Empire (59 page)

“But how can he afford all this—the spectacles, the generous pay for his soldiers, the massive construction projects?”

“That’s a bit of a mystery,” said Epaphroditus. “My sources tell me he manages the treasury himself, obsessively scrutinizing even the smallest expenditures; not a nail is bought without Domitian’s approval. As you can imagine, the accountants and bursars are terrified of him. There’s a good side to that: Domitian has put an end to the corruption and self-enrichment that were so rampant in the flush, freewheeling years of his father’s reign. But my old friends at the treasury believe that the state is headed for bankruptcy, and when that happens, the emperor will hold them to blame. They’re like men awaiting a death sentence, watching sand run through the hourglass—only in this case it’s sesterces running through the emperor’s fingers. They were all hoping that Fuscus might actually conquer Dacia and capture King Decebalus’s treasure, but now there seems no likelihood of that happening.

“Master and God he may call himself, but Domitian fears his underlings as much as they fear him. He sees conspiracies everywhere. Senators are put to death for chance remarks that only a madman would find suspicious. He’s become deeply superstitious: he fears not just daggers and poisons, but enchantments. Did you hear about the woman who was executed because she was seen undressing before a statuette of the emperor? Presumably she was trying to bewitch him, using sex magic.”

Epaphroditus placed his hands upon the sarcophagus of Nero, feeling the coolness of the polished stone. The last bit of incense on the altar had turned to ash, but its fragrance lingered on the air.

“Curiously,” he said, “Domitian now has something in common with Nero that none of us expected: he’s in love with a eunuch.”

“No!”

“Oh yes. Remember the disdain he used to show for his brother’s coterie of eunuchs, and the one laudable achievement of his campaign for morality, his ban on castration? Now Domitian has quite openly fallen in
love with a eunuch. The boy’s name is Earinus and he comes from Pergamum. A slave trader unsexed him here in Italy when he was very young, using the hot-water method.”

“What is that?”

“The child sits in a vat of steaming water that softens the scrotum, then his testes are pressed between a finger and thumb until they’re crushed. The method leaves no scar, which many owners find pleasing. The boys subjected to this method must be very young, and they subsequently develop fewer masculine attributes than those who are castrated later in life; some owners find that pleasing, also. A few years ago, Earinus was acquired by the imperial household, where all the most beautiful eunuchs end up. He has a face like Cupid. His hair is a very light blond, like white gold. He can sing, as well.”

Lucius shook his head. “Imperial eunuchs are always said to have some talent, other than the purpose for which they were made.”

“In the case of Earinus, the boy apparently has a true gift. When he sang for the emperor, Domitian fell for him at once. He dotes on Earinus shamelessly, showering him with gifts, dressing him in the costliest garments, anointing him with the rarest perfumes. For his seventeenth birthday, Domitian manumitted him and gave him a very generous endowment. To mark the occasion, Earinus sent a lock of his blond hair to a temple in Pergamum. It’s a Greek custom for boys to donate a lock of hair to a temple in their native city when they attain manhood. You may remember that Nero did something of the sort, when he donated a clipping from his first beard to the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline.

“When Earinus sent off the lock of his hair, the court poets fell over one another in the rush to commemorate the event. Our dear Martial wrote some lines comparing Domitian to Jupiter and Earinus to Ganymede—no surprise there—but for sheer sycophancy his rival Statius outdid himself. Statius’s poem is a veritable
Aeneid
of eunuch-worship. Listen to this.”

Epaphroditus cleared his throat and declaimed.

All previous favorites and flocks of servants stand back

As the new one carries to the mighty leader

The heavy goblet of crystal and agate,

Making the wine sweeter by the touch of his soft white hands.

Boy dear to the gods, chosen the first to drink the vintage,

Blessed to touch so often that mighty right hand

Whose sway the Dacians yearn to know—

Epaphroditus broke off and made a retching sound. “Even Martial never stooped to writing anything as awful as that, though he’s come perilously close.”

“It’s curious,” said Lucius, “how a man as vicious as Domitian can lavish so much affection on a harmless, mutilated boy. It’s almost as if Earinus were a pet.”

“Earinus means ‘springtime’ in Greek. Domitian is almost forty now. Statius says Earinus restores Domitian’s youth, though I imagine the boy only reminds him of it. But you put your finger on something, Lucius. They say the empress is quite aware of Domitian’s passion and that she, too, is quite fond of Earinus. Why not? Better for her if Domitian spends his time courting a eunuch rather than the wife of some senator, or worse, an unmarried girl of childbearing age who might pester him to divorce his wife. The empress has yet to give Domitian another heir to replace his dead son; as long as he spills his seed with a eunuch, no one else will do so. For dynastic purposes, a eunuch is no rival at all. Earinus is more like a pet, as you say, a pretty creature whose company both of them can enjoy.”

“Domitian! What do we make of the man?” said Lucius. “He’s obsessed on the one hand with bureaucratic minutiae, but on the other with a morbid fear of plots and magic. He was once a promiscuous adulterer and now dotes on a eunuch, but he’s determined to criminalize the ‘bed wrestling’ of others. And this is the man who shapes every facet of the world we live in. He’s in the very air we breathe.”

Epaphroditus sighed. “Enough about the emperor. What about you, Lucius?”

Lucius shrugged. “Nothing in my little world ever changes.”

“Does that mean you’re still seeing her?”

Lucius smiled. “We’re like an old married couple nowadays—if you can imagine a couple married in secret who see each other only a few times a year. The passion is still there, but it burns more steadily, with a lower flame.”

“Like the flame in Vesta’s hearth?”

“If you like. She has even less time to see me, now that she’s become the Virgo Maxima.”

“At such a young age! How old is she now?”

“Thirty-two. And more beautiful than ever.”

Epaphroditus laughed. “You don’t sound like a married man to me. You still sound like a lover.”

“I’m a very lucky man, to know such a woman. Ah, don’t give me that look, Epaphroditus. You need not lecture me again about the risks. I believe I was blessed, not cursed, when Fortune led me to her. I would never have found a love like hers anywhere else.”

“Truly, spoken like a lover. How do you spend the rest of your time?”

“When I’m not hunting at one of my estates, enjoying the fresh air and the thrill of the chase, I do what I must to maintain my fortune. Dealings in real estate and trade aren’t exactly respectable activities for a patrician—large-scale agriculture or state service would be more suitable—but you know I’ve never been a status seeker. Hilarion does most of the actual work. He takes so much pleasure in moving numbers from one column to another, dictating letters to merchants, and issuing instructions to lawyers.”

“Still no politics or public service for you, then?”

“Certainly not! More than ever, it seems to me that the only sensible strategy for a Roman citizen is to attract as little attention to himself as possible. So far, I’ve managed to stay beneath the notice of the emperor. I intend to keep it that way.” Even as Lucius said these words, he felt that he was tempting Fate. He reached inside his toga and touched the fascinum.

Epaphroditus opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to change his mind.

“What is it?” said Lucius.

“I was wondering if you had heard about Catullus?”

Lucius drew a breath. “The emperor’s henchman—the one who led the investigation against the Vestals?”

“And many other investigations in recent years. That seems to be his special gift, an ability to ferret out every secret act and utterance that could bring destruction to another mortal. How Domitian prizes him for it! But now a bit of misfortune has befallen Catullus. He fell gravely ill with a fever and almost died. He’s back on his feet, completely recovered, but he’s completely blind.”

Lucius remembered what Cornelia had said about the man:
Everything about Catullus is as cold as ice, except his eyes. I thought his gaze would set me on fire
.

“But this is happy news,” Lucius said, though his expression was grim. “Catullus—blind! You should have told me right away.”

Epaphroditus pursed his lips. “Epictetus says that to feel joy at the suffering of another is a sin, like hubris; it invites the retaliation of the gods.”

“Really? All Roma watches and applauds when thousands die in the arena, or when captives are strangled at the end of a triumph, and the gods seem to approve. Why should I not take a little satisfaction at the much-deserved downfall of a monster like Catullus?”

“I’m not sure that blindness has put an end to Catullus. Domitian still counts him among his closest advisers. They say the infirmity has only made him more dangerous.”

Again Lucius felt a superstitious chill. He was reaching to touch the fascinum when they heard the jangling of a key in the lock. The gate opened and an attendant looked inside.

“I shall allow them to enter in a moment,” the man said. “You might want to pay your last respects.”

They turned their attention back to the sarcophagus. While Epaphroditus stood in silence with his hands folded and his eyes downcast, Lucius burned a bit of incense and placed the flower the girl had given him on the altar. He was not really thinking of Nero as he prayed, but of his father, and of Sporus.

They made their way to the gate. The attendant shouted at the crowd to make way for them. As Lucius stepped through the crush, surrounded by the smell of flowers, a hand gripped his arm.

It was the red-haired girl. “Don’t forget,” she cried. “Nero is coming, any day now. Oh, yes, any day now!”

“Did you enjoy your stay in the country?”

“I did, Hilarion.”

“Good hunting?”

“Typical for this time of year. Not much to shoot at but deer and rabbits. Still, beautiful countryside.”

“And did you enjoy sleeping late this morning?”

“I did indeed. I was up at dawn every day in the country, but the journey home tired me out. Fortunately, here in the city a man can sleep until noon and miss nothing.”

“And your visit to the baths this afternoon?”

“Very pleasant. I prefer the afternoon to the morning, especially at the Baths of Titus. It’s less crowded, more relaxed. I actually spent an hour playing some silly board game with a complete stranger in one of the galleries, then took a final hot plunge. I feel quite clean and revived, ready for the rest of the day.”

“There’s not much of the day left, alas. The sun sets quite early. But we may still have an hour of sunlight in the study. I was hoping you might join me in reviewing the accounts from the granary outside Alexandria. There are a few discrepancies to which I’d like to draw your attention—”

“Not now, Hilarion.”

“It won’t take long.”

“I’m off.”

“To where, may I ask?”

“You may not.”

“Perhaps this evening, by lamplight?” With a forlorn expression, Hilarion held up a scroll.

“Probably not, Hilarion. I may not be back until quite late.”

“I see.” Hilarion looked at Lucius’s garments. The master of the house was not wearing a toga, but a brightly colored tunic short enough to show off his athletic legs and cinched with a leather belt with silver inlays around his waist, still trim at forty-four thanks to his recent regimen of riding and hunting all day and eating only what he could catch. Hilarion shook his head. It was obvious that the master of the house was going to see
her
—the woman whose existence Lucius had never acknowledged and whose identity Hilarion, very wisely, had never attempted to discover. Hilarion sometimes felt sorry for the old master’s son. He himself was only a freedman,
yet he had found a suitable woman to marry and together they had made some wonderful children.

As Lucius made ready to leave the house—alone, as he always did when he was going to meet his secret lover—he whistled the tune of an old hunting song. Hilarion went about his business.

It was a brisk autumn afternoon. Lucius took a roundabout route, occasionally glancing over his shoulder and doubling back. Long ago he had adopted such habits to make sure he was not being followed when he set out for the little house on the Esquiline.

As usually happened when he returned to Roma after an extended stay in the country, he found the city disgustingly dirty and noisy and smelly, full of unhappy and dangerous-looking people—and that was just in the Forum. Once he entered the Subura, he actually felt more relaxed, because, although the streets were more crowded and the people were dirtier, there were not quite so many statues of Domitian everywhere. That was the most unnerving thing about the first day or two back in Roma—the ubiquity of Domitian, Master and God, always watching him.

But even the inescapable images of the emperor could not dampen Lucius’s mood on this day. Perhaps it was the nip of autumn in the brisk air that made Lucius feel half his age. Or perhaps it was the fact that he had not seen Cornelia in so very long—more than two months—and at last they had both found time to meet. He had received her cryptic message at the baths that afternoon, delivered as always by a street urchin selected at random who could not possibly know the identity of the woman who hired him or the meaning of the words he was told to repeat: “Today. An hour before sunset.”

Shops in the better parts of town would already be closed, but many establishments in the Subura stayed open until it was dark, and Lucius had found that the quality of their foodstuffs was often as good as anything to be found in shops on the Aventine that charged four or five times as much. He bought some flatbread with a thick crust, a hard, smoked cheese, a little jar of his favorite garum, and a few other items. There would be wine and olives in the little house on the Esquiline, but no fresh food, and if experience was any guide, they would both have a
ravenous appetite later. He left the Subura and ascended the hill, carrying a cloth bag with his provisions and whistling a happy tune.