Master and God (39 page)

The Capitoline Games in Rome in October were a much grander occasion. These were a revival of ancient festivities, the famous Naples Games which had ceased to be held after the eruption of Vesuvius. Modelled by Domitian on the Greek Olympics, they were held every four years in Rome and lasted sixteen days. Competitors came from all over the Empire. Statius absolutely expected to repeat his success in the Latin poetry section, hoping to beat off scores of rivals and win international acclaim. He thought Domitian was his patron, not seeing that Domitian’s sponsorship could be capricious. For one thing, the Emperor loathed any suspicion that his actions could be predicted. Once it was assumed he favoured any individual, that person was finished.

Statius was stunned when this time he failed to win. He was so devastated, it would drive him home to Naples, abandoning the stress of competition. That caused family problems, because his wife Claudia was reluctant to leave Rome; her daughter was sixteen, a talented musician making a career, entirely the wrong age to be left alone. But once Statius felt he had lost Domitian’s patronage, retirement seemed the safe option. At least Domitian never turned on him. Statius would now quietly teach, write his intended masterpiece about Achilles, and publish poems he had previously only circulated informally.

From the moment Statius lost the prize, his friends were unsettled. Lucilla learned that some were questioning their safety. Even Nemurus thought he was vulnerable, despite the fact teachers were generally respected. Domitian, who remained childless with Domitia, had recently named two young sons of his cousin Flavia Domitilla as his heirs and made much of appointing the grammarian Quintilian to be their tutor at court. Quintilian was an advocate and rhetorician, the first to be awarded a state salary, under Vespasian. After teaching for twenty years, in a school that had brought him unusual wealth, he retired to write a groundbreaking treatise on rhetoric; it defied contemporary taste by favouring content over style, it was a treasure trove of sane rules for composition, humane advice to teachers and good sense.

When Quintilian was made imperial tutor, Nemurus was vain enough to be jealous. Lucilla had heard about it from friends, laughing because anyone could see Nemurus was not in the same league. Lucilla ran into him at the Capitoline Games, when the old literary group clustered to commiserate with Statius after his loss. Milling among them was her ex-husband.

Nemurus approached Lucilla with a manner so friendly she was suspicious at once. He had even brought her a present: Ovid’s love poems. The gift itself was unexpected, and it seemed an odd choice.

‘I should never have insisted you return all the books I had lent you, dear. I am proud to have fostered your love for reading. This is a peace offering.’ Lucilla had worked at the court long enough; she recognised a bribe. ‘Please, I need to talk to you . . . In private.’

Curiosity made her agree. As it seemed so urgent, they left the others temporarily and walked off together outside the theatre in the centre of Rome where the poetry contest had been held. Though October, the night was mild and the atmosphere civilised. They found a bench.

‘This is a delicate . . .’ Sighing, Lucilla waited for details. ‘They are rounding up philosophers and exiling them.’

It was not new. Even in Vespasian’s time it had happened. New expulsions were imposed by Domitian last year, with the philosopher Epictetus among his victims. More seemed unavoidable. One reason was that a hardened group of Flavian opponents, connected with the stoics, routinely insulted whoever was emperor. They had tackled Vespasian then Titus; Domitian must be due his turn – and like his predecessors, sooner or later he would be driven to react.

Nemurus, a stoic himself, was highly agitated. ‘I need a favour. Spies are everywhere. If anybody questions you about me, will you say that I only teach literature? That I never touch philosophy?’

‘Come clean: what have you done, Nemurus?’

‘After our divorce, perhaps unwisely I decided to devote myself to philosophy – which is of course merely the pursuit of a virtuous life.’

‘Who could argue with that?’ Lucilla knew the authorities did.

Shyly, Nemurus owned up: ‘For a time, I let my hair grow. I had a beard and wore the philosopher’s robe. I even refused to eat meat, and only took what nature gives us without the need to kill fellow creatures.’

Lucilla tried not to laugh. People had told her Nemurus was despondent after she left him, yet becoming a vegetarian and wearing a long beard seemed an extreme reaction to divorce. ‘How Greek! But, sadly for my profession, there is no law against terrible hair.’

‘Please do not joke. My beard may have been noticed by the wrong people.’

‘Well, dear, I can truthfully say I knew nothing about it.’ Lucilla wondered what Nemurus looked like with a beard – and winced. ‘But why would anybody ask me?’

She saw Nemurus’ face cloud. ‘Your Praetorian Guard might take a vindictive interest.’

‘No! He has no reason to pick on you.’

‘He was staring at us earlier outside the theatre,’ Nemurus insisted. Lucilla thought he must have imagined this. ‘It is not the first time he imposed his baleful presence!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Once he marched into a lecture I was giving.’

‘Vinius?’

‘Had to be him. One-eyed man, scowling like thunder. Came and sat at the back.’

‘So what was your lecture?’ demanded Lucilla, in amazement.

‘On metre. “Dactylic Hexameters or Hendecasyllabic Iambs? Epic glide or elective limp – the poet’s dilemma”.’

When talking informally, Lucilla knew, Nemurus had insightful views on how poets chose their metre and line length. Given wine, he could even be amusing on scansion. Set on a public platform, however, he was a nervy speaker, who muttered down at his notes even though he was trying to show off. She commented with a smile, ‘That must have been uncomfortable – for both of you.’

‘He did not linger!’ Nemurus admitted.

They had been married, successfully at one time. Now anybody watching would have seen them burst into shared laughter, ruefully and with their heads together, like children giggling at a rude word.

‘Well,’ Lucilla assured him kindly, ‘I shall protect you. But Vinius and I are not as close as you think. We never even speak these days.’

‘I find that odd.’ Nemurus sounded sarcastic, as he rose to depart. ‘Especially as the man is standing in the shadows over there, observing us right now.’

Lucilla refused to look that way, but she made a point of jumping up and kissing Nemurus on the cheek before he left her. Startled, he made a clumsy half-response, but she dodged that and sat down again.

She remained waiting on the bench, pulling her light stole up over her hair and rearranging the bangles on her arm.

As she expected, Vinius came into the open and marched over.

‘Cosy scene. Does he want you back? He bears gifts, I see!’

‘Rather out of character. There must have been a remainder sale.’ This was disloyal to Nemurus but Lucilla hoped to distract Vinius. ‘Ovid.
The Art of Love
contains advice for women on how to look attractive – “a round-faced girl should pile her hair in a topknot” – hardly news to a trained hairdresser.’ At the end of the poem, Lucilla happened to know, were extremely frank lists of positions for lovemaking. Some she would never have thought of. Most seemed feasible. She wondered: had Nemurus been using this book as pornography? ‘This will interest you, Vinius – Ovid was exiled, for mysterious reasons, which may involve promiscuous relations with the Emperor Augustus’ raunchy daughter. They stuck him in Tomis which is, I believe, at the far edge of Dacia.’

‘Poor bloody bugger!’ exclaimed Vinius forcefully.

Lucilla tightened her grip on the scroll and rattled her bangles again. ‘Why are you spying on my ex-husband?’

‘The man does not concern me.’

‘So I told him. But you once went into a lecture he gave?’

‘Just curious. When you were married, did you have to knit his socks?’

Lucilla tried not to react. ‘His mother makes them. Vinius, don’t menace him; leave him alone, will you?’

‘Oh, have I got him worried?’ demanded Gaius cheerfully.

‘Don’t abuse your office. I rely on you to be fair.’

‘Fair?’
Rely?

‘Your decency was the first thing that struck me when you worked with the vigiles. Vinius, I want to believe in you. There have to be good men, when everyone swims in a sewer of treachery.’

Gaius listened, looking unemotional.

‘I wish you were back there,’ Lucilla told him in a morose voice. ‘You made your own choices. You were aware of human failings, yet you stood for enlightenment. You were honest. You were even kindly.’

‘Within reason.’

‘I would take your reason over Domitian’s fake benevolence any day. Don’t lose your humanity.’

‘You think I changed?’

‘Dacia changed you.’

‘
You
changed me.’

‘Do not blame me. Working for the Emperor is your own choice.’

Gaius thought Lucilla’s assessment was right. Society had tipped up and gone topsy-turvy. While Domitian pretended to nurture correct behaviour, he undermined it. Everyone now behaved like shits. As the despot supposedly reinforced Rome’s moral system, he was destroying it. He, Vinius Clodianus, was helping. He was an instrument of the police state. He had taken the oath. He accepted the not inconsiderable money. He followed orders.

In doing so, had he lost his own values and his independence?

Lucilla stood and began to walk away. She did not give Vinius the farewell kiss she had given Nemurus; Vinius noted that bitterly. As she marched off to find her friends again, he called out one last appeal.

‘Flavia Lucilla! I don’t suppose you have ever considered that somewhere in all the years we have known one another, I might have fallen in love with you?’

Lucilla stopped and looked back. Since people had told her he was still married to Caecilia, this soul-baring did not endear him. ‘Never!’

‘You might give it thought.’

The last thing Gaius wanted as he strode away in the opposite direction was for a wraith to manifest itself among the monumental architecture, then to be confronted by her bloody husband.

‘Clodianus!’ cried the ghastly Nemurus, as he popped up like a ghost in a bad Saturnalia story. ‘I take it amiss that you destroyed my marriage, stole away my wife – yet you have not had the decency to make her happy.’

The man was ludicrous. When seen close up he was also much younger than the fusty, self-neglecting academic that Vinius wanted to envisage. Nemurus must be similar in age to Lucilla. He looked as if he might even throw a ball around at the gym, though probably one stuffed with feathers. He bit his fingernails, perhaps absent-mindedly while reading.

‘Not my fault!’ retorted Vinius. ‘I would have taken her on – the poor girl deserves some excitement – but she loathes what I stand for.’

‘I heard that,’ Nemurus exulted. Vinius cursed. It was doubly annoying for a spying Guard to discover he had been spied on. ‘You need public speaking lessons. Decorum, man! Telling a woman you love her ought to be an act of worship – not hurled at her as a punishment.’

This was where Vinius became tempted to abuse his power. He was too frustrated to hold back. He lowered his voice and threatened Nemurus: ‘
I have seen your name on a list.
’

Nemurus, no actor, was visibly perturbed.

‘Luckily for you, it is not my list.’

Nemurus could not know whether to believe this: if any list really existed; if so, what list it was, or whose; or what Vinius proposed to do about it. That was how fear worked these days.

Whether or not Nemurus had been denounced, his panic told Vinius that he must be guilty of something, even if it was unprovable chicken-stealing. Nemurus had just given himself away before he was even under suspicion.

‘I do not descend to the personal,’ claimed Vinius piously. ‘If I am ordered to exterminate you, you’re done for. But I don’t lean on people without evidence. What is your secret, by the way? – I bet I know. I bet you are an undercover republican. Or are you a conspiratorial philosopher? What’s your fancy? Cynic? Sophist? Stoic?’

‘I am slightly unnerved to think of the Guards studying ethics.’

‘You would be surprised!’ Vinius boasted with relish. ‘Know yourself, the old sphinx said – and I say, know your enemy. I produced a memo only the other day to warn my troops that not all philosophers wear convenient beards, so watch out for a devious mentality too. For example, we know the stoic creed is avoidance of anger, envy and jealousy . . . Would that apply to you?’

He had guessed right – not difficult, because most educated Romans with a liberal outlook were apt to call themselves stoics.

‘How can I look at you and set aside those regrettable emotions?’ Nemurus fought back.

‘Believe me, I see
you
and feel anger in enthusiastic quantities – though I am not troubled by envy and jealousy,’ returned Vinius as spitefully as possible. ‘Sadly, Flavia Lucilla has enough reasons to despise me. Perhaps I shall not add another by arresting you.’

Perhaps . . .

Nemurus tried to engage him: ‘Flavia Lucilla assures me you are not malicious.’

This was what nobody could know about anyone any more. Who would act ethically? Who would destroy others before others could destroy them? Who would do it for a vengeful reason? For amusement? For the Emperor’s favour? For money? Or to save their own neck? Who for no reason at all?

Vinius laughed bitterly. ‘Oh she thinks me a dumb soldier.’

Nemurus looked him up and down. He raised one eyebrow; he did it far too archly, being awkward socially.

‘
Does
she?’

He taught oratory. As a young man, he himself had taken lessons at the fine Quintilian school. He knew how to pose a rhetorical question to be subtly destructive, causing doubt to linger with his hearer for a long time afterwards.

I
t was the Cornelia case that finished the cornicularius. Until then, he had been refusing to give up. He had served his time, his sixteen years as a Guard. He just could not bear to leave the military life. With this trial, the unpleasant aspects proved too much for him. He did not care that the evidence was minimal, but hated a crisis involving a woman, especially the Chief Vestal Virgin. The cornicularius was not alone in loathing what happened, which would become notorious. Once proceedings against Cornelia began, he got out fast, leaving Vinius Clodianus as the proverbial safe pair of hands.