The Course of Honour (39 page)

Even yet Vespasian did nothing. Having drawn up his three legions to take the oath of allegiance to their new Emperor Otho, four months later he drew them up again, himself expressionless, and made them take the oath to Vitellius. His behaviour on both occasions was exemplary. It was the soldiers, normally so boisterous at accessions, who when called upon to swear their allegiance just stood in their ranks in devastating silence. They stared at Vespasian; Vespasian stared back at them. Their mood was plain. Everyone present could see the commander in Judaea was genuinely moved.

Still he did nothing. He knew that to seize power was the first step only; holding it posed a very different task. He was instinctively modest. He listened to the appeals of his friends; he considered the risks. He remained withdrawn, watchful, apparently calm, although Titus knew, and Caenis could imagine, how the real state of his mind was highly active and alert. Many men know when to act; a few know when to wait. Vespasian let Otho and Vitellius fight it out among themselves.

Otho died well. Lurking in Brixellum he heard how, despite earlier successes and the ill-preparedness of the German troops, his own army had been crushed at Bedriacum. He took the brave decision not to expose his supporters to further bloodshed. After encouraging his staff and making arrangements for their escape, he burned his official correspondence, attended to his private affairs, then retired to his quarters. He drank a glass of cold water, tested the points of two daggers, placed one beneath his pillow and spent a last quiet
night. At dawn he awoke and stabbed himself fatally once. He received an unpretentious funeral and a monument so modest it belied how far his reputation had been redeemed by his courageous death.

Vitellius stood mocking at Otho's simple monument; that summed up Vitellius.

It was in Moesia that three legions who had been hastening to Otho's support heard he was dead; heard that Vitellius was pronounced Emperor by the German legions; took against the Germans; took against Vitellius; and without anybody asking them for the favour, decided that Moesia would announce a candidate of its own. The theory was fine; they only had to choose their man.

The legions in Moesia, who happened to include the Third Gallica, a group of stout characters recently sent there from Syria, sat down sensibly with a list of all the Roman governors and senior ex-consuls who might be eligible for their support. One by one they crossed these off as unsuitable. At the end a single name remained. They held a democratic vote. The man's popularity was unanimously confirmed. The legions in Moesia methodically stripped their standards of the plaques that bore the dead Otho's name, then nailed up instead the title of the new Emperor they had chosen for themselves.

His name was:

 

VESPASIAN.

 

On 1 July Tiberius Alexander, the Prefect of Egypt, to whom Vespasian had written tentatively sounding out his views, made those views plain. Alexander was an equestrian who had risen to great position; he had started life as a freedman of Antonia's, so he had an inevitable loyalty to those who had enjoyed her patronage. Tiberius Alexander called upon his own legions to hail Vespasian as Emperor.

Meanwhile the legions in Moesia were persuading their neighbours in Pannonia to join their cause; their Pannonian neighbours encouraged the legions in Dalmatia to do the same. One by one provinces and kingdoms followed them—Asia, Achaea, Cappadocia and Galatia—until a complete crescent surrounding the far end of the Mediterranean had declared for the eastern Emperor. Spain was
friendly to Vespasian; Britain too. On the morning of 3 July in Judaea Vespasian's own soldiers decided of their own accord to stop greeting him as governor. When he came out from his bedroom his bodyguard exchanged quick glances, saluted him,
‘Caesar!'
then defied him to put them all on a charge.

Vespasian spoke to them quietly, in his soldierly manner. The word spread: he had accepted the nomination. On the same day, without even waiting for Titus to return from a liaison trip to Syria, he received the oath of allegiance himself from his own delighted troops. It was reported to Caenis that Vespasian had looked pleased but bewildered.

In Rome, Vitellius censored any mention of Vespasian's name. It was pointless; everybody knew. There would be another civil war. If Vespasian lost it he, his two sons, probably his brother, and possibly even his brother's children too, would die. If he died, far away, Caenis would not even attend his funeral.

If he survived, it would be far worse for her.

She believed there was no better man in the Empire to undertake this role. She also knew there would be no question any longer that Vespasian could allow a freedwoman to share his life. Like Nero's Actë, as a common girl who bore no grudges she might be suitable to entertain him occasionally—but only within carefully defined sexual limits. The very qualities that had once brought him back to her, the decent temperament that made him ideal to govern, would inevitably take him from her now. Vespasian would behave as an emperor should. Their fine, equal partnership would be broken. She had received from fortune the greatest gift she could ever expect. She had enjoyed it for longer than a decade; now she had to give it back.

She said to Aglaus, when she granted him his freedom, ‘I have decided it would be best if I moved back to my own house in the Via Nomentana. Perhaps you could mention it for me to the leaseholder.'

Aglaus knew she had continued to pay her ground rent all this time. He had organised it for her himself. It was supposed never to be mentioned, though Aglaus understood that Vespasian knew. Two men together, Vespasian and Aglaus had quietly agreed: independent
that one. She did not trust her luck. She had had every faith in Vespasian, but none in life.

Aglaus was an excellent steward; he had paid her rent discreetly and refrained from teasing her. Caenis was therefore surprised, even though his new status as a free citizen allowed him greater frankness, when he replied bleakly, ‘I think you'll want to explain that to the leaseholder yourself.'

Not for the first time that year, Caenis went cold.

Aglaus braced himself and told her: ‘Well, it's not necessary, actually. The lease was acquired by someone else. Vespasian bought it, just before you went to Africa; that was one of the reasons he was so short of cash. He told me, and told me to explain it to you if anything ever happened to him—I don't think the present business was what he really had in mind! He rewrote his will at the same time to provide for you, but he wanted you to have something of your own in case anything went wrong. The estate is yours; it's been yours for years. He bought it, but the deeds are in your name.'

Caenis stared. For some reason she suddenly remembered Marius Pomponius Gallus, the man she was supposed to have married, who left her in his will (as Vespasian said at the time) little more than the price of a new hat.

‘You had better tell me,' she commented coolly, ‘exactly what you and that old miser have been doing with my rent.'

‘Bank account in the Forum—also in your name—I can tell you the number: bit of capital for you, he said.' Aglaus smiled. Clearly he felt confident that he possessed legitimate orders from the master of their household. How like a man. ‘It wasn't just that he thought he might die first. He told me you might one day get tired of him—'

‘Hah!' retorted Caenis briskly.

Aglaus only smiled again. He looked tired; he was worried about her. ‘He wanted you to be secure if you upped and left.' Well, she was doing that. There was an aching silence. ‘May I ask you something, madam? Have you given me my freedom because you think my loyalty to Vespasian is greater than my loyalty to you?'

‘No,' said Caenis.

She had done, of course. Because he was her gift from Narcissus,
she had gone on keeping Aglaus long after she knew he deserved his release. Now with the world in tumult she did not blame him if he wanted to throw in his lot with the Emperor he admired; she had decided to allow him the choice. Besides, she wanted to be free herself to act without pressure from his frank sarcasm and disapproving scowl.

‘You and the new Emperor seem very close!'

He did look sheepish. With Aglaus this was a rare sight. But he said, speaking in a low voice with a steadiness he obviously copied from Vespasian, ‘The new Emperor and I, madam, always had an interest in common.'

Caenis ignored that.

Perhaps for the first time she was acknowledging the change in their position. As his patron now, she sought his candid advice: ‘Are you suggesting I am making a mistake?'

Her freedman's courage grew. ‘No,' Aglaus replied quietly, for he knew better than anybody how high her standards were. ‘You cannot be an embarrassment to him. We have both lived in that Palace. We know the filthy rules. There is no place for us now with Vespasian. You are right, madam; time to go home.'

 

Once again, therefore, Caenis was living on her own. At the time when she moved, no one looked askance. Rome was in chaos. There were soldiers everywhere, filling the camps, bunking down in the Porticos, cluttering up temple forecourts with bivouacs and braziers, billeting themselves willy-nilly on private citizens. Officers dashed about with unnecessary escorts, showing off. By day the streets were full of bored German and Gallic auxiliaries—shaggy lumps in animal skins, peering into shops, jostling passers-by, squabbling over prostitutes, and tripping over the kerbstones of the unfamiliar pavements. They swam in the river until they all caught fever and started an epidemic. Every night came sounds of looting. Soon all the best mansions were abandoned and boarded up. There were regular fires. Scarpering from the home of such a prominent man seemed a wise move. In fact Aglaus asked to come too.

Since she now understood that he thought he had a mission, Caenis
did not forbid it. He was wrong, of course: Caenis would look after herself.

 

It took six months to conclude the civil war; six months of deprivation in the country and terror in Rome, to bring Vitellius within sight of abdication.

It was during that time Veronica became ill. She knew, as Caenis did, that she would die. Caenis went to see her.

‘Well, Veronica: here's some lovely Sabine fruit!'

Pain was sculpted on every line of Veronica's once-exquisite face. Her bones stood; the flesh had started to shrink. She would not last until Vespasian reached Rome. Her beauty had become a ruin of its former self, clad in the remnants of her vitality like the soft muffling of lichen on fallen stones.

‘Oh thanks! Good of you to come. Talk to me, Caenis. Make me laugh; make me angry; anything to make me forget! Tell me about that dangerous man of yours!'

Caenis had hoped to avoid a confrontation with Veronica. ‘I'm a freedwoman,' she stated crisply. ‘Vespasian was never mine.'

Veronica interpreted this in her own style. ‘Hah! She's talking about the abundantly equipped Queen of Judaea.'

The beautiful Berenice had apparently made all speed to offer Vespasian her most generous support. Handy to own a fleet, Caenis thought. ‘Leave it!' she warned.

Veronica scoffed. ‘What, like some dead thing my cat has dropped between us on the tiles, which we pretend we haven't seen? Queen Berenice—the wonder of our age . . . Be wise; ignore it. May not even be true.' She changed her tone to a confidential mutter. ‘Is he coming yet?'

Caenis resisted the request to be drawn into indiscretion. It was easy enough; she knew little. Vespasian rarely wrote to her now. His last brief colourless note merely told her he was well. He said he missed her; she doubted that. She had not replied.

She contented herself with what was, despite all the censorship, common knowledge. ‘No. He's not coming. Generals we have never
heard of, dear, are marching on Italy with legions who worship exotic gods from countries we can hardly find on the map.'

‘So what's happening?'

‘As far as I can understand it—there is no formal news from the east, but Sabinus lets me know what he can—the plan is that Vespasian will sail to Egypt to batten down the winter corn supply that's intended for Italy. Bread is running short already; the profiteers seem to have grasped the point with their usual smart business sense. A general called Antonius Primus is invading northern Italy with all the Balkan legions, while this person Mucianus has crossed the Hellespont and will turn up unexpectedly somewhere on the eastern coast. Primus is nicknamed Beaky and has some kind of criminal record though that did not deter Nero from giving him a legion, while Mucianus is a silky orator who sleeps with anything that moves, preferably male. Perhaps Vespasian hopes by contrast to appear immaculate.'

‘Stodgy old bastard! I don't know how you put up with him.'

‘Here as you know, Vitellius' rough-necks tear Rome apart and poor Sabinus, who has been elected Prefect of the City yet again, struggles to keep public order and loyally obey the man whom his own brother is opposing. Ludicrous! How wise of you, my darling, to keep indoors.'

Veronica had listened with half her attention. ‘He'll do it, your man. I see that now. This was always what he was waiting for. It's wonderful.'

Caenis asked drily, ‘Bit of a change of heart, dear?'

‘I,' said Veronica proudly, ‘am loyal to my Emperor!' Then she pleaded almost, for she knew perfectly well what attitude Caenis was bound to take: ‘Oh I'm a drab hag deteriorating on a faded couch, with cold feet and a dying brain—but it warms me to think of you, a Caesar's darling! Caenis, you must do this. You owe it to all the girls in all the Palaces who sleep on flea-ridden pallets on stone ledges in cold cells, and who live by the hope that one day they will rise to a better place—'

Caenis could bear it no longer. Her own girlish dreams of breaking her shackles and stalking some throne room in a damask dress and a tasteless ruby coronet were long dead. All she wanted was to
share her daily life with a man whose face brightened when he saw her. She finally told Veronica the truth. ‘Pensioned off, dear.'