Empire (34 page)

“In such a wicked world, death is a release to be longed for,” said a man with a long white beard. Titus had seen him once in Kaeso’s rooms. “Even a death under circumstances as horrible as this is better than life in such a world. Death will deliver us to a better place.”

A harried stage manager scurried by, followed by a group of Praetorians. “I am
trying
to maintain order here; I am
trying
to keep to the emperor’s schedule of events!” the man shouted. “Now, I need you fellows to divide the prisoners into groups—”

Titus ran toward the man. “Listen to me!” he said. “A mistake has been made. I shouldn’t be here—”

The man started back, as if a wild dog had jumped at him. Before Titus could say another word, one of the Praetorians raised a shield and used it to shove him back. By a flicker of torchlight Titus caught a glimpse of his reflection in the highly polished metal. He was shocked at what he saw.
Staring back at him was a nearly naked man with a crazed look in his eyes, his face bruised, his lips bleeding. How quickly his dignified, untouchable identity as a Roman senator had been stripped from him!

Titus looked this way and that, desperate to find someone to whom he could explain his situation.

Suddenly he was face-to-face with Kaeso.

He had never before seen his brother look so wretched. Like Titus, Kaeso wore only a loincloth. The body Titus saw before him was familiar but distorted, like a mockery of his own, covered with bruises and wounds and bloody patches. Kaeso had been beaten and tortured. From his gaunt appearance, he had been starved as well. There was nothing aloof about his manner, as was the case with some of the Christians; Kaeso looked utterly broken and unnerved. Titus saw a pitiful, frightened man.

As the arrest and interrogation of the Christians had proceeded and the day of their punishment approached, Titus had forced himself not to think about his brother. He had told himself so many times that he had no brother that he almost believed it. Now Kaeso stood before him, a shadow of the man he once had been, but still undeniably the son of Lucius Pinarius, Titus’s twin brother. Titus felt an unbearable sadness, remembering their boyhood together in Alexandria and the years before they became strangers to each other. How had they grown so far apart? How had Kaeso ended up among these mad death-worshippers?

“It’s alright, brother,” whispered Kaeso. “I forgive you.”

Titus’s sadness faded. He felt a quiver of anger. What had he done to require forgiveness? Why did Kaeso always have to be so smug and self-righteous?

He tried to think of something to say, but there was no time. Suddenly a line of Praetorians was between them, forcing Kaeso into one group and Titus into another. With the Praetorians barking orders at them, the people in Kaeso’s group were forced to put on tunics soaked in pitch, then their arms were tied behind them.

A door opened. From the arena came the roar of the crowd. The stage manager screamed at the prisoners to hurry into the arena. “Quickly, quickly, quickly!” Guards with spears herded them through the opening.

Titus suddenly realized that his meeting with Kaeso had not been accidental. The gods had given him a last chance to save himself. He stepped
away from his group and tried to get the attention of the stage manager. “We’re twins! That’s my twin brother! Look at us! Do you see? There are two of us, but it’s my twin brother who’s the Christian, not I! I’m not supposed to be here!”

The stage manager gave him an exasperated look and rolled his eyes. One of the guards used the butt of his spear to knock Titus to the ground.

Kaeso managed to break away from the group and ran to Titus. Stinking of pitch, with his arms bound behind him, he dropped to his knees beside his brother.

“Give me the crucifix,” he whispered. “Please, Titus! It’s the only thing that can give me strength to face the end.”

Lying on his back, Titus clutched the fascinum at his chest and shook his head.

“Titus, I beg you! Titus, I’m about to be burned alive! Please, brother, grant me this one small favor!”

Reluctantly, Titus removed the necklace and put it over Kaeso’s head. Even as he did so, he knew it was wrong to give it up. He reached desperately to grab the fascinum and take it back, but a guard pulled Kaeso to his feet and the fascinum eluded Titus’s grasp.

Kaeso was the last of his group to be herded onto the track. Titus scrambled to his feet. Through the opened door, he saw that the prisoners were being lifted up and placed in the iron baskets atop the pitch-soaked poles. Guards carrying torches ran onto the track and stationed themselves by the poles, ready to set the human torches alight.

As Titus watched, Kaeso was driven to the nearest of the poles; he was the last to be lifted into a basket. Titus caught a glimpse of something bright and glittering at his brother’s breast—the fascinum—then averted his eyes. He could not bear to watch.

He heard a low murmur run though the crowd, a rush of indrawn breath like wind passing though tall grass. This was followed by a cheer that started at one end of the circus, then gradually rose to a roar. From the stands above came the deafening noise of spectators stamping their feet in excitement.

Titus stepped to the doorway and peered outside. At the far end of the circus, a lone charioteer had driven onto the track. He was dressed in the leather racing outfit and helmet of the green faction favored by the
emperor. The charioteer was driving his white steeds at a slow cantor as he waved to the crowd.

There were charioteers whose popularity rivaled that of the most famous gladiators, but what charioteer could be so high in the emperor’s esteem that Nero would select him to play this majestic, even godlike role? As the charioteer drove past each human torch, he raised his arm, pointed an accusing finger at the prisoner, and the torch burst into flame. The effect was uncanny, as if the charioteer had the power to cast thunderbolts.

As more torches were lit, the arena grew brighter, and Titus at last saw what the crowd in the stands had already perceived: the charioteer was Nero.

As the emperor continued his slow progress, he drew nearer and nearer to the doorway where Titus stood, and to the pole on which Kaeso had been hoisted. With a gesture from Nero, the torch next to Kaeso was set alight. Kaeso would be next.

Suddenly, Titus felt hands on him. The guards had seen that he was at the opening and were pulling him back. Summoning all his strength, Titus managed to break free. He ran onto the track.

He slipped on a slick, wet spot and tumbled forward. Scrambling to his feet, he touched something and screamed in revulsion. It was a mangled human ear. He staggered to his feet and looked at himself. Wherever his naked flesh had touched the ground he was covered in a gritty paste of sand and blood. He heard the guards shouting behind him and ran.

How different it was, to be here on the arena floor, rather than in the imperial box! He had watched the day’s proceedings from the stands with a mixture of grim determination and exalted privilege, comfortably remote from what was taking place in the arena below. Now he found himself in a bizarre landscape of towering crucifixes and human torches, surrounded by flames and carnage. The blood, urine, and feces of dogs and humans littered the sand. Everywhere he looked he saw fingers and toes and other scraps of flesh left behind by the ravenous hounds. A nauseating stench filled his nostrils, and hot smoke burned his lungs. Above the roar of the crowd he heard the screams of those set alight, the crackling of burning bodies, and the moans of the crucified.

With the guards at his heels, Titus rushed headlong toward Nero. He reached the chariot and threw himself on the ground.

Basking in the approval of the crowd, his eyes glittering in the firelight,
Nero registered no surprise at Titus’s sudden appearance. He grinned broadly, then threw back his head and laughed. He pulled at the reins to stop the horses and waved at the guards to draw back. He stepped from the chariot, strode to the spot where Titus lay gasping on the sand, and stooped over to pat him on the head.

“Never fear, Senator Pinarius,” he said. “Caesar will save you!”

Weeping with relief, Titus clutched Nero’s spindly legs. “Thank you! Thank you, Caesar!”

The spectators assumed this exchange was part of the entertainment. They applauded and roared with laughter at Nero’s satirical demonstration of clemency amid such overwhelming carnage.

“Nero is merciful! Merciful Nero!” someone shouted, and the crowd took up the chant: “Nero is merciful! Merciful Nero! Nero is merciful! Merciful Nero!” The chant mingled with the shrieking of the human torches.

Titus trembled so violently that he thought he might fly to pieces. He wept uncontrollably. He had no choice but to remain on his knees. He could not stand.

Nero shook his head and clucked his tongue. “Poor Pinarius! Did you not realize your predicament was all a practical joke?”

Titus stared up at him, baffled.

“A practical joke, Pinarius! That ridiculous family heirloom you insist on wearing gave me the idea. Where is it, by the way? Don’t tell me you’ve lost it.”

Titus pointed mutely to Kaeso, trapped in the basket atop the nearby pole.

Nero nodded. “I see. You gave it to your twin. How appropriate! Petronius always said it was in very poor taste for you to wear something that looked like a crucifix, since everyone knows you have a Christian brother. How amusing, I thought, if Pinarius should find himself among the Christians.”

“You . . . you planned for this to happen?”

“Well, not all of it. I had no idea you’d run out to greet me like this. But how perfect! Truly, this is one of those rare, fortuitous moments that sometimes happen in the theater, when everything comes together as if by magic.”

“But I could have been killed. I could have been burned alive!”

“Oh, no, you were never in danger. I instructed the guards to lay in wait and apprehend you outside the latrina—you had to go there sooner or later—but not to harm you. Well, no more than they had to, to convince you to go with them. You’ve had quite a scare, haven’t you? But inducing terror is one of the functions of the theater; Aristotle himself says so. Terror, and pity—which you will feel soon enough. Was it not delicious, to feel the hot breath of Pluto on you, and then, when all hope was lost, to escape unscathed? I fear your arsonist brother shall have a different fate.”

Cupping Titus’s chin, Nero directed his gaze to Kaeso. With his other arm, Nero mimed the act of hurling a thunderbolt. The pole on which Kaeso was trapped burst into flames.

Titus was unable to look away. He watched—horrified, spellbound, stupefied.

Never before had he felt the presence of the gods as powerfully as he did in that moment. What he felt was beyond words, almost too intense to bear. This was the place, unlike any other, where the characters in a tragedy arrived; this was the moment of utmost revelation, so terrible that a mere mortal could barely endure it. What Titus felt was wonderful and horrible, bursting with meaning and yet utterly absurd. It was Nero who had brought him to this moment—Nero, who loomed above him, smiling, serene, godlike. To have devised this moment, Nero was without question the greatest of all the poets or playwrights who had ever lived among humankind. Titus felt again, now magnified beyond measure, the awe he had experienced when he heard Nero sing of burning Troy. Truly, Nero was divine. Who but a god could have brought Titus to this supreme moment?

Nero gazed down at him and nodded knowingly. “And when this is done, Pinarius—when the smoke clears and the embers die down—we shall retrieve that amulet of yours from your brother’s ashes, and you must wear it every day. Yes, every hour of every day, so that you may never forget this moment.”

“You are a man now, my son. You are the heir of the Pinarii. Sometimes the passing of the fascinum has taken place at the death of its wearer,
sometimes while the wearer is still alive. It is my decision to pass it to you now. From this moment, the fascinum of our ancestors belongs to you.”

Titus Pinarius was repeating a ceremony that had been enacted by countless generations of the Pinarii since a time before history. He lifted the necklace with the fascinum over his head and placed it around the neck of his son. Titus was fifty. Lucius was twenty-one.

But the mood in the household was not jubilant. Chrysanthe averted her eyes. Their three daughters wept. Hilarion lowered his face, and the other slaves followed his example. Even the wax masks of the ancestors, brought into the garden to witness the ceremony, seemed melancholy.

The garden itself was full of color and fragrance, surrounding them with roses and flowering vines. Like every other part of their splendid new home on the Palatine, the garden was remarkably spacious and exquisitely maintained, a place of beauty and elegance, especially on a warm day in the month of Junius.

As one of the emperor’s most loyal subjects, always ready to take the auspices, to give him trusted advice, and to encourage his endeavors, Titus had prospered greatly in the last few years. Thanks to Nero’s generosity, he had acquired a considerable fortune and owned properties all over Italy. The old house on the Aventine had begun to seem cramped and antiquated. It was a proud day when the Pinarii moved into a newly built mansion only a few steps away from the Palatine wing of Nero’s Golden House.

Titus made ready to leave the house. He wore his trabea—the same one he had worn long ago when he first joined the college at the invitation of his cousin Claudius—but the lituus he selected was his second-best. The ancient ivory lituus he had inherited from his father he decided to leave behind.

“Are you sure I can’t come with you, father?” said Lucius. There were tears in his eyes.

“No, son. I want you to stay here. Your mother and sisters will need you.”

Lucius nodded. “I understand. Goodbye, father.”

“Goodbye, son.” They embraced, then Titus embraced and said farewell to each of his three daughters. The youngest was ten, the eldest sixteen. How like their mother they all looked!