greece Vesp
asian went soundly to sleep.

  XXXV

  Vespasian was dismissed from court. They had to flee to the hills. As Titus said later, it seemed a drastic way to work up a good suntan ready for the desert.

  In fact the situation was desperately serious and Vespasian became unusually upset. In case he doubted what might happen, Nero had just recalled the great general Corbulo from Armenia, having him greeted the moment he landed in Greece with a suggestion that since he was about to be executed he might want to commit suicide. And that was the reward for too much success.

  Faced with a harpist in a huff, Vespasian had tried to restrain himself, but after his disgrace there were splendid scenes outside the audience chamber, culminating with the overwrought Vespasian crying to a supercilious chamberlain, ‘What can I do? Where shall I go?’

  ‘Oh go to Hades!’ responded the chamberlain. He was having a trying time arranging this tour without ludicrous ex-Consuls maddening the imperial musician with sheer bad manners.

  Vespasian ruled out Hades; he decided on a family holiday, which he grumbled would be just as bad. Knowing that his unguarded drowsiness had this time placed him in danger of his life – and could have damaged his son too – he whisked Caenis and Titus to a remote mountain village. The village was, however, not so remote that he would be out of reach of the court if anybody wanted him back.

  They had a wonderful holiday even though Vespasian was daily expecting Nero’s order for him to commit suicide. Titus suffered the most and was given to outbursts of mild frustration at breakfast: ‘Ah Greece! Its monuments are fabulous, but its mountain villages are pretty poky! You should have been there with him, Caenis. He never nods off if he knows you’re in the top tier keeping an eye on him. For one thing he keeps turning round to wink at you.’

  Caenis listened for a moment to the clunk-clunking of the goat bells, the tireless cicadas, the sporadic whistling of shepherds in the distance and nearer at hand a few contented hens. ‘Titus, I am a music-lover! It was a dangerous fiasco and I am not sure I could have kept my temper with anyone – including your fool of a papa. How fortunate that my uncharacteristic headache had compelled me to stay in my room.’

  Titus grinned happily. ‘Well, I knew he wasn’t safe. I remember when I took up the harp myself he told me that from then on I was on my own in life – and by the way, I never want to see another little dish of hard green olives.’

  ‘I’ve just served you some, my darling; eat them and be quiet. Vespasian, your son is teasing you.’

  Vespasian, who was reading a letter, grunted.

  Titus ventured, more cautiously, ‘Father, I never really understood why you came on the concert tour. It was obviously an exercise in regal self-indulgence. We could have tossed dice on whether Nero offended you mortally, or you him.’

  Vespasian sniffed this time.

  ‘Playing his part in public life,’ scoffed Caenis.

  ‘By nodding off?’ Titus guffawed. ‘Well! I’m going for a walk. Yet again.’ There was not much else to do.

  ‘Give me a kiss then,’ Caenis commanded.

  Titus was on the point of leaving his couch, when there came a sudden commotion outside the dining room. Before anyone could move, through the doors from the terrace burst a terrified plough-ox that had broken its yoke and run amok. An aimless horn swept a table lamp to the ground with a sickening crash. Caenis, who was not keen on animals even in their proper place, stayed perfectly still. The ox dusted a shelf with the frowsty clump of its tail.

  The room was small; the ox was huge. The servants who had been about to clear away breakfast all took to their heels. Caenis noticed even Titus swallowed. Vespasian looked over the top of his letter; the ox snorted then dribbled menacingly, as its frantic hooves scrabbled on the tiled floor.

  ‘Hello, boy!’ Vespasian greeted him. ‘Lost your way?’

  ‘Oh my love,’ scolded Caenis, ‘I wish you wouldn’t invite your friends for breakfast.’

  The ox took one step farther into the room; she picked up a spoon, the only implement to hand. She wondered if smacking it hard on the nose would make it go away. They could hear the approaching, panicky voices of the tillers of Greek fields who had lost their angry but valuable animal.

  ‘Dear heart,’ Caenis murmured seductively to Vespasian, ‘do tell us what to do.’

  ‘Trying to think of a plan,’ he mused. ‘Difficult logistics.’

  ‘Well, you’re the country boy!’ Caenis snapped.

  ‘The poor creature’s frightened,’ Titus sympathised.

  ‘I’m frightened,’ said Caenis, ‘and I live here, so I take precedence! I’d like to go to my room and do a decent bit of sewing so perhaps one of you men could be masterful and sort out this incident.’

  ‘I’ve never seen you do sewing,’ Vespasian commented in wry surprise, then he continued talking amiably to the ox.

  The tillers of Greek fields were peering in horror around the shattered doors. The ox filled the room. There was no space to turn it round. The tillers of fields plainly regretted having come to look.

  ‘Shoo!’ snarled Caenis crossly to the ox. ‘Go home.’

  Then the ox, charmed perhaps by the quality of Flavian repartee, suddenly advanced towards Vespasian, bowed its great head and sank to one knee as if it were very tired.

  The chattering of the tillers of fields dropped to an awestruck hum. Even Caenis and Titus looked impressed.

  Titus said, ‘You have to hand it to him. For the son of a tax-collector he knows how to bring a damn great beastie down at his feet!’

  Removing an ox backwards from a small decorative room requires great skill. It was a skill which the owners of the runaway ox possessed only fragmentarily. The two Flavians provided a rope and offered them much sound advice based on military tactics and higher mathematics. By the time everyone had gone it was lunchtime and the room was wrecked.

  Vespasian finally allowed himself to say, ‘By the gods, I thought we came out of that rather well.’

  Titus lay on his back on a bench. ‘Something to write home to Domitian anyway. I think I might faint now if nobody minds.’

  ‘Symbol of power, an ox, you know,’ Vespasian winked, knowing Caenis would be annoyed.

  ‘You are living in disgrace on a mountain top, eating fruit,’ she quipped nastily. ‘The only powerful thing round here is the smell of manure. Tell me, why is breakfast with the Flavians always so nerve-racking?’

  Since the ox had gone home and she was still holding the spoon, she smacked Vespasian with the spoon instead.

  Not long afterwards he was summoned back to the court. Knowing how Caenis felt about breakfast he waited to tell her until they were at lunch.

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ she said at once.

  ‘No, you’re not. If this means Nero has thought up a suitable way of executing a man who snores through his songs – slow torture by bagpipes, I dare say, or drowning in a water-organ – then I’ll have to endure it – but no usurping Claudian with his brains in his backside is going to get his hands on my family!’

  ‘In law I’m not your family,’ Caenis commented quietly. Vespasian often swore though not so often in front of her because the Sabines were famously old-fashioned and in all cultures being old-fashioned means denying women any fun; but he said tersely, ‘Sod the law.’

  Caenis nonetheless went with him.

  He was spared strangling with a lyre string.

  They found themselves presented with a mansion in which to lodge; they were invited to dine with the Emperor; the chamberlain now greeted them with oozing respect. Vespasian was welcomed by Nero himself with flattery, good wishes, and every sign of amity. Vespasian had dreamt that his family would start to prosper from the day Nero lost a tooth; as they arrived they passed Nero’s dentist with a molar on a little silver dish.

  After dinner he was called into conference with the Emperor and his chief advisers, such as they nowadays were. When he emerged he had been offered a new post. He told Caeni
s at once what it was, and at once she understood what it must mean.

  They returned to their donated villa in complete silence. Late as it was, Vespasian sent off a message to bring Titus as soon as possible. All the way home he had gripped her hand tightly in his.

  They went into a room where they could sit. The house which Nero had placed at their disposal belonged to some wealthy old man who rarely visited. It was furnished in Roman fashion, but crammed with Greek artefacts. Every room was burdened with sideboards groaning under black-figure bowls and vases, bronzes, and pottery statuettes. There were carpets hung on the walls. Marble gods shared the dining room while the buffet table used at lunchtime was five hundred years old. It was like living in an art gallery. The very rugs flung over the ivory-legged couches were draped not for comfort but display. Caenis hated it.

  Vespasian took a chair; she sat sideways on a couch. This reversal of the normal pattern was typical of the casual way they had always lived. One of their own slaves, sensing late-night discussion, poured them amber resinated wine, unasked. For a long time neither drank. Once they were alone Caenis wished Vespasian would come nearer but she realised that he wanted to be able to look at her. True to her old training her face gave little away.

  There had been a serious rebellion in Judaea. Vespasian had been offered the province, plus control of a large army, with permission to take Titus on his staff. It was, as he admitted to Caenis at once, partly in recognition of his military talent but mainly because he was too obscure to pose any political threat if a major fighting force were entrusted to his command. The appointment would be for the usual period of three years.

  Caenis tried to remember what she knew about Judaea. It was another restless province at the far end of the Empire, which Rome viewed with mixed intrigue and unease. Caligula had once caused a trauma when he devised a plan to destroy the Temple in Jerusalem – a plan fortunately never carried out. The ruling house was riven by domestic squabbles but had been drawn to Rome under Augustus. Caenis herself had known the late King, Herod Agrippa, a close friend of the Emperors Caligula and Claudius, who had helped persuade Claudius to take the throne. He had been brought up in the House of Livia by Antonia, who remained his friend and champion for life. Judaea was now ruled by his son, who had been placed in power by Claudius.