by Mika Waltari
Nero was just planning a giant statue of himself which was to be erected in front of the link arcade. He showed me the drawings and drew attention to the sculptor in such a flattering way that he introduced the craftsman to me, as if we were of the same rank. I was not offended, for the main thing was that Nero should be in a good mood.
He willingly sent the craftsman away when I asked to speak to him alone, and then looked guilty, rubbing his chin and admitting that he too had some things to talk to me about. He had been putting them off for fear I should be annoyed.
I explained verbosely to him how I had long and faithfully sacrificed myself to the care of the menagerie in Rome and that I now felt that this task was beyond me, especially in view of the new menagerie which was being built in connection with the Golden Palace. I felt that I could not manage this task which demantled artistic taste, so I should be extremely grateful if he could release me from the office.
When Nero noticed the trend my long speech was taking, his face cleared and he burst out laughing in relief and slapped me on the back in the most friendly way as a sign of his favor.
“Don’t worry, Minutus,” he said. “I shall grant your request. All the better as I’ve been looking for some excuse to dismiss you from the office at the menagerie. Ever since the autumn, influential people have been attacking me about the excessively cruel show you arranged and demanding that you should be dismissed as a punishment for the poor taste you showed. I must admit that certain details in the show were rather unappetizing, although the fire-raisers certainly deserved their punishment. I’m glad that you yourself see that your position has become untenable. I had no idea you would abuse my confidence and arrange for your own stepbrother to be thrown to the wild animals because of some dispute over inheritance.”
I opened my mouth to deny this insane accusation, but Nero went on without stopping.
“Your father’s estate,” he said, “is so complicated and his affairs so obscure that I have not even received a return on my outlay yet. It is whispered that in complete agreement with your father, you have smuggled out most of his fortune to cheat the State and me. But I don’t believe this of you, for I know you and your father did not get on together. Otherwise I’d be forced to banish you from Rome. I strongly suspect your father’s sister, who had to commit suicide to avoid punishment. I hope you’ve nothing against my asking the magistrates to take a look at your own books. I would never do such a thing if I weren’t so short of money all the time because of certain people’s advice. They sit hugging the money bags and refuse to help the Emperor to acquire a decent place to live in. Believe it or not, not even Seneca took the trouble to send more than ten million sesterces, he who in his time pretended to want to give me everything he possessed, knowing per-fecdy well that for political reasons I couldn’t accept it. Pallas sits on his money like a fat bitch. I’ve heard it said of you that a few months before the fire you sold all your apartment houses and sites in the parts of the city which were most affected by the fire and bought cheap land in Ostia which has since become unexpectedly valuable. Such foresight looks suspicious. If I did not know you, I might accuse you of taking part in the Christian conspiracy.”
He burst out laughing. I took the chance of remarking stiffly that of course my fortune was always at his disposal, but that I was not as wealthy as people made out. In that respect I could not be mentioned in the same breath as men like Seneca and Pallas. But Nero patted me on the shoulder.
“Don’t be angry at my little joke, Minutus,” he said. “It’s better for your own sake that you should know what is gossiped about you. An Emperor is in a difficult position. He has to listen to everyone and never knows whose intentions are sincere. But my own judgment tells me that you are more stupid than farsighted, so I cannot behave so badly as to confiscate your property just because of gossip and your father’s crimes. It will be punishment enough that I have dismissed you from office for incompetence. But I don’t know whom to appoint in your place. There are no applicants for such an office which has no political significance.”
I could have said one or two things on its significance, but instead I took the opportunity to suggest that the menagerie be turned over to Sabina and Epaphroditus. In that case I would not demand any compensation and the magistrates need not bother about my accounts. Such a measure would not appeal to me, as an honest man. But first it would be necessary to promote Epaphroditus to a knight.
“There is not a word in any of the laws about the color of a Roman knight’s skin,” I said. “The only condition is a certain wealth and annual income, though of course it depends on your favor whom you appoint. And to Nero nothing is impossible, I know that. But if you think you could consider my suggestion, let me summon Epaphroditus and Sabina. They can speak for themselves.”
Nero knew Epaphroditus by sight and by reputation, and had probably laughed over my gullibility together with my other friends before my divorce. Now it amused him that I was putting in a word for Epaphroditus. He seemed even more amused when Sabina led Lausus in by the hand and he could compare the color of the boy’s skin and hair with Epaphroditus’.
I think all this simply strengthened Nero’s belief that I was a stupid and gullible man. But I only benefited from this. I could not under any circumstances allow the magistrates to look into my accounts, and if he believed that Epaphroditus had feathered his own nest at my expense, that was his business.
In fact Nero was attracted by the idea of showing his power to the Noble Order of Knights by having Epaphroditus’ name put in the rolls of the temple of Castor and Pollux. He was clever enough to know what such a measure would yield in the African provinces. He would show in this way that Roman citizens were equal under his rule, regardless of the color of their skin and their origins, and that he really was without prejudice.
So everything was successful. At the same time, Nero gave his consent to Sabina and Epaphroditus marrying and adopting the boy who had hitherto been registered as my son.
“But I’ll allow him to go on using the name Lausus in memory of you, noble Manilianus,” said Nero mockingly. “It is nice of you to hand over the boy completely to his mother and stepfather. It shows that you respect mother love and ignore your own feelings, although the boy is as like you as two peas in a pod.”
If I thought I had played a joke on Sabina by off-loading the burden of the menagerie on to her, then I was deceiving myself. Nero took a liking for Epaphroditus and had even his most exorbitant bills paid. Epaphroditus saw to it that the animals in the new menagerie in the Golden Palace were to drink out of marble troughs, and the panther cages had silver bars. Nero paid without a murmur, although I had had to pay the huge water bills from my own pocket when the city water supplies had been reorganized after the fire.
Epaphroditus knew how to arrange certain special animal displays for Nero which amused Nero, but I cannot describe them for reasons of decency. In a very short time Epaphroditus became a wealthy man and one of Nero’s favorites, thanks to the menagerie.
My dismissal put an end to the stone-throwing at me in the streets. People began to laugh at me instead and I regained some of my former friends, who magnanimously considered they ought to show pity for me now that I had fallen into disfavor and was an object of fun. I did not complain, for it is better to be laughed at than to be hated by everyone. Claudia, of course, being a woman, did not understand my reasonable attitude, but begged me to improve my reputation for the sake of my son. I tried to be tolerant toward her.
My patience was stretched to breaking point. In her maternal pride, Claudia wished to invite both Antonia and Rubria, the eldest of the Vestals, to your naming day so that I should legitimatize you in front of them, since old Paulina had died in the fire and could not be our witness. Claudia had realized what the destruction of the Vestal archives meant.
She said that it would be kept secret, of course, but in any case wanted a couple of reliable Christian men to be present. Time and time again sh
e told me that the Christians more than anyone else had learned to keep their mouths shut because of their secret meetings. I thought they were the worst informers and chatterboxes. And Antonia and Rubria were women. To initiate them into it all seemed to me to be the same as getting up on the roof and shouting out my son’s descent all over the city.
But Claudia was stubborn, despite my warnings. Of course in itself, it was a great honor that Antonia, Claudius’ legal daughter, should acknowledge Claudia as her half sister and also take you and give you the name Antonianus in memory of both herself and your great ancestor Marcus Antonius. It was more frightening that she promised to remember you in her will.
“Don’t even talk about wills,” I cried, to keep her off the subject. “You are many years younger than Claudia and a woman in the best years of her life. In fact we are contemporaries, but Claudia is over forty, since she is about five years older than I am. I shall not even consider making a will for many years yet.”
Claudia did not like my remark, but Antonia stretched her slim body and gave me a veiled look with her arrogant eyes.
“I think I’m quite well preserved for my age,” she said, “although your Claudia is beginning to look a little worn, if one can put it that way. Sometimes I miss the company of a lively man. I am lonely after my marriages, which both ended in murder, for people are afraid of Nero and avoid me. If only they knew.”
I saw that she was burning to talk abut something. Claudia also became inquisitive. Only old Rubria smiled her wise old Vestal smile. We did not have to encourage Antonia much for her to tell us with feigned modesty that with great tenacity Nero had several times asked her to be his consort.
“Naturally I could not agree to that,” said Antonia. “I told him straight out that my half brother Britannicus and my half sister Octavia stood out all too clearly in my mind. Out of sensitivity, I said nothing of his mother, Agrippina, although as niece of my father she was my cousin and so a cousin of yours, my dearest Claudia.”
At the memory of Agrippina’s death I had a sudden attack of coughing and Claudia had to thump me on the back and warn me against emptying my wine goblet with such haste. I was wise enough to remember my father’s unfortunate fate when he had in his confusion in the Senate brought about his own ruin.
Still coughing, I asked Antonia what Nero had given as a reason for his proposal. She fluttered her blue-shadowed eyes and looked down at the floor.
“Nero told me that he had loved me secretly for a long time,” she said. “He said that that was the only reason why he had borne such a grudge against my dead husband Cornelius Sulla, whom he thought was much too unenterprising a husband for me. Perhaps that excuses his behavior toward Sulla, although officially he stated only political reasons for having Sulla murdered in our modest home in Massilia. Between ourselves, I can admit that my husband had in fact secret connections with the commantlers of the legions in Germany.”
When she had in this way shown that she completely trusted us as her relatives, she went on: “I am woman enough to be a little touched by Nero’s open admission. It’s a pity that he’s so untrustworthy and that I hate him so bitterly, for he can be sympathetic when he wants to be. But I kept my head and referred to the age difference between us, although it is no greater than that between you and Claudia. I have been used to regarding Nero as a nasty boy since childhood. And naturally, the memory of Britannicus is an insurmountable obstacle, even if I might forgive him for what he did to Octavia. Octavia was herself responsible in that she seduced Anicetus.”
I did not tell her what a clever actor Nero could be when it was a question of his own advantage. With his position in mind, it would of course have been very valuable with regard to the Senate and the people if he were able to be allied to the Claudians in yet a third way through Antonia.
The thought of this depressed me and in my heart I did not want you ever to be disgraced in public by your father’s descent. By secret means I had acquired the letters, together with other documents, which my father, before I was born, had written but had never sent to Tullia from Jerusalem and Galilee. From them it appeared that my father, seriously confused by his unhappy love, through a forged will and Tullia’s betrayal of him, had descended to believing everything the Jews had told him, even hallucinations. The saddest thing from my point of view was that the letters revealed my mother’s past. She was no more than a simple acrobatic dancer whom my father had freed. No more was known about her descent than that she came from the Greek islands.
So her statue in Myrina in Asia and all the papers my father had acquired in Antioch on her descent were simply dust thrown in people’s eyes to ensure my future. The letters made me wonder whether I was even born in wedlock or whether my father, after my mother’s death, had acquired the evidence by bribing the authorities in Damascus. Thanks to Jucundus, I myself had found how easy it was to arrange such things if one had money and influence.
I had not mentioned my father’s letters and documents to Claudia. Among the papers, which from a financial point of view were very valuable, there were also a number of notes in Aramaic on the life of Jesus of Nazareth, written by a Jewish customs official who had been an acquaintance of my father’s. I felt I could not destroy them, so I hid them away together with the letters in my most secret hiding place where I had certain papers which would not tolerate the light of day.
I tried to overcome my depression and raised my goblet in honor of Antonia because she had so sensitively succeeded in repudiating Nero’s approaches. She finally admitted that she had given him a kiss or two, in a sisterly way, so that he would not be too indignant at her refusal.
Antonia forgot her harassing suggestions about remembering you in her will. We took you on our knees in turn, despite your violent kicks and screams. So you received the names Clement Claudius Antonianus Manilianus, and that was a sufficiently burdensome heritage for an infant. I gave up my idea of calling you Marcus as well, in memory of my father, which I had thought of doing before Antonia came with her suggestion.
When Antonia left for home in her sedan that night she took farewell of me with a sisterly kiss, as we were legally if also secretly related to one another, and asked me to call her sister-in-law in future when we met alone. Warmed by her friendliness, I eagerly returned her kiss. I did so gladly. I was a trifle drunk.
Again she complained of her loneliness and hoped that I, now that we were related, would come and see her sometimes. I did not necessarily have to take Claudia with me since she had so much to do with the boy, and our large house and her years were probably beginning to weigh on her. She was, however, by descent the most noble lady alive in Rome.
But before I can tell you how our friendship developed, I must return to the affairs of Rome.
In his need for money, Nero tired of the complaints from the provinces and the bitter criticism of the purchase tax from businessmen. He decided to rid himself quite illegally of his problems by cutting the Gordian knot. I do not know who suggested the plan to him, as I was not in on the secrets of the temple of Juno Moneta. Anyhow, whoever it was, he far more than the Christians deserved to be thrown to the wild animals as a public enemy.
In all secrecy, Nero borrowed the votive gifts of gold and silver from the gods of Rome; that is, set up Jupiter Capitolinus as mortgager and himself borrowed from Jupiter. Of course he had a legal right to do this, although the gods did not approve. After the fire, he had had all the melted metal, which was not all pure gold and silver but contained some bronze, collected. Now he melted it all together and day and night had new gold and silver pieces struck in the temple of Juno Moneta, coins which contained a fifth less gold and silver than before. The pieces were both lighter and, because of all the copper in them, duller than the previous brilliant coins.
The minting of these coins took place in complete secrecy and under strict guard, with the excuse that the affairs of Juno Moneta were never public, but of course rumors still reached the ears of the bankers. I myself
began to prick up my ears when coins began to be in short supply and everyone began pressing with money orders or asking for a month’s grace before paying for larger purchases.
I did not believe the rumor for I regarded myself as Nero’s friend and could not believe that he, an artist and not a businessman, could have been guilty of such a terrible crime as intentional forgery of coins, especially since ordinary people had been crucified when they had made a coin or two for their own use. But I followed everyone else’s example and saved as much coinage as possible. I did not even embark on the customary contracts for corn and oil, although this gave rise to animosity among my customers.
The financial confusion became worse and prices rose day by day before Nero released his forged coins into circulation and announced that the old coins must be exchanged for new ones within a certain time, after which anyone found with the old coins would be regarded as an enemy of the State. Only taxes and duty could be paid with old coins.
To the shame of Rome, I must admit that the Senate confirmed this order by a considerable majority. So one cannot blame Nero alone for this crime against all decency and business customs.
The senators who voted for Nero justified their action by asserting that the rebuilding of Rome demantled a fundamental operation. They maintained that the rich would suffer more from this exchange of coins, because the rich owned more coinage than the poor and Nero did not consider it worth forging copper coins. This was nonsense. The senators’ property mostly consists of land, if they do not do business through their freedmen, and every one of the voting senators had had time to place such good gold and silver coins as they owned in safety.
Even the simplest country people were clever enough to hide their savings in clay pots and bury them in the earth. Altogether about a quarter of the coins that were in circulation were exchanged for the new ones. Of course, it should be noted that a great deal of Roman coinage had spread to the barbarian countries and all the way to India and China.