by John Hersey
I will be ready to go to Epicharis in a few minutes. Is everything ready?
To TIGELLINUS from PAENUS, Tribune of Secret Police
Urgent.
Epicharis is dead.
Following your instructions after the Scaevinus interrogation, I ordered her moved to the room with the machines. Because her limbs had all been pulled out of joint last night, she was of course unable to stand, and two men carried her in a wooden chair; an officer of the Guard was with them. The bearers put the chair down by the door of the torture room and, secure in the certainty that she could not rise to escape, the three stood somewhat apart waiting for the Tribune of the Guard to come to unlock the door of the room. During this time, without the slightest awareness on the part of the three that anything was happening, Epicharis somehow—the pain must have been great—managed to remove her breastband, to fasten it in a kind of noose around her neck, and to loop it over the arched back of the chair. Then, with great fortitude, using a combination of the weight of her body and what little strength Cassius had left in her last night to tug at the noose, she cut off her breath, ensuring that she would speak no single word under duress at your hands to harm Mela, Lucan, Seneca, or their friends. You had so intimidated me by your last message last night that I was keeping my distance—not that I can be sure that my vigilant presence would have made any difference.
After your message just now asking if all was ready, I went to check—and found her body.
Call me a traitor or whatever you wish, I am convinced that Epicharis was stronger than Cassius, stronger than I. She has now shown herself stronger than you, too.
To TIGELLINUS from PAENUS, Tribune of Secret Police
Urgent.
We have Lucan.
Piso was not at his house.
Stormy behavior of Lucan, violently protesting his arrest. Angry accusations that you, Tigellinus, are indulging a longstanding jealousy in persecuting him—a jealousy founded on your total want of education and sensibility, and upon your knowledge that even Himself’s proscription of Lucan was a perverse product of Himself’s recognition of Lucan’s genius. A tirade. It continues at full shout in the next room as I dictate this.
Cassius and the stenographer are here. We are ready to interrogate.
To PAENUS, Tribune of Secret Police, from TIGELLINUS
Urgent.
Himself insists, against my advice, upon questioning Lucan in person. Himself wanted to talk with him alone, but Poppaea and I have persuaded him after much argument that both of us should be present.
Send Lucan to Himself’s bedroom at once.
To PAENUS, Tribune of Secret Police, from TIGELLINUS
Dictated in haste.
The great blustering poet is abjectly broken, admits a plot, and has given names. What a pathetic performance!
Himself commands the arrest (using for the purpose joint squads of newly recruited soldiers and trusted agents) of:
Tullius Severus
Afranius Quintianus
Glitius Gallus
Annius Polio
Plautius Lateranus
Lucan confirms complicity of Piso, Scaevinus, and Natalis.
Himself orders Lucan to be allowed to return to his house, where he is to remain until further notice. See to it that he reaches his house, that he is left free within it, but that all gates are closely watched. If he tries to escape he is to be executed on the spot.
I am to make a record of the Lucan interrogation. I will dictate it as soon as I can.
Any word of Piso?
To RUFUS, Co-Commander, Praetorian Guard, from TIGELLINUS
Urgent.
Himself commands the arrest, on information of sedition, of the Praetorian Tribune Subrius Flavus. This is the man, Rufus, whom you said you trusted more than any other officer of the Guard. Lucan names him as complicit in a conspiracy against the Person.
Himself also commands the arrest, on the same information, of the Praetorian Centurion Sulpicius Asper—the man who was entrusted to bring Scaevinus’s dagger into the Presence not three hours ago.
Himself orders that you use for these arrests, and that you put at the disposal of Paenus for necessary arrests of civilians, only raw recruits, men who have joined the Guard within the last two weeks; he cannot know which veterans, if any, to trust at this moment.
To PAENUS, Tribune of Secret Police, from TIGELLINUS
Urgent.
Himself greatly agitated by the Lucan revelations. Dispatch all the agents you can quickly assemble who have special training in hand-to-hand combat to the Imperial chambers for emergency protection of the Person.
Trust you have sent out teams for the arrests. We must move fast. We need more names. This is the moment when, if they have any spirit, those who remain at large can act.
Courage. If you could have seen the groveling performance of our poet, the self-proclaimed genius, the insufferable egoist—he went like a bubble!
To RUFUS, Co-Commander, Praetorian Guard, from TIGELLINUS
Urgent.
Himself commands a maximum show of force in the city. Station the Guard at the city gates and at all approaches to the palace, according to our agreed plan, modified however as follows:
Largest contingents, horse and foot, in the Forum and at the Capitol. Patrols along the banks of the river. Mix in German soldiers, from the Legions encamped to the east of the city, with each complement of the Praetorian Guard. Himself feels that being foreigners, and therefore disinterested, the Germans are to be trusted more than Romans in a Guard tainted by officers like Subrius and Asper.
As part of the show of force, prisoners should be dealt with roughly. They should be put in chains; some should be dragged. But leave enough life in them to confess and give names. Tell Paenus this.
To TIGELLINUS from RUFUS, Co-Commander, Praetorian Guard
Urgent.
Piso is showing himself at the Rostra of the Forum. A large crowd is gathering.
To RUFUS, Co-Commander, Praetorian Guard, from TIGELLINUS
Himself commands that a troop of soldiers be dispatched to find Piso, whether at the Forum, or at the Praetorian Camp, where he may well go to try to win the support of the Guard, or at his house, or wherever he may be, and to pronounce the sentence of death.
The Emperor orders that you use for this purpose a mixed troop of raw recruits and Germans, as previously stipulated.
To TIGELLINUS from RUFUS, Co-Commander, Praetorian Guard
A prompt and ironic arrest has been made, as commanded, of the Tribune Subrius Flavus. Why ironic? It was he who brought us, a few minutes ago, the news of the Piso challenge.
To PAENUS, Tribune of Secret Police, from TIGELLINUS
Here are my minutes of the interrogation of Lucan. I shall dictate them straight off while we are waiting for new arrestees to be brought in, and will charge you with putting them in the proper form for the record when you have time.
Himself commanded the four agents who had brought Lucan to the bedchamber to leave the room, and I took them out and posted them beyond the second pair of doors.
The interview began awkwardly. Himself and Lucan commenced to bicker, like former lovers who could not understand why they had had a falling out.
Lucan asked what all this meant. What was Himself doing to him?
The Emperor asked Lucan why he hated him so much.
Lucan said it was the other way around. He was the injured one. Himself had put a gag in his mouth.
Himself began to recall Lucan’s most extravagant eulogies—the “Praise of Nero” which Lucan had read at the Neronia; the lines in the first book of the Pharsalia, including:
Rome is my subject, and you are my muse!
Lucan accused Himself of turning against him, s
aying with insulting arrogance: You had the power and I had the genius.
Himself became extremely angry at this, and said that that might be, but Lucan was greedy to want them both.
Now Poppaea spoke aside to Himself, suggesting that perhaps it would be best if she and I were to carry the questioning forward. She asked me if I was not well prepared to question Lucan, and I said I was well and long prepared. At first Himself was petulantly scornful of Poppaea’s suggestion, but she said that picking at scabs could only bring out blood and pus, and she stroked Himself’s arm, and while Himself hesitated I took the initiative and asked a question which caused such effective confusion in Lucan that Himself made no further objection, evidently deciding to let the interrogation drift to the Empress and to me, at least for a time.
My question: What is a writer’s responsibility, Lucan?
Lucan, faltering, asked what I meant. What was I trying to say?
I then asked if Lucan thought Seneca would be a good person to consult on the issue: What is a writer’s responsibility?
Lucan, greatly surprised and enraged, took refuge now in an outburst of obscenity directed at me.
I then said that if I were Seneca, I would give this advice: Think about this sentence, my nephew, written by Epicurus: Ungoverned anger begets madness…. What would Lucan say to that advice?
By now it was clear that Lucan understood the thrust of my questions: He was warned that I had had access to his private correspondence. He was exposed and stood confused.
At this point Poppaea broke in with a series of questions. Not for the record, Paenus—we should have had this remarkable woman in our apparatus all along. She was devastating. Her first questions were based on pure speculation, or actually on lies. She did not wait for a ready answer to each question, which in any case Lucan was not now in a condition, or at least was not disposed, to give.
Was Lucan aware, Poppaea asked, that his wife Polla, who pretended to be so solicitous of his welfare and reputation, was a whore? Would he like a list of the men she had slept with in the last six weeks? Did Lucan realize that when he fell out of favor at court Polla had decided he was no longer the right steed for her ambitions?
Lucan shouted that she was lying—making things up to beat him with; but his manner showed that he half believed Poppaea. It almost seemed that he wanted to believe her.
I then said that Lucan had been a priest of the College of Augurs for three years—that he had mocked his priestly duty on the single occasion when he had undertaken an auspice; that he had scorned the documents of office. Was that made up to beat him with? Did he think that a man of genius was above civilian duty? Did he think it was the responsibility of a writer to scorn the fortune and welfare of his fellow men?
At this Lucan turned to Himself and in a tone that fell weakly between pride and supplication asked why he was treated in this way.
Poppaea, now showing, or feigning, great anger, quickly asked what ever had made Lucan think he could get away with a second public reading of a poem which in a contest had defeated a poem written by his friend the Emperor of Rome.
LUCAN, in a kind of agony: My friend? My friend?
HIMSELF: I was your friend.
Seeing Himself touched and softened by Lucan’s discomfiture, I quickly remarked that Lucan had written in one of his letters to his uncle: Who said that my Pharsalia is about the past? Not I…. What then was his Pharsalia about?
This time I waited—all three of us waited—for an answer. Lucan looked so comically upset that I could not desist saying that Seneca had written to him: The responsibility of a writer is to avoid frenzy.
Now Lucan said with suddenly renewed spirit: My poem is about Rome’s need for another Cato.
Himself did not like that remark. One could see within both these men a turbulent rush back and forth of conflicting emotions. Though Himself and Lucan were at this moment simultaneously very angry, the Empress and I sensed that the anger in Himself could not be depended on. It might give way after another exchange to another moment of more kindly melting and remorse. Lucan was clearly rattled now, but he was far from ready to make either concession or confession.
At this time Poppaea demonstrated two things—that she can shoot an arrow with terrible aim into the vital spot even of a leaping deer; and that she, if not Himself, had carefully read such of our reports as I had from time to time made available to highest eyes.
She said contemptuously that Lucan looked not so much frenzied as like a hunchback at the start of a race who was afraid of being outrun by a dwarf.
This brought a sharp and unexpected crack of laughter from Himself. Lucan grew pale.
POPPAEA: You do not like that, do you, Lucan?
The parade of little shocks and surprises seemed to be bringing Lucan to the edge of the kind of anger in which the most self-destructive indiscretions are seated. I therefore added one more. I asked what Lucan had meant when he had written to Seneca: I do not wish to be free and dead, I wish to be free and alive.
Poppaea asked, without giving Lucan time to answer me, what he had meant when he had written: King Midas has an ass’s ears. One actually heard a rather ugly grunt from Himself at that question. She added at once the further question, what he had meant when he had written: Juno plays with Jupiter’s bolts.
It was necessary to follow quickly with another blow, and risking Himself’s anger at me I hastily asked Lucan what he had meant when he had promised to deliver to a friend a severed head with the neck of a bull and the hair of a girl.
Now came Poppaea’s master stroke. She turned to me.
POPPAEA: Send for Epicharis. Bring Epicharis in.
Your message to me about Epicharis’s death had reached me just as I had been about to go to torture her. I had hurried then to the entrance to the machine room to see her body with my own eyes, and on my return to the Presence I had described to Himself and the Empress exactly what these eyes had seen: The chair bearing the dead woman’s body, with the noose of her breastband still at her neck, her clothing disordered, her bosom exposed, her limbs awry and joints swollen and purple, and, perceptible on closer inspection, the small contusions and burns and incisions of Cassius’s skill; her face, however, still set in that calm that had carried you, Paenus, the night before, to the rim of subversion.
What a diabolical idea of Poppaea’s! One could read from Lucan’s expression that he expected to see a living Epicharis, that he took strength from this anticipation, being confident of her stubborn spirit. Of course he had known of her arrest. Could one see as well a glimmer of a lover’s hope? What would happen to his confidence and hope when he saw the wrecked shell I had seen? I turned to go to the door. But—
HIMSELF: I will not allow it. No, Tigellinus.
I turned back. Once more one saw that an uncontrollable thaw of feelings had set in. Poppaea began to remonstrate.
HIMSELF: No, Poppaea, I will not permit anything of the sort. (To Lucan, very gently:) Epicharis is dead.
LUCAN, horrified: Dead?
Lucan evidently had seen Himself’s compassion and had been convinced by it of the truth of the death.
Poppaea and I realized that we must follow up firmly, because Himself was also shocked by Poppaea’s idea and was overflowing with a perverse and unreasoning sympathy for Lucan.
TIGELLINUS: She died under torture.
POPPAEA: She told us everything. She was very cowardly, Lucan—that surprises you, doesn’t it? She gave us names.
I remembered Lucan’s superstitious terror of the unlucky number seventeen, and I said Epicharis had given us seventeen names.
Once again Himself afforded us a surprise: It was clear that in spite of his sudden outpouring of pity for Lucan he understood exactly what point we had reached. He did not deny our lies. Instead—
HIMSELF: Lucan, why did yo
u join a plot against me?
Lucan suddenly burst into tears.
LUCAN: I…My mother made me.
POPPAEA: Your what?
HIMSELF: Your mother?
LUCAN: Oh, yes, she is in it. She forced me to join. Atilla. My mother. (And other similar protestations, at length, interspersed with sobs.)
HIMSELF (with a candor which, in its offhandedness yet its chill delivery, put me quite off balance—and clearly did the Empress, too): Come, now, Lucan, not your mother. You’re just saying that in the hope that a man who killed his mother will admire a man who is willing to destroy his. Isn’t that so?
LUCAN: No, no! She forced me to join. (And more such, but with less sobbing.)
TIGELLINUS: Who were the other conspirators besides your mother?
LUCAN (so far beyond honor as to grovel in his dishonor): I do not like to betray my friends.
HIMSELF: Not your friends, only your own mother, is that it?
At this Lucan plunged with a kind of horrible joy prostrate into that filth of his bad faith, and he recited quickly these names: Caius Piso, Antonius Natalis, Flavius Scaevinus, Afranius Quintianus, Tullius Severus, Glitius Gallus.
Then Poppaea asked a question whose answer I was most curious to hear: Which man had Lucan favored for the succession—Seneca or Piso?
LUCAN: Piso.
By answering thus Lucan confirmed the complicity and focal positions of both.
TIGELLINUS: What military men have been involved?
LUCAN: I only know of the Tribune Subrius Flavus and the Centurion Sulpicius Asper, but I believe there are others. Piso would know.
And so it suddenly appeared that Lucan in his craven condition was offering to be helpful, was offering to be the bosom friend he had formerly been, as if treason, rejection, resentment, abuse, satires, the echoes of a stinking fart—all were nothing. Himself, with his magnificent instinct for self-preservation, now saw that by acting as if the treachery had been someone else’s, not Lucan’s at all, and as if Lucan were still in fact a dear friend and protector—by pretending so, he could learn some more of what he now needed to know. He spoke to Lucan in a gentle, casual voice.