The Duchess Who Wouldn't Sit Down

by Jesse Browner

  The life of a Roman aristocrat was largely a preparation for his death. A good death was the crowning glory of a life well led and the sole necessary act of redemption for a flawed one. All contemporary philosophy and education, as epitomized in Senecan stoicism, was geared toward instilling a fearlessness of death, an assiduous cultivation of personal dignity, and a contempt for superstition that, if often set aside in the frenzy of debauch and intrigue, were readily available, more often than not, at the moment of truth. This was especially true of patricians, for whom the option of suicide was an envied privilege in the execution of a death sentence. The death of Socrates, of course, was the standard by which all suicides were judged. If you ranked a mention in the histories or annals, or merely a fleeting hiccup in the marketplace of gossip, you could be certain that your suicide would eventually be set up and assessed - occasionally favorably, but usually not - against that of Socrates. It happened to every principal actor in this chapter, each one a suicide.

  First to go was Seneca in 65, a conspirator in the plot to assassinate his former student (which failed, incidentally, only because Piso refused to kill Nero in his own villa, since "to stain the sanctity of hospitality with the blood of an emperor, however evil, would cause a bad impression"). Having waffled egregiously and somewhat hypocritically on his moral duty throughout his life, Seneca proceeded to death in much the same manner. After delivering his final orations and dictating his final musings, he hesitates several times (ostensibly out of sensitivity to his wife, who has begged to be allowed to join him in death) before he opens the arteries at his wrists. The blood spills too slowly, so he slices at the veins in his legs and knees. Even so, the process is "tedious" and he drinks poison - the same drug, his chronicler insists on pointing out, used by the condemned in Athens. When that fails, too, he has himself carried into a bath and suffocates in the steam. An alternate account has him surviving this, too, and having to be finished off by soldiers. It is an honorable end, aspiring to but falling well short of the benchmark, lacking in resolve, dignity, and pacing, much like his life.

  Nero died by his own hand in 68 as the troops of the rebel general Galba entered the city. One need hardly read Suetonius' account to imagine its substance. In the middle of the night, barefoot in a tunic, Nero throws on an old cloak, covers his face, and flees for the suburbs. He scrambles on all fours through the undergrowth, tearing his clothes and skin, before reaching the humble refuge of a freedman's villa. Touchingly, among the very few who remain with him is his "wife" Sabina, the renamed slave boy Sporus whom he had had castrated to replace Poppaea. He rests on a filthy straw mattress in a slave's room before summoning up the nerve to stab himself in the throat, uttering an autoeulogy that will echo down the ages: "What an artist the world is losing!" Until the very end, Nero entertained hopes of being spared to make his way out into the world as an itinerant professional musician.

  Tigellinus, predictably, sought to betray Nero the moment Galba entered Rome, placing his Praetorian Guards at the new emperor's service. But he botched the surrender, resulting in his own arrest and the slaughter of some seven thousand guards. Family connections saved him for the moment, but when Galba fell to his rival Otho barely seven months later, Tigellinus' time was up. Surrounded by his mistresses in the public baths of Sinuessa, he shamefully prevaricated until finally slashing his throat with a razor - an unseemly blade no patrician would ever have chosen - "still further defiling a notorious life by a tardy and ignominious death."

  For Petronius, no less than for the others, the death is a commentary on the life. But because very nearly the sum total of our knowledge of the historical Petronius is confined to two paragraphs in Book XVI of Tacitus' Annals, it is much more than that. Besides the Satyricon, these five hundred words are our only window into his mind and heart. The death must do more than cap the life; it must represent the life metonymically. And what a death it is.

  Petronius is following the emperor to Campania but is detained at his villa in Cumae. He does not need to be told what his house arrest portends and decides that it is time to abandon fear and hope alike. He declines to be hurried, however. His death, like his life, is to be an orchestrated and choreographed entertainment for his friends, who are all present. He opens his wrists then binds them up again, so that he might regulate the bloodletting and enjoy the full measure of his ebbing hours. He engages his guests in casual conversation, steering it ever away from serious thoughts and from the temptation to wax heroic to which Seneca had succumbed. Everything is to be light and pleasant. His guests, in turn, recite for him, "not thoughts on the immortality of the soul or on the theories of philosophers, but light poetry and playful verses." It is presumably during these moments that he allows the blood to flow, perhaps in a side room or bath so as not to upset his guests. He returns to lavish gifts upon his slaves, freeing many. Because he leaves behind no wife or child who will need protection, he dictates a detailed account of every secret of Nero's depravity to which he has been privy and sends it under seal to the emperor. He then breaks his signet ring so that it cannot be misused after he is gone. He binds up his wounds yet again as they sit down to dinner, as it would not become a conscientious host to spill blood on the dining table. The fare is modest but sublime, all the best that the waters of Cumae have to offer: oysters, mussels, black and white sea acorns, raw spon-dyli in vinegar; maybe Petronius indulges his weakness for sow's udder and aged Falernian. As the dessert dishes are being cleared away, he reaches for one of his favorite objects, a beautiful myrrhine ladle worth more than three hundred thousand sesterces, and smashes it to the ground, unable to bear the thought that it might find its way into the emperor's possession. It is his only moment of melodrama and he smiles sheepishly, sorry not for himself but for the ruined ladle. Then, having eaten and drunk his fill, heard a last song or two, Petronius kisses his friends good night and takes himself off to bed, just as he might on any night, so that "death, though forced on him, might have a natural appearance."

  The death of Petronius Arbiter is a fairly seminal text for classical historians, but I have never understood why it is not more commonly known and retold. There are few deaths in all of literature, let alone history, to rival it for elegance, dignity, thoughtful humor, courage, generosity, tact, worldly sophistication, and philosophical consistency. It's hard enough to pull off the kind of beautiful death that all men must admire, envy, and strive to emulate; to do so while graciously hosting an evening of delicious food, delightful conversation, and pleasant entertainment may be an achievement unique in the annals of human civilization.

  It should also be pointed out, in case it is not perfectly obvious, that Petronius' death was every bit a martyrdom. He died because he had dedicated his life to the pursuit of truth and the truth ended up pursuing him. He wanted to know, needed to know, had to understand, at peril to his own life and soul, what happens to a person when all his fantasies of inclusion are fulfilled. Most of us are privileged to participate in only a fraction of the entertainments to which we imagine we might like to be invited; in turn, we have no access to many people we imagine we might care to invite to our own. We are saved by this exclusion; it makes us humble, judicious, optimistic, inventive. Imagine if you were suddenly invited to all the most glorious parties and glamorous homes in the world. It doesn't have to be vulgar - no swimming pools or movie stars - it just has to be your fantasy: the intimate dinners of a revered biochemist; a private recital by your favorite soprano; after-hours drinks in the Oval Office; the pope's birthday party. You are welcome everywhere, anytime. Everybody wants to be your friend, to be you; everybody envies, hates you. How much of you survives? Do you really believe you are strong enough to resist the gravitational force of temptation? Are you really stronger, smarter, humbler, more detached, more self-aware, more cynical, more intellectual than all those idiots in the gossip columns, in Dan's Papers, on Entertainment Tonight, in black tie at the Stockholms Stadshus for the Nobel banquet? The only way you will ever k
now if you are better than the people you envy is to put yourself in harm's way and take your chances. The stakes are high: if you are no better, you lose your soul; if you are better, you lose your life.

  Fortunately, there is no need to put yourself to the test. Petronius sacrificed himself to save you. He assumed all the world's burdens of celebrity, vanity, unlimited self-indulgence, and depravity, and embraced his martyrdom so you would not have to. Today, when we are tempted by or envious of some thing or event from which we have been excluded, solace is available in the form of a simple formula: What Would Petronius Do?

  CHAPTER VIII

  FRIENDLY TO STRANGERS

  For what other reason would a man pray to the gods to give him wealth and abundance of means, than that he may help his friends and sow the harvest of gratitude, that sweet goddess? For in drinking and eating we all take the same pleasure; but it needs not rich feasts to quell hunger.

  Athenaeus of Naucratis, Deipnosophistae

  Sometimes, in the quiet moments just before the first guest arrives, I find myself suddenly paralyzed by fear. I stop what I am doing and look about the room. Is there something I have forgotten to do? I run through a mental checklist of the menu. No, every course is fully prepared and accounted for. The table is set, silver polished, linens folded and in place. Wine is chilling in the refrigerator, vodka in the freezer. The CD changer isfilled. All the lightbulbs are working, all the invitations accepted. The TV is off and the girls are in the bath. Nothing is out of order, yet something feels terribly wrong. What am I missing?

  A lot of people I know are afraid all the time. We all share many of the same worries over our jobs, our own or our children's health, our savings, our success, our own worth, our sex lives, our spouse's ongoing interest, or our lack of a partner. But there is also an underlying, less specific fear - what some might call an ontological or existential anxiety - that shrouds our days and seeps into our dreams. We feel empty and seek meaning. We yearn, and know not what we yearn for. There is a black hole at the center of our understanding that engulfs and crushes our every attempt to explore it. Something is missing.

  You are a footsoldier in Agamemnon's army camped before the walls of Troy. You live in an almost constant state of hunger, filth, exhaustion, and irritability. You have been fighting for almost ten years now, laying waste the once green plain, engaging in skirmishes and the occasional pitched battle with the Asiatics, who show no sign of weakening. For almost ten years, you have slept on the hard shingle or in the beached ships, enduring untold hardships and privation. Not a day goes by that you do not cast a longing gaze across the sea toward your home, your little farm on the gentle slopes of Boeotia.

  How you miss all the food you once took so for granted, available in such abundance in your orchards and fields and the surrounding lands! The cherries, persimmons, grapes, damsons, figs, melons, almonds, quinces, and myrtle berries; the asparagus, artichokes, radishes, chickpeas, cucumbers, mallow, and truffles; the barley cakes, honey cakes, cheesecakes, and sesame cakes; the snails and eggs and milk; the thrushes, finches, titmice, ringdoves, quail, finches, and blackbirds. When was the last time you had an olive - a simple, humble olive?

  More than anything, you miss the fish and mollusks drawn in such delightful profusion at all times of the year from local waters, eaten with such relish at every meal. It has been so long you can barely remember what they taste like, the mussels, oysters, bear crabs, scallops, clams, sea squirts; moray, conger, and electric eels ("the king of everything associated with a feast," goes the well-known saying); small fry, anemones, gilthead, and sea bream, parrot wrasse, hake, boar fish, thresher, and saw-toothed sharks, pig fish, lobster, shrimp, bullhead, lyre fish, turbot, tuna, bonito, mackerel, swordfish, parrot fish, red and gray mullet, monkfish, ray, angler, and octopus. All for the asking! They practically jumped into the nets!

  How ironic, that you should be camped out for ten years on the beach and never taste a fish. How ironic and cruel. The plain above the beach has been reduced to dust by the marauding armies and the livestock must be raised or rustled miles away then shipped or herded back to the Greek camps through hostile territory, yet all you and your fellows ever get to eat is lamb and goat, goat and lamb, roasted unseasoned on spits, a little wild boar when it is available, and the occasional beef on holy days. And why? It's all because of the fickle gods! You are careful not to complain out loud, and you try not to even think such blasphemous thoughts, but everybody on that godforsaken beach - with the possible exception of Menelaus, who is determined to get his wife back and is fully convinced that his quest is divinely ordained - feels exactly the way you do. You are all heartily sick and tired of having to cater to the gods' every whim.

  The gods are everywhere, walking among you, watching your every move, meddling in your most trivial affairs for their own amusement, sniffing out the least impiety and punishing it. You can be sure that every time there is a violent downpour, or a setback on the battlefield, or a shipwreck, or a drought, or a thunderstorm, or a death by illness, or a spring tide forcing the boats to be hauled up in the middle of the night, someone somewhere did something to displease some god. You can take nothing for granted when it comes to the gods because they are so moody and changeable and childish, and there are so many of them and so few with firm allegiances. You can do nothing, nothing at all, without first ascertaining that some god won't be offended.

  Most exasperating of all, you can put nothing in your mouth without first dedicating a portion of it to the gods. And it so happens that the gods don't care for fish. All they want from humans is wine and the greasy smoke from burning animal fat, which rises to Olympus and pleases their nostrils. No other sacrifice will satisfy them. And so, in order to leave nothing to chance on the battlefield, the armies of the Greeks and of the Trojans have eaten nothing but red meat for the past ten years. And you are still no closer to getting inside the Trojan walls than you were when you first arrived.

  You have no way of knowing this, but hundreds of years from now - long after Troy has been reduced to rubble, long after Helen has been carted back to Lacedaemon, long after Agamemnon has met his sorry end, long after your own spirit has fled to the gloom of Tartarus - the poet Homer will record all of your travails in stunning verse. Nothing will be lost - not the endless sacrifices; not the compromises and petty foibles of the generals; not the sounds and sights of spilling gore or the dying cries of homesick boys; not the vindictive, implacable rage of Achilles; not the terrible, eternal grief of Hector's family. And not, definitely not, the whims and meddling and treachery of the capricious gods.

  Soldiers on both sides have every reason to fear the gods, but no amount of pious abjection can guarantee their protection or dependability. You might imagine that you are being looked after, but you have no real way of being sure until a bronze-tipped spear miraculously glances off your breastplate or, conversely, plunges lethally into your bowels. Then you know; but even if you're spared this time, surviving once does not automatically mean you will survive again. It's all up to the gods, which is a little like placing your life in the hands of a class of cliquish schoolchildren.

  Since every little reversal of fortune is the result of divine intervention, it's hardly surprising that everyone is a little con fused as to when and why the gods are on their side or have abandoned them. You've heard Menelaus say, "When you fight a man against the will of the gods, a man they have sworn to honor - then look out." He's right, but the problem is, you can never know whom the gods have sworn to honor or whether they will abide by their word. Time and again, they descend to earth, assume human form, and whisper advice and blandishments into human ears. How to know who is who or whether you are getting good advice or bad? Any military historian will tell you that a battlefield is the worst place in the world for getting a sense of the big picture.

  Look at the great heroes, the ones to whom the gods appear and make their will known. Even the generals are more or less clueless. There is no hotline
to Olympus, and a man may be godfearing all his life to no avail when push comes to shove. Zeus has a number of offspring on the battlefield, but they can't count on his protection. He even allows his own son Sarpedon to be slaughtered, specifically to discourage the other gods from playing favorites. Aeneas, Zeus's Trojan grandson, is spurred on to fight by the feckless Apollo, who promptly abandons him on the battlefield. It is Poseidon, a sworn enemy of Troy, who has to save him at the last minute. And why? "He always gave us gifts to warm our hearts, gifts for the gods who hold the vaulting skies." But then again, so does everyone else. Hector certainly did, as Zeus is compelled to admit: "He never stinted with gifts to please my heart. Never once did my altar lack its share of victims." Much good this did poor Hector when he needed help, as Apollo points out: "Now you cannot bring yourself to save him - even his corpse." Apollo is not much better, however. Supposedly the great protector of Troy, he simply throws in the towel and walks away from all his obligations in mid-battle. "Let these mortals fight themselves to death," he mutters, abandoning an entire city of devoted followers to a hideous fate. A god's allegiance is never bankable, no matter how much you've paid for it.

  If a god breathes courage into one man, how can his opponent fail to blench like a coward? If a god strikes quaking fear into an entire army, what is the value of courage? If you are fated to die, why bother running? If you are slated for victory, whom should you fear? Do these gods to whom you relentlessly pray and sacrifice actually have the power to alter your destiny, or are they only playacting? To the soldier in the field, unable to conceive of a universe without moral cause and effect, it must have been maddeningly confusing.