Nero_s Heirs Read online

  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fell headlong in love, as only a fourteen-year-old boy can fall in love, with an intensity in which hero-worship quite superseded any physical desire.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.

  When we woke the sun had moved round and a cool breeze blew from the sea.

  'I didn't bring you here only for pleasure,' Titus said, 'but because there is nowhere I know where I think more clearly than in this charming place, and I wish to share my thoughts with you. You are only a boy, but you will soon be a man and will enter on the world which I myself am only beginning to understand.

  'I have said to you before that Nero's rule cannot last, any more than Caligula's did. One year? Two? Five? No more than that, surely. He is despised by the soldiers and the aristocracy alike. He spends his time in pursuits which, while they might be thought tolerable if indulged in by a private citizen, are quite ridiculous in an Emperor: acting, singing, taking part in chariot-races. You can't wonder that I think him a buffoon.

  'But he is a bloody-minded buffoon. He is a coward, and all cowards are dangerous. You, kid, belong by birth to the highest rank of the old aristocracy, as I don't. There is scarcely a single man of your birth who does not view Nero with contempt. They know how to get rid of Emperors. How many of those who have ruled the state have died natural deaths?' 'Augustus himself,' I replied. Tiberius perhaps.'

  'Exactly. Pompey was murdered. Julius Caesar also, Gaius Caligula, and in my opinion Claudius. And none of them was as despised as Nero. So he can't last.'

  I looked out to sea. It was calm, deep blue, untroubled. If I had been alone I might have fancied I could hear the Sirens sing. I nibbled a stem of grass. Titus ruffled my hair.

  'Last week,' he said, 'I was made party to a conspiracy. At least I think I was. Hints were dropped. There were many "if onlys" and "do you thinks". I turned away. Why did I do that, kid?'

  'Do you want an answer
?' I said. 'Or is the question addressed to yourself? And why are you telling me this? Isn't it dangerous? Dangerous, I mean, to speak of these things.'

  'Nero murdered my friend, Britannicus,' he said. 'Nero has no children, brothers or nephews. Do you realise what that means? It means that when he is… disposed of, as he will be, somehow, the Empire will be a prize to be won. The secret of Empire will be revealed: that Emperors can be made elsewhere than in Rome. Emperors will be made by the legions. That is why I turned away from an aristocratic conspiracy. It's the wrong way to go about things, if we seek stability. Don't look like that. None of this is over your head.' I watched a lizard skim up the wall of the terrace.

  'My mother's father,' I said, 'was cousin to the Emperor Tiberius. She always says he would have liked to restore the Republic'

  'If I crushed that lizard with a rock,' Titus said, 'could you restore it to life?'

  'I shouldn't think so, except by magic, if such magic is to be found…'

  'Even Tiberius discovered that the Republic was as dead as that lizard would be then.' 'If the Emperor is to be made elsewhere than in Rome,' I said, 'then whoever commands the best legions will wear the purple. How many legions has your father, Titus?' Very few. At present.'

  'So there's not much chance of him becoming Emperor, and then you succeeding him,' I said. 'Rather a pity. You'd make a wonderful Emperor.' 'I'm glad you think so, too.'

  'Well, naturally. And if you were Emperor, or even heir to the Empire, then I could hope to restore the fortunes of my family, couldn't I?' 'It would be my first concern,' Titus said. 'I think we should sleep on that.' 'Sleep?' You may dismiss this conversation, Tacitus, as a sort of verbal love-making, to excite us both. As indeed it did, very pleasingly. I can understand why you should do so. I was only a boy, and Titus was scarcely a grown man, though older, as he reminded me, than Octavian Caesar was when he embarked on the great adventure that in time made him Augustus and Master of the World. But you would be mistaken. Oh, I admit that Titus was showing off, to impress me. But there was more to it than that. He had sniffed the wind, and I am certain now that during this visit to Rome, when he had talked at length with his uncle, the Prefect of the City, and been admitted to at least the fringes of a company of disaffected nobles, he had caught a glimpse of his future. He had seen – what I could not then have credited – that his father Vespasian, however lowly his birth and comparatively humble his present position, could not be excluded from the struggle for Empire which he foresaw. Vespasian was, after all, a general whom the soldiers trusted; and there were few such left. And before Titus left Rome, to return to his father, he had done two things: he had taken soundings and estimated the strength and purpose of the opposition to Nero; and he had commissioned me to send him reports of what I learned of happenings in the city. When I protested that I was still a boy and therefore unlikely to learn of great events anything more than was the gossip of the market-place, he smiled and said, 'I think better of you than that.' He even taught me a simple cipher in which to write to him. So you see he was serious.

  IV

  There are things I choose not to write to my friend Tacitus. I did not, for instance, send all that last letter, but only an edited version of the first part. Nor could I reveal the nature of my congress with Titus, which still returns to me in dreams wherein I cross the threshold of the perfection of all physical delights before clouds roll up and all is lost to memory.

  Then there is at least one element in my relations with Domitian which I cannot decide whether I dare recount. That it is germane is certain. But the incident doing me so little credit is one which I am loth to unfold. More of it in this notebook, perhaps, subsequently. It relates to Domatilla, sister of Titus and Domitian, a year younger than the latter. If I was even to drop her name in this context into my narrative, Tacitus would quiver like a hunting-dog that has scented game. Why is it that puritans like Tacitus, and indeed Domitian too, are so excited by a whiff of sexual scandal, and take so prurient and inquisitive an interest in the sexual activities of others, especially when they are what is termed 'deviant'? In Tacitus' case, doubtless because he has enjoyed so little sex himself. Domitian too perhaps? He talked much of 'bed-wrestling'; how much was wishful talk I never knew. Tacitus can't believe that Domitian was a puritan like himself. But then, my friend, though a master of language, is deficient in the knowledge of men; he has no understanding of what Greeks call psychology.

  I have so little now to occupy me it is no wonder that, gazing on this sullen wind-whipped sea, past scenes move in the stage-set of my memory. Obedient to Titus, I now began to frequent the new baths on the Campus Martius, which were given the name of Nero's, though everyone knew that they had actually been commissioned by his minister Burrus, since murdered by imperial command. I went there at the hour favoured by young nobles, among whom I belonged by birth if not fortune. Naturally, it wasn't long before I attracted attention.

  (It amused me by the way to remind Tacitus in my last letter of my youthful beauty. He looked like a scraggy crowling himself.)

  Among my admirers was the poet Lucan. He approached me one afternoon as I reclined on a bench in the palaestra after my bath, and at once launched himself into a long speech of which I cannot remember a word, though he was certainly voluble. But his eyes were more eloquent still. It was clear that he had concluded from my attitude that I was in search of an admirer. 'You're a dancer, aren't you?' he said. 'I've seen you at the theatre…'

  I allowed him to continue some time in this fancy, neither confirming nor denying his words, and favouring him with a smile that was friendly rather than inviting.

  At last, when he had exhausted his store of flattery – for the time being only, since I have rarely known anyone with such a flow of words – and had made it quite clear what he wanted of me, I told him my name, and was rewarded, as I had expected, with a flush of embarrassment. To mistake a Claudian for a professional catamite was, at least in those days, a social blunder of the first order.

  But Lucan was resourceful. He collected himself quickly, changing his words, though still singing them to the same tune. I was impressed. Only the thought of Titus prevented me from responding with the ardour my new friend so clearly sought.

  I parried his attack, knowing that nothing is so desirable as a boy who protects his virtue and yet shows no sign of being offended by attempts to undermine it.

  Lucan, accustomed, on account of good looks, self-confidence and literary reputation, to easy conquests, was enthralled by my resistance and redoubled his efforts to seduce me.

  Discovering that his physical charms were not sufficient for his purpose, and that not even his sublime eloquence could persuade me to share his bed, he rashly sought to win me over by admitting me to his secret world in order to excite me by making me aware of his importance. So he dropped hints that he was engaged in a great and dangerous enterprise. I smiled and said he would be wiser to tell me nothing of it. I was only a boy, I reminded him, and had no concern with such matters. Wouldn't it be better if he recited to me some more of the great poem he was writing? I would appreciate that more; literature, I said, fluttering my eyelashes, was more interesting to me than politics. Besides, politics belonged to the Republic which he invoked so marvellously in his verse. There could be no politics now that we lived under the despotism of Empire.

  My indifference spurred him on to ever greater imprudence. I might flatter him as a poet. That was not what he wanted. Or rather it was not enough for him. I daresay, if I had yielded, I would not have been enough either. He was, I see now, a man of that unhappy sort whose every success serves to sharpen their innate dissatisfaction. Such types are more common than you might suppose. I should know. It is, or was, my type also.

  Lucan was eaten up with pride of birth. Yet he was actually more notable for the eminence of recent connections, such as his uncle Seneca, than for his more distant ancestors. He was after all, Spanish by birth, not a true Roman at all, a descendant of some y
ounger son who had established himself in Spain – Cordoba, I believe – seeking in the provinces what was denied him in Rome. Perhaps it was simply because Lucan was what I then thought of, scornfully, as a colonial, that he was so eager to impress on me his sense of the greatness of his family. I smiled, and removed his hand from my thigh.

  'But,' I said, 'your poetry will make you immortal. In that case what do your ancestors matter?'

  He didn't care for that response, which indicates that he was not a true poet perhaps, since almost every poet I have known – and in my time I have been plagued with whole tribes of the creatures -has thrilled at the thought of immortality, and been ready to swear that the taste of future generations must be markedly superior to that of today.

  But Lucan, lacking self-knowledge, saw himself as a great aristocrat, who threw off poetry with a negligent ease. It was something he did with style, but it didn't matter to him, except in as much as he acquired repute by his verses. He did not – perhaps it is needless to say – seek to impress other poets and critics, for he despised with some justice what he called 'literary sewing-circles'. The audience he aimed at was composed of the politically restless and dissatisfied, great ladies, beautiful women, and at least one very pretty boy.