by Randy Singer
When I finished listing the names, there was a stony silence inside the hall. Caligula gave me the same look he had years earlier, the slit eyes harboring a smoldering desire to exact revenge. I could tell he wasn’t sure whether any of the witnesses would actually have the courage to testify about the emperor’s bouts with parliamentary disease. In truth, the only one I had even talked to was Marcus.
And even if Flavia testified about spending the night with Caligula, he could still reject her testimony and the testimony of any witnesses I paraded forward to talk about his parliamentary disease. But once the words had been spoken in front of such a vast audience, he would never be able to undo the damage. People would put the big picture together. Caesar would be stigmatized. I was gambling everything, including my own life, on the belief that he was too prideful to call my bluff.
“Flavia full well understands her sacred vows as a Vestal Virgin,” I continued. “Those vows are no less sacred than the vows Your Excellency swore when you were named Princeps. She has faithfully performed her duties as a Vestal, and I would respectfully submit that she has been every bit as faithful to her vows and her office as the most noble and high-ranking officials of this great empire. May Your Excellency exercise great wisdom as you consider the fate of one of Rome’s most revered priestesses.”
I stared down Caligula for a moment before I returned to my seat. The applause started behind me, near the back wall, and then rippled around the room until a frustrated Caligula again demanded silence.
He stood and called for a recess.
“Bring the advocates,” he ordered. He left the dais and disappeared behind the gold-plated doors. Two guards came and escorted me back to join him.
I stood next to Caepio Crispinus, staring straight ahead, while Caligula paced around the room and berated us. We had turned these proceedings into a farce, Caligula said. Crispinus had goaded the prisoner and turned the crowd against the prosecution. Caligula accused me of soliciting perjured testimony and said I ought to be whipped to death along with Mansuetus.
“The entire city is in an uproar because you two imbeciles don’t know how to do your jobs!” Caligula screamed. He knocked over a small statute and sent golden goblets flying off the shelves. It was a temper tantrum of unrestrained proportions, and I feared for my life.
At one point, he stopped directly in front of me. “Do you remember what happened to your hero Cicero?”
“He met an undeserved fate,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm.
“He got exactly what he deserved,” Caligula shot back. “And I have half a mind to do the same thing to you. Display your head and hands on the Rostra, and we’ll see how that silver tongue dances then.”
His face was red with rage, spittle spraying from his lips. “I could kill you right now.” He motioned to the guards around him. “I have plenty of witnesses who would testify that you attacked me first.”
I stared past the man and tried not to flinch. He was smart enough to realize that he would have an outright revolt on his hands if he reappeared in the judgment hall having killed the advocate for Mansuetus. At least I hoped he understood that.
He turned to Crispinus. “And you. I give you a simple job to do, and you turn it into a mockery.” He looked at us both, back and forth, and for the first time in my life I felt a certain kinship with Crispinus. Even the best advocates were powerless in front of the tyranny of a madman.
“Mansuetus and Flavia are both guilty. I should have all four of you executed together.” He turned his back on us. “Get them out of here.”
The guards escorted us back into the judgment hall, where the crowd was in a state of agitation. There was a lot of murmuring and restlessness and soldiers casting wary looks at the mob behind them. If Mansuetus was convicted, there would be a massive amount of bloodshed.
A few minutes later, the trumpets sounded, a lictor called the court to order, and Caesar reemerged. He took his seat, and a hush fell over the vast hall. His face was still clouded with anger, and I felt like I might explode with tension.
The emperor sat there for a moment as if deep in thought, then surveyed the crowd and stood. He looked at the two prisoners—Mansuetus kneeling and Flavia standing beside him. The emperor took his time and let the drama build.
“I have conferred with the advocates, and I see no need to hear testimony,” Caligula said at last. “The prisoner Mansuetus has proven himself to be a courageous warrior in the arena, and I get the sense that more than a few citizens would love to see him fight again.”
The emperor smirked. “And perhaps someplace other than in this judgment hall.”
People laughed nervously while a few shouted their agreement.
“As would I. At best, the testimony against this prisoner would consist of one member of the Praetorian Guard who believes he saw the prisoner having sex with a Vestal Virgin on the ninth of June. But it was dark, and the witness was watching from a distance. Against that testimony, the advocates have told me that I would have the sworn word of Mansuetus that it was not him.”
Caligula looked down at Mansuetus. “Would that be your testimony?”
The gladiator raised his eyes to Caesar. “It would.”
“Very well. Because I am inclined to believe a man like you, a man who has displayed unsurpassed valor in the arena, I see no need to take formal testimony. I am declaring Mansuetus not guilty of the charges presented against him.”
The place erupted, and Caligula made no effort to stop it. The roar echoed through the hall and spread outside. For a few glorious minutes, the entire Palatine Hill resounded with the glee of a crowd who had just witnessed a miracle.
Mansuetus slumped forward as if overcome with emotion. Flavia reached down and placed a hand on his shoulder.
But Caligula wasn’t done. When the crowd’s hollering and backslapping and embracing had stopped, he spoke to Flavia. “I find your proffered testimony about spending the night with a man who had parliamentary disease to be preposterous. My suspicion is that you have violated your vows as a Vestal Virgin with some man other than Mansuetus.”
As he spoke, the jubilant crowd tensed up again. They cared most about Mansuetus, but they also loved the Vestals. I got the feeling that, having tasted victory, they would not settle for half a loaf.
“However, I have already determined that Mansuetus did not engage in an illicit relationship with you on the night of June 9. And because those are the only charges before me today, I must therefore dismiss the charges against you as well.”
Flavia bowed her head in appreciation, and another roar rose from the crowd, though not as loud as the first. Patiently, Caligula again waited for the cheering to subside.
“Ten days from now, at the games in honor of Caesar Augustus, we will all celebrate by watching Mansuetus fight again. May the gods be with you.”
Caesar raised his scepter, and the trumpeters in the balcony brought their trumpets to their lips.
“Set them free!” Caligula ordered. Then he spun on his heel and headed out of the judgment hall.
The trumpets blared, or at least they must have. But from where I stood, every note was drowned out by the loudest cheering I had ever heard.
CHAPTER 54
The rest of that day was a blur. The three of us left the Imperial Palace to a thunderous roar. We walked the gauntlet of well-wishers, Mansuetus limping and wincing with each step.
Word of our victory arrived at the Forum before our little entourage got there, and the place exploded in celebration. Flavia seemed self-conscious and, along with her lictors, worked her way through the crowd toward the House of Vestal at her first opportunity. Mansuetus was carried away by his fellow gladiators to the cheers of his adoring fans. That left me to mount the steps of the Rostra and give a speech to the assembled crowd.
I swallowed hard and praised Caligula for his great discernment. I talked about the critical role of the Vestals in Roman society and how seriously Flavia took her duties. But it was my segment about the
gladiators that produced the greatest ovation. They taught us valor and courage, I said. Determination and persistence. And Mansuetus, the greatest gladiator of all, taught us that we could smile in the face of life’s greatest difficulties and attack the deadliest dangers with joy in our step.
The crowd loved it, but the irony was not lost on me. Several years earlier, I had been trying to shut down the games. Now I was praising the heroes those games had produced, heroes who rose from the bloodlust.
That night, I lay awake in bed with the same foreboding thoughts I had nurtured sixteen years earlier, contemplating the consequences of what I had done. I was drained from the day’s proceedings and mellowed by the wine we had consumed in celebration. But I had no illusions about my own safety. The crowds might have hailed our victory, but I had enraged the emperor, not to mention Caepio Crispinus and other powerful men. Sixteen years ago, Caligula had wasted no time before striking back. Would it be any different now?
There were a thousand ways he could mete out revenge. A charge of maiestas. A random mugging by his hirelings on the streets of Rome. An assignment to a far-flung province. Or perhaps it would be something more spectacular, something that would humiliate me so he could watch me suffer. If that was the case, it would at least buy me a little time while he planned it.
I kept a dagger next to my bed that night. Not because I thought I could fight off a band of soldiers dispatched by Caligula to arrest me. But so that I might use it to slit my own wrists before they got the chance.
The next morning, I was summoned to Seneca’s house for the salutatio, the formal morning reception. I skipped both breakfast and my morning shave and joined Seneca’s other clients in his spacious front hall.
Unlike on prior visits, his head servant did not bump me to the front of the line. Instead, I watched as one client after another was ushered back for a meeting with the great philosopher while I waited my turn.
Unlike the freedmen who had greeted me in the Forum yesterday as a hero, the aristocrats in Seneca’s hall averted eye contact. A few offered a forced word of congratulations, but the mood was generally sour.
Even before yesterday’s trial, Seneca’s star had started to decline. It was rumored that Agrippina the Younger had taken up her mother’s feud with Seneca and was influencing Caligula. As a result, Seneca had stopped receiving invitations to the emperor’s lavish banquets, and his counsel was no longer welcome in Caligula’s inner circle. I noticed that the men who were here this morning were fewer in number and lower in stature than the men I had seen on previous occasions.
When the hall was empty, Seneca came out to meet me. He dismissed his slaves and waited until they had left before saying what was on his mind.
“I suppose congratulations are in order for your magnificent performance yesterday,” he said.
“I had a good teacher,” I said.
“Then perhaps you should have listened to him,” Seneca said dourly. His eyelids looked heavy, his expression pained. “I taught you to follow the truth. Yesterday, you built your case on a lie.”
“You taught me to fight for justice. When the judge is a tyrant, I’ll do whatever is necessary to save my client.”
“Including risking the life of your mentor?”
“Is that what this is about?”
“Don’t play the fool,” Seneca said sharply. He lowered his eyebrows in anger. “You listed me as a witness without talking to me about it first. After everything I’ve done for you, you brought the wrath of Caesar on me and my household. Who gave you authority to use my name as a bargaining chip?”
His resentment caught me off guard. But I wasn’t about to apologize for defending my clients. “What happened to you?” I asked. “What happened to the man who stood up for me sixteen years ago against this same family?”
Seneca scoffed at the question. “Rome is what happened to me. Do you have any idea what I’ve had to do just to survive? You think you can reap the largesse of everything I’ve earned and never make any compromises? If you loved Rome as much as I do, you would understand that the only way to save her is to navigate her treachery and outlive madmen like Caligula. I will decide when to sacrifice my life for the principles I believe in! I will choose the manner of my death! I don’t need people who call themselves my friends doing that for me!”
I had realized Seneca might be upset, but I wasn’t prepared for the sharpness and intensity of his rebuke. I stood there speechless. I had so much respect for this man. Perhaps he was right. What basis did I have to enlist him in my deadly cause without his permission?
“We spent nights together strategizing,” Seneca continued. “Just by being seen with you in the baths I was endangering my life. Yet never once did you tell me that you intended to sacrifice my good name in support of your cause.”
“That’s because I didn’t know myself until—”
“Spare me,” Seneca said. “I don’t want your rationalizations or excuses. What’s done is done.”
We both took a breath, and I lowered my voice. “I’m sorry. I’ll do whatever I can to make it right.”
“There’s nothing you can do to ‘make it right.’ I’ve had plans in place, Theophilus.” He shook his head, and his look went from frustration to disappointment. “Plans to install the right man in the palace. At the right time, in the right way. I was willing to put my life on the line for Rome when it would make a difference. Thanks to you, those plans are over.”
I didn’t say anything; there was nothing left to say. I had hurt the man most responsible for every good thing that had ever happened to me. My feelings for Flavia had blinded me. I had used Seneca, and I had been wrong to do it.
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
He stared at me for a moment as if trying to determine whether my apology was sincere. “What happened yesterday was not the end of the matter,” Seneca said. “All you did was poke the lion. Watch your back, Theophilus. We are both in mortal danger now.”
CHAPTER 55
I left the house that evening with a dagger tucked under my toga and headed to a dark corner of the city. I walked down a narrow street filled with insulae, the high-rise apartment buildings that dominated the city, numbering more than fifty thousand at last count. Seneca once told me that the city was so dense with these buildings that if all the apartments in Rome had been built at ground level, the city would have stretched 120 miles to the Adriatic coast.
As I walked, my nostrils filled with the pungent odor of human and animal waste, oil and grease, and the stale remains of the day’s meals. It reminded me how fortunate I was to be able to afford my own house now, one detached from other buildings, with a small garden area in the center. There were less than four thousand homes like that inside the city walls, though mine was certainly one of the smallest.
I found the address I was looking for, a building more elegant than most. It was made of brick, not wood, and had a decorative stripe of Pompeian red about five feet off the ground. There were balconies on the upper floors filled with flower vases, hanging plants, and climbing vines that wrapped themselves around the railings and framed the windows.
I walked past the shops on the ground floor and took the steps to the second-floor landing. There I found the engraved oak door and used the brass knocking ring. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other while I waited.
The woman who answered was younger than I had imagined, thin and wiry with a hooked nose and a face that looked like it had been put in a vise and squeezed to make it long and narrow. Her jaw stuck out, and her eyeballs seemed a size too big for their sockets.
She greeted me warmly and escorted me into a large waiting room.
There were vases of flowers lining the walls and paintings with vivid colors—orange, purple, red, and yellow. A large marble table with a statue of a man I didn’t recognize dominated the room. A few throw rugs were scattered about. This wasn’t the home of a wealthy person, but she was clearly getting by. Business was apparently good.
Her name was Locusta, and she had been recommended to me by a former client.
She beckoned me to a seat and promised that she would keep the meeting confidential.
“How did you get my name?” she asked, crossing one leg over the other and shifting in her seat. The woman brimmed with energy.
“I’d rather not say.”
“That’s fine. You’re aware of my terms?”
“Yes.” I took out a pouch of money and handed it to her.
She took it and spread the coins on the table, counting them carefully. When she was done, she scooped the money back into the pouch and looked at me.
“You must want my top grade,” she said, smiling. Her teeth were crooked on the bottom.
This whole transaction was unsettling. I had expected to do business with Locusta in the dark, in hushed tones, never getting a good look at her face. Instead, the apartment was well lit, well furnished, and she acted like she was selling me an expensive piece of art.
“I want it to work. And I don’t want to suffer.”
“Yes, yes, that’s what they all say.”
She paused for a second as if she had heard someone or maybe just remembered something. “Can I get you a drink?” she asked.
“No thanks.”
She gave me a crooked grin. “For some odd reason, nobody ever says yes to that question.”
I didn’t smile.
“Let’s see, where was I? Ah, yes . . . you’ve come to the right place. Others will sell you potions that don’t work. Bull’s blood, toads, salamanders, snakes, spiders, scorpions, mercury, arsenic—you might as well drink your own urine.” As she spoke, she flipped her wrist, dismissing her inferior competitors.
Then she leaned forward a little and narrowed her eyes. “The best poisons are all vegetable-based—mandrakes, hemlocks, opium. Do you want it mixed in honey, or would you rather drop it in wine?”
I had no idea poison came in so many varieties. “I want it to fit in as small a container as possible.”