Master and God (30 page)

Vinius spoke meekly: ‘Quick technical query, if I may, Cornicularius. I’m trying to grasp the headquarters scene . . . Is “putrid” the new word?’

‘It’s
my
word, soldier. I don’t allow fucking swearing in this office.’

Vinius returned to his work-station. His superior’s slightly surreal sense of humour was just like his father’s. He still did not want to be his father, but this calmed him, at least temporarily. Now he knew for sure he had come home.

He thought he was fine. But he began visiting too many wine bars.

The first time Vinius Clodianus was sent to Alba on duty, he tracked down Nemurus. The teacher of philosophy and literature. Staring at Nemurus during a public lecture, he found out that Lucilla’s putrid husband wore bifurcated socks.

Clodianus took this morosely. She was a woman of taste, now that she could afford the trappings; she had natural elegance. She would see her mistake one day.

Socks! And I bet he can’t screw her properly.

Men like that don’t even realise they are useless.

No, but she will. She’s had the real thing.

D
omitian became more cruel. Commentators, writing afterwards, assigned this to the year of the Saturninus Revolt and the Dacian treaty, either a bad reaction to Domitian’s betrayal by the German legions and his suspicions of conspiracy, or inability to take criticism heaped on him for buying off the Dacians. Certainly the joy Domitian hoped would greet his return failed to materialise. His brooding presence simply depressed everyone. He knew it.

This idea of his increased cruelty became accepted, a ‘truth’ that would outlast him by centuries, even though statistically Domitian despatched fewer opponents than emperors before or after him: Claudius, who was seen as bumbling and benign, or Hadrian, so cultured and energetic, both executed their enemies ruthlessly and in far greater numbers.

Even so, with the Emperor in Rome again, nobody felt safe. Anyone of standing who voiced opposition, or was perceived as thinking it, ran the risk of that heavy knock on the door. Sombre men with swords would demand the master of the house, while slaves cowered and women of the family knew not to try to intervene. Execution was a rapid, efficient death. Proud, resigned or terrified, victims accepted their fate. The soldiers were gone almost before neighbours noticed them, the corpse left behind contemptuously for the family to dispose of. There was no public announcement. Other men of standing soon heard about it and were warned.

Cynics said Domitian never became crueller, because he had been a murderous despot all along.

To fuel his persecution complex, in Syria a ‘false Nero’ popped up, the third since the real Nero died. Pretenders usually appeared in the excitable east where religious cults had an exotic backwoods craziness. Mad emperors gained mad followers. Barmy believers decided that Nero, whose suicide had occurred at a time of political chaos and in a villa outside Rome, never really died at all. People were persuaded that Nero survived in hiding; over-coloured superstitions even claimed he died, yet would be resurrected. A new Nero might arise as a Champion of the East, a heroic conqueror who would overthrow tyranny in the world.

This presupposed there was a tyrant. The sane never dared say so.

All a claimant needed to attract gullible devotees was to resemble Nero and play the harp; if his musicianship was appalling, it was more authentic. The first impostor had appeared shortly after the real Nero died. A decade later, Terrentius Maximus gained a wide following in Syria during the reign of Titus, fleeing with his harp to Rome’s old enemies, the Parthians, who only reluctantly handed him over for execution. Now a third ‘Nero’ threatened Domitian. Obviously a crazyman, yet Domitian himself would never possess such charismatic power; it must be galling for an individual who analysed everything so deeply. He had to send troops to hunt down the new menace, troops who were badly needed elsewhere.

Despite these trials, Domitian made the year one of florid celebration. On his return from the Rhine and Danube, he celebrated a double Triumph; ostensibly it was for defeating the Chatti when they tried to cross the frozen Rhine in cahoots with Saturninus, and also the Dacians. Carpers complained that some Triumphal floats were dressed not with the normal glittering plunder, but furnishings ripped from imperial houses. Other subversives whispered meanly that the Chatti had been thwarted by a thaw, not conquered, while Domitian had not defeated Decebalus, only bribed him.

He renamed his accession date of September ‘Germanicus’ and his birthday month of October ‘Domitianus’. Julius Caesar and Augustus had got away with renaming July and August, and permanently, but they had been very powerful figures. For anyone else, such self-aggrandisement looked foolish.

As the Senate was keen to ingratiate itself after whispers about support for Saturninus, members begged Domitian’s permission to dedicate a flattering statue to him in the main Forum. This was good news for the scaffolders’ guild: to suit an all-conquering commander and benign bringer of peace, someone had decided the statue had to be eighty feet high. It would tower over other statuary and dominate the public buildings. Domitian was sensitive about honorary sculpture; he had decreed that any images of himself dedicated in temples had to be made of many pounds of gold or silver, which certainly cut out cheapskates.

This was to be an equestrian statue: the Emperor in full uniform with a massive long sword, riding a horse so enormous that the poet Statius felt inspired to create a celebratory poem, bursting with pride at the big beast. He likened it to the Wooden Horse of Troy, burbling that it would last as long as earth and heaven, and as long as Rome saw the light of day. Any gambler who bet on just five years would have made a killing.

Owners of fine horseflesh tripped over themselves offering animals with sufficient stature and character to model. Whoever was chosen would be forced to present their expensive equine as a free gift to the Emperor. He might thank them. The mood he was in these days, he was just as likely to exile them for presumption.

The huge statue would take two years to create. Positioned outside the Basilica Julia, the main law courts, it would face south down the Forum to the Temple of Caesar; an insult to Julius (on his punier horse). The base alone was almost forty feet long. A plinth decorated with processional scenes would support the prick-eared steed’s giant legs, its fourth hoof being raised as if it were trotting along in a chippy manner, with delight at bearing its glorious rider. Domitian would occupy the saddle in a relaxed pose, with one arm lifted, palm out, as if blessing his grateful people. The image, which was already being copied by coiners from the Mint, would become an iconic model for future emperors.

Domitian had granted a sitting at the bronze foundry, to enable the sculptor to make a maquette. The Emperor would supply his own sword, cloak and breastplate. He would not have a helmet; that implied military dictatorship. (This detail had been meticulously thought through by a Statue Committee.) He would be bare-headed. For an Emperor ‘bare-headed’ meant wearing a triumphal wreath, and for Domitian it also meant with hair.

An attractive young matron tripped to the foundry in unsuitable jewelled sandals, carrying a toupee box. Everyone else was shooed out.

Flavia Lucilla introduced herself, while the sculptor peeked in the box. She discussed the hairpiece, perhaps surprising the man with her assurance. ‘I have made the curls entirely round and regular. It is not realistic, but everyone knows he wears falsies, so I decided a neat row works better. Even the best wig can never be the same as the real thing, because it just sits, with no movement in the hair.’

‘And do I . . . ?’

‘No. You don’t have to touch it; someone from the imperial wardrobe department will fix it before they position his wreath. Just look away discreetly while they paint on the glue. I warn you in advance, the wreath they have chosen looks as much like a crown as possible, without actually causing offence.’

‘That has been explained,’ agreed the sculptor glumly. ‘I have to show our Germanicus as regal, but not kingly. He has to be the son of the divine Vespasian, yet seem too modest to be seeking divinity himself.’

Lucilla scoffed. ‘I wouldn’t want to shock you, but Domitian will put up with it if you treat him like a god.’

‘I am not looking forward to this.’

‘Just keep saying how honoured you are to have the commission.’

As the crowds had been asked to leave during the handover of the curls, the sculptor gave Lucilla a private view of his workshop. He showed her sketches, plaster busts, wax models, the foundry, and several completed pieces of bronze. The body of the horse was in two hemispherical halves, which would be welded together on site in the Forum. A special crane was being built to lift the pieces.

She was fascinated by the artistry involved, though her general response was satirical. ‘Being eighty feet above the pavement is such a good way to hide baldness . . . It’s all a farce, isn’t it?’

‘How true. I told his attendants to give him a very good pedicure.’

‘Rough skin all filed off?’

‘Trotters immaculate – though mercifully they will be hidden in fancy boots.’

‘So you don’t have to model the imperial bunions?’

‘Flavia Lucilla, he is hammer-toed. My duty is to hide this aesthetically.’

‘Some things must be tricky,’ suggested Lucilla. The lack of thrills in her private life seemed to be making her saucy. She could have been twitting the eunuch Earinus again, before Vinius shamed her into respectability. ‘Since the public will be gazing upwards in awe, I imagine you must have to be
very
careful in placing the lower tunic folds? We can’t have grannies on their way to buy a cabbage craning past his hem braid for a snoop at the imperial tackle.’

‘You know no shame, young woman.’

‘Do you,’ persisted Lucilla gravely, ‘have to ask his wardrobe-master which side our Germanicus dresses in the saddle?’

‘Now you’re being obscene,’ grinned the bronze-moulder, as if she had lightened his day.

Flavia Lucilla growled. ‘Don’t you think the real obscenity is that one man, an ordinary human being with a limited personality, believes he deserves so much reverence?’

‘I only make the moulds, dear.’ The sculptor sized her up according to the customs of his art. Having invited her to view his maquettes, he ventured into another cliché. ‘Could I persuade you to model for me? I’d love to sculpt you as a nude Venus, emerging from her bath . . .’

Lucilla simpered fetchingly. ‘I am a married woman!’

‘I can make you famous.’

‘No thanks; my husband teaches literature.’

‘Fond of the arts? He might be up for this.’

‘How can I explain him? . . . he wears socks.’

The sculptor sighed. ‘I assume then he must be either a multi-millionaire or
very
good in bed?’

Lucilla was silent, away in a dream. The sculptor kicked himself.

She was not, however, dwelling on that regrettable subject, Nemurus and passion. Her thoughts were of the fabled socks. The foundry’s artistic environment had made her realise that the socks signified everything she objected to in Nemurus, because they were a statement. He selected his idiosyncrasies as carefully as the Emperor chose symbolic gear for his public image. What she hated was not Nemurus’ footwear as such. As an intimacy of marriage, she now knew he had athlete’s foot, though it was unclear whether he wore socks in order to cover the problem or whether in the hot Roman summer the socks caused it.

Lucilla could tolerate Nemurus being eccentric if either he did not realise he was, or he knew it and accepted it honestly. If he felt the cold, or was ashamed of his feet, or sandal straps rubbed his skin, that was acceptable – but she now identified that those socks represented his contempt for people. He was sneering. Nemurus had always despised other people, and now they were married he bullied Lucilla with this eccentricity just as much as the controlling Domitian bullied the Roman people.

In the end, socks were not what caused their marriage crisis. That was precipitated by another man, and not even Gaius Vinius. Nemurus himself was partly responsible.

Lucilla had told him of her work with the Emperor’s barber. She had hoped sharing a confidence might help. It did make Nemurus view her as a little more important than a mere women’s hairdresser, though he was so snobbish he never really overcame his shame in her work. Nemurus, who was currently in Rome not at Alba, knew Lucilla had an appointment with the sculptor. It had been something to say; conversation between them could be strained. Driven by some tic of distrust, her husband visited too, joining the public who had come to gawp at the half-finished statue. Typically, although Lucilla had given him the idea, when he saw her leave the foundry he made no effort to attract her attention. She dodged through the crowd outside without ever knowing he was there.

Nemurus had come with some of his friends, the evening set who drank and diced with him, men Lucilla rarely met. She still knew the literary circle, though she saw less of them, because Nemurus thought a wife should stay at home in the Greek fashion. Lucilla disagreed, but sometimes establishing her freer rights as a Roman matron was just too wearing.

The men with whom Nemurus shared his private life were coarser, and wealthier, than poets. They had no respect for him, but were denuding him of cash. They did it little by little, never too much so they drove him away, but cynically and systematically. Nemurus was no fool so he probably knew. Gaming for money was illegal in Rome, though it regularly took place; he liked to lurk on the dark side. It was also why he taught philosophy, which emperors regarded with suspicion.

One of Nemurus’ unpleasant cronies recognised Flavia Lucilla. He was Orgilius, the businessman who had been Flavia Lachne’s lover.

Learning Nemurus was married to Lucilla, this man swiftly engineered an invitation for dinner along with other gambling playmates. Nemurus was shrewd enough to feel uneasy, though he simply told himself the men would be awkward in his parents’ company at home. He came from a family of stonecutters. They were good people, who had scraped together funds for his education in the belief he was a genius. Nemurus had never had any contact with his father’s employment; his parents were equal strangers to his learning, though they gazed on it with awe.