B007IIXYQY EBOK (136 page)

Domitian set out at once for the province of Upper Germania with the Praetorian Guard at his back. As he marched, spies informed him that Saturninus had even invited the recently humbled Chattian savages to cross the frozen Rhine and join his forces. Panic spread through all Gaul at the thought of vengeful barbarians loosed on their settlements.

But fortune favored Domitian when he had made but half the journey. As the Chattians massed along the Rhine’s east bank, preparing to join Saturninus, the river thawed in the night and the barbarian warriors were unable to cross. Then the commander of the legions of Lower Germany, a man named Maximus, marched against Saturninus and defeated him; dutifully he sent Domitian the traitor’s linen-wrapped head, preserved in honey.

And Domitian, gazing into his enemy’s sunken eyes, wondered if he might truly be touched with divine essence, as was Alexander of Macedon—for it seemed defeat was not part of his fate.

Minerva will always smite my enemies. Saturninus, you must have been insane to challenge my godhead.

But Domitian’s exultant humor died when he learned on his arrival at the Rhine fortress that the victorious Maximus had taken it upon himself to burn all of Saturninus’ correspondence. Now Domitian would never know for certain who had remained loyal and who had betrayed him. The more he pondered this, the more it unsettled him. Maximus’ act was a courageous attempt to protect as many as possible from Domitian’s wrath, but the deed in fact worsened matters. For now Domitian’s suspicions were unbounded by facts, and he was free to imagine everyone had taken part. The revolt proved to him what he had long asserted and all about him denied—his empire was overrun with brazen rebels at every rank. He found morbid satisfaction in seeing his worst suspicions proven true. The brooding fear, until this day always astride him but not
of
him, began to settle down into his bones. It would be his only master to the end of his days.

The treason trials began while Domitian was still in Upper Germania, and he continued to conduct them throughout the march home. When questioning soldiers of the ranks he resorted to the rack, caring nothing for the law forbidding the torturing of Roman citizens for evidence. Tales filtered back to Rome of suspects interrogated by Domitian himself while the army’s questioners singed their genitals with hot brands. The heads of executed men arrived daily in Rome, to be displayed on the Oration Platform in the Old Forum. Of all the soldiers of the ranks whom Domitian questioned and executed, it was said only one man saved himself—a young centurion who claimed he had visited Saturninus’ quarters not for conspiracy but for an hour of love. Domitian was aroused by a womanly face, a Ganymede’s form, and after adjourning his court for the purpose, as he stated it, of “further examining the evidence,” he took an afternoon to enjoy the young man’s favors himself. Later he announced the defendant had lustily proved his case, and pardoned him.

When Domitian returned to Rome he turned his full fury on the Senators, whom he believed were ultimately the cause of the souring of his long, happy marriage with the army. The revolt left him with the sense that the legions were like some powerful consort who could never again be counted wholly monogamous—and the Senate teemed with her potential seducers. In this marriage he had a partner whom he could not rule by terror as he did his wife; this spouse needed to be courted always and treated with deference. If he couldn’t keep this consort faithful by force, he
could
terrorize her would-be seducers. He proceeded to do so, with dedication and violence.

And so he set the Senate to the task of trying and condemning its own. Gone was his earlier reluctance to play the role of tyrant—he had no use now for poisoned needles. Victim and verdict were given to the Senators in advance of each session, and trial after trial proceeded like a grim series of plays with one plot. The charge was always the same, but the evidence was often ridiculous. One Senator perished because he had a map of the world painted on the walls of his bedchamber, which was read as proof he intended to rule the world. The wife of another was condemned because her household servants reported she had undressed before a statue of Domitian set up in her own house, which showed mockery of his divinity. Informing became a profession and a passion. Among the humbler orders it proved the quickest route to wealth; many a sumptuous seaside villa was bought with an innocent person’s blood. It was a lucrative game anyone could play: All a man or woman had to do was arrange to see one of Veiento’s secretaries, and in two days’ time he might find himself telling his tale to the great minister himself—and afterward he would find enough in his purse to buy a team of race horses or a cook as skilled as Apicius. If guilt over the victims began to trouble him, that could be cured by reading the daily Palace bulletins the notice writers put up in the Old Forum. There he could learn that the man on whom he had informed had taken bribes, was a follower of foreign superstitions, a defiler of temples who committed unnatural acts with women and boys, a profligate beast who had been narrowly stopped from seizing the state.

As the heads of Senators began to decorate the Rostra, a detachment of guards was posted nearby to prevent relatives and retainers from taking them down. Domitian chose a place where ordinary citizens were obliged to pass while pursuing their daily business, so all moved in the shadow of those blackening heads. Some grinned like Satyrs from Hades through their halos of flies, taunting the living with the remorselessness of death; others seemed to cry out in shapeless agony; none seemed ever to have been human. By dusk the Old Forum was deserted by the superstitious. But by light of day everyone forced himself to look—a Palace secretary might discover a missing relative or friend; a plebeian might recognize the head of his patron before he had even learned his benefactor was on trial.

Julianus fought desperately to save as many as he could; once he hid in his house for a month the three children of a condemned Senator—Domitian would have murdered them lest they grow up to avenge their father. Eventually he arranged to have them delivered from the city hidden under the debris of a garden-cart. The children of others he hid within his school, disguised as copyists. He preserved two Senators’ lives by implying to Domitian that, unknown to everyone, they were bankrupt. Domitian saw little use in taking the time to prosecute men with no property to confiscate—for with his many donatives to the army, the Emperor was rapidly emptying the treasury. Julianus worried constantly for the safety of Senator Nerva, but so far the man’s affable nature, which Domitian seemed to count as docility bordering on senility, had kept Nerva safe. There was but one remaining difficulty preventing Julianus from setting a day for the assassination: his failure to gain the confidence of both Prefects of the Praetorian Guard, one of whom, Norbanus, seemed ready to give him an ear before the Terror. For Julianus knew well that, ghastly as these times were, still it was the senatorial class alone that suffered grievously. The Praetorians could provoke a civil war that would cause Rome’s gutters to run with blood and whole cities to be laid waste by contending armies.

Erato’s request on Auriane’s behalf was delivered to Julianus shortly after the revolt. He had not dared risk having Auriane brought before this time because his house was watched closely by agents of Veiento, who was eager to uncover any evidence of treasonable acts, and, since her disgrace, by spies of Junilla as well. But this evidence of Auriane’s discouragement saddened him and caused him to think less of caution. And so he arranged the meeting, though twice, for safety, he was forced to cancel it; finally it was set in spring, at the time of the festival of Flora. On these days there would be drunken gaiety in the streets, lascivious dances, masked revelers scattering lupines on the ground, and hares, goats and other fruitful animals loosed in the streets. Auriane could be more easily disguised amidst this joyous confusion. As a further precaution he decided it must not be at his own house but at the mansion of Violentilla, a wealthy senatorial widow who was one of the conspirators. Erato was relieved, for it seemed Auriane’s melancholia grew steadily worse.

Auriane’s recovery required seven months; her devotees among the mob waited out this time with rude, noisy impatience. When she returned, she fought and won three times in one month and each time her fame grew greatly. A prankster set up a crude likeness of her in battle regalia before the Temple of Venus; temple authorities were scandalized to learn that more offerings were set before her image than were brought that day to the goddess. Vendors of votive statues made a brisk business of selling locks of hair they claimed were Auriane’s, prompting Erato to remark, “A turbot has more intelligence than the people taken as one. They never wonder that you are not bald!”

Auriane killed her Indian tiger with a fluid grace that belied the tedious hours of preparation. She insisted on choosing the beast herself and spent much time with it, studying its habits. On the night before, she made her peace with the tiger, asking its spirit to forgive her its death. When the final moment came, it seemed the beast leapt obligingly onto her sword.

Her first human opponent after her return was a man called Taranis, selected by Erato from a pool of one-time victors. The bout had the rigor and cold beauty of a well-written tragedy; each tempered stroke brought eruptions of applause. Once again she felt herself a bird taken to flight. The end came swiftly. Taranis was unsettled by her from the start, for he believed only sorcery could have brought about her victory over Perseus; he had as well neglected to learn how to block a powerful backstroke. She did not kill him and the crowd voted to spare him, for they remembered the bout with Perseus and knew it was what she wished. He survived to fight again and was eventually released, living on to tell tales of her to his grandchildren.

Never in their history had the people had so many games lavished on them as in these times. The Colosseum was a world apart that preserved the illusion that the state was guided by a benign, capable hand. It was Domitian’s one place of refuge as well; here he could silence their growls in an instant and have them licking his hand by tossing them Aristos, or a show of elephants, or the woman Aurinia, and so nourish his fantasy that he ruled perfectly and absolutely.

On the eves of days Auriane was to appear and on the nights of her victories, idlers gathered under her high window and sang bawdy songs to her until the Vigiles drove them off.

“They care for you not at all, really,” Sunia observed with lofty impatience following Auriane’s eighth victory, as they were kept from sleep by cries of “
Carissima Aurinia!
”
“When they call your name it means no more than ‘Death to the Emperor.’ To my way of thinking, they deserve
that Emperor.” Sunia hesitated, then looked at Auriane. “Auriane…, was he
there today?”

Auriane’s uncomfortable silence made a reply unnecessary. But finally she answered, “No. He was not. But must he be there every time? There are many possible reasons…. He could have been kept at some task…then, too, he might be…” She hesitated, then ventured on bravely over treacherous ground. “Sunia, do you wonder, ever, why he alone of all their great men should be left alive?”

“Auriane, I cannot
believe he’s come to ill, and you must not. Erato would tell you. Men like that do not perish without everyone hearing of it.”

The crowd’s torches cast a hobbling light on the wall of the cell; dimly it illumined Auriane’s form collapsed on the bedcushion. Sunia put a comforting hand about her shoulder and discovered that the mob’s darling was convulsed with quiet, struggling tears that she obviously wished to conceal. Sunia quickly took her hand away.

She loved Decius, Sunia thought, but not like this.
It alarms me. This man is to her as the draft of air is to the bird. Fria, as you are guardian of lovers, preserve her.

That November, during the Plebeian Games, Aristos was given his greatest fright since his capture. He was matched with Hyperion in a contest that endured nearly an hour; they battled to an exhausted standstill. There was no dishonor in that; he had known he was close-matched. But Hyperion at the last knocked the sword from his hand, forced him to crawl before him on all fours, then placed a conquering foot on his back as though he intended to use him as a mounting block.

Aristos had never been at the crowd’s mercy before. The glory of all his victories, layer by layer, was stripped off; he felt himself small, awkward, grotesquely naked as some plucked fowl. The crowd’s hot, eager stares melted all life’s acquired armor; he was a boy again, tied to a tree and waiting for Wido to beat him. Even though the people readily spared him and loved him no less—indeed, the next day children in the streets reenacted every part of the battle with staves, and in their games Aristos won, for everyone had trouble imagining any other outcome—he was certain his golden fortune was failing because of the runic curse. His fate was like a body that outwardly appeared still vigorous while inwardly, it was secretly being devoured by worms.

And that night when he thrust a torch into his cell, he was met with a sight that brought a child’s whimper from him. Slowly he backed out of the cell.

On the back wall the runic sign of the war-god Tiwaz had appeared as if painted by a spectral hand; it was rendered upside down, in blood. To Odberht this signified the great god withdrew his help in war, leaving him exposed to blood-drinking enemy blades.
On his sleeping-mat lay his short spear of linden wood, hallowed in the worship of Wodan, guardian of the sanctity of the runes; it had been broken in two. Between the broken pieces was placed his small clay figurine of Nihellenia, the name by which tribes who dwelled northeast of his people called the death goddess Hel; her blank round eyes regarded him innocently, pitilessly. The meaning was unmistakable—if he did not answer Auriane’s challenge, Hel would rend him in two.