The gardens on the inhabited side of the Villa Iovis had been laid out on a slope that ran down to the cliff-top; a tall wall masking off the building works gave them privacy.
Tiberius led them, escorted by Clemens and his two men, down a set of grand steps lined with statues of naked gods and heroes on to a wide marble path that bisected the gardens and terminated, as far as Vespasian could make out, at the cliff’s edge, two hundred paces away. On either side, shrubs and bushes were bursting into life encouraged by the spring sun and an irrigation system that pumped water at regular intervals through pipes directly into the beds.
This same system provided the water for the many fountains that fed ornamental pools set on descending levels so that the water cascaded downhill, falling from one pool into the next. The pools were surrounded by small, lifelike statues that, to Vespasian’s amazement, came alive as the Emperor approached. The statues turned out to be children, adolescents and dwarves, who began to cavort lewdly around the pools’ edges, occasionally jumping in, either in pairs or groups, to copulate freely in the shallow water.
‘My fishies have awoken,’ Tiberius cried, waving his hands with joy. ‘Swim and play, my fishies; I will join you later. Will you come and play with the fishies with me, my sweet?’
‘Yes, Nuncle,’ Caligula replied with what Vespasian hoped was feigned enthusiasm, ‘but after my friend and his companions have gone.’
‘Perhaps they would like to join us?’
‘I’m sure that they would, Nuncle, what could be more fun for them? But unfortunately they must return to Rome, as you’ve instructed.’
‘Yes, yes, Rome; they must go back to Rome,’ Tiberius said sadly.
‘And you said’, Caligula carried on carefully, ‘that you would tell them what course of action you’ll take against that wicked man, Nuncle, so that they can warn Antonia, who’s your friend, and she can be ready to help you.’
Tiberius stopped abruptly and glared at Caligula, who looked momentarily afraid but then managed to cover it with a look of placid innocence.
‘I didn’t say that, you little viper!’ Tiberius roared. ‘Are you trying to upset my peace of mind?’
Caligula went down on to one knee. ‘Forgive me, Princeps,’ he said humbly, ‘sometimes I’m just so happy here that I muddle things up.’
Although terrified and unable to take his eyes off the potentially fatal situation in front of him, Vespasian noticed that the fishies had become living statues once again; all had frozen in whatever act they were performing at the point of their master’s roar.
Tiberius stared down at Caligula; rage burned all over his face and he clenched and unclenched his fists. He cocked his head a couple of times, clicking his neck, and then, gradually, he began to calm.
‘Yes, yes, my sweet, I know,’ he eventually sighed, ‘it’s so easy to muddle things up when one is so happy.’ He held out his hand and helped Caligula up. Vespasian and his party, who had all been holding their breath, exhaled with relief simultaneously; the noise caused Tiberius to spin around and stare at them as if he had forgotten that they were there. After a terrifying moment his eyes registered recognition.
‘When you get to Rome tell Antonia that next month I will resign my consulship,’ he said evenly. ‘That will force Sejanus to do the same and his person will no longer be inviolate. I will write to the Senate detailing his treacheries and demanding his arrest and trial; then I shall replace him. I know this Macro whom Antonia has recommended in her letter; he’s married to my good friend Thrasyllus’ daughter Ennia. I’m sure that he is up to the job and and able to shoulder some of my burden; he’s a good man.’
‘He is a good man, Princeps,’ Pallas confirmed, using a definition of “good” that Vespasian had never heard before.
‘And his wife is a beauty, Nuncle,’ Caligula informed him. ‘I dined with her at Grandmother’s house once; I’d like to see her again.’
‘That settles it. I shall arrange for him to visit me here; he can bring his wife so that she can play with my sweet. Come and look over the cliffs with me.’ Tiberius turned and walked purposefully down the path.
The fishies resumed their play.
At the end of the path a brown-skinned, grey-bearded man wearing a leather skull-cap and a long, black robe embroidered with astrological signs and symbols stood looking out to sea.
‘Thrasyllus, my friend,’ Tiberius called in Greek as they approached the cliff-edge, ‘is it an auspicious time to make changes? I must know because a change needs to be made.’
Thrasyllus turned to face the Emperor. ‘The stars say that you are the master of change, Princeps,’ he replied in a melodramatic, quavering voice. ‘You are here to oversee the greatest change of all: the dawn of the new age. Even now the Phoenix is preparing to fly to Egypt, the country of my birth, where in three years’ time flames will consume it and it will be reborn from the ashes of its body; a new five-hundred-year cycle will commence. The world will change, and you, Princeps, through your wisdom and greatness, will guide the Empire through that change.’
‘I’ll wait three years then,’ Tiberius said suddenly deflated.
Vespasian glanced at Caligula in alarm, concerned that the astrologer would deflect Tiberius from his purpose.
‘You may find that the waiting will play on your peace of mind, Nuncle,’ his young friend said; his voice oozed concern. ‘I think that the venerable Thrasyllus was talking about major changes, not the little one that you plan now.’
‘Of course he was, my sweet,’ Tiberius agreed, relieved. ‘If I don’t do this now I won’t live to see the firebird. Thrasyllus, consult your books.’
The astrologer bowed. ‘I will have an answer for you by morning, Princeps,’ he said theatrically. With a brief glance at Caligula he turned and headed back up the path.
Looking pleased with himself, Tiberius sat down on a stone bench that overlooked the narrow passage between Capreae and the mainland, dominated by the brooding Mount Vesuvius. Caligula went to sit next to him whilst the rest of the group placed themselves nervously behind them, uncomfortable at being so close to the cliff’s edge in Tiberius’ company.
It was past noon and the day had warmed up considerably; the sun beat down upon the Tyrrhenian Sea sending an everchanging multitude of sparkles reflecting up off its deep blue, undulating surface. Gulls soared above them calling balefully as they rode the currents of the fresh sea breeze.
‘I wish that I could fly like them, my sweet,’ Tiberius declared, admiring the agile birds. ‘There must surely be peace as you glide through the air.’
It was not the sort of conversation that Vespasian had hoped for in this situation.
‘Yes, Nuncle, but we will never know it,’ Caligula replied guardedly, as if he had had this conversation many times before and knew the conclusion.
Tiberius remained silent for a while contemplating the gulls. ‘I hate the limitations of this body,’ he said suddenly with passion. ‘I’m master of the changing world yet I am earthbound.’
‘We should go and play with the fishies, Nuncle,’ Caligula said in an effort to change the subject.
‘Ah, the fishies, yes, yes, we should,’ Tiberius replied, rising to his feet. ‘We must say goodbye to your friend first.’ He turned to face Vespasian. ‘Go with my thanks and prayers,’ he said formally. ‘Clemens will escort you to the port on my authority.’
They bowed their heads and, with communal relief, turned to go.
‘Wait!’ Tiberius shouted. ‘Who is this?’ He pointed his finger at Magnus. ‘I haven’t seen him before; he must be an intruder, perhaps even another fisherman. Clemens, have your men throw him off the cliff.’
‘Nuncle, that is Magnus, he’s a friend of my friend; he’s been with us all the time.’
‘I’ve not spoken with him, I don’t know him; Clemens, do as I command.’
Caligula signalled them to remain silent as Fulvius and Rufinus grabbed Magnus’ arms and pushed him forward. Magnus looked b
eseechingly at Vespasian as he struggled in their grip. Vespasian and the rest of them watched aghast as Magnus was forced towards certain death.
‘I knew there was a reason for coming here, my sweet,’ Tiberius crooned in pleasure. ‘I do so enjoy the look of terror in a man’s eyes just before he flies through the air.’
‘Yes I know, Nuncle,’ Caligula replied as Magnus was nearing the edge, ‘but you also like to hear them scream as well; this one’s a brave one, he’s not screaming or pleading.’
‘You’re right, my sweet, he’s not.’
‘But I know one who will.’
‘Then we should throw him over.’
‘That’s a good idea, Nuncle. Clemens, have your men fetch that priest immediately,’ Caligula ordered.
Clemens understood. ‘Fulvius, get the priest right now.’
Fulvius and Rufinus let go of Magnus, who was left shaking on the brink of the cliff, and ran back towards the villa.
‘I’ll say goodbye to my friend whilst we wait, Nuncle; he should go and take all his companions with him, to get your message to Antonia as soon as possible.’
‘Yes, yes, my sweet,’ Tiberius replied absently, his attention back on the gulls. ‘And then we can play with the fishies.’
‘Good idea, Nuncle,’ Caligula said, whilst hurriedly pulling Magnus back from the edge. ‘I’ll see you there once they’ve gone.’
Caligula led them swiftly back up the path, past the romping fishies. Screams had started up inside the villa.
‘Clemens, take them out through the main gate, they’ll never get over the wall unseen in daylight,’ Caligula said as Fulvius and Rufinus appeared with a screaming Rhoteces between them hopping on his remaining foot.
‘Thank you, my friend,’ Vespasian said with heartfelt gratitude, ‘I don’t know how you manage to live here.’
‘It’s not all bad.’ Caligula grinned. ‘The fishies are fun.’
As they passed Rhoteces, Vespasian took a last quick look at his revolting weasel face and felt a huge surge of satisfaction.
‘That’s a fair swap,’ Magnus said, still looking very pale, ‘him for me. I’d take that any day.’
‘It could have been any one of us,’ Sabinus observed as they climbed the steps.
‘Or all of you,’ Caligula pointed out, stopping at the top. ‘I’ve seen it happen. Pallas, tell my grandmother that I’ll try and keep Tiberius focused on Sejanus.’
‘I will, Master Gaius,’ Pallas said with a bow.
‘And don’t worry about Thrasyllus, the old charlatan will declare it an auspicious time to make changes once I tell him that one of them is that his son-in-law is going to become Praetorian prefect. Now go quickly before he decides that he’d rather spend the rest of the morning throwing people off the cliff instead of playing with the fishies.’
Vespasian clasped Caligula’s forearm and, as he turned to follow Clemens, he heard the sound that he had been looking forward to: a scream, long and shrill and gradually fading until it was abruptly curtailed.
PART VI
ROME, OCTOBER AD 31
CHAPTER XVIII
‘THE SENATE ARE in a state of total confusion,’ Paetus declared, throwing a heavy stuffed leather ball at Vespasian. ‘One day Tiberius sends them a letter complimenting Sejanus for his loyal service and then the next he intervenes in a court case that Sejanus has brought against one of his many enemies, ordering it to be dropped.’ He grunted as he recaught the ball and threw it back again, hard, at Vespasian. ‘And not just dropped but also granting the defendant immunity against further prosecutions.’
‘Yet he’s conferred a priesthood on Sejanus and on his eldest son, Strabo,’ Sabinus said, straining as he lay on his back on a wooden bench exercising his arms and chest by lifting two large, round lead weights above his head.
‘Yes,’ Vespasian agreed, throwing the ball so forcefully at Paetus’ midriff that it almost knocked him over, ‘but at the same time he conferred a more prestigious priesthood upon Caligula.’
‘And now the latest rumour is that Tiberius is going to give Sejanus tribunician power,’ Paetus said, throwing the ball violently at Vespasian’s head and grinning as its velocity toppled his opponent, ‘which would then make him inviolate even though he’s resigned his consulship.’ He walked over to Vespasian and pulled him to his feet. ‘My game, I believe, old chap; two–one. Let’s take a bath.’
They collected their towels and walked across the huge, echoing, domed atrium of the Baths of Agrippa, built fifty years previously by Augustus’ right-hand man, outside the city walls on the Campus Martius. It was full of men, young and old, exercising, relaxing, conversing or having their bodies scraped and plucked within its circular confines, under the staring eyes of the lifelike painted statues that resided in semi-circular or rectangular niches embedded in its curved, glaze-tiled walls. The most famous of these, Paetus had told Vespasian upon their first visit there together, the Apoxyomenos by Lysippos of Sikyon – a four-hundred-year-old, beautifully proportioned image of a naked athlete removing the oil from his right arm with a strigil – had so enamoured Tiberius, ten years earlier, that he had it removed to his bedroom, leaving a copy in its place. He had been shamed into returning the original by chants of ‘Return to us our Apoxyomenos’ during a bad-tempered demonstration as he visited the theatre a few days later.
The noise in the atrium was deafening, amplified by the circular construction and the dome above: grunts of exertion from wrestlers cheered on by enthusiastic onlookers; laughter at a well-told, pithy joke; exaggerated but good-humoured howls of pain as men had their underarm-, chest-, leg- or groinhair plucked by expert tweezers-wielding slaves; shouts of vendors selling food and drink; the pummelling and slapping of teams of masseurs toning the bodies of their masters: the citizens of Rome.
‘So the end result is that no one knows any more whether to cultivate Sejanus or avoid him,’ Paetus told them as they passed through a high door into a quieter, more relaxing square room lit by shafts of sunlight flooding in through windows high up in its frescoed walls. Here men dozed on couches or had a less frantic massage, having been through the bathing stages from the warm tepidarium, on to the hot caldarium, followed by the even hotter laconicum and rounded off with a plunge into the cold waters of the frigidarium.
‘Perhaps that’s what Tiberius wants: confusion, so as to isolate Sejanus without provoking him into rebellion because he too is unsure whether or not he remains in the Emperor’s favour,’ Vespasian suggested, wondering whether the bewildered old man was capable still of such a strategy.
Another set of doors took them out into the warm, mid-afternoon October sun, to a huge bathing pool – eighty paces long and forty wide – surrounded by a colonnaded walkway lined with stone benches crowded with men chatting, gossiping and rumour-mongering. On the far side of the pool, beyond the colonnade, rose the Temple of Neptune, built by Agrippa in thanks for his great victories at sea, firstly against Sextus Pompeius and then at Actium; however, this grand building was dwarfed by the dome of its neighbour towering over it: Agrippa’s Pantheon.
‘You saw him, brother,’ Sabinus said dismissively, ‘he wasn’t capable of two relevant consecutive thoughts. He’s lost his soul and his spirit is searching for it in the darkest parts of his mind.’
A large splash, like a ballista shot hitting the sea, as a particularly chubby citizen jumped into the pool with his arms around his knees, covered them in droplets of cool water.
‘Oaf!’ Paetus shouted at the submerged miscreant. ‘I do think that they should raise the price of admission here; perhaps the standards of behaviour might go up with it.’ He jumped into the pool in the same fashion, right next to the man just as he resurfaced and covered him with water as he drew breath, leaving him choking and spluttering; Vespasian and Sabinus jumped in after Paetus, compounding the fat man’s misery.
‘Well, whether it’s a planned strategy,’ Paetus said shaking the water from his thick brown hair, ‘or whether i
t’s the result of Tiberius’ inability to think logically, or whether it’s a pleasant mixture of the both, it’s got Sejanus rattled and the Senate terrified, not knowing whom to back in order to stay alive.’ He struck out with an attempted breast-stoke towards the far side of the pool, weaving his way through the bobbing citizenry; Vespasian and Sabinus followed, equally as unproficient in their swimming abilities.
‘What about you?’ Vespasian asked Paetus as they hauled themselves out to sit on the edge with their feet dangling in the refreshing water. ‘Whom are you backing?’
‘That’s the beauty of my position at the moment,’ Paetus replied with a grin. ‘As one of the urban quaestors I just carry out the city’s law business; I’m so junior that no one cares about what I think so long as I perform my duties.’
Vespasian smiled at Paetus, they had become friends during the last few months of working together – as a triumvir capitalis, Vespasian worked directly for the urban quaestors – and they had come to enjoy their regular baths together in the afternoon after the business of the day had been completed. Since becoming a quaestor and entering the Senate, Paetus had taken pleasure in providing Vespasian with all the news and gossip that surrounded it – and then, a few days later, he would with great glee confirm the veracity of some and the utter unreliability of all the rest. Their conversations had provided Vespasian with a diversion from the nagging fear that had haunted him since his return from Capreae, seven months previously. Although Antonia and Caligula had both confirmed the opposite, he could not stop worrying that they had been identified by one of Sejanus’ men and a painful question-and-answer session would eventually ensue. Antonia had also told him, on one of his few and pleasurable visits to her house, that the knowledge of a deputation of unknown origin reaching the Emperor but the lack of information concerning what had been discussed had only added to Sejanus’ unease. She was also confident that Tiberius’ vacillations were, in part, intentional and that the killer blow would be delivered soon.
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