Rome's Executioner (Vespasian)

by Robert Fabbri

  Pallas escorted Vespasian back through the house as Livilla’s screams echoed around the corridors.

  ‘Vespasian,’ Caenis called, running up to him as they reentered the atrium, ‘what’s happening?’

  He wrapped his arms around her and nestled his head in her hair. ‘A demonstration of your mistress’s strength of will: she has passed a death sentence on her own daughter and is acting as the executioner herself.’ He let go of Caenis and jabbed his finger repeatedly towards of the source of the now hysterical screaming. ‘No matter how much she hates her,’ he shouted at Pallas, ‘how can she do that?’

  ‘She has to, master,’ Pallas said, his face now a study in neutrality. ‘If she doesn’t then she knows that for honour’s sake Tiberius will have his revenge for his son in far more terrible way. Claudius, Caligula and Gemellus will all die and with their deaths he will take away her power.’

  ‘If that’s what it takes to hold on to power in Rome then I want to go back to my estates.’

  Caenis looked up at him, shaking her head slowly as the screams continued. ‘No, my love, you stay here and learn from her strength. Pallas is right: she cannot afford to force Tiberius into a position whereby he is honour-bound to kill the rest of his family.’

  ‘Why not? Caligula is my friend and I wish him no harm, but I’ve seen what he’s like and I know that he will be the worst kind of emperor. It would be for the greater good if Tiberius were free to choose a suitable man to succeed him.’

  ‘Do you really think that he’ll do that? Or will he just choose someone infinitely worse so that he’s remembered, by comparison, in a better light? A real tyrant,’

  Recollecting the unstable old man on Capreae, Vespasian did not need to think long about the answer. ‘He’d choose a tyrant and it would amuse him, because . . .’ He stopped and a look of comprehension slid over his face. He began to relax. ‘So we’re better off having someone like Caligula, however profligate and base he may be, because at least he will have the restraining influence of Antonia over him?’

  ‘I would think so, master, which is why I would not have you try to change her mind.’ Pallas held up the key to Livilla’s cell. ‘I won’t give this back to my mistress until she has done her duty to Rome. It’s better for us all this way.’

  Vespasian stared at the key; with a shock he realised that giving it to Pallas was an admission by Antonia that she could not trust her maternal instincts not to overrule her sense of duty. ‘She doesn’t want to do this, does she?’

  ‘Of course not, would you?’

  ‘And there is no other way?’

  ‘Not unless she took the knife to her daughter’s throat. But she couldn’t do that – who could? So she must bear her daughter’s screams as she slowly dies. She will see it as her punishment for infanticide, but she is willing to take that punishment in order to fulfil her obligation to Rome.’

  Vespasian looked back towards the screaming. ‘Yes, I think I can see that… and I must applaud her for it. She’s paying a high price indeed, but a necessary one, I suppose, to fulfil her duty.’

  Pallas shrugged. ‘She has the strength and, in the end, it’s no more than she can afford.’

  ‘For that I suppose she must be grateful.’ Vespasian looked back at Caenis and sighed. ‘Now I should find the strength to go and do my duty.’

  Caenis reached up and stroked his cheek. ‘You’ll find the strength to do it, my love; one way or another.’ She smiled.

  He stood back and gazed at her. He wanted nothing more than to bury himself deep within her and cleanse himself of the cares and horrors of the day, but he knew that it was not yet over. ‘Pallas,’ he said quietly, ‘would you be so good as to have Caenis escorted to my uncle’s house – I don’t think your mistress will have any use for her services over the next few days.’

  ‘I shall see to it personally, master.’

  ‘I’ll see you later, my love,’ Vespasian said, raising her chin and kissing her gently on the mouth.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To the Senate House to do what my uncle thinks may be a very unpleasant duty. I don’t know what it is but it will seem as nothing compared to what Antonia is doing.’

  He kissed her once more with passion and then, with Livilla’s screams still resounding in his ears and the image of his benefactress sitting, waiting placidly for her daughter’s death in his mind, he walked away, steeled by Antonia’s unselfish resolve.

  The Senate was in uproar as Vespasian looked through the open doors. Standing in front of the two Consuls at the far end, and flanked by rows of baying senators sitting on their folding stools on the stepped levels that ran down either side of the house, were two children: a boy of about fourteen and a small girl of no more than seven.

  ‘And I ask you, Conscript Fathers,’ Consul Trio was bellowing at the top of his voice, ‘how can we be seen to pass such a sentence on two children, so obviously innocent of any crime.’

  He sat back on his curule chair and Aulus Plautius rose to his feet from within the disorderly ranks of senators.

  ‘Conscript Fathers, I would have your attention,’ he shouted and then paused whilst the furore died down. ‘Innocent of crimes they may be,’ he said, looking down his nose at the two frightened children, ‘but innocent of name they are not. When we voted for Sejanus’ death we also voted for damnatio memoriae, wiping his name from history as if he had never existed. What is the Senate, Conscript Fathers, if it refuses to act on its own will? It is our will that the name of Sejanus be eradicated and they’ – he pointed a damning finger at the two children – ‘they carry his name. So do your duty and condemn them.’ He sat down with a dramatic flurry of his toga to absolute silence as the senators tried to mentally refute the logic of his argument. None could.

  After a brief pause it became obvious that no one else wished to speak. Regulus got slowly to his feet.

  ‘The motion before the house is: that the children of Sejanus, Capito and Junilla, be executed in the same manner as their father in accordance with the previous decree of damnatio memoriae. The house will divide.’

  Vespasian’s heart sank as the vast majority of senators passed to the right of Regulus.

  ‘So be it,’ Regulus said wearily. ‘I declare the motion carried. Summon a triumvir capitalis.’

  Vespasian walked with leaden feet into the House and stopped just behind the two children.

  ‘You heard the sentence?’ Regulus asked him.

  ‘Yes, Consul.’

  ‘Then do your duty.’

  Vespasian steeled himself. Rome, it seemed, was asking much from everyone today. He put a hand on the shoulder of each child; the boy looked up at him with cold, dead eyes and brushed the hand away.

  ‘Where are we going, Capito?’ Junilla asked her brother.

  ‘To Father,’ Capito replied, taking her hand.

  ‘But he’s dead.’

  Capito nodded.

  ‘What does execution mean?’

  Capito squeezed her hand and led her calmly, with his head held high, towards the open doors.

  Vespasian followed. The senate was silent as they passed.

  As they descended the steps into the Forum Gaius caught up with Vespasian.

  ‘I’m sorry that it has to be you, dear boy,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Why did Aulus Plautius do that? Hasn’t it gone far enough already?’

  ‘It wasn’t Plautius, I afraid.’

  ‘Then who proposed the motion, Uncle?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You? Why?’

  ‘On Antonia’s orders,’ Gaius replied, obviously distressed. ‘She had the children seized in vengeance for Apicata writing to Tiberius; she knew that Livilla would have to die, Tiberius expected no less, and although she hated her she couldn’t in honour let it pass without retribution. So she demanded that I asked the Senate for Apicata’s children’s deaths. I tried to refuse her but she threatened me.’

  ‘What with?’ Vespasian aske
d wondering what Antonia could have on Gaius that would make him do such a thing.

  Gaius looked his nephew straight in the eye. ‘My life,’ he said simply and walked away.

  He slowly shook his head as he watched his uncle go, wondering whether Antonia really would have taken Gaius’ life if he had not done her bidding. Then he remembered her sitting resolutely waiting for her daughter to die. He knew the answer and he understood why: what was Gaius’ life to her compared to what she was forced to do for honour and duty?

  Vespasian turned and followed the two children as they walked hand in hand, escorted by the Urban Cohort centurion and his men, the short distance across the Forum towards their deaths in the Tullianum.

  As he walked he again remembered his grandmother sipping her wine from her treasured cup and saying: ‘I advise you to keep out of politics that you don’t understand, and to keep away from the powerful, because in general they only have one goal and that is more power. They tend to use people of our class as dispensable tools.’ He had seen the reality of that warning: Gaius was as dispensable as he, Vespasian, could one day be.

  The centurion rapped on the Tullianum door; Spurius opened it after a brief pause.

  ‘Well, well, what do we have here?’ he drawled, surveying Capito and Junilla and licking his lips.

  ‘You will do your duty with dignity and remain silent, Spurius,’ Vespasian hissed, ‘or by all the gods I will see to it that you will be the next victim of this purge.’

  Spurius looked at him, taken aback by the venom in his voice, and seeing the steel will in Vespasian’s eyes slowly nodded his acquiescence. He stepped back from the door and allowed Capito to lead his young sister in.

  ‘What place is this?’ she asked her brother, looking around the chill, shadow-ridden room.

  ‘This is the place where it ends, Junilla,’ Capito replied softly. ‘Be brave.’

  ‘Cut or twist?’ Spurius asked in Vespasian’s ear.

  ‘Twist,’ he replied, although the word stuck in his throat. ‘Make it swift.’

  One of Spurius’ mates quickly procured two garrottes whilst Spurius made the children kneel. The nooses were placed around their necks; Junilla started to cry softly as she realised what was happening.

  ‘Wait,’ Spurius said suddenly, ‘we can’t do this to the girl.’

  ‘Why not?’ Vespasian snapped. He was shaking with tension. ‘It’s the will of the Senate.’

  ‘She’s a . . . you know . . . ’ Spurius spluttered, trying to be discreet, ‘and we can’t . . . it’s against the gods.’

  Vespasian closed his eyes and put his hands over his face.

  ‘Do the boy then,’ he ordered swiftly.

  Junilla watched in frozen horror as the wooden rod was inserted in the noose behind her brother’s neck and twisted until the slack was taken out. Spurius looked back at Vespasian who nodded reluctantly.

  A silent scream was written over the young girl’s face as the noose squeezed the life out of her brother and his face and body contorted in agony. She buried her face in her hands and shuddered uncontrollably.

  Capito’s lifeless body fell forward with a splash into the pool of urine that surrounded it and Junilla threw herself, heaving with sobs, on to it.

  ‘What shall we do with her then?’ Spurius asked.

  Vespasian felt weak and sick. He thought of Caenis and wanted only to lie in her arms.

  He turned and walked to the door. ‘The Senate has decreed that she must die,’ he said, opening it. ‘If you can’t execute a virgin then make sure that she isn’t one.’

  He walked out into the sun, slamming shut the Tullianum door, as Junilla let out a long, terrified shriek.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  THIS HISTORICAL FICTION is based mainly on the writings of Suetonius, Tacitus and Cassius Dio.

  The Getae were Thracians noted for their horsemanship and use of horse-archers – as well as the wearing of trousers! Whether I owe their shades an apology for my less than complimentary assumptions about their personal hygiene I don’t know, but I somehow doubt it. They originally lived along both banks of the lower Danube but successive invasions, notably the Celts in the third century and the Romans in the first century, confined them to the northern bank from where they raided Moesia from time to time. There is much debate as to whether they were the same people as the Dacians, Rome’s great enemy a century later, or whether they were originally a separate people and were eventually assimilated by them. The outline of the fourth century BC Getic fortress at Sagadava and the Roman camp next to it can be best seen, at the time of printing, on Wikimapia.org 44.2414329 N, 27.8540111E.

  That Romans used slaves as oarsmen is a fallacy that is still given credence by repeated showings of the excellent film Ben Hur. I chose to have the Thracians use slaves for the purposes of the plot but have been unable to find out whether they did so in reality. If this turns out to be a massive historical blunder on my part then I apologise to the Thracian navy – if indeed there was one still extant at the time.

  The ruins of the Temple of Amphiaraos and the surrounding sanctuary and theatre are still there. The preferred method of receiving guidance from the Hero was to sleep inside the temple after making your sacrifice; I moved Rhaskos outside so that Vespasian and Sabinus could be alone with the priests.

  Clemens was in the Praetorian Guard and a distant relative of the Flavians through their grandmother, Tertulla. Sabinus did marry his sister, Clementina, at around this time but probably not in the circumstances described.

  Josephus’ Jewish Antiquites mentions Pallas acting as Antonia’s messenger, taking her evidence of Sejanus’ treachery (no doubt written down by Caenis) to Tiberius. Satrius Secundus is said, by Tacitus, to have disclosed the damning evidence to Antonia but neglects, like Josephus, to say what it was. In To Marcia, Seneca states that Secundus was Sejanus’ client, but I decided to put him with Macro as well and have his wife, Albucilla, who was notorious for her many affairs, in Sejanus and Livilla’s bed as a means of gaining the evidence that Antonia needed. Whether or not Caligula helped Pallas avoid the notice of Sejanus’ men guarding the emperor is not known; however, he was on Capri at the time and had a vested interest in Sejanus’ fall. Vespasian, Sabinus and Corbulo accompanying Pallas is of course fictitious.

  Tiberius’ ‘hobbies’ of hurling people from cliffs and general sexual depravity are spoken of by various sources. Suetonius tells us of the unit of marines stationed at the foot of the cliff to finish off any survivors. He also mentions the ‘fishies’ or ‘minnows’ as they appear in Robert Graves’ translation. However, the most chilling detail, to my mind, is the snippet were Suetonius tells us that Tiberius’ left hand was ‘so strong that he could poke a finger through a sound, newly plucked apple or into the skull of a boy or a young man’. I can only assume that he must have practised the art on a regular basis for it to be remembered as one of his party tricks.

  Caligula’s incestuous behaviour towards his sisters is documented by Suetonius who goes on to tell us that his habit when reclining at banquets was to place his wife above him on the couch, i.e. to his back, and his sisters ‘all below him in turn’. Whether Caligula has suffered a bad press over the years, as one recent German biography very interestingly argued, is hard to say; however, I have chosen to use the more colourful version of this fascinating emperor for the obvious reasons.

  I have taken the events surrounding the fall of Sejanus primarily from Cassius Dio’s account, Tacitus’ being almost completely lost and Suetonius’ vague. For the sake of the narrative I have condensed some of the action: Strabo was not executed together with his father, but a few days later, and the two younger children were executed a couple of months after that, not days. Both Cassius Dio and Tacitus mention Junilla’s rape before her execution. Apicata did get her revenge for the deaths of her children, before committing suicide, by exposing Livilla’s murder of Drusus. Whether Antonia starved Livilla to death is uncertain; Cassius Dio just states that
he heard a rumour to that effect. Aulus Plautius being a supporter of Sejanus and then turning against him is my fiction; I wanted to introduce him into the story before we meet him as the general in command of the invasion of Britain. However many senators would have behaved as he did in order to save themselves.

  Pleasingly, according to Suetonius, Vespasian’s father, Titus, did end up as a Helvetian banker and no doubt, like his modern day counterparts, did very well. Titus Pomponius Atticus is recorded as having had banking interests amongst the Helevetians after their defeat by Caesar. Pomponius Labeo being his grandson is fictitious but seemed to be a good way of getting Titus to his historically correct position.

  Again, I have taken the dates for Vespasian’s career from Barbara Levick’s excellent biography Vespasian. He would have become one of the Vigintiviri at around this time if he served his full four years in Thrace but whether he was one of the triumviri capitales is not known. Barbara Levick points out that if he had been involved with the hideous executions of Sejanus’ younger children it would surely have been used as propaganda by his enemies against him during the Year of the Four Emperors and on into his Principate, which it was not. However, the possibility is still there and I chose to use it rather than have him involved with roads, which would be more logical, taking into account his future career; I doubt a road-related ending would have been very interesting.

  My thanks again to my agent, Ian Drury at Sheil Land Associates, without whom I would still be standing in muddy fields in the freezing cold or stuffy film stages at the height of summer, trying to get the next shot completed so that we can move on the next one, and so on and on. Also thanks to Gaia Banks and Virginia Ascione in the foreign rights department and Lucy Fawcett in the film and TV department.

  Nic Cheetham, my publisher, has made it an extremely exciting year for me and my gratitude goes to him and his fine team at Corvus: Mathilda Imlah, Laura Palmer, Becci Sharpe, Nicole Muir and Rina Gill to name but a few. Congratulations, Rina, on the birth of Amahra Grace McQuinn.