Empire r-2, page 52
part #2 of Rome Series
What would he do if the lion stood its ground? He would have no choice but to leap onto the beast and wrestle it. The idea was absurd, but there was no turning back.
He heard gasps of disbelief and screams of excitement from the spectators. The lion crouched, flattened it ears, lifted a paw, and bared its fangs. Lucius continued his headlong rush, screaming at the top of his lungs, waving his arms and gaining speed as he drew closer. Just as he was about to leap, the beast turned and began to run.
Lucius chased the lion. The roar from the crowd was deafening. He perceived a vast upward movement all around him. The spectators, in unison, had risen to their feet.
The lion ran for a short distance, then stopped and looked back at him with flattened ears, made ready to fight, then lost its nerve and began to run again, staying low to the ground. The beast seemed as perplexed by its own craven behaviour as it was by Lucius’s headlong advance. The predator was not used to being pursued.
Lucius could not continue to scream and run for long. He was weak from imprisonment. He had managed to find within himself an unexpected reservoir of energy and had released it in a great burst of noise and action, but already he was flagging.
In the blink of an eye, his strength was gone. He stopped running. He could scream no longer. He gasped for air. He could barely stand.
The lion ran until it reached the far side of the arena. It spun around and peered at Lucius, then sat on the sand like a Sphinx and snapped its tail this way and that.
They stayed like that for a while, man and lion, peering at each other across the sand. Eventually, a gate opened. Attendants with long poles ran onto the sand and poked at the lion, trying to goad it into attacking Lucius again. But the cat turned on the attendants instead, spitting and batting its claws at them. Eventually the attendants retreated. The lion sat on the sand again, panting and showing its tongue.
No longer able to stand, Lucius sat. Nearby he noticed a bloody spot on the sand. Amid the blood lay a lump of flesh. Most likely it was from a human being, one of the day’s previous victims, but it was so bloody and torn that it looked like a cut of meat from a butcher’s shop. Lucius wrinkled his nose and felt a twinge of nausea.
For a while Lucius and the lion sat on the sand, resting and keeping their distance. Then the cat roused itself. It stood and began to walk very slowly towards Lucius. The crowd murmured in anticipation. A stone’s throw from Lucius, the lion came to a stop and sat again, Sphinx-like, staring at him.
Lucius summoned his last vestige of strength to crawl on his hands and knees to the lump of bloody flesh on the sand. What would Apollonius think of his intention? Apollonius believed that men should not eat animals, but Lucius had never heard him express the opinion that animals should not eat men. It was in their nature, and they could not be reasoned out of it.
Grimacing with disgust, Lucius grabbed hold of the lump of flesh and flung it at the lion. The beast scrambled back, then poked its head towards the flesh and sniffed at it. It leaped onto the bloody lump, seized it with both paws, and attacked it with its powerful jaws.
The lion relished its meal. When it was done, it rose to its feet and sauntered towards Lucius, who stayed where he was, too exhausted to do anything except shut his eyes. He breathed deeply and awaited what was to come. As the lion drew nearer, Lucius heard its footsteps on the sand and smelled the gore on its breath.
Something rough and wet touched Lucius’s hand. He opened his eyes and saw that the cat was licking the blood from his fingers. The lion took its time and did a very thorough job, then sat beside him and closed its eyes, seemingly content.
From the stands came a strange mixture of sounds – applause and laughter, but also angry jeers and cries of scorn. Some of the spectators were enthralled by the scene they had just witnessed and hailed Lucius’s bravery. Others felt cheated of the thrill of seeing a man torn apart, and suspected that some trickery was afoot.
Lucius looked at the imperial box. Domitian was on his feet. Catullus was beside him, speaking into his right ear. Epaphroditus was speaking into his left ear. Domitian waved them both aside and gave an order to another courtier in his retinue. A few moments later, the attendants with long poles again appeared in the arena. One of the poles had a bit of meat tied to the end. They lured the cat to one of the openings and through the gate, which clanged shut after them.
A courtier beckoned to Lucius from the imperial box. Somehow, Lucius rose to his feet and staggered in that direction. Domitian stood at the parapet, looking down at him.
The emperor raised his hand. The spectators fell silent.
Domitian flashed a chilly smile. Thanks to the extraordinary acoustics of the amphitheatre, he barely had to raise his voice to be heard by Lucius. “I think, Lucius Pinarius, that you are the luckiest man I have ever met. More than once I have intended to do away with you. More than once I have changed my mind.”
“Caesar is merciful,” Lucius managed to say. His throat ached and his voice was hoarse from screaming.
“Perhaps. Or perhaps Caesar is mindful of some powerful magic about you. Did the magician from Tyana teach you to cast that spell on the lion?”
“I am always mindful of the Teacher’s example, Dominus. But he did not teach me any spells.”
“Then perhaps that amulet you wear is responsible for your good fortune. It must possess a powerful magic.”
Lucius touched the fascinum.
“You are pardoned and released, Lucius Pinarius. The property that was to be confiscated from you is hereby returned. Epaphroditus, see to the details.”
“But, Dominus-” protested Catullus, before Domitian cut him off by pressing a finger to the man’s lips.
Attendants assisted Lucius from the arena. They were strong men, and for that Lucius was glad. His legs had turned to water and the attendants practically had to carry him out.
AD 96
The weather was unusually stormy all through the summer months and into September – or Germanicus, as the month had been renamed by Domitian. As one violent tempest followed another, even casual observers noted the unprecedented occurrence of lightning. Lightning struck the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline. Lightning struck the Temple of the Flavians, causing damage to the statue of Vespasian in the sanctuary. Lightning struck the imperial palace on several occasions, including, it was said, a strike that caused a small fire in the emperor’s bedchamber. There was widespread speculation on what so many omens from the sky could mean.
Wrapped in a woolen cloak, Lucius sat on a stone bench in his sodden garden under the threatening morning sky. A bolt of lightning flashed above his head, casting a weird light on the glistening greenery around him, followed a heartbeat later by a thunderclap that caused the leaves to tremble. If there were omens to be perceived in all the lightning, Lucius was oblivious to them. He was again at a low ebb in his life, the lowest he had experienced since the death of Cornelia. How he missed her still, especially at a time like this!
He also missed Apollonius. Since his disappearance from Roma, the Teacher had been constantly on the move, travelling from city to city in the Eastern provinces, staying just ahead of Domitian’s agents. For a long time, Lucius had no news of him at all, but eventually the senator Nerva paid Lucius a visit and revealed that he was in contact with Apollonius. Nerva even offered to send messages between the two of them, sharing with Lucius a cipher with which he could encode his letters.
Apollonius’s letters to Lucius were encouraging, but brief to the point of being perfunctory. A typical letter, after being decoded, read: “I am in a coastal town which must not be named, among good people. I told them the tale of my friend in Roma who lay beside a lion in the arena. How I wish I had been there to see it. Your courage gives courage to others. Farewell.”
When Lucius wrote to Apollonius, he said little about himself – there was little to report about his secluded existence – so he mentioned events in Roma that he thought might be of interest to the Teacher, though he suspected that Nerva already kept Apollonius well informed on that count.
These infrequent exchanges were no substitute for the personal contact Lucius once had enjoyed with the Teacher. With Apollonius no longer present to set a daily example for him, Lucius often felt confused and lost. He still adhered to the Teacher’s tenets, abstaining from wine, meat, and sex, but the sense of balance and well-being he had felt at the side of Apollonius often eluded him.
More lightning flashed across the sky, followed by a long rumble of thunder.
Despite the Teacher’s belief that one should not dwell on sadness, Lucius found himself brooding over the loss of all the people who had mattered most to him. The suicide of his father had been a terrible blow, and even after all these years, the death of Sporus still haunted him. His mother had died from the plague that followed the fall of ash on Roma after Vesuvius erupted; without her presence to unite the family, he had drifted further and further from his three sisters, and his appearance in the arena, a mark of shame despite his pardon, had completed the estrangement. He had grieved when Domitian banished Dio of Prusa; now the emperor had seen fit to banish Epictetus as well, along with virtually every other philosopher in Roma. And while once Lucius had taken enjoyment from Martial and his wit, the poet’s sycophantic loyalty to Domitian had alienated Lucius long ago; to him, Martial might as well have been dead. With Apollonius gone and likely never to return to Roma, Lucius felt forlorn and isolated, the lone survivor of the ongoing catastrophe that was his life.
These morbid thoughts had been set off by the terrible news Lucius had received the day before: Epaphroditus was dead.
No man had ever been a better friend to him. Epaphroditus had kept Lucius safe through the treacherous months that followed the death of Nero, had welcomed Lucius into his circle of learned friends, had been the only person in whom Lucius confided about his love for Cornelia. The intimacy of their friendship had eventually lessened, but only because Lucius’s melancholy had driven him to seek inspiration outside Epaphroditus’s circle.
Epaphroditus’s reappearance in his life, at the trial of Apollonius, had been as brief as it was unexpected. After being spared by Domitian, Lucius arrived home from the arena to find a letter from Epaphroditus, delivered not by imperial courier but by a private messenger. The letter expressed joy at Lucius’s good fortune, but also made it clear there could be no further contact between them: “My return to imperial service and your singular history with the emperor make it impossible that we should be as close as we once were. You are a dangerous man to know. So am I. Let us keep a distance between us, for both our sakes. But know, Lucius, that I am forever fond of you, and I wish you well. I trust you will destroy this message after you have read it.”
In the years since, Lucius had not seen or communicated with his old friend and mentor. And now Epaphroditus was dead.
Hilarion, gleaning information in the Forum the preceding day, had brought Lucius the news. Hilarion had not been able to discover the cause or the exact circumstances of Epaphroditus’s death. Lucius hoped to learn more from the visitor he expected to arrive at any moment.
The cloudy morning sky turned as dark as night. A heavy rain began to fall. Shivering in his woolen cloak, Lucius retreated from the garden to his library, where Hilarion was stoking the fire in the brazier. Above the pelting of rain against the roof and the peals of thunder, Lucius did not hear the knock at the front door, but Hilarion did. The freedman showed the visitor to the library, then discreetly vanished.
Her long, voluminous cloak concealed her gender. The hood concealed her face. Did she wear the cloak to protect herself from the inclement weather, or because it allowed her to traverse the Palatine without being recognized? She stood before the brazier and warmed her hands for a moment, then pushed back the hood and shook her head, freeing tresses of lustrous black hair in which there were a few strands of grey.
Flavia Domitilla was the emperor’s niece, the daughter of his sister, Domitilla, but she did not share his typical Flavian features. Her cheekbones were high, her nose was small, her forehead broad. She had dark, flashing eyes and a sensual mouth. The outlines of her cloak hinted at a voluptuous figure giving way to stoutness. Though Flavia’s life scarcely resembled that of a Vestal – she had borne seven children – something about her reminded Lucius of Cornelia. Perhaps it was her willfulness and her spirit. Or perhaps it was simply that Flavia was the first woman since Cornelia who had inspired in Lucius a faint stirring of lust. But it was not to woo him, or even to seek his friendship, that she had come.
“Greetings, Flavia,” he said.
“Greetings, Lucius.”
“What can you tell me about the death of Epaphroditus?” he said.
She sighed. “I gather the two of you were close friends, back in the days of my grandfather?”
“Yes. I never ceased calling Epaphroditus my friend, though I hadn’t seen him in quite some time.”
“What have you heard?”
“Only what my freedman was able to pick up from the gossips in the Forum, which wasn’t much. It’s true that he’s dead, then?”
“Yes.”
“How did it happen?”
“Domitian condemned him. He took his own life.”
“But why? What was the charge?”
“The same charge my uncle always brings against his enemies, whether real or imagined. He was accused of conspiring against Caesar.”
“And was he?”
Flavia gazed at the fire. “You’re assuming that I would know such a thing – that I know who wants to see the emperor dead.”
“I should think that many men desire his death. But only a few would risk everything to make it happen. Was Epaphroditus one of them?”
Flavia pursed her lips. The firelight glinted in her eyes. Lucius found her beauty distracting. What would Apollonius say about her presence in Lucius’s house? Certainly, the Teacher would disdain the physical attraction Lucius felt towards her, but Flavia was not here because of that. She was here because they both desired the death of Domitian. What would Apollonius think of that? Would the Teacher ever approve of murder, even the murder of a tyrant?
Flavia shook her head. “I used to see Epaphroditus in the imperial court. His manner was so cowed and timid, I thought to myself: that fellow would make an ideal agent. Who would ever suspect him? So I approached Epaphroditus – cautiously, discreetly. And he rebuffed me. He told me he had seen enough chaos after the death of Nero, and could never be part of any plan that might lead to such chaos again, however well intentioned. His timidity was not an affectation, it was genuine. He wanted no more trouble in his life. Poor thing! Uncle should have left him where he was instead of dragging him out of retirement. His return to court was Epaphroditus’s undoing.”
“What made Domitian suspect him?”
She sighed. “The story is so pathetic, it pains me to tell it. Domitian heard a rumour that when Nero tried to kill himself, he failed, and it was Epaphroditus who finished the task for him. Out of loyalty and mercy, of course; nonetheless, it was the hand of Epaphroditus that dealt the final blow. Domitian called Epaphroditus before him and demanded that he tell him the truth. Epaphroditus was too frightened to lie. He admitted that he dealt the final blow to Nero. After that, Domitian became obsessed with the story. He made Epaphroditus tell it to him again and again, sometimes in the middle of the night, as if he were trying to trick the man into confessing a crime, letting slip some previously hidden detail. Eventually, Domitian got it into his head that Epaphroditus had murdered Nero. ‘And if so, was that such a bad thing?’ his courtiers would say. After all, without Nero dead, my grandfather would never have become emperor. But Uncle became convinced that Epaphroditus was a threat to him. ‘Once a man dares to kill an emperor, he’ll do it again,’ he said. Epaphroditus wasn’t involved in any conspiracy against Uncle. But he was the man who killed Nero, so he had to die.”
“That was almost thirty years ago. It’s absurd.”
“It’s mad. Uncle is mad. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I need your help.”
Her first visit had been a month earlier, and she had come to him twice since then, approaching Lucius as cautiously as she had approached Epaphroditus. Unlike Epaphroditus, Lucius had been receptive to her subtle overtures. Now she was back.
“I can also tell you that Epaphroditus left a will,” she said. “It was fetched from the keeping of the Vestals and read this morning. You were named.”
“Was I?”
“Yes. Of course, Uncle will probably invalidate the will and claim the estate for himself, since Epaphroditus was condemned as an enemy of the state.”
Did she think to incite him against Domitian by telling him that the emperor meant to cheat him out of an inheritance? If so, Lucius was offended. Greed was not his motivation. But what she said next made him realize that he had misjudged her.
“The will didn’t leave you much. Almost everything was left to a freedman of his, a philosopher called Epictetus, who’s been banished from Italy, with the stipulation that the proceeds should be used to set up a school. ‘Let my fortune, such as it is, foster the learning of philosophy.’ But to you he left a statue.”
“A statue?”
“It’s in his garden, apparently. A statue of an athlete, if I recall correctly.”
“The boxer Melancomas,” whispered Lucius, remembering the first time he had seen the statue, on the day the ash of Vesuvius fell on Roma.
“Yes, that’s the one.”
Epaphroditus had once remarked, “Melancomas will be here long after the rest of us are gone.” The statue had survived its owner.
Lucius stood across the brazier from her, looking at her through the flames. He tried to see her not as a beautiful woman or a grieving widow, nor as the niece of the emperor, but as a potential partner in a very dangerous enterprise. Could she be trusted to keep silent when she needed to? Was she clever enough to hatch a successful plot against a man as suspicious as her uncle, and would she have the courage to see it through?
