The senators gasped; Macro immediately knelt down beside him. ‘Chaerea, fetch the doctor,’ he shouted at the Praetorian tribune after a brief look at his master. ‘Get out, all of you, now!’ he shouted.
The sight of the Emperor so physically compromised sent a shiver of fear through the senators and they fled.
‘It looks as if the gods may have listened to Antonia,’ Vespasian mumbled in Gaius’ ear as they crushed through the door.
Whether or not the gods had acted upon Antonia’s curse was debatable, but one thing was certain: they were the main beneficiaries of Caligula’s illness as over the following days the people of Rome sacrificed victims in their tens of thousands for the return to health of the young Emperor. The poor did so out of genuine love, remembering the largesse that he had distributed among them and the lavish games that he had held for their entertainment. The senators and the equestrian order, however, did so out of the fear that all those who had not been seen making sacrifices and offering up prayers would be cruelly dealt with should Caligula recover; so they vied with each other to be the most generous with their offerings, sacrificing their finest bulls, race horses and rams, while the more rash vowed to fight as gladiators if the Emperor recovered. One eques, in a case of reckless sycophancy topping all others, even promised Jupiter to exchange his life for Caligula’s.
Vespasian spent much of the time in the afternoons and evenings with Caenis, enjoying playing man and wife in the new privacy that they had together. In the mornings he attended the Senate, joining in the prayers and sacrifices and sharing with the rest of the House the same outward fervour that Caligula should recover and the same inner desire that he should die and this ghastly episode in Rome’s history could be put behind them. After this daily ritual – no other business being possible through fear of it being construed as being insensible to the Emperor’s wellbeing – the whole Senate, along with the equestrian order, then processed up to the Palatine, past crowds of sombre citizens, to present themselves at Augustus’ House where they received the daily bulletin on the Emperor’s health. Every day the Praetorian tribune, Chaerea, delivered the same message in his unfortunately high and squeaky voice: no change, the Emperor remained drifting in and out of consciousness.
The city was at a standstill; the law courts, theatres and markets were all closed, business transactions suspended and festivals ignored. The only thing still running was the blood that flowed from Rome’s many altars.
‘This is getting ridiculous,’ Vespasian muttered to Gaius as the Senate and the equites gathered outside the Curia for their daily trudge up the Palatine, for the thirtieth day in a row, in a steady, November drizzle. ‘What’s going to happen if he stays ill for another month? The city will start collapsing around us.’
‘It’s the same for everyone, dear boy, nothing’s getting done. A lot of people are losing a lot of money but they would rather that than be seen as someone who made a profit while Caligula lay at death’s door.’
‘Well, I wish that it would open.’
‘Don’t say that too loudly,’ Gaius hissed, ‘especially around this group of unscrupulous sycophants.’
‘Of which we are guilty members.’
‘Hypocrisy, dear boy, can be a life-saving fault.’
Vespasian grunted.
‘I thought I’d find you here,’ Magnus called, easing his way through the crowd towards them wearing his citizen’s plain white toga.
Vespasian smiled and gripped his friend’s forearm. ‘Are you joining us for our daily ritual?’
‘Bollocks I am. There’s a meeting of the Quirnal and Viminal Brotherhood leaders; we dress up smart to threaten each other. You lot and everyone else may have stopped working but our business carries on.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it; extortion and protection should stop for no man, not even an emperor.’
‘Now, sir, that ain’t fair, we all have to make a living. By the way, aren’t you the road aedile this year?’
‘You know I am.’
Magnus pointed to his feet, covered in mud and ordure with pieces of rotting vegetation sticking to them. ‘I call that a fucking disgrace; some parts of the city are ankle deep in shit – which makes you look stupid.’
Vespasian gestured helplessly. ‘There’s nothing I can do about it. My foremen won’t supervise the public slaves cleaning the streets; they all claim to be too busy making sacrifices to Jupiter and Juno and praying for the Emperor.’
‘Well, while they’re about it perhaps they could sacrifice to the god of arseholes and pray for man and beast to stop shitting as well.’
‘Shhh,’ Gaius hissed with a pained expression on his face, putting a hand up to his mouth and moving away from treasonous talk.
Vespasian grinned. ‘Have you come here just to give me advice on the religious practices of my staff?’
‘No, it’s a bit more serious than that,’ Magnus said, looking around and lowering his voice. ‘There was someone snooping around Caenis’ house this morning for an hour or so, and then he buggered off. One of my lads watching the place followed him to the Aventine; he went into a nice new house on the same street as Sabinus.’ Magnus raised his eyebrows.
‘And?’
‘And after making some enquiries he found out that it belongs to your good friend, Corvinus.’
Vespasian felt a chill crawl through his body. ‘How did he find out about her?’
‘Probably by having you followed, what does it matter? But being as I know that he ain’t too keen on you and yours, I’ve doubled the guard in the street.’
‘Thank you, Magnus.’
‘I wouldn’t worry too much; he just knows that you go there, he won’t know who’s inside. She should be safe enough if she doesn’t go out.’
‘She doesn’t, except to visit my uncle a few score paces away.’
‘If she wants to do that, I suggest that she sends a slave to my lads and they can escort her in a covered litter.’
‘I’ll tell her; thanks.’
‘Yeah, well, it looks like you’re all moving off; I’d best be going. I’ve got more lucrative ways to pass the time rather than worry about the sick, if you take my meaning?’
‘What was that all about?’ Gaius asked, rejoining Vespasian as they began to shuffle out of the Forum.
‘Nothing, Uncle,’ Vespasian mumbled, lost in his thoughts, ‘Magnus has it covered.’
The procession of more than two thousand of the most prestigious men in Rome arrived in front of Augustus’ House. Cassius Chaerea was already waiting under the portico to address them; the smile on his face was enough to tell Vespasian that death had indeed kept its door firmly closed to Caligula.
‘There is at last good news,’ Chaerea announced in his falsetto voice, ‘one hour ago the Emperor made a miraculous recovery; I have just come from his room where he is sitting up in bed and eating. The crisis is over!’
A roar of cheers erupted from the rain-dampened crowd, carrying on until they were almost hoarse. The noise of the celebrations and the news of its cause filtered down from the Palatine and on throughout Rome, and by the time Chaerea was able to speak again the sound of joyous cheering echoed back up the hill from the city below.
‘The Emperor thanks you all for your prayers and sacrifices and bids you to…’ The doors behind him opened and the crowd gasped as Caligula walked out unsteadily but unaided. Unshaven for a month and palpably thinner with his eyes sunk even further in their sockets, he still looked ill and yet there was strength in the way that he held his head. He lifted his arms in the air to the raucous cries of ‘Hail Caesar!’ that greeted him.
Eventually he signalled for silence. ‘It is not your fault,’ he declaimed in a surprisingly loud voice, ‘that you hail me only as your Caesar. You do not know what has happened to me in this past month.’ He indicated to his emaciated body. ‘This body, this weak human body, nearly died as I ravaged it with the agony of transformation. Had it died I would still be here but not as y
ou see me now, because, my flock, I am not only your Emperor, I have now become your god. Worship me!’
At this stunning piece of news and outrageous order a few of the more quick-thinking senators immediately pulled folds of their togas over their heads, as if officiating at a religious ceremony. The rest of the gathering quickly followed their example and Caligula burst out laughing as he surveyed the crowd that was now swathed from head to toe in wool.
‘You are truly my sheep; what a shearing we shall have. I believe one of you was good enough to offer his life to my brother Jupiter in return for mine; who was this noble sheep?’
‘It was I, Princeps,’ a voice oozing with pride came from behind Vespasian, who turned to see a well-built young eques smiling smugly at those around him, pleased to be the object of the Emperor’s attention.
‘What is your name, good sheep?’
‘Publius Afranius Potitus, Princeps.’
‘What are you doing here, Potitus? Don’t keep Jupiter waiting; we gods expect promptness.’
Potitus’ face fell as the hope of reward was replaced by the hideous realisation that Caligula was in earnest. He looked around at his companions for aid, but how could they countermand an order from their new god? They moved away, leaving him isolated in their midst. His shoulders sagged and he turned without a word.
‘What a good sheep he was,’ Caligula said, grinning approvingly as Potitus trudged away to his unnecessary death. ‘Now that I’m back among you the business of the city shall resume and the Plebeian Games, which should have begun five days ago, will commence immediately; all those of you who swore to fight as gladiators in return for my health will get the chance to fulfil your oath in the arena tomorrow.’
‘Save him, Caesar! Save him, Caesar!’ the twenty-thousand-strong crowd filling the stone-built Statilius Taurus Amphitheatre on the Campus Martius chanted in unison. An all-pervading stench of urine filled the atmosphere from where people – for fear of losing their seat should they go outside – had relieved themselves where they sat, so that it trickled down to be soaked up by the tunic of the person sitting below them on the stepped-stone seating.
The victorious retiarius, the last man standing in what had been a six-man free-for-all, kept the points of his trident firmly pressed on the throat of his last defeated opponent, a secutor entangled in a net, and looked up at the Emperor. Vespasian glanced over at Caligula, sitting next to Drusilla, in the imperial box adjacent to the senators’ seats, and wondered if he would grant the crowd’s wish; he had on every other occasion during the long four days of combat, but they had always been demands for death.
Caligula removed his fingers from the anus of a youth kneeling between him and his sister and extended it forward, still clenched in the signal for mercy, tilting his head against his shoulder. The crowd’s applause at their Emperor’s clemency turned to jeers as his thumb suddenly jutted up in mimicry of an unsheathed sword: the sign for death.
The summa rudis – the referee – withdrew his long staff from across the retiarius’s chest, who then pulled back to allow his opponent the dignity of a gladiator’s death, kneeling on one knee before his vanquisher rather than lying like a wounded stag on the reddened arena sand.
The crowd’s fury at their wish to spare a gladiator who had put up a brave fight escalated as the secutor, once free of the net, grasped his opponent’s thigh in preparation for the killing stroke. The retiarius dropped the trident and unsheathed his long, thin knife and placed it, point down, on the secutor’s throat just above his collar bone. With a nod of his head, completely encased in a smooth bronze rimless helmet with two small eye-holes in the face mask, the doomed man consented to the knife. As the two men tensed for the ritual killing the staff of the summa rudis abruptly slammed across the retiarius’s chest, stopping him.
The crowd fell suddenly silent. All eyes turned to Caligula, who sat laughing hysterically, his thumb now pressed down on his clenched fingers representing a sheathed sword: the sign of mercy. ‘I fooled you all!’ he shouted through his mirth. ‘Did you really think that I, I who have the wellbeing of all of you in my heart, wouldn’t grant your wish? Of course I would.’
The crowd burst into laughter, enjoying the joke that their Emperor had played on them. The retiarius withdrew the knife and the secutor started to hyperventilate in relief.
Vespasian glanced again in Caligula’s direction and saw his face suddenly change into a contorted mask of anger. He leapt to his feet and screamed for silence.
‘But you jeered at me,’ he shrieked, ‘as if you didn’t love me. Me! Your god and Emperor jeered at by you. How dare you! I wish you had one communal throat then I would slit it. You must be taught that from now on you will worship me and love me; I will have my statue placed in every temple to remind you of that, not only here in Rome but also around the Empire.’ He paused and looked mournfully about him. ‘I can give but I can also take away; I will no longer grant your wish.’ He punched his clenched fist out with his thumb extended.
The crowd remained silent as the two gladiators took up the killing stance once more. The thrust of the knife down into the heart and the resulting spray of blood were not greeted with cheers and multiple ejaculations but, rather, a deflated sullenness. The retiarius saluted the imperial box and walked towards the gates leading down to the gladiators’ cells with his trident and net raised in the air; no one acknowledged his victory.
Caligula beckoned Macro, seated behind him, to come closer. He whispered something in the prefect’s ear while pointing to an area of the crowd. A brief argument ensued before Macro, visibly angry, left his seat and spoke to Chaerea who stood by the entrance to the imperial box. Caligula reinserted his fingers petulantly into the catamite and turned his attention back to the arena while Drusilla fondly stroked the lad’s hair as if he were a pet. Chaerea left the box.
Down on the sand the carrion-man, dressed as Charon the Ferryman, bald-headed and robed in black, stalked around the dead checking for signs of life by pressing a red-hot poker to their genitals; once satisfied that a man was dead he removed his helmet and, with a heavy mallet cracked open his skull to release his spirit. This ritual complete, the bodies were dragged off for burial and the sand was raked and replaced in areas to get rid of the blood.
The crowd’s mood began to lighten as they started to look forward to the next part of the spectacle, which had been advertised as four of the equites who had been rash enough to promise to fight in the arena on Caligula’s return to health all pitched together in a fight to the death. A murmur of interest went around the amphitheatre as the gates opened and, instead of seeing four gladiators, the crowd heard the roar of beasts; a dozen hungry-looking lions tore into the arena goaded on by slaves waving flaming torches behind them. The gates closed leaving the lions alone on the sand. The crowd, knowing that lions would not fight each other and that their convict-victims or the bestiarii who would fight them were always in the arena first, began to wonder just who or what the lions were meant to kill.
The clatter of hobnailed sandals on the stone steps of two of the entrances to the seating area soon provided the answer. A half-century of sword-brandishing Praetorian Guardsmen stormed in, causing panic in the crowd nearby. Within a few heartbeats they had surrounded twenty spectators in the front row of the section to which Caligula had pointed. Behind them the crush of people desperate to escape the same fate that they guessed was in store for their hapless fellows caused many to be trampled underfoot amid a cacophony of screaming. The lions’ roars tore over the screams as the first two of the victims were hurled, begging for their lives, into the arena. The men had not even hit the ground before great claws ripped at their flesh, knocking them sideways, spinning through the air as if they were dolls, towards open jaws with bared teeth that were soon stained with their blood.
The Praetorians made short work of throwing the rest of their prisoners to the lions; most were set upon immediately, throats torn out or limbs dismembered or disembowelle
d, but half a dozen or so managed to run from the carnage – except there was nowhere to hide. To Vespasian’s amazement the sections of the crowd unaffected by the Praetorians’ actions began to laugh and cheer as the escapees were pursued around the oval arena by lions more intent on the thrill of the chase than of feasting on the mangled carcasses. He turned again to look at Caligula, who sat with a grim smile of satisfaction on his face, working his fingers in and out of the catamite while masturbating vigorously. As the last of the victims was torn apart, the crowd roared their approval; they loved him again.
Vespasian sat through the rest of the day knowing that to try to leave, which used to annoy Caligula before his illness, could well prove fatal now that he seemed to have completely lost his sanity. Eventually the final life ebbed into the blood-soaked sand and Caligula stood to depart, accepting the adulation of the mob as he did so. Vespasian hurried out with the rest of the senators, none of them wanting to catch each other’s eye for fear of having to pass comment on what they had witnessed.
He emerged into the street and turned to walk briskly home.
‘There he is!’ he heard Caligula shout from close by. ‘Macro, have him brought to me.’
Vespasian turned to see Chaerea and two Praetorians pushing through the crowd; with a sickening feeling in his stomach he realised that they were heading towards him. To run would have been pointless, so he allowed the Guards to escort him to Caligula, who was almost in tears.
‘I thought that you were my friend,’ he sobbed, shaking his head as if he could not believe how the situation had changed. Drusilla held a consoling arm around him.
‘I am, Princeps,’ Vespasian replied, wondering just what he had done.
Caligula pointed to the ground. ‘Then how do you explain this?’
Vespasian looked down; the street was covered with filth from where it had not been cleaned for the month-long duration of Caligula’s illness.
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