Empire r-2, page 3
part #2 of Rome Series
While they watched and waited for a sign, Lucius considered the daunting complexities of avian augury. To take the auspice, one had to consider not only the types of birds that appeared but how many, and whether they flew in a single direction or doubled back, and whether they called or were silent. Every sound and motion of each bird had a different meaning, according to different circumstances and the time of the year when it was observed. An avian augury was far more likely than a lightning augury to yield an auspice susceptible to differing interpretations – if indeed on such a day any bird would appear.
They waited. Lucius began to grow uneasy, feeling almost as anxious for Claudius as he had felt for himself. It had seemed unthinkable that Lucius might disappoint and embarrass his father. How much greater must be the pressure felt by Claudius with the emperor looming behind him?
Just when Lucius could stand the suspense no longer, Claudius raised his lituus and pointed. “Th-th-there!” he cried. “Two vultures above the Esquiline Gate, flying this way!”
To be sure, two flitting specks had appeared, but they were so distant that Lucius, who had excellent eyesight, was not sure what sort of birds they might be. Apparently Claudius’s eyes were even keener than his, for as the birds drew nearer there was general agreement among the squinting augurs that the birds were indeed vultures. The birds wheeled back towards the Esquiline Gate and began to circle above it.
Two more vultures appeared from the same spot, and then two more, and then another, until seven vultures were circling about the Esquiline Gate. Beyond the gate, outside the walls, was the necropolis, the city of the dead, where slaves were buried and the carcasses of executed criminals were left to the birds. It was not surprising that vultures had appeared in that region, but it was surely fortuitous that so many had appeared at once, during Claudius’s augury, and on such an inclement day. The pattern of their flight, first towards the Auguratorium and then away, was a favourable auspice as well.
Augustus declared the augury completed. The magister was impressed.
“Seven vultures! To be sure, considerably fewer than the record set by Romulus – and matched by our emperor – but one more than Remus saw! Does anyone here doubt that the auspice is favorable? No? Very well, then, I declare that on this day, Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus has shown himself to be a true augur, accepted by his colleagues and, more importantly, by Jupiter himself. May you always use your skills and the power of your priestly office wisely, young man, for the benefit of Roma and with the greatest respect for the gods.”
The ceremony was concluded. Lucius and Claudius received the congratulations of their fellow augurs, and then the members began to head to the imperial residence. The banquet following the induction of new augurs was usually held in a private home, but on this occasion Augustus was playing host. He had certainly made a point of reminding everyone of his kinship to Claudius. The fact that Lucius Pinarius was a cousin had not even been mentioned.
During the short walk, which took them past some of the finest houses in the city, Lucius walked beside Claudius and told him how impressed he was by the vulture sightings. “That was very bold of you. I would never have dared to choose an avian augury. I did the safe thing and went with lightning. The smart thing as well, or so I thought, since lightning auguries are usually more highly respected. But you outshone me today, Claudius!”
Claudius pursed his lips, nodded, and hummed thoughtfully. His head twitched to one side. “Yes, well, I suppose I did, even though, as you say, lightning augury is the most highly esteemed of all forms. Why do you suppose that is?” With the examination behind them, his stutter had momentarily abated.
“As the magister taught us, lightning and thunder come directly from Jupiter,” said Lucius.
“Ah, but birds are the messengers of Jupiter, so why should avian augury not be as prized? No, I think lightning augury is more impressive because a flash of lightning cannot possibly be fabricated by mortal men, while anyone might arrange to release certain birds from a certain area at a certain time.”
Lucius frowned. “Are you saying those vultures were deliberately released?”
“Oh, not for Romulus, surely, and certainly not for Great-Uncle. But for me – who knows?” Claudius shrugged. “Thanks to my obvious shortcomings, Great-Uncle can foresee no higher station in life for me than to be an augur. I twitch too much to find glory as a warrior. You saw me drop my lituus today; imagine me dropping a sword on the battlefield! I st-stutter too much to make impressive sp-sp-speeches in the Senate.” He flashed a sardonic smile; was he stuttering on purpose? “Since this is as far as I shall go, Great-Uncle is determined that everyone should acknowledge my competence at augury, if at nothing else. Three vultures would have sufficed, don’t you think? Great-Uncle always overdoes these things! When the two vacancies opened in the college, why do you suppose he chose to allow you to enlist, Lucius?”
“I know my father did everything he could to promote me and to win the emperor’s favour. He was surprised he succeeded, considering my youth-”
“Ha! Great-Uncle approved of your admission to the college for only one reason: he wanted to make me an augur, and so be done with me, and he wanted another candidate my age to enter alongside me, so that I shouldn’t stand out so much. You weren’t made an augur despite your age, Lucius, but because of it! But the important thing, cousin Lucius, is that our examinations are over, and now we are augurs. Augurs for life! But what is that you’re wearing?”
Claudius referred to the amulet on Lucius’s necklace. It had slipped outside his trabea and the gold shone brightly against the purple wool.
“It’s a family talisman.”
“Where did it come from? What does it symbolize?”
“I don’t really know,” Lucius confessed, with some chagrin. Claudius was such a scholar and so steeped in his own family’s history that he was never at a loss to explain even the most arcane bits of ancestral lore.
Claudius came to a halt, reached for the amulet, and studied it closely. Lucius had seen such a spark in his friend’s eyes before, during their studies together – the excitement of the devoted antiquarian in the presence of an intriguing puzzle. “I think, Lucius – yes, I th-th-think I may have s-some idea of what this is. I’ll have to do a bit of research…”
“Come along, my fellow augurs,” said Lucius’s father, catching up with them. “We’re almost there.” Like Lucius, he had never been inside the imperial residence, and he was flushed with excitement.
They entered a courtyard first, no grander than that of any house of moderate wealth, except for the trophies on prominent display in the center of the yard. On a wooden stand was displayed the emperor’s personal armour, including his sword, ax, helmet, and shield.
“See how they gleam,” whispered Lucius, “as if they’ve just been freshly burnished!”
“Yes, I believe there is a slave who performs that duty daily,” said Claudius.
As the augurs filled the courtyard, waiting for the massive bronze entry doors to open, Lucius looked up at the giant laurel crown carved into the marble lintel above the doors.
“The laurel crown is traditionally awarded to a soldier who saves a comrade’s life in battle,” noted Claudius, following his gaze. “Can you guess why the Senate voted to award that stupendous image of a laurel crown to my uncle?”
“I suspect you can tell me.”
“It was awarded to him in honour of his victory over Cleopatra and my grandfather Marcus Antonius – whom I never knew, of course, since he died by his own sword twenty years before I was b-b-born. By winning that war, you see, Augustus saved us all from being enslaved by the Egyptian queen, the entire citizenry of Roma and all the generations to come – and thus he deserved a laurel crown of suitable splendor.”
The booming noise of a thrown bolt resounded from within the house, and then the great bronze doors began to slowly open inwards.
Flanking the doorway, Lucius noticed, were two flourishing laurel trees. As lightning flashed over their heads and a peal of thunder shook the courtyard, he saw several of the augurs break sprigs from the trees and slip them into their trabeas. It was a well-known fact that the laurel tree was lightning-proof, of all trees the only one never struck. Would carrying a sprig of laurel protect a man from lightning? Many people thought so.
Rather than being opulent or ostentatious, the interior of the imperial house was decorated with great simplicity. The columns were of travertine, not marble. The floors were paved with black-and-white tiles in simple geometric patterns, not decorated with colourful mosaics. The walls were painted in solid colors, not with the amazingly realistic landscapes Lucius had occasionally seen in the houses of his wealthier acquaintances, such as the Acilii. The several dining rooms that opened onto the central garden were spacious enough to accommodate a great many guests, but the dining couches themselves were as humble as those in Lucius’s house.
The meal was simple, as well. When asparagus was served as the first course, dipped in boiling water for just a moment so that it was cooked but still crisp, Claudius, reclining next to Lucius, snapped a stalk in two and quipped, “‘Quick as boiled asparagus’ – just the way Great-Uncle likes it!”
Lucius had never seen his friend in such high spirits. “I’m a little surprised at how simply the imperial residence is furnished,” he said. “Even the house of Acilia’s father is more opulent. Are the private quarters equally austere?”
“More so! Great-Uncle sleeps on a bed of straw and will have only backless chairs in the house. ‘A Roman’s spine should be sufficiently stiff to hold him upright,’ he says. He believes in setting an example by practising old-fashioned virtues of decorum and restraint. He expects his family to do the same. When Julilla, his granddaughter, built a mansion for herself on too grand a scale, Great-Uncle had the whole thing d-dd-demolished. I can’t remember, was that before or after he banished poor Julilla to that island for committing adultery? And then, when she b-b-bore her lover’s child, Great-Uncle ordered that the baby be abandoned on a mountainside to die.” Claudius bit a stalk of asparagus, chewed loudly, and swallowed. “He’s banished Julilla’s mother as well, his own daughter, likewise for scandalous conduct. And his only surviving grandson, Agrippa – he, too, failed to meet Great-Uncle’s standards and so ended up on an island somewhere. So you see, these Spartan surroundings are not a pretense. They are a genuine reflection of my uncle’s temperament.”
In each of the dining areas a couch was set aside for the host, who moved across the garden from room to room, allowing all the guests the honour of his presence. To Lucius, it seemed that the emperor was more an observer than a participant in the festivities, saying little and eating nothing. The old man appeared restless and distracted, giving a start whenever there was a peal of thunder. Light rain occasionally swept across the garden, and gusts of wind fanned the braziers that were lit as darkness fell. Hardly an hour after sundown, with several courses yet to be served, Augustus strode to the center of the garden, where all the guests could see him, bade his fellow augurs good night, and excused himself.
With the host gone, the atmosphere became noticeably more relaxed. A few guests dared to drink their wine without water, but no one got drunk. After a final course of carrots in a thick garum sauce, the guests begins to disperse, paying their respects to the new inductees before departing. Lucius’s father was the last to leave.
“You’re not coming with me, son?”
“Claudius has invited me to take a stroll to the Temple of Apollo.”
“In this weather?”
“The temple is only a few steps away. And it’s not raining now.”
“The sky could open at any moment.”
“If the storm grows worse, Lucius c-c-can spend the night here in my quarters,” offered Claudius.
“I suppose I can hardly object,” said the elder Pinarius, looking at once pleased and anxious that his son should become a welcome guest in the house of Augustus.
The Temple of Apollo was surrounded by an ornate colonnade directly adjoining the imperial residence, perched on the crest of the Palatine Hill, directly above the Circus Maximus. Of all Augustus’s new constructions, the Temple of Apollo was the most magnificent. Lit by flickering braziers from the surrounding colonnade, with a light mist descending, the temple appeared even more spectacular by night. The glistening walls were made of solid blocks of white Luna marble, and the gilded chariot of the sun atop the roof seemed to be made of flame. Dominating the square in front of the entrance, a marble statue of Apollo loomed above an altar flanked by four bronze oxen. In the flickering light, the oxen seemed almost to be alive. When Lucius said so to Claudius, his friend explained that they were hundreds of years old, the creations of the great Myron, famed for his much-copied statue of the Discus Thrower.
At the top of the steps, past the towering columns, they came to two massive doors, each decorated with reliefs in ivory. By flashes of lightning, Lucius gazed at a fabulously detailed panel, a riot of figures in violent motion – young men and women running this way and that in a great panic, some pierced by arrows, and in the sky above them, each wielding a bow, the divine siblings Apollo and Artemis.
“The slaying of the Niobids of Thebes,” Claudius explained. “When their mother Niobe boasted of having more offspring than Leto, the goddess’s children took offense and slew them, every one. Apollo shot the sons; Artemis shot the daughters. Niobe committed hubris – overweening mortal pride – and her children paid the price for it. The d-d-descendants of powerful mortals often seem to pay a price, simply for existing.” Claudius looked thoughtful, then turned and pointed with his lituus to the rectangle of sky framed by the nearest columns. “The lightning seems to be drawing closer. Look at that thunderbolt! Have you ever seen one like that? The magister says that every possible manifestation of lightning has been catalogued and categorized over the years, but that implies that lightning repeats itself, as letters and words in a language repeat; but I sometimes wonder if every thunderbolt is not unique to itself. Of course, if that were so, there could be no meaning in lightning at all, or none that men could make sense of.”
A great blackness, darker than all the rest of the sky and filled with flashes of lightning, was sweeping toward them from the south-west. It was over the Tiber now, its fury reflected on the water’s turbulent face.
Lucius felt steeped in privilege, to be standing with his friend, a member of the imperial household, on the threshold of the emperor’s greatest temple; but at the same time he felt a slight thrill of fear, for the approaching storm promised to be violent, and the horrific images of the slaughtered Niobids disturbed him. He was here to pay homage to Apollo, but Apollo could be a vengeful god.
Claudius did not appear to share his anxiety. “Did you know, years ago, this very spot was the site of the imperial residence? Then one day it was blasted by lightning and burned to the ground. Augustus declared that the g-g-gods had marked this as a sacred site, suitable only for a temple, and got the Senate to dedicate the funds to build not just the temple but the new imperial residence next to it. The temple is magnificent, as you can see, and everyone thought Great-Uncle would build himself an equally magnificent palace, but instead he made the new house exactly like the old one, only a little bigger and with annexes to accommodate his growing staff.” Claudius chuckled.
“Was Augustus in the house when it was struck by lightning?”
“Yes, he was. And that wasn’t Great-Uncle’s first encounter with lightning. He was very nearly k-k-killed by a thunderbolt during a night march in the Cantabarian campaign, after my grandfather Antonius was vanquished; a flash of lightning grazed Great-Uncle’s litter and struck dead the slave who was carrying a torch before him. After that narrow escape, he dedicated a shrine to Jupiter the Thunderer – there, if you squint you can see it over on the Capitoline, looking very impressive when the lightning illuminates it. Ever since, Great-Uncle’s had a morbid fear of lightning. How he hates a thunderstorm! I’m sure that’s why he left the b-banquet early, to take shelter under ground. The man fears nothing and no one here on earth, but he thinks that d-d-death from the sky might still claim him, as it did King Romulus. That’s why he was wearing that amulet tonight. He always wears it in stormy weather.”
“An amulet?”
“Did you not notice, Lucius? He was wearing an amulet made of sealskin, for protection, the way others carry a sprig of laurel.”
“Sealskin?”
“Just as the laurel is never struck by lightning, neither is the sea calf. It’s a scientific fact, confirmed by all reliable authorities. I myself prefer laurel.” He produced a sprig from inside his trabea.
“I suppose I should have taken a sprig,” said Lucius. The lightning and thunder were coming closer. The storm was almost upon them.
“Stay close to me; perhaps my sprig will protect you. There’s an interesting story about those laurel trees at the entrance to the imperial house. Not long after Livia was first betrothed to Augustus, she was riding in a carriage on a country road and a perfectly white hen dropped from the sky into her lap – with a sprig of laurel in its beak! Livia bred the hen to use its offspring in auguries, and planted the laurel, from which a sacred grove sprang up on the imperial estate along the Tiber, as well as the two specimens that flank the doorway of the imperial house. Augustus wore wreaths from those laurel trees in his triumphal pro cessions. Ah, but I digress…”
“You sometimes do.” Lucius smiled, then gave a start at a loud boom of thunder. He heard the hissing of the rain as it swept towards them over the Aventine.
“Well, you did ask about the sealskin amulet. And speaking of amulets, I’ve been th-th-thinking about the one you wear. I believe I may have an idea of what it is-”
He was interrupted by a flash of blinding light, followed at once by a tremendous thundercrack. Lightning had struck the Palatine, somewhere very close to them.
