by Mika Waltari
“Why,” he asked, “are you giving me such a large sum unasked?”
“To strengthen our friendship,” I replied honestly. “But also because I know you can use this money in the right way if evil times befall. Naturally may all the gods of Rome protect us from such things.”
The money was still there, for he was a miserly man. But he knew how to behave when his time had come. It was he who got the Praetorians to abandon Nero when he realized his own skin was in danger. So at first no one wished him ill, and Galba received him well. It was Otho who had him murdered since he felt all too insecure on the tide of temporary popularity. I have always regretted his quite unnecessary death, for he deserved to see better days after his troubled youth. During Nero’s last years he lived under constant oppression so that he could not sleep and became even harder than before.
But why do I think about him? My most important task in besieged Jerusalem was accomplished in discovering that the temple treasure was still there and intact. Thanks to the completeness of our siege, I knew that not even a rat with a gold piece in its mouth could escape from Jerusalem.
You must understand that because of you and your future, I could not offer Vespasian the loan of the contents of my twenty iron chests in Caesarea to help him to the Imperial throne. I trusted his honesty, but Rome’s finances are in confusion, and civil war imminent. I had to secure my expectations which was the only reason why I risked my life and went to Jerusalem.
Naturally I also collected information on the city’s defenses, on the walls, catapults, food and water supplies, for that too would be to my advantage in my report to Vespasian. The city had more than sufficient water from underground cisterns. Right at the beginning of the siege, Vespasian had hopefully cut off the aqueduct which Procurator Pontius Pilate had had built forty years earlier, and which the Jews had opposed with all their might as they did not want to be dependent on water brought in from outside. This also proved how long the revolt had been prepared, and how long the Jews had awaited a favourable opportunity.
But the city had no stores of provisions. I saw shadow-thin mothers with bony children in their arms, trying in vain to squeeze a last drop of milk from their breasts. I felt sorry for the old people too, for they were given no rations. The fanatics bearing arms and fortifying the walls needed all the food.
At the meat market I saw that a pigeon and a rat were treasures paid for in their weight in silver. There were whole flocks of ewes at the temple for the daily sacrifices to the Jews’ bloodthirsty Jehovah, but the starving crowd did not even try to touch them. They scarcely needed guarding, for they were sacred animals. The priests and members of the Council were, of course, still well-fed.
The sufferings of the Jewish people oppressed me, for in the scales of the inexplicable god, the tears of a Jew presumably weigh as much as those of a Roman, and the tears of children more than those of adults, regardless of language and color of skin. But it was necessary to prolong the siege for political reasons, and the Jews owed their fate to their own stubbornness.
Any Jew who even mentioned capitulation or negotiating with the Romans was immediately executed and I think ended in the meat market, if I may give my own personal opinion. Josephus in his account, and only to arouse compassion, mentions only a few mothers who ate their own children. These things were so common in Jerusalem that even he was forced to mention them, to maintain at least some kind of reputation for historical accuracy.
Later I offered Josephus a reasonable fee for the edition of The Jewish War which my publishing house sold, although we had a legal right to publish it. But Josephus refused the money and in the way all authors do, simply complained about the cuts which I had had made to be able to sell the book better, and my assurances would not convince him that these cuts only improved his intolerably long-winded book. Authors are always conceited.
When we had agreed on what kind of misleading information on the city’s defenses I should bear to Vespasian and the ways in which the Julius Caesar synagogue in Rome could secredy support the Jewish revolt without any risk to themselves, the Jewish Council let me out of the city. Blindfolded, I was taken along an underground passage and pushed out into a quarry among rotting corpses. I scraped the skin off my knees and elbows crawling about in the quarry, and it was not very pleasant to trip and find one’s hand in a swollen corpse, for the Jews had forbidden me to remove the bandage from my eyes until a certain time had gone by. Otherwise they threatened to shoot an arrow straight through my body, without mercy.
Meanwhile they covered the opening to the secret passage so well that we had great difficulty finding it again. But it was finally discovered, since I had to have every hole blocked. The way I returned opened our eyes and taught us to search for outlets from the city in the most unlikely places. With promises of rewards I got the legionaries to dig them out. Nevertheless, in an entire year we found only three. But for some time after my return from Jerusalem I was afraid that the guarantees for your future were lessening. But I need not have worried. The treasure was still there when Titus captured the city, and Vespasian paid his debts.
But thus I spent a whole year in the East, uneasily circling around Vespasian before the time was ripe.
Book XIV
Vespasian
I made use of the intervening period to prepare my case with Vespasian in devious ways and he no doubt took the hint, but he was a cautious man. Nero died the following spring, that is, if he is dead. Within a year, Rome was ruled by three different Emperors, Galba, Otho and Vitellius. In some ways by four, if one counts the shameless coup d’etat in Rome the eighteen-year-old Domitian performed at his own father’s expense. But that was swiftly dispensed with.
It amused me that it was Otho who became Emperor after Galba. Poppaea would have been the Imperial consort after all, even had she not divorced Otho, so the prophecy was doubly confirmed. I am not superstitious, but every sensible person should occasionally keep an eye on the signs and omens.
Vitellius then took over the reins, supported by the German legions, as soon as he learned of Galba’s murder. I think the reason for Otho’s swift downfall was that he was bold enough to steal the sacred sword of your ancestor, Julius Caesar, from the Mars temple, which he had neither a legal nor a moral right to do. That right is yours, Julius Antonianus Claudius, since you are directly descended from both the Julian and Claudian lineages, as were all the Julian Emperors. Fortunately the sword was returned and was once again dedicated in the Mars temple.
Otho’s legions were defeated at Bedriacum and Otho committed suicide, for he did not wish to prolong the civil war although he had fresh troops to draw on. His last letter was written to Nero’s widow, Statilia Messalina, and in it he regretted that he could not fulfill his promise to marry her. His body and his testimony, he said in this letter, which for a commander and an Emperor was most inappropriately emotional, he left in Statilia’s care. In this way Statilia had, within a very short time, two Imperial graves to care for.
It is enough to say of Paulus Vitellius that he had spent his early youth in Capri as companion to Emperor Tiberius. I gladly acknowledge his famous father’s services to the State, but Paulus was so depraved that his own father did not even wish to give him the office of Proconsul. He managed to secure the favors of three Emperors by his vices rather than his virtues. Nero counted him among his friends, but I was never friendly with him. Indeed, I avoided his company as far as was possible.
His only honorable action was when he defied the Senate by daring to celebrate a sacrifice to Nero on Mars field in the presence of all the colleges of priests, after which, at the banquet he gave, he asked Rome’s most famous cittern-player to sing only songs which Nero had written and composed, and applauded them as enthusiastically as he had when Nero was alive. In this way he made good the insulting letter which Propraetor Julius Vindex had written to Nero and which became the cause of the civil war. In his letter Vindex called Nero a poor cittern-player, for he knew this w
ould offend him more than any other accusation.
In my opinion, Vitellius’ great political mistake was that he disbanded the Praetorian cohorts and had a hundred and twenty men executed, among them tribunes and centurions, who were responsible for Galba’s murder. From his point of view they deserved rewarding rather than punishing. It is no wonder that such fickleness made the legion commantlers quite justifiably doubt his reliability as an Emperor.
I do not wish to say more about the ruthless murders of so many noblemen. I shall just mention that he did not even spare certain bankers who could have been useful to him but, hoping for easy gain, had them executed and confiscated their property, without realizing that it is wiser to milk a cow than to slaughter it.
When Vitellius was reigning for the eighth month, certain information came that made me think that the moment to persuade Vespasian had come. I promised to lend him my entire fortune, with part of the treasure of the temple in Jerusalem and other war booty as the only security, to finance his accession to the throne. I referred to my twenty iron chests of gold. Naturally they did not contain my entire fortune, but I wanted him to realize how I trusted his chances.
The cautious Vespasian resisted for so long that finally Titus, on my advice, had to forge a letter in which Galba appointed Vespasian as his heir. Titus was the most skillful forger I have ever met and can faithfully copy any handwriting. What this proves about his character must remain unsaid.
Whether Vespasian believed in the authenticity of the letter from Galba, I cannot say. He knows his son. In any case, he moaned all night in his tent until I could stand it no longer and had a few sesterces per man dealt out to the legionaries so that at dawn they could acclaim him Emperor. They were glad to do this and would probably have done so for nothing, but I hoped to gain time. On my advice, they spread it around the other legions what a good and understanding and gifted commantler Vespasian was from the simple soldier’s point of view.
After being acclaimed Emperor outside the walls of Jerusalem, Vespasian was surprised a few days later to receive a message from the legions in Moesia and Pannonia who had sworn an oath of loyalty to him without his knowledge. He hastened to send their long overdue pay to the Danube legions as they requested in their letter. My money chests in Caesarea proved most useful, although at first Vespasian had muttered that he was sure his good name would provide credit with the rich merchants of Syria and Egypt. At first we did not share the same opinion on my rightful share of the temple treasure.
I reminded him that Julius Caesar had managed to raise immense debts on nothing but his name and his hopes for the future, and that his creditors were forced to support him politically since it ultimately required all the spoils from wealthy and fertile Gaul to repay them. But Caesar had still been young then and both politically and militarily had been infinitely more outstanding than Vespasian, who was already aging and well known for his simplicity. After some bargaining, however, we came to a reasonable agreement.
But as long as Nero lived, Vespasian would never have betrayed his military oath or Nero’s confidence. Loyalty is estimable, but the political circumstances do not take a man’s honor into consideration when they change.
Despite this, Vespasian agreed to assume the heavy burden of Imperial duties when he saw that affairs of State were in ruins and that the civil war would go on forever if he did not act. He intervened for the sake of the ordinary people in the country who wanted only peace and quiet and a modest, happy family life. Most people are like this, and so do not have much say in the ordering of world affairs.
I feel I must tell you all I know about Nero’s death, although I was not an eyewitness to it. But as a friend of Nero’s and from human curiosity, I thought it my duty to look into this, to say the least, obscure story as carefully as the altered circumstances afterwards allowed.
Statilia Messalina firmly believes that Nero died in the way which is told and which the historians confirm. But Nero had banished her to Antium, and she was not an eyewitness. As for Acte, I am not certain, for she visits Nero’s grave so faithfully that I am inclined to think she had something to hide. She was one of the few people present when Nero committed his now famous suicide.
When Nero saw that the Gallic revolt under Vindex was beginning to become dangerous, he returned from Naples to Rome. He had not at first taken the matter seriously, although naturally he was hurt by Vindex* shameless letter. In Rome, Nero summoned the Senate and the most influential members of the Order of Knights to a secret council in the Golden Palace, but sensitive as he was, soon noticed the coldness and ill-will they felt for him. After this meeting he began to be truly frightened. When he heard that Galba had joined the rebels in Iberia he fainted, for he realized that the man he had sent had not reached Galba in time to tell him that for the good of the State he should commit suicide.
When the news of Galba’s treachery spread over Rome, there was a wave of insane hatred for Nero such as had not occurred since the days of Octavianus Augustus and the downfall of Marcus Antonius. I do not wish to repeat everything that was said about him and what infamies were scrawled on his statues. The height of insolence was when the Senate hid the keys to the Capitoline after Nero had asked both the Orders to renew their oaths of loyalty and their sacred promises. The keys were soon found, of course, when after a long wait and in a rage, Nero threatened to execute all the leading Senators on the spot, the sanctity of the Capitoline notwithstanding. But the disappearance of the keys was interpreted among the impatiently waiting spectators as the very worst omen for Nero.
Nero still had many possibilities left. Tigellinus had made out a long list which I later found in his secret hiding place and which also had my name prominendy on it. But I forgave him that gladly for the sake of our friendship. I was more surprised at how clearly he had recognized the necessity of executing certain key State officials when the revolt flared in Gaul and Iberia.
On the list were both the Consuls and so many senators that I was horrified when I read it. I was vexed that I had to destroy it for political reasons. It might have been amusing some time later to read chosen names from it to certain guests whom I was forced to invite home for my position’s sake, although I did not particularly wish for their company.
But Nero contented himself with dismissing both Consuls and taking over himself, since his sensitivity and love of mankind hindered him from putting into action the rigorous program which alone could have saved him. He still had the support of the Praetorians, thanks to Tigellinus. But this would have involved pruning the tree to the last branch and he thought that even the strongest tree would not stand such treatment.
After his artistic success in Greece, Nero had grown even more weary of his Imperial duties. Had the Senate been more reliable then, I think he would have gradually transferred a great part of his powers to it. But you know about the disunity in the Senate, and its internal envy and constant intrigues. Not even the most enlightened ruler can trust the Senate completely, not even Vespasian. I hope you will always remember that, although I myself am a senator and do my best to defend its traditions and authority.
Even so, the Senate is a better tool by which to govern the country than are the irresponsible people. To be a member of the Senate, certain qualifications are demantled, while the people blindly follow the man who promises free oil and arranges the best theater performances and the most free days under the cloak of new festivals. The people are a dangerous and unreliable factor in the sound development of the State and they can nullify even the best calculations. So the people must be kept in order and satisfied.
Nero did not want war, least of all civil war, which for all Julians with their bitter memories is the worst thing that can happen to an Emperor. Yet he did nothing to suppress the revolt, for he wished to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. He answered his critics by saying ironically that perhaps it would be best if he met alone the legions approaching Rome in a triumphal march and won them over to his side by singing to them.
To me this showed that he might have had plans entirely of his own. It was not just empty talk that in his youth he would have preferred to have studied in Rhodes rather than take up politics. He had always longed toward the East and had never managed to get farther than Achaia.
Nero knew more about Parthia than the usual military information concerning grazing lands, roads, springs, fords, mountain passes and fortified points. He also liked to talk about the Parthians’ distinctive civilization, although we laughed at him since to Romans the Parthians are and always will be barbarians until the day Rome civilizes them.
After Nero’s death, I thought that perhaps his talk about holding a concert in Ecbatana had not been entirely a joke. I have discovered that cittern-playing and singing are now the height of fashion in the aristocratic circles of Parthia. In that case, they are behind the times. Here in Rome, as the worst consequence of the conquest of Jerusalem, we have a constant jingling and jangling of Eastern musical instruments. Sistrii and tambourines, or whatever they are called.
Young people’s new-fangled music makes an aging man like me quite ill. Sometimes I remember the cittern-plucking of Nero’s time as a vanished golden age, although I am not musical, as I am always being told by you and your mother.
But it is just as incomprehensible to me that you have to have a slave behind you while you are studying, waving a sistrum or banging two copper saucepan lids against each other while a hoarse singer wails Egyptian street ballads. I should go mad if I had to listen to such things all the time. Yet you seriously maintain that otherwise you cannot concentrate on your studies and your mother is on your side, as usual, and tells me that I do not understand anything. No doubt you would grow a beard too, if fifteen-year-olds could.