Empire (17 page)

To stand before the image of his father, dressed in his father’s trabea, with his wife and new son beside him—this seemed to Titus as fine a moment as a man could hope for. Why had Kaeso turned his back on a proper life? Kaeso and Artemisia did not even enjoy the blessing of a child, and apparently this was not by chance but by choice. “Why bring a new life into such a foul world,” Kaeso had once said to him, “especially when this world is about to come to an end?” That had been another of their conversations that did not go well.

“What sort of augury will you perform today?” asked Chrysanthe. “Some public event with the emperor present?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s a request for a private augury. A family matter, I imagine. The house is over on the Esquiline.”

“Will you take the sedan?” She referred to the newly fashionable conveyance carried by slaves in which the occupant sat upright, rather than reclining as one did in an old-fashioned litter.

“No. It’s a beautiful autumn day. I’ll walk.”

“You should take one of the slaves for a bodyguard.”

“No need. I’ll go alone.”

“Are you sure? Walking down to the Forum is one thing, but through the Subura—”

“No one interferes with an augur going about his official duties,” Titus assured her. He kissed his wife and his son and set out.

In fact, he had chosen to go alone because he wished to pay a call without the risk that his wife would find out about it later from a loose-lipped slave. On his way to his appointment on the Esquiline, he was going to visit Kaeso.

Passing by the Circus Maximus, Titus ducked inside to have a look at the large-scale refurbishments that had been finished just in time for the recent Secular Games. Among many other improvements, the tufa barriers at the starting area had been replaced with marble and the conical, wooden posts at each end of the spine with pillars of gilded bronze. Only a few chariot drivers were practicing on this day, putting their horses through easy paces around the huge track. How different it was to see the place empty, instead of filled to capacity with eighty thousand cheering spectators.

Crossing the Forum, he wore his trabea proudly and nodded to acquaintances in their togas, and paused for a moment to watch the Vestal virgins on their way to the temple of the sacred hearthfire.

Beyond the Forum, a neighborhood of respectable shops and eateries quickly gave way to increasingly less-reputable venues. Dogs and children played in the narrow streets outside gambling dens, taverns, and brothels. Tall tenements shut out the sunlight. The stifled air grew thick with an assortment of unpleasant odors that Titus could not remember ever smelling on the airy slopes of the Aventine.

He found the five-story tenement where Kaeso lived. The place looked as if it might fall down at any moment. A long section of one wall, made of crumbling brick and mortar, was propped up with wooden planks. The wooden stairway inside was rickety and missing some of the steps. Listening to the building creak and groan around him, Titus cautiously ascended to the uppermost floor and tapped on a thin door.

Kaeso opened the door. He was bearded now and wore a tunic so threadbare that Titus could see the fascinum through the cloth. The necklace upon which it hung was make of twine, not gold.

Kaeso greeted Titus politely but without much warmth. “Come in, brother,” he said.

Once inside, Titus shook his head, unable to conceal his dismay at the squalor of Kaeso’s living conditions. Sleeping mats were crowded together on the floor. Gathered in the next room were several disreputable-looking
men and women whom he could only assume were sharing the apartment. The members of Kaeso’s cult seemed to celebrate poverty, living communally and indiscriminately sharing what little they possessed.

One of the strangers, a white-bearded man in a tattered robe, joined them. His eyes fixed on Titus’s trabea. “This fellow is a brother? An augur?”

Kaeso smiled. “No, brother, he’s not one of us. This is my twin, Titus Pinarius.”

The stranger gave Titus another look and laughed. “Well, I should have known! Yes, I see the resemblance now. Shall we give you some time alone, then? The brothers and sisters will leave you for a while.”

The men and women shambled out of the apartment. To Titus, each one looked shabbier and more disheveled than the last. The stairway creaked under their weight.

“Do we look that different now?” said Kaeso, when they were alone. Certainly, to a casual observer, the twins no longer resembled each other as closely as they once had. Kaeso had long hair and an unkempt beard and did nothing to make himself presentable, while Titus, conscious of the public nature of his work and fastidious by nature, was shaved by his barber daily and was regularly groomed by his slaves at the public baths. When was the last time Kaeso had visited the baths? Titus wrinkled his nose.

Kaeso sensed his disapproval. His tone was sharp. “So, brother, why have you come to see me?”

Titus was equally sharp. “ ‘Brother,’ you call me? It seems you’ve found others more worthy of being called your brother.” When Kaeso made no answer, Titus regretted his harsh tone. “Does there have to be a reason for me to visit you?”

“Brother, we see each other so seldom, I suspect you must have some cause to be here.”

Titus sighed. “In fact, I do have a reason. I suppose it’s too much to ask that you keep this to yourself. The decree will become public soon enough, but I’d rather it didn’t get out that I gave anyone advance notice.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you still call yourself a follower of Christ?”

“It’s not what I call myself. It is what I am.”

Titus shook his head. “You must know how much trouble your people
have been causing in the city. Last month there was a riot in one of the Jewish neighborhoods—”

“Caused by the intolerance of certain Jews who do not approve of those among them who follow Christ.”

“All this squabbling among the Jews! Can Jews do nothing else? In Jerusalem, people say there are stonings every day, because these Jews slaughter each other over the least religious disagreement. If indeed any of them can be called religious, since they refuse to acknowledge the gods—”

“The Jews worship the one and only god, as do I and the other followers of Christ.”

“But if you are not a Jew, Kaeso, how can you be a Christian?”

“Brother, I have explained all this to you before. While there are some who argue to the contrary, it is my belief that a follower of Christ does not need to be a Jew, and therefore does not need to be circumcised.”

Titus winced. “Don’t tell Claudius that. He’s convinced that all this fighting is strictly a matter of internecine squabbling among the Jews, with no Romans involved. That’s why he’s decided to ban the Jews from the city. That’s what I came to tell you.”

“What?” Kaeso was aghast. “Where does he expect them to go?”

“Back to Judaea, I suppose. Let them take with them all this squabbling about one god and circumcision and Christ, and leave the good people of Roma in peace.”

“Why are you telling me this, Titus?”

“Because I would hate to see you and your wife mistakenly rounded up and deported to Judaea, you fool! Which just might happen, if you insist on spouting impious ideas and keeping company with fanatical Jews.”

“But surely if I offer proof of my Roman citizenship—”

“That should be enough to protect you. Or you can always demonstrate that you haven’t been circumcised,” Titus added, with a shudder of disgust. He looked sidelong at his brother. “You aren’t . . . circumcised . . . are you, Kaeso?”

Kaeso raised an eyebrow. “No, brother. In that respect, we are still identical.”

Whether it was intended to or not, the remark recalled to Titus their audience with Caligula. He could think of nothing more to say. It was Kaeso who broke the uncomfortable silence.

“Thank you for telling me, Titus. At least I can warn some of my Jewish brothers about the emperor’s intentions and give them time to prepare. It may lessen their hardship.”

“I thought you welcomed hardship.” Titus surveyed the squalid surroundings—the filthy sleeping mats, the threadbare coverlets, the scraps of food on the floor, a cracked clay lamp that smelled of rancid oil.

Kaeso shrugged. “In the kingdom of the wicked, it is inevitable that men must suffer—for a little longer, anyway.”

“Please, Kaeso, don’t start talking about the end of the world again.”

“It’s not too late for you, Titus—if you act quickly. The end is very near. Christ taught that his second coming would be sooner rather than later, and to those who have eyes to see, the signs of the approaching end of days are all around us. The veil of this suffering world will be ripped away. The Heavenly City will be revealed. If your so-called science of augury and that useless stick you carry had any power at all, you would see this yourself.”

“Don’t insult me, Kaeso. And don’t insult the gods. I came here as a favor to you. I may no longer think of you as my brother, but I honor the memory of my father, and you are my father’s son—”

With a high-pitched squeal, a rat scurried out of the bedding and over Titus’s feet, so quickly that he didn’t have time to jump back. His heart leaped to his throat. He had had enough.

“I have to go now, Kaeso.”

“Off to perform an augury? Every time you deceive others by waving that stick and counting birds, you do the work of Satan.”

Titus could barely contain his anger. Why had he bothered to come? He turned his back on Kaeso and left without saying another word.

The house where he had been called to perform an augury was on a quiet street in one of the better parts of the Esquiline Hill. Like many Roman houses, this one presented little more than a blank wall to the street, but the entrance was quite elegant, with white marble steps and an elaborately carved door. Titus had been promised a substantial fee, and it looked as if the occupant could well afford it.

But, from the moment he stepped inside, Titus felt uneasy. The slave who opened the door for him gave him a wolfish leer, which hardly seemed appropriate, then vanished. The vestibule had no niches for the ancestors, but instead displayed a small shrine to Venus with a little statue of the goddess surrounded by smoking incense. Peering into the house from the vestibule, Titus caught a glimpse of a laughing girl as she ran across the atrium. The girl was blond and almost naked, wearing only a sort of loincloth about her hips.

He was left alone in the vestibule for what seemed a long time. At last a female slave arrived, saying she would escort him to her mistress. Titus was almost certain it was the same girl he had seen run across the atrium, now attired in a sleeveless blue tunica that fitted her rather tightly and left most of her legs exposed.

He followed the girl, not sure what to think. They passed through a beautifully furnished room decorated with statues of Eros and Venus. The wall paintings depicted stories of famous lovers, and some of the images were quite explicit. The slave led him down a long hallway, past several closed doors. From the rooms beyond, Titus heard what could only be the sounds of people making love—sighs, groans, whispers, a slap, and a high-pitched giggle.

He had been told that this was a private residence. Could he possibly have arrived by mistake at a brothel?

“This is the house of Lycisca, is it not?” he asked the girl.

“It certainly is,” she said, leading him into a dimly lit room decorated in shades of orange and red. “That is my mistress’s name. And here she is.”

Amid the deep shadows and the amber glow of lamps, reclining on an elegant couch, dressed in a gown so sheer that it appeared to be made of gossamer, was the emperor’s wife.

Titus was speechless. He had seen Messalina occasionally over the years, but always in the presence of her husband and usually at some official event. Claudius’s sudden elevation had been followed a month later by the birth of their son, Britannicus, and since then Messalina had presented herself as a model Roman wife and mother, doting on her child, wearing modest stolas, presiding at the religious rites that celebrated
motherhood, and comporting herself at the games and in the circus in a manner above reproach. So restrained was her demeanor that people had ceased to gossip about the difference in age between Claudius and Messalina. Though still in her twenties, she was the exemplar of a staid Roman matron.

The woman who lounged on the couch before Titus seemed to be a very different person. Her face had been made even more beautiful by the application of subtle cosmetics. Her hair was swept into a vortex atop her head, baring completely her long white neck, which was adorned with a silver necklace hung with tiny pearls. Larger pearls hung from the silver clasps on her earlobes, and the silver bangles at her wrists made a kind of music when she picked up a wine cup. Her gown covered her body with a silvery sheen, concealing nothing.

Sharing the couch with Messalina was someone else Titus recognized—indeed, almost anyone in Roma would have recognized Mnester, who had been Caligula’s favorite actor and had continued to enjoy imperial favor under Claudius. The fair-haired Greek was a ubiquitous figure at banquets and public ceremonies. With his bright blue eyes and Apollo-like features, his chiseled torso and long, elegant limbs, Mnester was probably more famous for his good looks than for his theatrical skills, though Titus had once seen him perform a memorable Ajax. On this occasion the actor wore nothing but a loincloth that appeared to be made of the same sheer fabric as Messalina’s gown. The two of them reclined head to head and passed the wine cup back and forth. They both appeared to have drunk quite a bit of wine already.