I promise to do all that Caesar asks before standing to leave. As I’m walking away, I hear him bellow for wine.
*
The litter pitches and sways. The silk drapes, normally green, filter the setting sun’s last gasps and are now as orange as a clementine. Jacasta is beside me, reading names off a list. (I have forgotten why.) I have gradually stopped paying attention, and now the names blend together, into one long, monotonous, rollicking poem of Roman elite, of Luciuses, Guises, and Antoniuses, of Marcuses, Faustuses and Numeriuses. My mind is preoccupied; it circles back, again and again, to Father and the glimmer in his eye. When one’s father, the consummate general – the man who took maybe an hour to mourn the wife he loved before returning to the stack of correspondence on his desk – when such a man is sentimental, life feels infinitely short, painfully precarious.
Over the footsteps of the slaves, I can hear the chip-chip-chip of the labourers building Father’s amphitheatre. I pull back the drape and Jacasta stops reading her list.
‘Mistress,’ Jacasta says. ‘You do not want to invite leering.’
‘Stop,’ I say and the litter immediately halts. ‘Down,’ I say and the litter softly floats to the bricks.
I put out my hand and another – hard with callouses, hairy knuckles – takes it and helps me out of the litter. Jacasta follows. We stand, side by side, looking at the amphitheatre. Beside it is the Colossus, the massive statue of bronze built to honour Sol, the sun god. In the dwindling light, it looks dark and menacing.
I point at the statue. ‘Do you know Nero had the face of Sol fashioned to mirror his own?’
‘Did he?’
‘But when Father was named emperor, he had the masons bend and fashion it until it looked like anyone but Nero.’
‘Why?’ Jacasta asks.
‘Father said it wouldn’t do having Nero’s face – his royal lineage – staring down on the people, day in, day out. He said, “One’s legacy is only as good as those who follow will allow.”’
Jacasta smiles, ‘And will your legacy be a good one?’
‘I’m a woman. I fear I’ll be forgotten altogether. Or I will be a line or two in the record. “A loyal sister. She liked the colour green.’’ ’
‘Better than a slave’s.’
‘Yes, I suppose that’s true. But it’s all rubble in the end.’ I point at the amphitheatre. ‘That is Father’s legacy, or so he thinks, but it will be gone one day. Dusty rubble.’
‘Well, I’m glad they changed the statue,’ Jacasta says. ‘Nero was quite ugly, wasn’t he?’
‘No, I don’t think that’s true. I only met him a handful of times, but I remember him as quite handsome. You know I heard Father complain when the masons were done altering it; he said they’d kept Nero’s chin.’ I hold my hand up in front of me, as far away as the arm will allow and block my view of the top half of the statue’s head, leaving the mouth and chin. I close one eye and focus the other. Jacasta does the same.
‘The chin is fine,’ Jacasta says. ‘Not handsome, but not ugly.’
‘Hmm . . .’
‘What is it, Mistress?’
‘If one squints, the chin has a likeness to Ulpius.’
‘Does it?’
‘I think it does. I wonder if Ulpius shares any blood with the tyrant? Some distant relative who ran off to Spain perhaps. Wouldn’t that make for a good story?’
‘I don’t see it, Mistress. I think the chin is like Titus’s,’ Jacasta says. ‘He’s very handsome, your brother.’
I drop my hand. Hearing another woman talk of my brother’s good looks has ruined my fun.
‘Come along, Jacasta,’ I say, heading back toward the litter. ‘Let us go home.’
We climb back into the litter; the drapes fall back, obscuring the view; the litter lifts up, off the bricks, and we head for my family’s home atop the Palatine.
MARCUS
5 May, afternoon
The farm of Gaius Priscus, Sicily
We race along the winding dirt road. The house at the top of the hill is the colour of a stalk of wheat. I can feel my heart pumping furiously over the thud of my horse’s hoofs raining down on the earth. Spiculus trails me by twenty yards. He calls out, asking me to slow down.
‘If you keep up that pace, you’ll ruin the horse and we we’ll have to walk back to Rome.’
Realising he’s right, I pull on my reins and bring the horse to a halt. As Spiculus gets closer, I can see he’s smiling. ‘I know you’re eager, Marcus, but she can wait another hour.’ He takes a sip from his skin of wine, then looks off at the sun-baked house with half-closed eyes. ‘Anyway, she has no idea you’re coming. This will be a pleasant surprise.’
In unison, we resume at an easy trot.
‘You don’t think she’ll be angry with me?’ I ask. ‘She’s been living as a slave all these years. Meanwhile I’ve been living like a senator’s son.’
‘Not like a senator’s son,’ Spiculus says. ‘You are a senator’s son. And no slave ever begrudged a man for being free. I was a slave for nearly twenty years. I never once held it against anyone for taking their freedom once it was granted.’
Spiculus watches me for a moment, scrutinising my face. He’s known me a long time now. He knows my mood better than I do, and can often guess what I’m thinking. Today is a good example.
‘She doesn’t think you abandoned her, Marcus. You were a child. And she was like your mother. She was happy you escaped and she’ll be happy to see the man you’ve become.’
My heart clenches like a fist. I’m not sure what would be harder, if Elsie was mad at me or if she was proud of me. Either way, I will always feel like I abandoned her.
I spur my horse forward so Spiculus can’t see my face and read my thoughts.
*
At the top of the hill a man is waiting for us. He’s so slight at first I thought he was a child. But once we’re closer, I can see his white beard and dry, cracked skin.
‘And you are?’ he asks, one eye on his wax tablet.
‘Marcus Ulpius,’ I say.
‘Ah,’ he says, ‘the mysterious benefactor. I’ve never seen a man purchase a slave by letter, without laying eyes on her first, and then demand she be given no task until your arrival. Master Priscus couldn’t believe it.’
‘I’m glad to be of interest,’ I say, trying to seem at ease.
‘Yes, well, I hope you are not disappointed. From your instructions, it seemed you thought she were some great beauty that you didn’t want spoilt by hard work.’
‘And is she not beautiful?’ I ask.
‘Why she’s older than me,’ the old slave exclaims.
Spiculus interjects: ‘If you don’t mind, sir, it has been a long ride. We would like to see her and be on our way.’
The old slave nods his head and takes us into the garden, which is bordered on all four sides by a colonnade. In the middle of the garden there is a woman. She’s sitting at a table, a basket of pomegranates at her side. One pomegranate is cut in two and she’s beating the back of one half, the rounded end, and letting the red seeds fall into a bowl. She isn’t facing us, but I can tell she’s old, with her bent back and limp, grey hair, which she’s wearing up in a bun. I signal for the old slave and Spiculus to wait under the colonnade. I make my way to the woman, right up to her side, and say, ‘I told them to let you rest until we arrive.’
She slowly turns to face me. She’s older than I remember, more fragile. She looks up and squints in the sunlight. I kneel, so we are eye to eye – as she used to do with me.
She studies my face for a long while. Then she’s shocked – but only for a moment; she smiles. ‘Look at you,’ she says as she takes me in. ‘Just look at you. The stars are never wrong. Yes? I’ll have to find my Chaldean priest and tell him he was right.’ Her smile finally cracks and turns into a sob. She reaches out, grabs my shoulders, and drags me in close. She’s crying heavily now, as am I.
‘My Marcus,’ she says. ‘My little
Marcus, the boy from the Tiber.’
Historical Note
In June A.D. 68, after thirteen years as the emperor of Rome, Nero fell from power. According to the surviving accounts, when faced with mutinying legions in the provinces and disloyal Praetorians in Rome, believing all was lost, Nero fled to his freedman’s villa and committed suicide. Nero was a tyrant, so said the ancient historians, and his suicide a welcome day for the Empire. This remains the predominant view to this day.
And yet, when scrutinised, this story doesn’t quite add up. In the years that followed Nero’s fall, at least three men claimed to be the deposed emperor alive and well. These imposters were remarkable and frequent enough that they were given their very own label: the False Neros. Rather than draw disdain (as one would expect when someone claims to be a deposed tyrant), they drew support. Nero was a name worth fighting for – at least for some.
The idea of a False Nero is itself an outlier. Nero was the fifth emperor of Rome. There were no false Augustuses or Tiberiuses. Caligula wasn’t spotted after his death; nor was Claudius. What was different about Nero? Did the people love him more than the emperors who came before and after? Was his death more mysterious? We don’t know. But it’s clear that Nero, his reputation and suicide, is not quite the open and shut case the ancient historians would have you believe.
Nero is one example of a larger issue. Engaging with the past, particularly the first century A.D., is treacherous. For the events of the empire, the acts of the Caesars and their subjects, we mainly rely on three men: Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio. None was contemporaneous, but rather wrote decades or, in the case of Dio, more than a century later; all three wrote from one perspective – male and aristocratic; and all three were not only historians, but politicians as well – men who looked to advance under an entirely different regime. And the Flavian Dynasty, which began with Vespasian in A.D. 69, had every reason to cast, or encourage, aspersions on the dynasty that preceded it, the Julio-Claudians. No doubt this was particularly important for the last Julio-Claudian, Nero. Of the three historians, Tacitus is considered the most reliable. Unfortunately, his accounts of Nero’s fall, all but one of the False Neros, and most of Vespasian’s reign have been lost.
Of course the predominant view is not the only view. Classicists have begun to reconsider Nero’s reputation. Some scrutinise the extant record (Edward Champlin’s Nero, for example). Or there is the refreshingly frank Mary Beard, who, in SPQR (among other places), admits we will never know what did or did not happen under Nero, Vespasian or any other emperor. I am partial to this view. My background is in the law and the rules of evidence. The lawyer in me found it strange, even unfair, on what little evidence Nero and the other ‘monsters’ of the early Empire were condemned. The ancient historians merely relate what others claim to have observed. It would be inadmissible in court because it is hearsay evidence, which, by its very nature, is unreliable.
It is in the context of this contradictory and unreliable record that this story resides, from Nero’s fall to Trajan’s rise to the principate. This is a work of fiction, and I have taken certain liberties authors allow themselves. But I have also strived to offer a story that is accurate in its own way, one that can fill the gap scholarship cannot, and seize on the unexplained contradictions, unanswered questions, or biased accounts, for a period of history of which little has survived.
Cast of Characters
A.D. 68
Nero and his courtiers
Nero, Emperor of Rome
Phaon, Imperial secretary
Epaphroditus, Imperial chamberlain
Halotus, eunuch and Imperial chamberlain
Spiculus, one-eyed ex-gladiator and personal bodyguard to Nero
The Praetorian Guard
Nymphidius Sabinus, co-prefect of the Praetorian guard
Tigellinus, co-prefect of the Praetorian guard
Terentius, centurion, aka the Fox
‘Venus’, soldier in the Praetorian guard
‘Juno’, soldier in the Praetorian guard
The house of Proculus Creon
Proculus Creon, freedman and entrepreneur
Mistress Creon, wife to Creon
Giton, Creon’s son
Elsie, slave and cook to Creon
Socrates, slave to Creon
Marcus, slave to Creon
Senators
Galba (aka the Hunchback), senator and successor to Nero as Emperor of Rome
Otho, senator, former friend of Nero and presumptive heir to Galba
Vitellius, commander in lower Germany, famous for his appetites
Freedman
Icelus, freedman to Galba, imprisoned in Rome at the time of Nero’s fall
Doryphorus, freedman turned actor
A.D. 79
The Flavians
Vespasian, former general and Emperor of Rome
Titus, prefect of the Praetorian guard, victorious general in the Jewish war and the Emperor’s eldest son
Domitian, second born (and often forgotten) son of Vespasian
Domitilla, eldest daughter of Vespasian and widower
Vespasia, second born daughter of Vespasian and recent widow of Asinius
Julia, daughter to Titus
Sabinus, nephew to Vespasian, recently named rex sacrorum
Vip, daughter to Sabinus
Imperial staff and courtiers
Phoebus, Imperial secretary
Epaphroditus, exchequer and Imperial freedman
The Plautii
Graecina, wife to deceased general and ex-consul, Aulus Plautius, close friend to Vespasian
Lucius Plautius, hapless senator and friend of the Flavians
Antonia, wife to Plautius
Senators
Secundus (aka Pliny the Elder), soldier, senator, scientist and close adviser to the Emperor
Cocceius Nerva, senator and former member of Nero’s consilium
Eprius Marcellus, influential senator under Nero and Vespasian
Caecina Alienus (aka the Turncoat), former commander during the civil wars
Cerialis, general charged with defeating the False Nero
Caius Cassius, banished to Sardinia by Nero
Cluvius Rufus, former courtier of Nero turned historian under the Flavians
Julius Valerianus, high-priced lawyer
Women of Rome
Lepida, widower of Iulus and former mistress of Nero
Calpurnia, wife of Caecina
The house of Ulpius
Lucius Ulpius Traianus, blind wealthy senator from Spain
Marcus, nephew to Lucius Ulpius
Theseus (aka the Big Buck), one-eyed freedman
Cyrus, Parthian freedman
The Praetorian Guard
Regulus, military tribune and patrician
Virgilius, Titus’s right-hand man
Ex-soldiers in Rome
Julius Calenus, disgraced ex-soldier stalking the shadows for Nerva
Montanus, hired thug and head of criminal gang
Fabius, former colleague of Calenus, works for Montanus
Slaves
Ptolemy, slave to Titus
Jacasta, slave to Domitilla
Appius, slave to Nerva
On the Bay of Naples
Vettius, missing Pompeian knight
Red, prostitute who witnessed Vettius’ abduction
Barbarians
The Batavian, a slave purchased by Nerva; likely former Batavian soldier, one of the most feared of all Germanic tribes
Caratacus, deposed barbarian king from Britannia, pardoned by Claudius Caesar
Author’s Note
Romans divided their days into twenty-four hours, twelve hours of sunlight and twelve of darkness. Noon was the sixth hour of the day and midnight the sixth hour of the night. Romans also referred to their days as one of eleven successive periods: after-midnight, cockcrow, still-time (when cocks have finished crowing but the world is still asleep), dawn, morning, afternoon, sunset, v
esper (for the evening star), first torch, bedtime, and depth of night. I have used both systems throughout this work.
Acknowledgements
The author’s note at the beginning of this work was distilled from Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome by J.P.V.D. Balsdon. The other works that I could not have written this book without and would highly recommend include: The Roman Way, by Edith Hamilton; Daily Life in Ancient Rome by Jerome Carcopino; 69 A.D.: the Year of the Four Emperors by Gwyn Morgan; Nero by Edward Champlin; Religions of Rome, Volumes I and II, by Mary Beard, John North and Simon Price; The Forum Reconstruction, a Reconstruction and Architectural Guide, by Gilbert J. Gorski & James E. Packer; The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius (Penguin Classics edition translated by Robert Graves); The Annals and The Histories by Tacitus (The Modern Library edition, translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb); The Oxford Classical Dictionary, edited by Simon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth & Esther Eidinow; Vespasian by Barbara Levick; Dynasty by Tom Holland; The Roman Forum by David Watkin; and Mary Beard’s oeuvre, including the Roman Triumph, the Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found, SPQR, and Confronting the Classics.
I am indebted to my agent, Sam Copeland, for his enthusiasm, conviction, and tireless efforts; and everyone at Bonnier/Twenty7, particularly my editor, Joel Richardson, for his insight and steady editorial-hand. Without Sam and Joel, I doubt this book would have seen the light of day.
My thanks to my creative writing instructor, Chis Wakling, and classmates (Beth Alliband, Nicolas Hodges, Nick Ledlie, Stuart Blake, Marjorie Orr, Marialena Carr, Downith Monaghan, Penny Glidewell, Tawnee Hill, Lacey Fisher, Luke Hupton, Jordan Followwill, Clarissa Goenawan, and Kate MacWhannell) for their insight and commentary on the novel’s earlier drafts.
I am grateful to Robert Rueter, managing partner at my firm, for approving and encouraging a leave absence to finish the book.
Thank you to my parents, Howard Barbaree and Lynn Lightfoot, for their unwavering love and support, and the example of hard work and dedication they have provided throughout my life.
David Page 41