by John Hersey
The EMPEROR, pronouncedly choleric, now rose, and all who were seated rose with him. HIMSELF declared in a loud voice that he had had enough; that the EMPEROR of Rome was not accustomed to ask a question three times. He ordered CASSIUS to take the SEA CAPTAIN outside and to teach him how to testify in the Imperial Presence, to give a lesson that would not soon be forgotten. CASSIUS removed PROCULUS, who to the moment of exit continued to sing frantic praises of his own past services to NERO CAESAR. HIMSELF then turned to TIG. and objected that these proceedings had become a scandal, that witnesses were allowed to rant, that what came forth, in sum, were accusations not against the accused but against the State. There was complete confusion. Why had TIG. not prepared the witnesses beforehand? Everything should have been stripped down to six sentences. He had never had his temper so tried.
TIG. now reminded HIMSELF that it was HIMSELF who had ordered these raw hearings. TIG. averred that he had offered to squeeze the truth out of these vermin without bothering HIMSELF but that HIMSELF had expressed interest…(intending to continue).
HIMSELF stated with asperity that he had a great deal on his mind; that the Circus of the festival of Ceres was only three days away; that gibbering, cringing men were a great annoyance to him. He could not waste any more time thus. He directed TIG. to let the SAILOR go, to give him five hundred sesterces after CASSIUS had taught him how to answer questions, then to let him go. He commanded TIG. to hold the woman EPICHARIS. HIMSELF told TIG. that he was not satisfied. He repeated that he was not satisfied with any of this.
TIG. requested HIMSELF‘S permission to ask the WOMAN some further questions. HIMSELF said he was of the decided opinion that TIG. had better do just that, and left the room.
TIG. now told EPICHARIS that information had come to the palace to the effect that she was intimate with her master’s son LUCAN.
EPICHARIS, speaking again with warmth and firmness of nerve: Master? No man is my master. If you mean ANNAEUS MELA, he is my lover and my friend.
TIG. corrected himself with ironic precision, now using the phrase, your lover’s son. Information had come that she was in love with her lover’s son.
EPICHARIS, passing over TIG.’S sarcasm: LUCAN? I am fond of him, poor boy. He is starved for a mother’s care. His own mother rails at him. He is like a little boy. I am amazed by the greatness of his poetry, I see him as a pathetic boy who comes with big eyes and wants to walk on the grounds with me. NERO was very cruel to proscribe his work.
TIG. observed that the DEPONENT was not in a favorable position at this moment to pass judgment on the EMPEROR of Rome.
EPICHARIS: I cannot help it. It was very cruel, LUCAN is a better poet than he is, and he is jealous—everyone knows that.
Now TIG. tartly ordered EPICHARIS to hold her tongue, advising her that she would have reason to regret speaking foolishly. He then asked: How often does LUCAN visit MELA?
EPICHARIS: Seldom. The father and son are awkward with each other. MELA has often told me how much he loves LUCAN and how hard it is for him to talk with the boy. There are long silences, and LUCAN loses his temper.
TIG. asked when LUCAN had last come to see MELA.
EPICHARIS: Let me think. Oh, it has been some time.
TIG. now began to press EPICHARIS on this point, saying he would like to know exactly how much time. But the WOMAN continued evasive, or forgetful. Several questions and answers were exchanged, but neither persuasion nor threat could move EPICHARIS away from the assertion that she could not remember. TIG. therefore shifted ground and asked when she had last visited her master’s brother.
EPICHARIS: You are fully as boorish and malign as everyone says you are. Perhaps you did not hear me say that no one is my master.
TIG. insisted that she knew very well what he was saying; that he referred to SENECA. He wished to know when she had last visited SENECA.
EPICHARIS: MELA never goes to see SENECA. MELA is a sensitive, gentle, and retiring person. Both of his brothers are pushing men, ambitious men. MELA has no use for any of that. He stays away from all that, and…(intending to continue).
TIG. now explained with exaggerated patience that he had not asked her when her master had gone to see SENECA, but rather when she had gone.
EPICHARIS stood silent.
TIG. directed her to respond.
EPICHARIS: I will not speak to you if you persist in calling MELA my master.
TIG. reminded the WOMAN that he had ways of persuading her to speak to him, whatever he might choose to say. This, he said, should be taken as a warning. Again he asked when she had visited SENECA, and promptly suggested that it had been on the fourteenth of March. Was this not so?
EPICHARIS: I go where MELA goes.
TIG. suggested that it had been in the disguise of a farm woman selling pheasant eggs. Was this not so?
EPICHARIS: I have told you that MELA does not go to see his brother.
TIG. said that detailed information had reached the palace…(intending to continue).
EPICHARIS, with much spirit: Which cannot be proved because it is false. And let me tell you another thing. Your EMPEROR has behaved despicably toward SENECA. I am not myself fond of SENECA. His manner is too portentous, everything is inflated in him, the smallest gesture is burdened with a cartload of significance, when he strikes an attitude it is as if he were modeling for a sculptor who was carving his statue for posterity in stone. He has not a grain of the unaffected Stoical purity of MELA. Still and all, NERO has cast SENECA aside in the most heartless way—under your brutish influence. TIGELLINUS, you busy yourself with what you call information, but you have no real information at all. You have no idea what the ordinary Roman thinks of you and of your EMPEROR. Every Roman knows that SENECA has been treated badly.
Now TIG. turned what she had said around and suggested that she had made it clear that SENECA felt he had reason for resentment.
EPICHARIS: SENECA never utters a resentful word. He is sad about what is happening to his former pupil—but resentful? He is a philosopher, TIGELLINUS. I suppose you would not know the meaning of that word.
TIG. rose from his seat and sternly said that he observed EPICHARIS was not disposed to answer his questions in a straightforward way, and he directed PAENUS to put EPICHARIS in chains, speculating that perhaps the weight of the chains would take some of the vainglory out of her. He gave her notice that she would be questioned again, after she had had a few days to carry the chains and refresh her memory.
The interrogation was adjourned.
PAENUS AFRANIUS (Recorder)
To ALBINOFULVUS, Chief Magister, Imperial Stables, from TIGELLINUS
I hope you will be able to give me assurances that all is under firm control with respect to the races at the Circus of Ceres. Himself is looking forward to the occasion with tender anticipation.
To PAENUS, Tribune of Secret Police, from TIGELLINUS
I have discussed with Himself our unsatisfactory results with Epicharis, and he has authorized torture but insists on waiting two days, until after the festival of Ceres, to see whether mere confinement will not break her. I pointed out to Himself that the arrest of Epicharis will have given the alarm to all the others, if there are indeed others, and could have the effect either of precipitating a rash act on their part or of allowing them to cover their tracks and hamper our efforts to expose them. But confidentially, Paenus, Himself was badly upset by Epicharis—by her cool and brazen reference to the matricide; by her close association with Seneca and Lucan; by her being so stubborn; and perhaps also by her very good looks. It frightens him when people are not frightened of him. Have you noticed that he carries his little ivory girl-goddess to these interrogations?
Paenus, we are going to be tested at the Circus during the races. We will have to keep a wall of courage and sharp steel around Himself. As you know, he detests visible pr
otection. Outline a plan to me of a protection that is both obvious and subtle.
To TIGELLINUS from PAENUS, Tribune of Secret Police
Now you ask another of your preposterous riddles: for protection that will be invisible to Himself yet fearfully seen by his enemies. Next you will ask me for a blindfold that will improve a man’s eyesight. I have, however, one thought. Arm some women. Have you noticed how strong some of Poppaea’s freedwomen and slaves are? They are quick, too, and dextrous. Let them carry hidden weapons. Poppaea will enjoy the intrigue of arming her coterie and will surely wish to carry a dagger herself. It gives Himself pleasure to have women swarming around him. This must be regulated with care, however, as Himself will be wanting to discuss wagers and to rerun the races in conversation with men. You and I must be armed; the principal freedmen; Rufus, of course. With the help of the women we can have a thorny hedge around him.
To PAENUS, Tribune of Secret Police, from TIGELLINUS
At last you have had a good idea, and in the face of my sounder reason, which tells me that coming from you the idea must have a flaw hidden in it, I allow myself to congratulate you. I have already discussed the vigil of the Amazons with Poppaea, and, as you foretold, she is entering into the thing with a ferocious pleasure. Himself will be safe. My only concern is: Will we ever be able to disarm these women?
To TIGELLINUS from ALBINOFULVUS, Chief Magister, Imperial Stables
All is ready.
To begin with, the new fours, both the Alashkert chestnuts and the Tigris grays, are in superb form. They would win in any case. They will each run twice; thus four races are certain. But we have further assured, by “conversation,” a dramatic day. We will get the stunts out of the way in the morning—besides seven regular races, there will be two races of three-horse chariots, one of pairs, and one each of sixes and eights. I loathe those races of more than fours; so many beautiful horses are injured in them. The twelve races in the afternoon, all of fours, will be serious affairs.
By midday the Green team will be badly behind. The Green will win the first afternoon race, so that the greatest gambler of all will not go into the afternoon in bad humor…. But I will not tell you the sequence, Tigellinus, lest we be treated to the shameful spectacle of the Co-Commander of the Praetorian Guard, certain of outcomes, betting against the Emperor’s chariots in certain races.
For the desultory periods between races I have found some exceptional entertainments: a pair of Assyrian acrobats who leap back and forth, somersaulting in the air, between two galloping horses; a squad of Spaniards who mimic warfare convincingly on horseback; a fine bay jumper that soars over a chariot harnessed to a four; and the usual pennant-snatchers, dancers on bareback, and clowns. After the sixth afternoon race there will be a shower of oranges, sweets, and ginger, intermixed with tickets of chance for a villa at Antium and with several hundred filled purses.
We had almost no trouble gaining the cooperation of the Whites, the Blues, and the Reds in assuring final victory to the Greens. (We will see trainers and charioteers betting large sums against themselves—ample consolation, in most cases, for the double shame of losing and doing it corruptly.) The only team we had some trouble with was the Blues, mostly because of the vanity of a promising young driver of theirs, Priscus, who at the age of nineteen has won two hundred forty-three races and at first did not fancy the idea of wasting an afternoon; he already has so much money that he considers himself above mere bribery. But the management of that faction, as you know, have hearts of tufa. They persuaded Priscus that he should bear in mind the hazards of his profession—reminded him that drivers are apt to die rich but very young. He understood what they were saying.
Wait, Tigellinus, till you see our grays at the start of the last race, which will decide the day. Handsome Classicus will be our driver in his green tunic, helmeted, the traces tied around his waist, while in front of him will be that noble four, pawing the track, powerful as ocean waves, as our poet-Emperor said—tails knotted high, manes interlaced with pearls, breastplates covered with amulets of their winnings on tracks on other soils, collars bearing the iridescent green ribbons of the Imperial team. I have never in all my years at the stables seen such magnificent horseflesh. It will be a fine end to a fine day.
April 26
To TIGELLINUS from EPAPHRODITUS, Freedman of the Palace
Urgent.
Excuse my disturbing you at this hour and on a festive day.
One of the keepers of the gate of the Servilian gardens came to me a half hour ago saying that since before dawn a man had been beating at the portal with a staff and that no amount of shouting that the doors were shut to strangers would satisfy him. I ordered him admitted, and they brought him to me. His wife is with him. He is a certain Senator’s freedman—I will mention no names here. I have taken a dagger from him, which he says he did not mean to use, another person meant to use it. He has things to say that Himself must hear.
INTERROGATION:
Milichus
In the Presence of the Emperor. Attending: Tigellinus, Paenus, Epaphroditus; wife of Milichus; Felix, Stenographer.
The EMPEROR warned the DEPONENT that he must say what he had to say quickly, because the Imperial cortege was about to leave for the Circus.
TIGELLINUS directed DEPONENT to tell his story.
In a misguided rush the DEPONENT said that he and his wife had been discussing certain events of the previous day and night in his patron’s house; that the wife had insisted that he come directly to NERO CAESAR, that he and his wife were conscious of their duty; that the gatekeeper…(intending to continue).
TIG. ordered DEPONENT to put things in straight order, and to begin by identifying himself.
DEPONENT: I am called Milichus. My patron is FLAVIUS SCAEVINUS. I was given my cap of freedom…(intending to continue).
At this point TIG. reminded HIMSELF that the above-mentioned SCAEVINUS was a Senator; that he was a close friend to PISO; that SENECA had doubtless presented SCAEVINUS to HIMSELF, as SCAEVINUS had often backed SENECA in his projects; that HIMSELF would be most readily put in mind of SCAEVINUS by the exaggerated expression of boredom and dissolute exhaustion he constantly wore; and that he had been present and vocal at the much-discussed PISO banquet of the previous September. HIMSELF nodded to indicate that he had the right person in mind.
TIG. ordered DEPONENT to speak.
MILICHUS: He gave me my cap of freedom eight years ago. I have been his chief housekeeper. For several weeks he has not been himself, everything has been upside down in our house. Run here! Run there! He threw an iron comb at me the other day, it could have put my eye out. My wife and I have talked often about his flying off this way and that, lately. I thought it was his liver. It did not seem to be women. My wife said he had come to the stage of his life when he was forced to see that he was a trivial man who would be forgotten the moment he died, even by his own family—the dangerous age when a man of moderate ability comes to the conclusion that life is meaningless.
HIMSELF urged the FREEDMAN to move along to whatever it was he wanted to tell.
With excuses for his awkwardness, MILICHUS continued: Yesterday my patron was gone out of the house from the fourth to the ninth hour. When he came back in, he was in a very strange condition. As always he had drunk wine at the midday meal. He did not now behave in the usual dimmed and zigzag way, though. He was both agitated and depressed, I could tell he was depressed, but he covered his sober thoughts with nervous, cheerful chatter. And he began a series of actions that suggested an imminent collision with his Fate. First he had me get out his will and before witnesses he made some changes in it and sealed it with wax; his hands trembled so that he had me melt and drop the wax and press his ring into it. Then he gave me the dagger—that man has it—to sharpen. He said a dagger must be used. Disuse had dulled this one. Its sitting in a sheath had dulled it, he said.
TIG. ordered MILICHUS to go on.
MILICHUS: He told me to oil a stone and bring the dagger to a sparkling point. That was what he said. Sparkling. But I had no sooner started working on it than he summoned me and completely changed the order for his dinner, ordered a big banquet—very queer, very morbid—for himself alone, himself and his wife. Look, it was past the tenth hour, almost the eleventh. We had to run out to more than one market, I can tell you, for a goose, fresh asparagus, oysters from the Lucrine rocks, shallots, a mullet, white truffles, some larks, a certain grade of tripe—all his favorite dishes, as I knew. And a fever in the kitchens, as you can imagine, to get all these delicacies ready in time for his dinner. And while as usual he drank too much with this banquet, he did not seem drunk in the usual way. His cheeks were pale, his eyes as keen as he wanted me to make the dagger. He would seem to be in deep thought, then he would chatter and titter as if flirting with his wife (an absurd idea, I promise you on the blood of my heart), and he began calling all his household people, one by one, and he gave seven caps to slaves—that is a large number to set free at once in a household of his size, you know—and he gave money to some, the spaces between his fingers had never been so wide open, honestly. Then he walked up and down, and he called me in and told me to collect some clean tow and lint and some ligatures and straps for tourniquets—all the materials for the stopping of wounds. And was the dagger bright? I told him I hadn’t had a minute’s time…. We talked, my wife and I; this bizarre behavior of his was based on something. And we put together things we had heard, remarks, oblique exchanges with certain men about future conditions. Some mysterious references that had seemed to be code words. Arched eyebrows, you know? And it came to us in the middle of the night that you would be in danger at the Circus today, great CAESAR. And we saw that we had a duty to come to you before dawn.