by John Hersey
I have, however, failed with Mela’s Epicharis. Banish me from Rome if you will, but no man could have done more. Mela will attend; you were right. He has ordered Epicharis to stay at home. Upon a possibility that she is angry at being sequestered that evening rests one last chance to “get her,” as you keep putting it. I think this outcome most unlikely. Epicharis is too proud.
To TIGELLINUS from CELER, Office of Planning and Construction
The barge is ready. It is an artifact from a tender dream. I have found for it, besides much else, some perfect Baltic amber and some vivid coral from India. Even you will be astonished by the array of swans. The booths are ready to assemble.
October 11
To TIGELLINUS from PAENUS, Tribune of Secret Police
Concerning Curtius Marsus, the young informer-gone-wrong:
Late last night he was set upon at the foot of the Aventine, where he had been dining with friends, by a gang of cutpurses, who inadvertently, striking blows in haste, knocked the young man’s head against a wall and broke his skull. They stole his purse and left him dead. I understand that the cutpurses were pursued by police but escaped.
Tell me, Tigellinus, am I not something of a poet of action? Hail and farewell, finest nose in Rome!
October 12
To TIGELLINUS from PAENUS, Tribune of Secret Police
You commanded surveillance of Flavius Scaevinus, Sleepy-Eyes as you called him, who talked too freely at Piso’s dinner.
This is to report that a close watch has been established. First results meager.
Persistent reports of one quality that may prove useful to us: Extreme vanity. Scaevinus spends two to three hours each morning under the hands of his barber, a slave named Paliarchus, who works with a whole squad of helpers. Scaevinus sits before a large three-leafed mirror, which allows him to watch, with slight shifts of his eyes and apparently with the greatest satisfaction, his full face and both profiles. He sits there with a gown of cambric over his clothes and sighs with pleasure as Paliarchus piles on the curls with a hot iron. He is very proud that he does not copy, as so many do, the style of tiered curls that Himself has set. His are half-curls, completely “natural,” and casually disposed. But not so casually made. He has been known to spend half an hour making sure that a single curl is in the right place. The drowsy look, as I think you suspected, is an affectation. He rehearses it before the three-faced mirror. It is true that he leads an exceptionally luxurious and dissipated life, but his physique must be superb. Never complains of a headache or nausea after a night of heavy drinking. Always seems fresh-skinned, though he often has gilded plaster spots put on his face to make it appear that the hard life he leads causes the blemishes other men suffer. There is his vanity for you: Everything simulates the “natural”—his curls, his weary, drooping eyes, his pseudo-pimples.
At the same time, let us not forget he is a substantial man, with a brilliant mind crackling with the most various kinds of knowledge. And as shrewd as a vintner from Campania.
October 14
To CELER, Office of Planning and Construction
To CANUS, IPPOLITE, AMMIANA, GEMINUS, Imperial Household
To PAENUS, Tribune of Secret Police from TIGELLINUS
Is everything ready for tomorrow afternoon and evening?
To TIGELLINUS from CELER, Office of Planning and Construction
Your eyes will give you testimony of my barge that your mind will refuse to believe.
At what time do you want us to begin assembling the booths? We have estimated two hours only will be needed to put them together, from start to finish.
To TIGELLINUS from CANUS, Imperial Household
The beasts are collected, well fed, sleek, and strange. There is no danger. You will have all the living earth within the walls of a single garden.
To TIGELLINUS from GEMINUS, Imperial Household
Yes, there will be trembling music.
To TIGELLINUS from AMMIANA, Imperial Household
Keep yourself hungry until you get there, my powerful friend.
To TIGELLINUS from IPPOLITE, Imperial Household
I believe I must excuse myself from the occasion. Failure with Epicharis. I have tried four separate approaches, each of irresistible respectability. She is rooted to her refusal like a live-oak tree to a hill. I await your displeasure.
To TIGELLINUS from PAENUS, Tribune of Secret Police
Security will be tight, and our snares are prepared. The twigs are limed, the pits are disguised, the nets are strung, the weirs are set. We will have a fine bag of wretches for Himself and for you.
A word on behalf of Ippolite. He feels that he has done an extraordinary piece of procurement for you and that all is spoiled because you have pressed him too hard on an impossible mission. You know how brilliant and sensitive (and inwardly raging) he is; he is one of the most powerful freedmen in Rome, but he never forgets his days of slavery to a mediocre merchant down by the warehouses on the river. He is prepared to open his veins. But he will do so, Tigellinus, if you order it—you have always said you want me to be honest with you—with the conviction that your motive in insisting so long on this one errand was not the greatest good of the Person but your own concupiscence. He has not even whispered any such thought to me. I read it in his wounded-deer eyes. I can testify to the unwavering accuracy of his aim in going after some but not others of our proudest beauties for this charade, and to the amazing web of confidence and secrecy he has woven, and I must say that he has made my own task far, far easier. Write him a comforting message, won’t you?
To FAENUS RUFUS, Co-Commander, Praetorian Guard, from TIGELLINUS
Urgent.
This is to countermand, on behalf of Himself, the order for the purge of the Praetorian Guard. In strictest confidence, such an action had been deemed necessary in order to find sacrifices sufficient to propitiate the recent comet; we believe we are now on the threshold of uncovering certain crimes of opinion, the punishment of which, I am confident, will provide ample propitiation.
To CELER, Office of Planning and Construction, from TIGELLINUS
The guests are commanded to come at the tenth hour. Begin assembling the booths after they have arrived but during daylight hours. Make a delightful and mysterious little pantomime of these constructions. Dress the slaves who do the work in colored gauzes and give them caps of gilded paper, cocked with pheasant feathers. Tell them to prance and turn cartwheels at their labor.
To TIGELLINUS from FAENUS RUFUS, Co-Commander, Praetorian Guard
Wise decision. Our preliminary checks found, as far as we had gone, loyalty unwavering in the Guard, and morale high. Not so high that a donative would not elevate it even more, but I gather, dear colleague, that this will have to wait until after such necessary expenditures as those for your imminent gala by the lake.
To FAENUS RUFUS, Co-Commander, Praetorian Guard, from TIGELLINUS
You are dutiful and also sarcastic, as a good soldier should be. A donative is out of the question.
To IPPOLITE, Imperial Household, from TIGELLINUS
Come to the lake tomorrow and be honored, dear Ippolite. Choose for your taking, before the Emperor Himself chooses, the beauty of beauties from among all your charming catches.
To TIGELLINUS from IPPOLITE, Imperial Household
You take prudent care of those who are useful to you. My thanks. I did the best I could. I will be there, but you forget: I am chaste and always will be.
To IPPOLITE, Imperial Household, from TIGELLINUS
I forgive you even your chastity.
TWO
October 16
To TIGELLINUS from PAENUS, Tribune of Secret Police
First report, in haste.
I am led to believe that the Piso–Lucan affair may be much more serious than we had thought.
I have nothing to tell
you. Not one useful word. All our preparations went to nothing.
From the entrapments set for the other groups of “doubtfuls,” we have many positive results, a good strong harvest of information which I shall send to you separately. But Piso, Lucan, Natalis, Scaevinus, Quintianus, Gallus, Bassus, Nonianus, Mela—unanimous discretion of the most impeccable sort.
In the moments of wildest abandon—the rush for the booths when the torches had been lit, the third “voyage” on the barge, the crowd at the race of grotesques, the scene surrounding the booth where Baba and Isio took the Senator Gatrialus’s wife and each other all together—in even those moments this group was a solid squad of propriety. To each was assigned, on that frenzied third “voyage,” a woman (to Quintianus a boy) of thrilling beauty and shrewdness—in at least three cases, women we had had reason to think the men had been trying for months to seduce; but no result. No result. Nothing. Stiff and decent courtesies, no more. No man among those eight drank a single cup of wine all evening long. Not a scrap of revealing conversation. We have not been able to discover from all our agents put together the tiniest crack in the wall around this group.
In such a fevered setting, with every restraint dissolved, in a mob of people abandoned to the pleasure closest at hand, their solidarity, the absolute uniformity of their decorousness, the clamping of their tongues between their teeth as if by a shared set of jaw muscles—these could not have been coincidental. They must have decided together beforehand on this line of action. There was even a kind of effrontery in their uniform prudence.
I will write more later when I have gathered my wits—I confess a slight headache—and have combed the agents again.
By the way, the occasion was your greatest triumph. I salute you, Tigellinus. You are a genius in the theater of the voluptuous.
To PAENUS, Tribune of Secret Police, from TIGELLINUS
Hasty response to your hasty preliminary report. I, too, have what you call a slight headache.
I am sure it will have occurred to you that the Piso–Lucan circle may simply have had a dull evening. May not like that sort of caper. May be entirely innocent. If they are not, then I think Himself was right; the crack will show itself sooner or later.
I must admit I am well satisfied with how the occasion came off. Himself—“slight headache” notwithstanding—tells me over and over that he never enjoyed himself more. There were times, during the first assault on the booths and especially during the third “voyage” when everyone rushed to the one side to watch the fleet-footed hunchback tup his reluctant prize, that frightened me; I was afraid we might have a disaster on our hands. Also, an indiscreet act by Vestinus, the Consul-Elect, about which I will tell you in due course. But all turned out well. Congratulations of Himself are pouring in, and he is acknowledging them with a comical modesty.
To ABASCANTUS, Imperial Treasury, from TIGELLINUS
Gifts of honor, fifty thousand sesterces each, to Celer and Ippolite; twenty thousand sesterces each, to Ammiana, Canus, Germinus, Paenus. The Emperor’s message to each recipient: “The tree of pleasure blooms again in Rome.”
To VEIANUS NIGER, Tribune of the Praetorian Guard, from TIGELLINUS
Consult with Paenus, and seize four estates in Campania, upon establishment of appropriate guilts of their owners, and give the estates, in order of value, to Paenus, Celer, Ippolite, Canus. Portal inscriptions: SERVICE TO ROME.
To TULLIUS SEVERUS, Senator, from TIGELLINUS
Something came up at the gala last night about which I need confidential advice. You are held by Himself to be a particularly intimate and trusted friend, and perhaps you can judge the import of what I am to tell you, always in strictest secrecy. Perhaps you noticed some of this yourself.
As you know, Atticus Vestinus, who has also enjoyed great intimacy with Himself, is to become Co-Consul at the new year, only a few weeks from now. Did you see his behavior last night?
First, his arrival. He came into the gardens, with that haughty air of his, surrounded by a party of his lovely lithe slaves. As you may know, these beautiful young men, who are Parthians, of pale silken skin, are all said to be within two weeks of each other in age, presently just over nineteen. Vestinus has trained a bodyguard of them in the most exquisite dance-like paramilitary maneuvers, so that they flow around him as he walks, like the many folds of an ample, hooded cloak in a light breeze. He had the audacity to present them armed at the gate. Of course their weapons were taken away from them. But throughout the gala they clung like lovely cloth around Vestinus, even in his several approaches to Himself.
But there was worse. You know Vestinus’s high spirits and bluff manner. His banter entertains Himself, but at the same time, some of his sarcastic teasing is a bit too closely constructed of bricks of fact. Two recent actions of Vestinus have especially galled Himself: that Vestinus had the temerity, two months ago, to marry Statilia Messalina while she was still at the height of Himself’s favor, and that in preparation for his consulship Vestinus has built and lives in such a virtual fortress right over the Forum, on the shoulder of the Palatine.
To my great chagrin, it turned out that Vestinus knew something that I had not known—that Himself has a specific and isolated, but acute, fear of apes. I had thought him perfectly at home with wild beasts of all kinds; have seen him stroke lions and tigers. While Himself was walking from booth to booth, before the torches were lit to signal come-one-come-all, taking his time choosing the two or three noble ladies whose cunts he might rent, Vestinus and his beautiful convoy came swooping up. Vestinus had a large tame ape by the hand, one of the animals that had been moving freely among the guests. Mind you, I am virtually certain that Vestinus knew about the Emperor’s panic at the sight of these creatures. He walked right up to the Presence hand in hand with the hairy one. His complaisant companion now and again grinned the knowing grin of apes; held its long, hispid arm up in a military salute. Vestinus said, “May I have the honor, dear friend, to present my cousin, Fabius Vestinus? He’s just turned nineteen. I was wondering, would Your Gracious Eminence be willing, when I become Consul, to waive the usual consideration of age and appoint him a Quaestor?”
I saw the blood drain from Himself’s face. He hastily said he wanted once more to board the barge. The terror Himself must have felt in those moments, dear Tullius, is surely why he did not, after all, avail Himself all night of any one of the distinguished women who were quite prepared to be at his service. I had known nothing of this fear. How little we know our most beloved friends—never guessing the peculiar terrors that lurk behind their composed and even radiant faces.
I am worried, Tullius. Vestinus is to be Consul. Himself has been deeply fond of this reckless, hearty man. I have observed that if a relationship wilts, Himself turns with special bitterness against men who have been his most intimate friends. You know how it has gone with Lucan. But Lucan is not, will not be, a Consul. (And by the way, Vestinus must know that the only time Nero has waived the age requirement for the quaestorship was when he did it in favor of Lucan; thus does Vestinus subtly tread on toes.) Have you any advice? Can you influence Vestinus to refrain from this teasing that cuts so deep? We must avoid explosions, Tullius, you will understand that. I would be grateful for any help you can give me on this most confidential matter.
To CANUS, Imperial Household, from TIGELLINUS
For the future: Whenever wild beasts are introduced to the Presence, make sure that there are no apes or monkeys among them.
To PAENUS, Tribune of Secret Police, from TIGELLINUS
Already, before the seventh hour, we have received more than three hundred messages of congratulations to Himself on the entertainments at the lake. Some masterpieces among them from husbands of ladies who had offered themselves for hire and had proved rather proficient in the unaccustomed trade. From the Piso–Lucan group we have responses, cast in conventional terms, from Bassus and Nonian
us. No word from any of the others.
Urgent:
Tullius Severus is trustworthy, is he not? Let me know within an hour if there is anything new on him that is unfavorable. I have written him an important letter and want to get it off.
To TIGELLINUS from PAENUS, Tribune of Secret Police
TULLIUS SEVERUS: Up to now, as far as we know, clean as a tunic almost worn out with washing. I need not remind you that Himself remains grateful to Severus even now for his help, when Himself was newly Emperor and just seventeen years old, in setting up Himself’s affair with Acte.
To TIGELLINUS from PAENUS, Tribune of Secret Police
On the Piso–Lucan group at the gala, still nothing. I cannot dig up the slightest fragment. Not a single agent succeeded in arranging later meetings. Nothing. Nothing. I do not like the smell of it.
On your hypothesis that all these men just happened to be bored: impossible. Several of them know very well how to enjoy themselves: Piso, Scaevinus, Natalis, and Quintianus not the least. No, Tigellinus, they were unanimous and they were resistant. I am prepared to accept the idea that the writers Bassus and Nonianus—who, you say, have written to thank Himself, and who, you remember, were silent at the Piso banquet—must be thought to have had somewhat different motives for their behavior from the rest.
October 17
To TIGELLINUS from TULLIUS SEVERUS, Senator
The Consul-Elect Vestinus is not easily subject to influence, but I will do what I can with him. As you know, he is headstrong and proud of his roughness that wears an epicene mask, and I am not certain I can persuade him to be circumspect. I will try.