Dominus

by Steven Saylor

  The plague had so far taken no one from Lucius’s family, and hardly any of his slaves, a fact that would seem quite remarkable, indeed inexplicable, were it not for the obvious explanation—the protection of the fascinum. If he knew of a way to multiply its power and share it with others, he would do so gladly—and not charge for the favor, like those so-called wonder-workers.

  The board game was suddenly over. Gaius, who had won, seemed quite pleased with himself. He went off to do something else. Pinaria also gathered up her sewing and headed elsewhere, pausing as she passed her father to whisper, “He’s in a very foul mood today,” by which she meant her uncle Kaeso.

  “But how can you tell?” Lucius whispered back.

  Pinaria rolled her eyes. The gesture reminded him of Paulina. He sighed.

  “You don’t sound very happy for a man who’s been just back from the villa on the Via Clodia,” said Kaeso, idly fingering one of the wooden dice.

  The comment stung, for Lucius had just been thinking that if Paulina were still alive, he wouldn’t be wasting his time at Verus’s orgies and making such a fool of himself—a forty-seven-year-old senator mindlessly cavorting with actors young enough to be his grandchildren, who barely disguised their contempt for him.

  “You know you’re perfectly welcome to come along, if you wish to see for yourself,” said Lucius. “Verus himself has told me so.”

  Kaeso turned up his nose. “I saw more than enough debauchery in the East with Verus. How he maintains such a voracious appetite for it, I can’t imagine. Boys, girls, wine—he could never get enough.”

  “Perhaps resorting to such behavior was his way of coping with the stresses of war. And now it’s how some of us cope with the plague. Not everyone is as resolute a Stoic as our other emperor.”

  “Thank the gods one of them has some decency and common sense!”

  “Oh, Kaeso, you sound very old for a man your age. Why, when I was twenty-seven, I was serious about my work, to be sure, but still—”

  “When you were my age, you hadn’t been to the places I’ve been to … or done the things I’ve done…”

  Lucius held his breath. Was Kaeso finally ready to talk about the mysterious experiences that weighed so heavily on him? Lucius was not sure he was ready to listen.

  “I was there,” said Kaeso quietly, staring at the wooden die between his finger and thumb. “I was there at the very beginning.”

  “The beginning of what?”

  “Of all this.”

  “Kaeso, I don’t understand. What are you saying?”

  Kaeso was silent for a long time, so long that Lucius began to feel a bit relieved, thinking the moment of candor must have passed. Then Kaeso spoke, in a strained voice that seemed to come from a person Lucius had never met.

  “The plague! You must have heard where and when it began.”

  Lucius cleared his throat. Where was a slave when one needed a cup of wine? They all seemed to have vanished, as if frightened by Kaeso’s voice. “Well, like everyone, I’ve heard various rumors, but which of them is true, I couldn’t say—”

  “In Seleucia. That’s where it began.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard that said. But you served directly under Verus, and Verus wasn’t there. He told me himself that he was far away when all that … when all the trouble in Seleucia … took place.”

  “And so he was. But I was one of the men he sent to check on the behavior of Avidius Cassius and his men. It was Cassius in charge of ‘pacifying’ the city of Seleucia. The city had already surrendered. The city fathers were cooperating with the Romans, doing whatever they were told. So there was never any need for … violence. But Verus had a bad dream, or so he said, and he feared that Cassius might let the situation get out of hand. It’s always a delicate matter, when soldiers occupy any city, no matter whether the city is friend or foe. Soldiers … take liberties. Citizens take offense. Even a small dispute can suddenly erupt into…” Kaeso’s voice trailed off.

  “We don’t have to speak of this … if you don’t want to,” offered Lucius. Truly, he was parched. Should he yell for one of the slaves? Perhaps not. Kaeso’s demeanor demanded his complete attention.

  “No, now is the time,” said Kaeso. “I have to speak of it. I will.” He was quiet again, as if summoning his courage, and then proceeded, speaking calmly and evenly, without emotion. “I showed up in Seleucia just after the violence began, so I can’t say how it started. But it was like a raging fire, spreading everywhere at once, out of control. It was like … do you believe in evil spirits, Lucius? Do you believe mortals can be possessed by such spirits?”

  Lucius shrugged.

  “It’s a common belief in that part of the world, more common the further east one goes. Perhaps they’re right. Because the things I saw Roman soldiers do that day … the look on their faces … the complete lack of mercy … the things … that I myself did that day. The atrocities…”

  “Are you saying an evil spirit possessed you?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t explain it. Before that day … and after that day … I couldn’t imagine myself—I, Kaeso Pinarius, a Roman, a man, a mortal—doing the things I did that day.”

  “Would you…” said Lucius, speaking very quietly. “Would you care to join me in drinking a bit of wine?”

  Perhaps he spoke too quietly, for Kaeso seemed not to hear him. “If you ask them, people here in Rome will say, ‘Yes, I know what happened in Seleucia.’ But it was worse, so much worse, than anything they can imagine. They have no idea. The slaughter and the bloodshed, the gore, the mutilations, the murders … not just of men, but of women—of course, women!—and children, little boys and girls younger than your Gaius! Every time I see him, I think of those little boys and girls in Seleucia. And you wonder why I no longer have a taste for Verus’s debauchery?”

  “But surely it’s not the same thing—”

  “And the blasphemy! The things that were done in temples, right in front of the gods. What were we thinking? Did we think we could do such things, and the gods would look away?”

  “Yes, I heard that temples were looted,” said Lucius.

  “Not just looted, though that was bad enough. Rape and murder! Priestesses stripped naked and tortured. I was there … I was among the Romans that day, that hour, that moment, in the temple of Apollo…”

  “Yes, yes, I’ve heard of this,” said Lucius quietly. “That the plague was somehow unleashed from a temple in Seleucia. They say a golden casket was found, assumed to be full of treasure, and the priests warned the Romans not to open it, but they did—”

  “A golden casket?” cried Kaeso. “Yes, that makes for a pretty picture, such as might grace a pretty story. Like Pandora’s box, or urn, or whatever it was.”

  Lucius was rendered speechless by the sudden scorn in his brother’s voice.

  “No, the plague was unleashed only on the following day. Verus arrived. He was appalled. He was stunned. But what was Verus to do, except make the best of the situation? The survivors of Seleucia were to be enslaved. You could hardly let them loose in the world, free to plot revenge on Rome. And the temples, already desecrated—even the gods had fled from the city, surely—the temples might as well be looted of whatever treasures they possessed. Statues, paintings, objects of silver and gold—the accumulation of many lifetimes of worship. The coins and such were to be distributed among the soldiers—as if to reward them for what they had done! The larger items were to be presented to Rome’s allies in the region, tokens of Verus’s generosity. But the very best things, the most precious, those were to be put in crates and carted back to Rome.

  “But we had to hurry! Fires had broken out all over the city, set accidentally or on purpose the previous day, and the fires were spreading out of control. Verus ordered me to oversee the collection of the statue of Apollo in the temple. I asked him not to send me—no, that’s not true, I told him I couldn’t go back into that temple, and he lost his temper—something he never does—and he very
sharply told me to do as I was ordered.

  “When I set foot inside, it was like a place I had visited in a dream—a nightmare. Surely the things I remembered doing had never happened, could never have happened—but there was the blood and gore on the walls … there was the naked body of the priestess, lying crumpled, twisted in a horrible way … and there was the statue on its pedestal, and my men with their pulleys and ropes, and I had my orders.

  “The men removed the statue and carried it outside. The pedestal had moved, and I saw something curious. I called back the men and had them shift the pedestal, and sure enough, underneath it was a trapdoor. The opening to a secret treasury, I thought! How pleased Verus would be if I had uncovered something really spectacular.

  “And then—truly, it was like something in a play!—out of nowhere a priest appeared. He must have been very well hidden the previous day—who knows what secret rooms were in that temple? But for some reason, he suddenly showed himself. He must have seen us, watching through a peephole. He saw, and couldn’t stay hidden, couldn’t keep quiet.

  “He ran toward me, screaming that I mustn’t open the trapdoor. What an old fool, I thought. How did he propose to stop me? By words alone? Even before he reached me, one of the men raised his sword and struck him down. The blade sliced into his neck, almost cutting off his head. A fountain of blood erupted from his neck. Blood was everywhere! One of the men slipped in it and fell.

  “And like a fool, like an idiot, I did exactly what the priest told me not to do. I gripped the handle of the hatch … and I opened it.”

  Kaeso fell silent and stared into space, a look of horror in his eyes.

  “And then?” whispered Lucius.

  “And then—it was as if a wound had opened in the earth and a howling, foul-smelling wind blew out. The hatch opened onto a void, not man-made but lined with rock. It was deep, endlessly deep—later, men tried to plumb the depth, and never reached the bottom. A great chasm, a festering wound, full of stench and horror. Strange, winged creatures flew out, and wasps the size of my fist, and other things … nameless things … too horrible to talk about.

  “And … carried on that rushing wind … was the plague. That was how it came into the world. There and then, in that ruined temple of Apollo. Later I was told that the opening had been closed ages ago, long before the temple of Apollo was built, by Chaldean magi using all their secret knowledge to seal it up. And I—Kaeso Pinarius—I opened it. I let loose the pestilence. I polluted the whole world!”

  He began to tremble, so violently that Lucius rushed to him and held him. “Oh, Kaeso! Surely not! Something horrible happened, I have no doubt, but the idea that you could possibly—”

  Kaeso drew ragged breaths, almost weeping. “The very next day, the first Roman soldiers fell ill outside Seleucia. The very next day! Only a few, and the sickness spread slowly at first. But from that day on, there were more and more reports of soldiers falling ill. First a handful, then scores, then hundreds. Of the men who served directly under me, not one is still alive. And when Verus returned to Rome, the plague followed right on our heels, striking every city we passed through.”

  Lucius was aghast. He tried to keep the expression from his face, lest Kaeso should see and become even more agitated. What was he to make of such a story? Kaeso could hardly have imagined the whole incident, but what had really happened, and what did it have to do with the plague?

  “Brother, I’m glad you finally told me this. I can see how heavily it’s been weighing on you. Galen says that sometimes just talking about an affliction can make the sufferer feel better.”

  “An affliction? You think I’m cursed?”

  “No, I never said that! I think something happened … something truly awful … but it may have nothing to do with the plague. As philosophers says, coincidence does not necessarily imply causation—”

  “Which do you think I need, then, a physician or a philosopher?” Kaeso laughed. It was a hollow, horrible sound.

  “Everyone has heard of the sack of the temple in Seleucia, or some version of the story,” said Lucius. “And yes, there are people who say the impiety of Roman soldiers caused the plague. But other people have other ideas. Some blame the Chaldean magi who supposedly sealed up that hole. The Chaldeans guard their wisdom too jealously and keep too many secrets. What they practice has nothing to do with Greek or Roman religion, yet suddenly their influence is everywhere. Even Marcus has come to rely on them.”

  “If only Marcus had been there, and had consulted his Chaldeans before the sack of Seleucia,” said Kaeso. “Perhaps it could all have been avoided, all the horror—”

  “And others say the Christians are to blame for the plague, because they refuse to honor the gods.”

  “Christians? Are there really enough of them to have angered the gods so much?”

  “They were blamed for the great fire under Nero, and there were fewer of them back then. And fewer still, after Nero flushed out and burned as many as he could. Yet their numbers have steadily grown since then, especially in the East. Some say the emperors need to follow Nero’s example, to put Rome right with the gods and stop the plague.”

  Lucius held his breath, fearing that Kaeso would counter with the embarrassing fact that a great-great-uncle of theirs had been among the Christians burned by Nero—and had been named Kaeso. But his brother said nothing. He turned away and began to pace back and forth across the garden.

  Poor Kaeso! How great must be his guilt and shame, that he had been driven to entertain such a notion, this preposterous idea that he and he alone had unleashed the plague the moment he opened that hatch in Seleucia. Was such a thing even possible? Marcus might know. He was Pontifex Maximus, after all, so in theory no one on earth knew more about religion than he did. But how could Lucius ever raise the question without telling Marcus the whole story?

  Galen, too, might have an opinion. Why was he not yet back in Rome?

  Through the wool of his toga, Lucius touched the fascinum. Should he have allowed Kaeso to take it with him when he went to war, to protect him? The idea had briefly crossed his mind before Kaeso set out, but Lucius had said nothing, and as it turned out, Kaeso had no need for its protection, for here he was, back from the battlefield, unscathed.

  Or was he? This terrible notion that tormented Kaeso was a sort of wound. Perhaps Galen would know how to treat it.

  The alternative—that his own brother, driven by bloodlust and greed, had singlehandedly unleashed so much suffering and death into the world—was simply unthinkable.

  * * *

  Lucius hurried across Rome, answering a summons from Marcus.

  The litter arrived at his destination and Lucius quickly stepped out. He allowed one of the bearers to adjust his toga, and then he hurried up the steps of the Hadrianeum, the temple consecrated to the divine Hadrian, one of the most beautiful in Rome. Painted panels in the vestibule depicted Hadrian on his many travels, often accompanied by Antinous. Here were images of the pyramids in Egypt, the temple of Zeus at Olympia, the Parthenon in Athens, and many more places. Hadrian had traveled more than any of his predecessors, taking advantage of the Pax Romana to visit almost every part of the empire.

  Lucius came upon Marcus, who was wearing his purple toga and staring up at the panels with a wistful gaze. As far as Lucius knew, Marcus had never ventured out of Italy.

  Marcus turned his gaze to Lucius. He sighed. “It is never a good thing to feel envy, and the wise man avoids it altogether, but sometimes I feel rather envious of Hadrian. All the places he traveled, all the wonders he beheld! Sometimes I feel a bit envious of Verus, for his travels to Greece and Asia, though I most certainly do not envy him the battles he’s fought and all the bloodshed he’s seen.”

  “Nor do I envy my brother for his travel,” said Lucius quietly.

  Marcus sighed. “Yet, at the same time, I’m relieved that I have not been obliged to travel. Even with all my endless duties here in Rome, I still find time for peaceful conte
mplation in a garden, or for quiet reading, or for conversation with the many philosophers who reside in Rome. Let’s hope it stays that way, with Verus traipsing off to see the far edges of the world while I am allowed to remain here in Rome, where the world, whether I like it or not, comes to me.”

  “The ravages of the plague must weigh heavily on you, Verissimus.”

  Marcus Aurelius smiled sadly, comforted by the sound of the pet name Hadrian had given him so long ago. “Along with the plague that kills, there is another plague, if that I may call it, of charlatans and false prophets and tricksters who take advantage of the situation.”

  “Indeed,” agreed Lucius. “A man can hardly set foot outside his home without encountering such scoundrels. Not long ago, I saw one of them arrested, a fellow pretending to deliver oracles—from a fig tree, if you can believe it!”

  Marcus nodded. “I am aware of the incident.”

  “Are you? Such a petty matter hardly seems important enough to merit your attention, Verissimus.”

  “Nevertheless, the case was brought before me, and I tried the matter myself.”

  “Did you? Well, I presume the fellow was summarily crucified, or strangled, or received whatever penalty the law prescribes.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Perhaps he deserved to die, but I did not deserve the burden of inflicting such a punishment. There is enough death already in the city—in the whole world, for that matter. I let him go.”

  “Unpunished?”

  “He was placed on a ship and sent back to his native city—where, I can’t remember—and barred from ever stepping foot in Italy again.”

  “Verissimus, truly you are merciful.”