Across the Waters of Time- Pliny Remembered

by Ken Parejko

  I followed him into the room where our colleagues had gathered.

  “I want to thank you,” he announced. The whispering and chattering died down. “This is a great moment we share.”

  We applauded, affirming him.

  “I’m filled with gratitude to you and to the gods for putting us,” and here he nodded first to Titus, then to Domitian, “here. This gratitude lightens my heart but cannot take the burden from my back,” he said, smiling with his tight, wry smile “of the obligations we bear. The city is in ruins, my friends,” he said, gesturing out the window, “from the fire just seven years ago, and the civil war. It’ll take hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, to rebuild it. Meanwhile the empire threatens to unweave itself. Onto our backs has fallen the job of rebuilding a city, an empire, and its society.”

  “Sorry. The rest of the city goes on celebrating but we have work to do. I’ve got a breakfast set in the dining room. You can help us eat the baskets of food that keep showing up on our doorstep. Meanwhile we’ll dig in and see if we can’t lift Rome, resurgent, from the cesspool we’ve found it in.”

  We applauded again. Vespasian cut us short. “Enough of that! There’s work to do.”We reclined around a huge deeply-grained citrus-wood table and munched at fruits common and rare. As a centerpiece of the table Vespasian had set a small copy, in white marble, of the sculpture which had long stood at the entrance to the Flavian house. Every one of us present had served in the army where a favorite past-time was playing dice. In the old days dice were carved from the neck vertebrae -- in Greek, astragaloi -- of pigs or cattle. The sculpture before us of two boys intent at playing dice, a fine copy from the original by Polyclitus, was called the Astragalizontes or dice-players.

  This was so typical of Vespasian, who preferred intimate portrayals of every-day life to more grandiose images of famous gods or heroes. To me there were levels of meaning beyond just the simple game the boys were playing. Fortuna, it told us, plays games with us, as we do with it. Dice such as the boys threw were used for divination, when various words would be placed on their faces and the words which came up interpreted as a message. Polyclitus meant us to think of that, too.

  “The boys at dice,” I turned to Josephus, “could be Vespasian and Titus, eh? Rolling for the future of the empire.”

  Josephus nodded. “But would Vespasian play dice with the future?”

  And there was even more to it than that. It was no coincidence that Polyclitus’ work came from Periclean Athens.

  Like a lovely flower blooming unexpectedly among barren rocks Periclean Athens blossomed out of a culture of brutal xenophobic warriors into the astonishing summits of Greek civilization, from which one could view the entire universe. In philosophy Empedocles, Democritus, Leucippus, Socrates, Anaxagoras, and Zeno; the playwrights Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles, and the poet Pindar; in history Herodotus and in sculpture Polyclitus and Phidias; and the father of medicine Hippocrates, all had a place in Pericles’ court.

  Though we had no pretensions to Periclean genius, from out of the ashes of Nero’s madness we meant to show our people what Rome could be, at its best. To accomplish this, to raise Rome once again resurgent, Vespasian had gathered around him the best men he could find. I brought to the table an encyclopedic knowledge of the world and its workings. Though Vespasian had already started his own history of the rise of the Flavian star, Josephus would be official court historian. We’d had a lively debate about the role philosophers might play in the new regime. Though a populist at heart Licinius Mucianus convinced Vespasian there was little to be gained from the input of Cynics like Demetrius, who carped at everything Vespasian did or said. At least until the regime is on its feet, Mucianius argued, we have to mute the street-corner rabble-rousers. So Demetrius joined several other philosophers banished from the city. But Musonius Rufus, banned by Nero, was brought out of exile into the court. As a clear-thinking Stoic Musonius demonstrated an unusual sensitivity to the downtrodden in society, its common laborers, children, slaves, and women. He had argued again and again, though so far to no avail, that women should be as well-educated as men.

  Quintilian would be our guide in rhetoric and Rabirius court architect, to fashion a vision of resurgent Rome into stone. Attius Priscus would paint for us portraits and murals extolling Roman virtue. He’d already been commissioned to create paintings for the great Temple of Honor and Virtue, which would be one of the first renovated.

  Previously there were astrologers at court. Julius Caesar kept them around because they reassured him, time and again, that he would live to ripe old age. Tiberius had invented an interesting way of interviewing for his personal astrologer. He invited a dozen of the most famous to his villa on Capri. One at a time he took them up to the tower which beetled over the crashing surf hundreds of feet below. There, in the presence of his guards, he asked them to cast their own horoscope to see if the present moment was propitious for them or not. Reasoning that a positive reading would improve their chances of getting hired, one at a time they answered in the affirmative. Each were then swept up by his guards and against their struggles thrown into the sea. Only Thrassylus’ horoscope, as he interpreted it to Tiberius, told of the great danger he was in, so it was Thrassylus who survived to be chosen court astrologer.

  Though Vespasian had never bought into that brand of superstition, he wasn’t averse to using it to his own ends. So though there would be no astrologers in his court, he did keep the prophet Seleucus, who he’d found in Syria, close at hand. He and I had a few words over that. Vespasian’s simple question to me, “Who is emperor, you or I?” put that discussion to rest.

  As always Vespasian ran an organized meeting. Because his administration was not yet entirely in place, discussion of complex issues like agrarian reform and tax policy were put off til later. Instead, he told us that the goal of the morning’s meeting was first to brainstorm how we might solidify our power-base, then take the first few steps towards what would become, he hoped, a long Flavian dynasty. He’d made good use of the time while he waited in Rome for Titus’ return and came to the meeting brimming with ideas.

  He bent down and lifted an old stool for us to see. “I brought this from grandma’s farm,” he said. “I couldn’t count all the goats it’s milked, but I assure you there were many hours it was warmed by my own now-royal behind. As you see, the stool has four legs.” He set it down. “So does the principate. Now, gentlemen, can you name them for me?”

  “The Senate!” someone offered.

  “The army.”

  “The patricians.”

  “Good. And?”

  “The public.”

  “Right. We have the Senate, which finally saw the writing on the wall. They and the patricians don’t trust me, because I’m not of their class. But so long as we don’t threaten to capsize the ship of state, they’ll leave us at the helm. The army brought us to power. I think not since Claudius’ day has the army been so united behind an emperor. That leaves the common folk. What do they think of us?”

  “Why, you’re one of them, the first commoner to become emperor,” Mucianus advised. “Make the most of it.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, I will,” Vespasian said, putting on his thickest Sabine accent.

  “The ordinary folk,” I observed, “have no voice in who rules them. They express themselves only after an emperor is chosen, either through silence, which is good, or riots and unrest, which is not good.”

  “Yes,” Josephus added. “So we must give them their bread, their chariot races and games. The bread is already flowing in from Egypt’s warehouses.”

  “And so it will flow, uninterrupted, so long as we reign,” Vespasian asserted. “Now, as for games, can someone now tell me which is our largest amphitheater?

  “Pompeii?” Musonius Rufus suggested.

  “No, Capua,” Rabirius corrected him.

  “Yes, Capua. But why not Rome?” Vespasian suggested. No one could answer. “So, we'll build it, the Amp
hitheatrum Flavium, a colossal amphitheater to seat eighty thousand.”

  Eyebrows lifted.

  “And where will you put this Colosseum?” Rabirius asked.

  Vespasian pointed off to the southwest. “Once we’re finished tearing down the ruins of Nero’s gardens and his Golden House we’ll fill in the lake he dug. There's plenty of room.”

  Rabirius,” he turned to the architect, “You'll work with Titus. I want an impressive design, and efficient at moving people in and out. Stone, not wood, because of the danger of fire, and to outlast us all. I expect to be laying the foundations within a year. You’ll have whatever you need to build it --we can tap the Jewish taxes for that.”

  “The Capitol needs rebuilding too,” Vespasian went on. “For the common people, a government without a center is a body without a heart. It was in the Capitol that Sabinus died, so I will carry from it the first buckets of rubble, and I promise you'll see me there mornings helping the masons lay their stones.”

  “We’ll take the head off Nero’s obscene statue and replace him with Helios, the Sun-God. Though they called me that in Egypt, it will not be for me the statue rises, but for the god himself, whose light, we hope, will shine on us for years to come. And I’ve planned a new forum, near Augustus’, where the macellum stood before the great fire. We'll call it the Temple of Peace, symbolizing the peace we brought from the East.”

  He'd clearly given thought to the day’s agenda. “I’ve come to love the Gardens of Sallust, and the peace I find there.” He winked at me, who, in honor of Castor, had convinced my friend of the value of gardens. “The center of the Temple of Peace will be a set of formal gardens, nymphaea, and a statue of Pax. The treasures we won in Judea will be displayed there for all the public to see, as will the sculptures and paintings which Nero stole from Greece and Egypt and hid away in his own residence. When the public sees these things, the Colosseum, the rebuilt Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Helios, and the Temple of Peace all open to them, I think they will embrace us in ways they’ve never before embraced a principate. We won't have a republic, but we will have a government of the people.”

  A servant refilled our glasses. We took a short break to stretch and chat. Then Vespasian gathered us again.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, as we settled back down. “I haven’t forgotten the provinces. We’ll build there, too. Vetera, destroyed in the civil war, needs rebuilding. And we’ll raise new forts in Germany, to hold the lands this side of the Rhine and the Danube.”

  “And we can’t forget coinage,” he added. “In the coming months we’ll be minting thousands of coins, each a symbol of our rule. I’m looking for suggestions.”

  For the next hour we talked propaganda. Two themes were agreed on: one was the part peace would play in the new regime. On the obverse of some coins would be the new emperor, featured as palladium, symbol of the eternity and security of Rome. Reverse would be Pax, the goddess of peace holding either an olive branch, a cornucopia or the caduceus of Felicitas. Someone suggested showing Pax setting fire to a pile of weapons. Under Pax might be inscribed Pax Populi Romani, emphasizing that this was the people’s peace, not just the emperor’s.

  Augustus had made good use of Victory. We would too, putting put her on the prow of a ship, written Victoria Navalis, to commemorate our victory on Lake Gennesareth. Or standing on a globe with wreath and palm, or setting a crown on Vespasian. Put Vespasian on the prow of a ship, someone said, Victory on one hand and in the other a spear, and a Jew kneeling at his feet.

  Vespasian insisted that both his sons appear on the reverse, Titus and Domitian equally. This was not just the father’s, but the family’s success. The reverse of one coin, he said, will be all three as conquering heroes, greeted by Spes, the goddess of hope.

  Victoria precedes Pax: with victory comes peace. But after peace, Vespasian said, we will rebuild Rome in stone, in law, in morals. The coins will be inscribed with the motto of my regime: Roma resurgens. On them we can show the Capitol, after it’s been rebuilt, and the Temples destroyed during the civil war. On some, Titus suggested, we can feature the Temple of Isis and Serapis where we incubated before our triumph. Isis, the goddess not of darkness but of light, who came from the East, as did the power and authority of the Flavian gens. We would make much of the Egyptian connection.

  We took another break. Musonius Rufus and I resurrected talk of the role of philosophy in the new regime. We had a clean slate and with Vespasian’s openness to new ideas, anything was possible. I spoke up for natural philosophy, by which we understand how the world works. Musonius countered that ethics is more important, quoting an early Stoics “Chryssipus tells us the goal of true philosophy,” he said, “is not to achieve an understanding of how the world works but to achieve an understanding of virtue and our moral responsibility in the world. He describes philosophy as an orchard, with logic as its walls, natural philosophy its trees, but ethics its fruit.” I added: “But to act virtuously we must understand our place in the greater order of things, and for that we need to know how the world works.”

  “If the world is God, and God is all, how can we mortals ever understand the world? You are asking the impossible, Pliny,” Musonius argued. “All that matters is right action, which by proper training becomes simple habit. Most of mankind can neither read nor write nor do they have any wider understanding of the world. But that doesn't stop some of them from growing into paragons of virtue, and acting from deep humility married to good habits. You remember the story. An old man was looking for a place to sit at a performance in Athens. As he walked past the Spartan section, the Spartans all rose and offered him a seat. At this, the Athenians applauded. Someone shouted out: The Athenians recognize virtue, but the Spartans practice it.”

  Though we disagreed on the importance of science I admired Musonius. None had been as principled as he during the terrible times just past. In the civil war to prevent bloodshed he’d offered to mediate between Vespasian’s forces and Vitellius', an offer unfortunately declined by Vitellius. No one spoke out so strongly against the exposure of infants, a cause dear to my heart, or for women's rights.

  Vespasian, just then passing by, knew his Nicomachian Ethics well enough to come to my aid. “We’re not Spartans, and we’re not Athenians. Your simple men,” he said, speaking to Musonius, “whose right actions you praise, I wonder how well they would do in new circumstances. Don’t forget, these are the people I grew up among, these common working folk, my uncles, nephews, neighbors. They’re fine in their element. But give one of them an unfamiliar tool, or tell him to prune his vines in a new way. He'll stand scratching his head, as though swarming with fleas.” Vespasian scratched his balding head to illustrate the point. “Through long sometimes hard experience they’ve learned what works, but they're also afraid of change. Uninformed good habits work well in a closed society. For better or worse, we’re not that any more. What I understand Pliny is saying -- if you don’t mind my interfering, my friend -- is that by getting to know the world we develop a solid understanding from which we can generalize. Then if we come up against new circumstances we can act from legitimate principles and not just stand there scratching our heads. Is that fair, Pliny?”

  I nodded. It was well put.

  Vespasian met with his advisers every morning. But he wanted to see me while he was still in bed, before official business began. So the very next morning, as I would for uncounted mornings to follow, I rose before Lucius. Most of Rome still slept as I climbed into my sedan-chair, was lifted up, and started up the street. Augustus built his house on the Palatine, and that is where every emperor since had lived, with the exception of Nero, whose Golden House needed more room than the Palatine could provide. Vespasian, the emperor from and of the people, lived in a house on the Quirinal, in an area settled centuries before by his fellow Sabines. Julius Caesar had built modest gardens there to stroll in. After serving as governor of Numidia and returning to Rome a wealthy man, Caius Sallustius Crispus, himself
a Sabine and one of Caesar’s closest allies, bought then enlarged Caesar’s gardens. Within them he built baths, nymphaea and temples, and had a house built too, large but not pretentious. He willed his property to the state and after his death his gardens were opened to the public.

  From the Flavian residence on the Quirinal to Sallust’s gardens was but a short walk. Over the years Vespasian spent many hours there among the flowers, sculptures and temples. Sometimes he came with his wife, the children when they were young, and their nurses. Now as emperor all state property belonged to him. He could do as he liked with Sallust’s gardens. He chose to have the modest old house remodeled. As soon as the plumbing was repaired, the leaking roof fixed, and the walls repainted in a more modern style he would move in, leaving the old family residence to Titus.

  I dozed for a while on the way to Vespasian’s. When I woke to see where I was I found a bright three-quarter moon shining down from over the Praetorian barracks. We were at the moment skirting the edge of the Campus Sceleratus, the “Fields of Unhappiness,” where the moonlight cast soft shadows off the walls and memorial stones and threw an eerie glow across the landscape. Though I didn’t believe in ghosts, the four slaves who carried me were hurrying me towards the refuge of more ordinary streets.

  An unforeseen responsibility had fallen into Vespasian’s lap two days before, with the sudden death of Camilia Secundilla, the oldest of the Vestal Virgins. Replacing Secundilla was on the morning agenda.

  Of the many goddesses Jupiter’s wife Juno holds highest place in the pecking order. We named the month of June for her, when we hold our weddings. She’s kept busy overseeing households, childbirth, fertility, and puberty. As Juno Lucina she’s the goddess of light. She has a score or more other epithets, and lives alongside many other female deities. The goddess of woods and the hunt is of course Diana. Fortuna brings luck, good or bad. Luna personifies the moon. Maia, consort of Vulcan, watches over all living creatures. Cybele, Gaia and Bona Dei all are earth-goddesses. Minerva has taken on the Greek goddess Athena’s role as female warrior. Roma is the divine spirit of Rome, Venus the goddess of love, Victoria of victory in battle. There are many others, among them sundry immigrants into the city from the far edges of the empire. Scarcely a week goes by we do not fete one or more of them. But of all I think closest to the hearts of our people is Vesta, our most domestic goddess, the goddess of the hearth.