The Course of Honour (35 page)

Then, when Flavius Vespasianus was fifty-seven—late for any man to embark on a new phase in his life—he made the mistake of accompanying Nero on his fabled tour of Greece. It was a musical tour. Nero by then had ceased to heed his friends' warnings that stage and arena appearances, whether as a charioteer or a singer, would offend public opinion to a damaging degree. He now saw himself as an artiste; nobody dared to scoff at him openly, while the flatterers who surrounded him encouraged his flight from reality.

Vespasian was cultured. He always knew exactly what entertainment was available in Rome, because he liked Caenis to go. In his own house he had been observed to pause in the atrium for ten minutes at
a time if he could hear someone singing, though that was because the person who sang in Vespasian's house was Caenis. He was not smitten with the sound of the lyre; in particular he hated it played badly. So going on an extended foreign tour with Nero was a mistake.

Titus came with them to Greece. By then Titus was twenty-six and
he
hated the tour with the frustration of a man who had a good ear, and who could himself play well, although unlike the Emperor he would not dream of performing upon a public stage.

Before they went to Africa, Titus had joined the army as a tribune in Germany. Vespasian long cherished a hope that his son would do his military service in Britain, best of all in the Second Augusta, his own legion, or at least the Ninth Hispana which was commanded by Petilius Cerialis who had been married to his daughter, Flavia. In the event they were all relieved Titus started in Germany instead. In Eastern Britain there had been a series of administrative atrocities, which Vespasian described in a short phrase that Caenis chose to interpret as a military term (he probably did learn it in the army but she guessed it was not a regular expression of command in line of march). Eventually the Queen of the Iceni, outraged by the dispossession of her chief tribesmen from their estates, her own disinheritance as her husband's heir, and the rape of her two teenaged daughters by a Roman finance officer's thugs, swept through the province in a ferocious rebellion. The scale and savagery were appalling. For a time it appeared Britain was completely lost. Three major towns were burnt to the ground, thousands of settlers lost their lives, and the Ninth Hispana were ambushed so disastrously that Cerialis and a few rags of cavalry only just escaped alive.

Titus subsequently did lead the German detachments sent to support the decimated British legions during the period of recovery. He became popular in Britain. He and his father exchanged an interesting series of letters on the subject of Empire and provincial government.

By the time they all went to Greece Titus had done a further stint as a quaestor and formally entered the Senate. He had been married twice, widowed once and once divorced; he had a baby daughter, Julia. He had been practising as a barrister, though more to make himself a name in Rome than because he was particularly eloquent.
His brother, Domitian, was approaching sixteen; during their Greek trip he was left behind at school.

By this time Vespasian himself had become an elder statesman figure, respected for his military past though still disparaged for his unashamed country background. His brother, Sabinus, was regarded in Rome as the more substantial figure. Sabinus had been Governor of Moesia for seven years (though Moesia was not exactly the best-known province in the Empire) and had been Prefect of the City, a very significant post in Rome, to which he was now appointed for the second time. His wife had died. It was a source of regret to Caenis.

She and Vespasian still lived quietly. These were dark days, reminiscent of the brief dreadful reign of Caligula—but lasting much longer. Nero had begun well as a ruler, under the influence of Seneca and Burrus, though now he had murdered both. Seeking greater extravagance he had first attempted to strangle, then divorced, then executed his blameless young wife, Octavia. He married his fabulously beautiful mistress Poppaea, then kicked her to death, probably by accident, while she was pregnant.

‘Sort of little mistake anyone could make!' Vespasian groaned. ‘
Whoops!
Careless bloody monster! Lass, was there ever a family so extravagant with other people's lives?'

There was worse to come. When Octavia's elder sister, Claudia Antonia, refused to take Poppaea's place as his wife, Nero accused her of rebellion and executed her too. In this way Caenis lost all those to whom she owed a duty as relations of her patroness, Antonia. The Flavians were now in every sense her family.

There was a terrible fire in Rome. Nero was blamed, though few dared breathe the accusation openly. Vespasian and Caenis had been away in the country; they returned to find that after six whole days and nights of conflagration the ancient heart of the city, including many sacred monuments, had been completely swept away while much elsewhere was seriously damaged. The first outbreak had raged from near the Circus Maximus around the Palatine and Caelian Hills, then a second conflagration began north of the Capitol. Shops, mansions, blocks of modest apartments and temples were destroyed, and part of the Palace too. Nothing remained there except rubble
and ash. The fire had halted at the foot of the Esquiline. Vespasian's mansion on the Quirinal was safe; so too the house that Caenis owned outside the Nomentana Gate.

‘That place of yours could be a good investment with so many people homeless!' chortled Vespasian, apparently teasing.

Caenis only smiled. She never discussed with anybody what she would do—or not do—with her house. Vespasian might have asked her to sell it, but even when he himself was reduced to investing in contracts for the supply of Sabine mules in order to fund his public career, he never imposed on her.

Now she wondered if he was gazing at her with particular amusement, though it was hard to tell, for his face often lit sweetly when he stopped what he was doing to look up at her. It had become a habit; she thought nothing of it any more, merely accepted this as fortune's unexpected gift.

Depressed by the devastation in Rome, they went back to the country. So they missed, and were glad to miss, Nero's retaliation against the Christians whom he chose to blame for starting the fire. Sabinus, who was still City Prefect, saw it: the wholesale massacres in Nero's Circus on the Vatican Plain, the men and women torn apart by wild beasts, the human torches burning all night in the Palace Gardens. He heard the screams; he smelt the pitch and seared human flesh. He possessed the Flavian capacity for intense private feeling. He said little, but was deeply affected.

Nero's rebuilding of Rome typified the contradictions of his reign. The city itself was newly planned with its monuments restored, while new building regulations specified ways in which private householders must guard against fire. The measures were sensible. The new street-plans were elegant (though everyone hated them). Much of the cost was subsidised by the Emperor.

At the same time, this was Nero's opportunity to build the massive new palace complex which he called his Golden House. It enclosed whole farms, vineyards, and a monstrous lake—all in the centre of Rome. In fact the heart of the city was completely taken over by his new residence. The grounds contained a colonnade a third of a mile long. The interior contained a revolving dining room, and other
suites both private and public of breath-taking magnificence. The decor included some of the most exquisite painted frescos ever accomplished, with delicate trails of flowers, fauns, cherubs, swags and lattice-work, created with meticulous artistry in the freshest colours, and even executed on corridors so tall that it was impossible to pick out the fine detail with the naked eye. There were marble vestibules, ceilings of fretted ivory, lavish use of gold leaf, and incredible encrustations of jewels. Outside the opulent entrance the Forum was dominated by the Colossus, a gilded statue of the Emperor wearing a sunray crown, which was one hundred and twenty feet high.

The total cost of the Palace would be enormous; even more bitterly resented was the fact that to create this phenomenon Nero dispossessed many other landowners, who had already lost their property in the Fire; their anger contributed much to his downfall. When he had created his flagrant affront to the austere Roman tradition, he crowed that at last he could begin to live.

Vespasian said the good thing about the Golden House was that it was so amazing it took your mind off the appalling food and the length of the public dinners, some of which went on from noon to night. Also (said Caenis), it stopped you wondering what potions from the poisoner Lucusta the Emperor might have slipped into your drink.

This Emperor was not mad as Caligula had been mad. He was extravagant, vicious, self-obsessed, murderous and vain. But Nero was in command of his wits. Caenis judged him the worse for it: he lacked any excuse of delusion or dementia.

It was two years after the Fire that his interests in chariot-racing and public singing contests brought Nero to Greece. He was to maintain that only the Greeks appreciated his voice; that bore out many Romans' low opinion of the Greeks. After one abortive attempt to organise a visit, which he cancelled on some whim, he finally arrived to tour the main cities which sponsored musical events. In fact he also toured those whose contests were not due that year, compelling the festivals to be brought forward to accommodate his appearance whatever disruption it caused to the formal calendar.

By the time he came home he would have collected more than a
thousand victory wreaths, including one for a chariot race in which he fell out and never even completed the course. Nero grew so adept at announcing his own victories that he even put himself down for the competition for heralds—which of course he also won. Greek judges demonstrated a keen understanding of imperial requirements. The Emperor was doing his best. He followed a rigorous professional training programme. He lay down with weights on his chest to strengthen his voice. He complied with every rule of etiquette, suffered agonies of stage fright and awaited the judges' verdicts with a solemnly bowed head even after it had become blatantly apparent what the verdict would always be.

Those who accompanied him entered the spirit too—if they wanted to avoid strict penalties. Everyone of consequence was expected to attend imperial recitals, and once they turned up they were forbidden to leave until the end. Spies were stationed to check not just who was there, but whether they appeared to be enjoying themselves. Caenis endured this better than most; apart from the fact she had a well-trained face, she chatted to the spies about their work. Others were not so adept at survival. Men were arrested climbing out of the stadium over the back wall. Women gave birth. People died; people
pretended
to have died in order to obtain the relief of being carried out.

It was, therefore, doubly unfortunate when a prominent member of the Emperor's own retinue displayed a clear reluctance to applaud. Sometimes at private functions he got up and left the room. Sometimes he never turned up in the first place. Even in Italy he had already been in trouble when he began to nod at one of Nero's earliest recitals and was only saved by a reprimand from a freedman who generously woke him up with a sharp prod.

But character will out. And at one of Nero's endlessly dreary public recitations in Greece Vespasian went soundly to sleep.

 

 

 

 

V
espasian was dismissed from court. They had to flee to the hills. As Titus said later, it seemed a drastic way to work up a good suntan ready for the desert.

In fact the situation was desperately serious and Vespasian became unusually upset. In case he doubted what might happen, Nero had just recalled the great general Corbulo from Armenia, having him greeted the moment he landed in Greece with a suggestion that since he was about to be executed he might want to commit suicide. And that was the reward for too much success.

Faced with a harpist in a huff, Vespasian had tried to restrain himself, but after his disgrace there were splendid scenes outside the audience chamber, culminating with the overwrought Vespasian crying to a supercilious chamberlain, ‘What can I do? Where shall I go?'

‘Oh go to Hades!' responded the chamberlain. He was having a trying time arranging this tour without ludicrous ex-Consuls maddening the imperial musician with sheer bad manners.

Vespasian ruled out Hades; he decided on a family holiday, which he grumbled would be just as bad. Knowing that his unguarded drowsiness had this time placed him in danger of his life—and could have damaged his son too—he whisked Caenis and Titus to a remote mountain village. The village was, however, not so remote that he would be out of reach of the court if anybody wanted him back.

 

______

 

They had a wonderful holiday even though Vespasian was daily expecting Nero's order for him to commit suicide. Titus suffered the most and was given to outbursts of mild frustration at breakfast: ‘Ah Greece! Its monuments are fabulous, but its mountain villages are pretty poky! You should have been there with him, Caenis. He never nods off if he knows you're in the top tier keeping an eye on him. For one thing he keeps turning round to wink at you.'

Caenis listened for a moment to the clunk-clunking of the goat bells, the tireless cicadas, the sporadic whistling of shepherds in the distance and nearer at hand a few contented hens. ‘Titus, I am a music-lover! It was a dangerous fiasco and I am not sure I could have kept my temper with anyone—including your fool of a papa. How fortunate that my uncharacteristic headache had compelled me to stay in my room.'

Titus grinned happily. ‘Well, I knew he wasn't safe. I remember when I took up the harp myself he told me that from then on I was on my own in life—and by the way, I never want to see another little dish of hard green olives.'

‘I've just served you some, my darling; eat them and be quiet. Vespasian, your son is teasing you.'