The Roman sotk-2

by Mika Waltari

  “But I could support you on one side and Titus on the other,” I said encouragingly. “It’s not as difficult as it looks.”

  Vespasian looked at me and smiled.

  “What would the people think of that?” he said. “But, by Hercules, better you than Domitian on one side, the immoral, crooked liar.”

  This he said long before we knew anything about the victory at Cremona, the siege of the Capitoline and Domitian’s cowardly behavior. Vespasian had to allow Domitian to ride behind Titus in the triumphal procession for the sake of his grandmother’s memory, but Domitian had to ride on a mule and the people understood the implication., When we had considered the succession to the throne from all points of view, like reasonable men who are friends, I was glad to agree to Vespasian’s suggestion that Titus should rule after him and before you, even if I did not value Titus as highly as his father did. His ability to forge handwritings made me doubt his inner qualities. But fathers are blind.

  When Vespasian had had his powers confirmed in Rome, Titus conquered Jerusalem on his orders. Its destruction was as terrible as the description in Flavius Josephus’ work. But the spoils were to come and I was not defrauded of my security. Titus had not wished to destroy the temple, and he had sworn this to Berenice in bed. But during the fighting it was impossible to stop the spread of the fire. The starving Jews fought from house to house and from cellar to cellar, so the legions suffered heavy losses, although they had thought that only the occupation of the city remained.

  Anyone will soon be able to see my portrait in the reliefs on the triumphal arch we have decided to erect in the forum. But to be honest, Vespasian was not entirely in agreement at first that I too deserved a triumph insignia, as I had striven for so eagerly for your sake. I had to point out to him several times that. during the siege I had been the next highest in rank under his command and that I had fearlessly exposed myself to the Jews’ arrows and stones to the extent of being wounded in the foot in my rush for the walls.

  Not until Titus magnanimously put in a word for me did Vespasian award me a triumph insignia. He had never come to regard me as a warrior in the true sense, so I had deserved that much from my part in the siege and conquest of Jerusalem. We in the Senate who have triumph insignia are now so few that we can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and among us are a few who have received insignia without any service merit of their own, if I am to be absolutely accurate.

  After crawling up the Capitoline steps, Vespasian filled a basket with stones from the temple ruins and carried it on his shoulder down into the valley that was to be filled in, in order to show the people his goodness, his humility, and first and foremost to set a good example. He expressed a wish that we should all share the cost of rebuilding the temple of Jupiter.

  Vespasian has also collected copies of old laws and regulations, decrees and special rights dating right back from the foundation of the city from all the corners of the world. He has gathered nearly three thousand such bronze tablets hitherto, and they are kept in the newly built State archives in place of those which melted during the great fire.

  As far as I know he has not gained anything from them, although he would have had an excellent opportunity to trace his descent all the way back to Vulcan if he so wished. But he is still content with his grandmother’s buckled old silver goblet. As I write this he has ruled as Emperor for ten years and we are preparing to celebrate his seventieth birthday. I myself have two years to go before I am fifty and feel surprisingly young thanks to the cures I have been taking and one other circumstance, for which reason I have not hurried to leave here, but prefer to stay and write my memoirs, as you have perhaps noticed.

  The physicians gave me permission to return to Rome a month ago.

  But I must thank Fortuna that I have been allowed to experience this spring, which I had not believed possible. I feel so much younger that a little while ago I asked to have my favorite horse brought so that I could start riding again, although I have been content for several years to lead my horse in processions. Thanks to Claudius’ decree, this is still allowed and we older men take advantage of it as we grow heavier.

  Speaking of Fortuna, your mother has always been strangely jealous of the simple wooden goblet which I inherited from my mother. Perhaps it reminds her only too well that you have a quarter Greek blood in your veins, though fortunately she does not know how lowly that blood is. This goblet of Fortuna, because of your mother, I sent to Linus several years ago, when in a moment of satiety I thought I had had more than enough of worldly success. I think the Christians need all the good fortune they can get, and Jesus of Nazareth himself had drunk from this goblet after his resurrection. So that the wooden goblet should not become too worn, I had a cleverly worked goblet of gold and silver made to enclose it. On one side it bears a picture in relief of Cephas and on the other, one of Paul.

  It was quite easy to have these portraits made, for the craftsman who did them had seen both of the men himself many times and was also helped by other people’s drawings and a mosaic. True they were both Jews who did not approve of human images, but Paul revered the Jewish laws in many other respects, so I do not think he will mind that with Linus’ help I have preserved his appearance for posterity, even if there is no future in the Christian teaching alongside other and more promising religions, from the Gymnosophists to the Mithras brotherhood.

  They were both good people and now, after their deaths, I understand them better than before, as so often happens when certain aggravating characteristics no longer stop one’s creating a clear picture of a person as he really had been. Anyhow, the Christians own a picture of Jesus of Nazareth. It stuck to a piece of cloth when he fell to the ground in Jerusalem with his cross on his back and a woman handed him her own kerchief to wipe the blood from his face. This picture would hardly have stayed on the cloth if he himself had not wished it, so as far as I can make out he permitted human images, unlike the faithful Jews.

  My mother’s goblet is much used, but I have a feeling its power has lessened because of the gold and silver around it. In any case, the Christians’ internal disputes continue unabated and as violently as before.

  Linus has great difficulty reconciling them so that they do not take to physical violence against each other at their sacred evening meals.

  What happens in the dark streets, when the locked doors are opened and the partakers of the meal leave, I shall not bother to tell you. The same intolerant envy which ruined Paul and Cephas still holds sway among them. For this reason, too, they have no future. I am only waiting for the moment when one Christian kills another in the name of Christ. The physician Lucas is so ashamed of all this that he is not able to concentrate on writing the third book to add to the work he has planned, and has stopped working on it.

  It is no help that learned and educated men have begun to join them and profess themselves adherents of Christ. Indeed, it seems only to make the situation worse. When just before my illness I invited two Sophists here to a meal, in the hope that their education would be of help to Linus, they became involved in such a violent dispute that they nearly broke my valuable Alexandrian glass bowls.

  The reason for the Sophists’ visit was purely a practical one. I thought that educated men such as they would understand how advantageous it would be for the Christians if their leaders began to wear some kind of insignia of rank, for instance headgear of the kind worn by the Mithraic priests, and perhaps add the soothsayer’s spiral to their simple shepherd’s stave. Such outward signs, I thought, would encourage ordinary citizens to join the Christians.

  But instead of a reasonable discussion, both men began arguing.

  “I believe in an invisible kingdom,” said the one, “in the angels and that Christ is the Son of God, for this is the only possible explanation of the incomprehensible and insane way of the world. I believe so that I can understand.”

  “Don’t you sec, you poor fool,” said the other, “that human reason ean never underst
and the divinity of Christ? I myself believe only because the teachings about him are absurd and senseless. So I believe because it is irrational.”

  Before they could physically come to grips with one another I intervened.

  “I myself am not a learned man,” I said, “although I have read the philosophers and a number of poets and written a book on Britain which can still be found on the shelves of the public libraries. I cannot compete with you in the art of learning and debate. I do not believe much and I generally do not pray for things, for it seems irrational to pray for things about which an inexplicable God knows best He will no doubt see to my needs if he finds reason to do so. I am tired of your long-winded prayers. Should I employ a prayer, then I should wish to be able to whisper at the moment of my death: Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me. I do not imagine that my evil deeds and crimes would be palliated in his eyes by a few good deeds. A wealthy man is never without guilt; the tears of his slaves alone are his crimes. But never mind. I understand those people who give their property to the poor to follow Christ. I myself prefer to keep what I own for my son and the common good, for otherwise it might go to someone more cruel than I, to the disadvantage of the many who receive their bread from me. Therefore spare my glass bowls from your quarrels, for they are not only expensive but also dear to my heart.”

  They controlled themselves out of respect for my rank and position, although perhaps they flew at each other’s throats as soon as they had left my house and my good wine. But don’t think that by telling you this I have committed myself to Christianity, Julius, my son. I know enough of Jesus of Nazareth and his kingdom not to dare give myself such a pretentious name as Christian, so I have not been able to bring myself to receive their baptism despite your mother’s insistence.

  I am content to remain what I am, with my human weaknesses and my failings, and do not even defend my actions, which you will know from these memoirs, or the reasons I have inevitably been forced to do some things which I have regretted later. But these too will be useful to you.

  Of my moral failings I wish to say that practically no man is blameless, not even the holy men who are dedicated to God. But I can assure you that I have never deliberately used another person simply for my own pleasure. I have always acknowledged the human value of my bedmate, whether she was a slave-girl or a freewoman.

  But I think that the greatest moral failings do not occur in bed, as many people think, but that the worst is hardness of heart. Be careful not to harden your heart, my son, however far you rise and whatever difficulties you have to face in life. A certain human vanity is perhaps permitted, within sensible and reasonable limits, as long as you yourself do not value your learned and poetic results too highly. Do not think that I do not know that you are competing with Juvenal in the art of writing verse.

  As I write this I feel as if I love the whole world for allowing me to experience another spring. So I think that when I come to Rome I shall pay the debts of your friend Juvenal and he may gladly keep his beard. Why should I annoy you and put a distance between us by despising a friend to whom you are close, for reasons which to me are incomprehensible?

  My heart swells with the desire to tell you things. So I shall tell you about the spring I have just experienced, for I have no one else to tell, and you will not read these memoirs until after my death, when you will perhaps understand your old father better. How very much easier it is to get to know and understand a strange child than one’s own son. But this is presumably every father’s curse, now and forever, even if we always wish for the best.

  I do not know how to begin. But you know that I have never wished to return to Britain, despite my interests there and my desire to see Lugundanum growing into a real town. I am afraid I should no longer see Britain as the lovely country I experienced in my youth during my journeys with Lugunda. Perhaps I was bewitched by the Druids then and even Britain seems beautiful to me, but I do not wish to lose this memory by going there again with my fifty-year-old coarsened and dulled senses, now that I no longer believe good of human beings.

  But this spring I have been able to live as if I were still young. Naturally the whole thing has been a fragile enchantment of the kind that dulls the sight with laughter and tears in a man such as I. You are unlikely ever to meet her, my son, for I myself think it better never to see her again after this, both for her own sake as well as for my own.

  She is of comparatively low descent, but her parents have maintained the ancient traditions and simple customs of the country because of their poverty. She is even surprised that my tunic is of silk. I have liked telling her about past events in my life, beginning from the lion cubs which my wife Sabina took into our bed and forced me to feed. She has listened to me patiently and at the same time I have been able to observe the changes of expression in her unusual eyes.

  It has also been necessary for me to search my memory in the evenings as I pardy wrote and pardy dictated these memoirs, which I hope will one day be useful to you so that you do not believe too much good of human beings and be disappointed. No ruler can wholeheartedly trust any single man. It is the heaviest burden of absolute rule. Remember too, my son, that too great a dependence brings its revenge.

  For I love you with all my heart and you are the only real meaning in my life, even if you yourself do not feel it so. It is as if, by meeting in her a late, much too wonderful and tender love, I had learned to love you more than before and also understand your mother and her less weak sides better. I forgive her the words she occasionally spoke so intemperately. On the other hand I hope very much that she will forgive me that I cannot be different from what I am. No one can teach an old dog new tricks.

  Nothing evil has happened between us during the whole of the time I have remained behind here at this resort, which lies near her parents’ farm. Once or twice I have kissed her and perhaps brushed the skin of her arm with my large fist. I have not wished for more, because I do not wish to do her harm or rouse her senses too soon to the desolation and hot wastes of human passion. It is enough for me that my stories make her cheeks flush and her eyes shine.

  I do not wish to tell you her name. You will not find it in my will, for in other ways I have seen to it that she will never be in need and that her dowry will be sufficiently large when the day comes when she will find a young man worthy of her. Perhaps I exaggerate her intelligence just because she listens so patiently and willingly to an elderly man, but I think her future husband will find her inborn understanding and powers of comprehension useful if he wishes to create a future in the service of the State.

  She will probably choose a member of the Noble Order of Equestrian Knights, for she is very fond of horses. For her sake I had my favorite mare brought here and I began to ride again. I think her very presence and compassion have helped me get better and have favored my health, as our friendship lacks all exhausting passion.

  I expect you have been annoyed and have even hated your father because the snow-white stallion bred from Emperor Gaius’ Lightning unexpectedly vanished from your stable. It amused me to do this to remind myself of what being a Roman senator really means. Gaius had decided to appoint Lightning a senator, which was why he was so cruelly murdered. In this the Senate overrated itself somewhat, according to my knowledge of many of its members. They should have found a more valid reason.

  But I heard that after you had received your man-toga, you rode a snow-white stallion in the Noble Order of Knights’ festive procession. A youth of your age should not do that, Julius, believe me. So I thought it best to take the stallion away from you. I prefer to give it to a wise fifteen-year-old girl in the quiet of the countryside. After all, I am the one who pays for your stable, although it is called yours.

  I cannot stop the Roman gossip which reaches me in different ways. Understand me when you come to read this. I have not considered it necessary to give any reasons. You may continue to hate me because your beautiful horse suddenly vanished. And you may prefer to hate
me if you have not enough sense to understand why it was necessary.

  I am thinking of giving this stallion to her as a farewell gift, for she did not consider she could accept a gold chain as a souvenir. I think she will be able to accept the horse. Her parents will have a small income from using it as a stud animal and at the same time the district’s horses will be improved. They are not much to speak of at the moment. Even my gentle old mare has roused envy here.

  When I think of “my own life I like to remember a parable which you will recall from Linus’ lectures on the life of Jesus of Nazareth. It was a master who had left his servants several pounds of silver to administer while he was away. One servant buried his pound in the earth, while the other increased his. No one can say about me that I have buried my pound; indeed I have increased my inheritance perhaps a hundredfold, but that would sound boastful. You will see in my will. But I do not mean only earthly pounds, but also other values. Anyhow, I have used almost twice as much of the best Nile paper for my memoirs as my father used in his letters to Tullia. You will be able to read those too in time.

  The master said to his servants: “Good and faithful servants, go in the joy of your Lord.” I think these are beautiful words, even if I cannot hope for any such thing for myself, since I have been neither good nor faithful. But Jesus of Nazareth has a strange way of striking one over the ear when one thinks one knows something. Hardly a week had gone by after I had boasted in front of my two quarrelsome guests that I never prayed for things, when, because of my stomach pains, I was begging him to stop the bleeding before I bled to death. Not even Rome’s best physician could stem the flood. But my complaint cured itself. Here in this resort with its mineral waters, I feel healthier and happier than I have for ten years. I also feel strangely sure that I shall still be needed for some purpose, although I have promised nothing.

  But a few more words on this radiant-eyed child who has been my companion and has given me such pleasure that the very sight of her has melted my heart. At first I could not think why I thought I had met her before, for everything about her seemed familiar to me, even her smallest movements. Foolishly I gave her a piece of Antonia’s soap and a flask of perfume Antonia had used. I thought that in some remote way she reminded me of Antonia and hoped that the well-known scent of soap and perfume would make this likeness even more real.