The Roman (22 page)

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Domitius, and introduce me to his tutor. One of the first of Agrippina�s actions after coming to power had been to summon Annaeus Seneca back from exile and ask him to take charge of her son�s education. Seneca�s stay in Corsica had obviously done him good and also cured his tuberculosis, whatever he may have said about his exile in his letters. He was about forty-five, a plump man, who greeted me in a friendly way. I saw from his soft red boots flat he had also been made a senator. Lucius Domitius surprised me by rushing up and kissing me as if he were meeting a long lost friend. He held my hand and sat beside me, asking about my experiences in Britain and marveling that the Noble Order of Knights at the temple of Castor and Pollux had confirmed my rank of tribune so soon. Confused by all this graciousness, I took the liberty of mentioning my little book and humbly requesting Seneca to read it, largely to improve the writing of it before I read it in public. Seneca kindly agreed to do this and I visited the Palace several times as a result. In his honest opinion, my presentation lacked fluency, but he admitted that there was a place for a dry and factual style as I was mostly describing the geography and history of the Britons, their tribal customs, religious beliefs and their way of waging war. Lucius liked to read my book aloud to show me how one should read. He had an unusually fine voice and such an ability to become absorbed in a subject that I too became absorbed, as if my book were exceptionally remarkable. �if you were to read it,� I said, �then my future would be ass tired.� In the refined atmosphere of the Palace I felt I had had enough of the dreary life of camps and the crude habits of the legion. I was delighted to become Lucius� pupil when he wished to teach sue the pleasing gestures suited to an author reading out his work, On his advice, I went to the theater and often accompanied him on his walks in the Lucullus gardens on the Pincian hill which his mother had inherited from Messalina. Lucius used to run along, chattering away, but always paying attention to his movements. He might suddenly stop, as if in deep thought, and make such profound remarks that it was hard to believe he was so young that his voice had not yet broken. One could not help liking him, if he wished to please. And it was as if he needed to

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please everyone he met after his joyless childhood, even slaves. Seneca had taught him that slaves were also human beings, just as my father had taught me in Antioch. It was as if this same atmosphere had spread from Palatine over the whole of Rome. Even Tullia received me in a friendly manner and did not try to stop me seeing my father when I wanted to. She dressed carefully now, as befitted the wife of a Roman senator with legal rights of a mother of three children, and she wore far fewer jewels than before. My father took me by surprise. He was much thinner and less breathless and moody than before I had gone to Britain. Tullia had bought him a Greek physician educated in Alexandria whom my father had, of course, soon freed. The physician had ordered baths and massage for him, persuaded him to drink less and do ball exercises for a short time every day, so that now he wore his purple band with considerable dignity. His reputation for wealth and good humor had spread throughout Rome, so that groups of clients and people seeking help crowded into his hall every morning. He helped many people, but he refused to recommend anyone for citizenship, although as a senator he had a right to. But it is about Claudia I must relate, however reluctantly and guiltily I went to see her. Outwardly she had not changed a bit. Nevertheless, I seemed at first to be looking at a stranger. She gave me a delighted smile to begin with and then her mouth narrowed and her eyes darkened. �I�ve had bad dreams about you,� she said. �I see they were true. You are not the same as before, Minutus.� �How could I be the same,� I cried, �after spending two years in Britain, writing a book, killing barbarians and earning my red plumes? You live in the country as if on a duck pond. You can�t expect the same of me.� But Claudia looked in my eyes and raised her hand to touch my cheek. �You know perfectly well what I mean, Minutus,� she said. �But I was stupid to have expected you to keep a promise which no man could keep.� I should have been wiser if I had been angry at her words, broken off with her there and then and gone my way. It is much easier to be angry when one is in the wrong. But instead, when

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I saw her deep disappointment I took her in my arms, kissed her and caressed her, and was seized by the need to tell at least one person in the world about Lugunda and my experiences. We sat by her spring on a stone bench under her old tree and I told her about how Lugunda had come into my life, how I had taught her to read and how useful she had been on my journeys among the Britons. Then I began to falter a little and look down at the ground. Claudia seized me by the arm with both hands and shook me, telling me to go on. So I told her what my self-respect allowed me to, but in the end I did not have the courage to tell her that Lugunda had borne me a son. In the vanity of my youth, however, I boasted of my manhood and Lagunda�s virginity. To my surprise, Claudia was most hurt by the fact that Lugunda was a hare-priestess. �I�m tired of the birds flying from Vatican,� she said. �I no longer believe in omens. The gods of Rome have become to me just statues with no power and I�m not surprised that in a foreign country you were bewitched, you with your lack of experience. But if you honestly regret your sins, then I can show you a new way. People need more than magic, omens and stone statues. While you were away, I�ve experienced things I�d never have believed possible. Unsuspecting, I asked her to tell me about it, but my heart sank when I realized her uncle�s wife, Paulina, had begun to use her as an intermediary between her and her friends, thus involving Claudia much more deeply in the infamous machinations of the Christians. �They have the power to cure the sick and forgive us our sins,� Claudia said fervently. �A slave or the poorest of tradesmen is equal to the wealthiest and most important person at their holy meals. We greet each other with a kiss as a sign of our mutual love. When the spirit comes to the congregation, they are seized with holy ecstasy so that simple people begin to speak foreign languages and the faces of the holy glow in the darkness.� I looked at her with the same horror as one regards a very sick person, but Claudia seized both my hands in hers. �Don�t condemn them until you�ve got to know them,� she said. �Yesterday was Saturn�s day and the Jewish Sabbath. Today is the Christians� holy day because it was the day after the Sabbath that

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their king rose from the dead. But the heavens may open any day and he will return to earth and found the kingdom of a thousand years in which the last will be first and the first last.� Claudia was frighteningly beautiful, like a seer, as she spoke. I can only believe that there really was some irresistible force speaking through her, paralyzing my will and dulling my mind, for when she said, �Come, let�s go and see them at once,� I rose helplessly and went with her. Thinking I was afraid, she assured me that I would not have to do anything I did not want to do, only watch and listen. I justified my actions to myself by saying that I had reason to learn something about these new beliefs in Rome, as I had also tried to learn about the Druids in Britain. When we reached the Jewish part of the city, Transtiberia, it was in a state of alarm and unrest. We were met by running, screaming women and people were fighting at street corners with fists, sticks and stones. Even worthy gray-haired Jews in tasseled cloaks were involved and the City Prefect�s police did not seem to be in control. As soon as they had managed to disperse some of the fights with their batons, another broke out in the next alleyway. �What in the name of all the gods of Rome is going on here?� I asked a breathless policeman who was wiping blood from his forehead. �Someone called Christus is stirring up the Jews against each other;� he explained. �As you see, rabble from all over the city have come here. You�d better take your girl another way. They�ve sent for the Praetorians. There�ll soon be more bloody noses than mine here.� Claudia looked excitedly about her and let out a cry of pleasure. �Yesterday the Jews hunted everyone who recognizes Jesus out of the synagogues and beat them,� she said. �Now the Christians are retaliating. They�ve got help from Christians who aren�t Jews.� In the narrow alleys there were in fact groups of tough-looking slaves, smiths, and loaders from the shores of the Tiber who were smashing the closed shutters of the shops and forcing their way inside. Pitiful cries came from within, but the Jews are fearless fighters when they are fighting for their invisible god. They gathered in groups in front of the synagogues and fended off all attacks. I did not see any weapons used, but then neither the Jews

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nor any of the other people who had flooded in from all directions into Rome were allowed them. Here and there we saw a few middle-aged men who were standing with their arms raised, crying out, �Peace, peace, in the name of Jesus Christ.� They managed to calm down some people to the extent of getting them to lower their sticks and drop their stones, and slip off to join in another fight. But the more dignified Jews became so furious that they stood in front of Julius Caesar�s beautiful synagogue and tore their beards and clothes, calling out aloud about blasphemy. It was as much as I could do to protect Claudia and try to prevent her from becoming involved in the fighting, for she stubbornly struggled on toward the house where her friends were to perform their mysteries that evening. When we reached it, an excited group of ardent Jewish believers were dragging out and knocking down those who had hidden themselves inside. They tore apart people�s bundles, emptied their baskets of food, and trampled everything into the dirt, hitting out as one hits out at one�s neighbor�s pigs. Anyone attempting to flee was knocked down and kicked in the face. I do not know how it came about. Perhaps I was seized by the natural desire of a Roman for law and order, or perhaps I fried to defend the weaker ones from the attackers� violence, or perhaps it was Claudia who egged me on to partake, but suddenly I noticed that I was pulling a huge Jew�s beard and twisting a stick From his hand with a wrestler�s hold as he in his religious fervor was about to kick a girl he had knocked to the ground. Then I found myself fighting in all seriousness, and indubitably on the side of the Christians. Claudia urged me on, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, to catch all Jews who did not recognize him as the savior. I came to my senses when Claudia pulled me into the house and I hurriedly let go of a bloodstained stick I had picked up somewhere, realizing to my horror what the consequences would be if I were arrested for becoming involved in Jewish religious riots. I had not only my rank of tribune to lose, but also the narrow red band on my tunic, Claudia led me down to a large dry cellar room where Christian Jews were all shouting at once, quarreling

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over who had started the rioting, and weeping women were bandaging wounds and putting ointment on bruises. From the room upstairs, several old men came down, shaking with fear, together with a couple of men who from their clothes did not appear to be Jews. As confused as I was, they were presumably wondering how they could get themselves out of this dilemma. With them came a man whom I did not recognize as the tent- maker Aquila until he had wiped the blood and dirt from his face. He had been severely ill-treated, for the Jews had rolled him in a sewer and broken his nose. Despite this, he passionately called for order. �Traitors, all of you!� he cried. �I daren�t call you my brothers any longer. Is freedom in Christ just something for you to vent your anger with? You have been beaten for your sins. Where is your endurance? We must submit and stop those who spit on us with good deeds.� There were many protests. �It�s no longer a question of the heathens among whom we live learning to praise God when they see our good deeds,� they cried. �Now it�s Jews fighting us and abusing our Lord Jesus. It�s for him and to his glory we resist the evil ones, not just to defend our miserable lives.� I pushed forward to Aquila, shook his arm and tried to whisper to him that I must get away. But when he recognized me, his face cleared in delight and he blessed me. �Minutus, son of Marcus Manilianus!� he cried. �Have you too chosen the only way?� He embraced me, kissed my lips and fervently began to preach. �Christ has suffered for you too,� he said. �Why don�t you model yourself on him and follow in his footsteps? He did not abuse his abusers. He threatened no one. Don�t take revenge by evil for evil. If you suffer for Christ, then praise God for it.� I cannot repeat all that poured out of him, for he took no notice of my protests, but his fervor undoubtedly had a powerful effect on the others. Nearly all of them began to pray for the forgiveness of their sins, though some muttered through clenched teeth that the kingdom would never bear fruit if the Jews were freely allowed to slander, oppress and ill-treat the subjects of Christ.

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While this was going on, the police outside were arresting people regardless of whether they were faithful Jews or Christian Jews, or anyone else. As the Praetorians were guarding the bridges, many people fled in boats and took the opportunity to unfasten other boats at the quays so that they began to drift away in the current. The city was left unprotected, all the police having been sent to the Jewish quarter. Crowds began to collect in the streets, shouting the name Christus as a password they had learned on the other side of the river. They plundered shops and set fire to several houses, so that when the Jewish quarter was quiet again, the City Prefect had to order his men to return to the city proper. This saved me, for they had just begun a house-to-house search in the Jewish quarter. Evening had come. I was sitting gloomily on the floor with my head in my hands, realizing I was very hungry. The Christians gathered up the remaining food and began to share it among all those present. They had bread and oil, onions, peas porridge and wine. Aquila blessed the bread and wine, in the Christian way, as the flesh and blood of Jesus of Nazareth. I accepted what was offered me and shared my bread with Claudia. I was given a little cheese too and a piece of dried meat. I drank wine from the same goblet as the others when my turn came. When everyone had eaten their fill, they kissed each other gently. �Oh, Minutus,� said Claudia after she had kissed me. �I am so glad you have eaten of his flesh and drunk of his blood, to be forgiven your sins and lead an eternal life. Can�t you feel the spirit glowing in your heart, as if you had discarded the tattered clothes of your earlier life and put on new ones?� I said bitterly that the only glow I felt was from the cheap sour wine. Not until then did I fully realize what she had meant and see that I had taken part in the secret meal of the Christians. I was so appalled that I wanted to be sick, although I knew I had not drunk blood from the goblet. �Nonsense,� I said furiously. �Bread is bread and wine is wine when one is hungry. If nothing worse than this happens amongst you, then I don�t see why such lunatic stories are told about your superstitions. Still less do I understand how such innocent activities can lead to such violence.� I was too tired to quarrel with her, aroused as she still was,