Master and God

by Lindsey Davis

  Like many men whose own behaviour is questionable, Domitian regulated everyone else’s moral conduct. Vinius had not exaggerated when he warned Orgilius that the Emperor took a direct interest in criminal accusations. Women were charged with adultery while men were just as sternly prosecuted under the law against sodomy with freeborn males. Other crimes were fiercely tackled too. Supposedly one woman was executed merely because she undressed in front of a statue of the Emperor; this caused an extra dimension of fear, because someone in her own home must have informed on her. No one could trust even their most intimate household.

  In the privacy of Plum Street Lucilla’s clients, a forthright bunch of matrons, preened the immaculate curls their meek husbands were paying for and ridiculed anyone who kept a statue of Domitian in her bedroom. If it really seemed advantageous to own such a statue, the thing could so easily be relegated to a little-used library or the horrible saloon where one’s husband greeted his morning clients…

  Even Domitian’s own household became increasingly destabilised. His removal of state servants continued. Finance and correspondence secretaries came and went for no obvious reason, as if merely to keep the others on the hop.

  Recent events still weighed heavily on the Emperor. Nobody knew the full tally of reprisals after the German revolt. Severed heads displayed in the Forum had been only one show of punishment. Domitian refused to publish details of those he executed; rumours of ‘many’ senators being put to death were perhaps false, but the chief officers from the two rebellious legions, who were caught, savagely tortured and killed, were senators’ sons. Details of their torture — scorched genitals and hands cut off — were so specific it sounded true.

  Some deaths certainly occurred; the governor of Asia, Civica Cerialis, was abruptly executed for unknown reasons, and without trial, possibly because Domitian believed he had encouraged the false Nero. The governor of Britain, too, Sallustius Lucullus, was put to death, ostensibly when he ‘invented a new lance and named it after himself’; that seemed absurd but Domitian may have been convinced Lucullus also supported the Saturninus revolt.

  In Rome, the vengeful Emperor then played a macabre joke on the upper classes. Members of the Senate and the equestrian order received personal invitations to dine with him; he was holding a special banquet to honour those who died in Dacia. Everyone was so insecure, the mere offer of dinner with their emperor filled them with anxiety. Unless a man was on his deathbed with physicians’ notes to prove it, the invitation could not be refused. All were terrified of Domitian. The more they quaked, the more he enjoyed his power over them.

  Flavia Lucilla had joined the background team for this carefully managed occasion. Arrangements were on a theatrical scale. A master of ceremonies had sounded her out on the subject of dyes and skin paints, with which they conducted experiments. She was primed to attend with the necessary equipment, but sworn to secrecy.

  One afternoon shortly after her divorce, she was collected in a litter. With her baskets of materials, she was taken down the Vicus Longus, through the new imperial forums, across the ancient Forum of the Romans, and up the steep covered entrance to the top of the Palatine, where she had her first real experience of Domitian’s fabulous new palace. Work was still incomplete but already she could see that this was a building of staggering style and innovation. Crowning the Palatine Hill even more majestically than its predecessor, the new palace was designed to give the impression its halls were those of gods.

  After the steep climb up from the Forum, the entrance had been positioned close to the ancient Temple of Apollo and House of Augustus. An octagonal vestibule, which had curvilinear anterooms, gave a preliminary hint of magnificence and led to the first inner court. A portico of fluted columns in Numidian yellow marble surrounded a huge pool; it contained a large island over which water continually splashed via complex fountains and channels. Every surface was veneered in expensive marble.

  To the left was a staggering audience chamber, roofed with ninety-foot beams of Lebanon cedar; the vast space featured fabulous purple columns and niches which contained massive statues of demigods, hewn from metallic green stone brought from the far Egyptian desert. A monumental outside porch where the heavy columns were grey-green Carystian provided the daily setting for Domitian’s formal appearance to be saluted by his people.

  To the right of the entrance, Nero’s dining hall, once beautiful in itself, had been superseded by a stupendous banqueting suite that would seat thousands at great public feasts. A hundred feet high and lined with three orders of columns, the main hall boasted enormous picture windows which gave views to fountain courts where intricate oval water features stood among yet more multicoloured marble pavements.

  Beyond these first formal public rooms lay areas where most people would never penetrate: astonishing second and third courts, exquisite suites, deliberately confusing corridor links, sudden changes of scale or form or level, sunken gardens, bath houses, and a private interior which formed a palace within a palace for the Emperor and his family.

  Marble was the principal material — cut, carved, polished, veneered, mosaicked — but Rabirius had been allowed to spend endlessly on gold too. Everywhere glimmered and shone until the interplay of light with the musical counterpoint of water from the fountains dazzled and entranced the senses.

  Amidst so much glimmering beauty, Domitian’s guests tonight were to have a very different dining experience. None of the glorious banqueting halls for which the palace would become famous were used for the Dacian dinner. A large room had been repainted entirely in darkest black: floor, ceiling, all four walls, plus cornices, architraves, door furniture and dados. On the bare black floor stood bare black couches.

  Wives were not invited; each man had to endure the night alone. On arrival, all were separated from their attendants too. No friendly slaves from home would be removing their shoes and handing them napkins tonight. In the hall, they found a formal funeral banquet like those families held for their deceased relations outside necropolis mausoleums. By the dim light of cemetery lamps, each diner found beside his couch a grim black slab that looked like a tombstone. It bore his name.

  As guests nervously settled, a stream of beautiful naked boys slipped into the dark room, all painted head-to-toe in black. These creatures performed a ghostly dance, winding around the couches like shadows, ebony against pitch, so only occasional movements and the whites of their eyes showed. The undulating shades finished their performance by stationing themselves one to each diner.

  All the solemn sacrifices associated with funerals were made. Black serving dishes were set on low ebony tables. Each spectral pageboy served his diner with strange dark food. Cinnamon and myrrh, the spices thrown on cremation biers, stuffily perfumed the room.

  There was no music. No nervous chatter broke the silence. Presiding, more gloomy than Pluto enthroned in his Underworld caverns, only Domitian talked. The sardonic host chose topics all relating to death and slaughter. Throughout the nightmare dinner, his guests expected to have their throats cut.

  Finally their ordeal concluded. When they rose to leave, no one could forget that Domitian’s family had previously executed opponents when a meal ended. False smiles were a Flavian signature. Tottering back to the great vestibule, the disorientated guests then found that all their personal attendants had vanished. Slaves they had never seen before escorted them home in carriages and litters. At every step of the journey they expected to be dragged out and murdered.

  They fell into their houses. As they shuddered in recovery, new terror arrived. Loud banging announced messengers, sent after them from the Emperor. Every tormented man now imagined the worst.

  Exactly as Domitian intended…

  That tense evening had been observed by Vinius Clodianus. Because this dinner was for the fallen in Dacia, as a survivor Vinius had been ordered to be there, to represent the lost army.

  He was not required to smother himself in black war paint. Thank you, gods! The nigh
t was an ordeal for him. It gave him no solace for his dead comrades; it granted no release from his survivor’s guilt. He would endure it as a soldier, but his mood was doleful.

  He was dressed up in a hybrid parade uniform, with special dispensation for one night only to be armed within the walls of Rome. Over the standard off-white tunic, which soldiers bloused up short ‘for ease of movement’ (or to show off their legs), he wore a muscled breastplate and military belt, with his most decorative dagger. The belt was composed of metal plates, ornamented with silver and black niello, and heavy with its apron of metal-tanged leather strips. He carried the long oval Praetorian shield, covering his left side from shoulder to knee, exquisitely decorated with a motif of moon and stars behind the Guards’ scorpion emblem. He had neatly tied his neckerchief; his cloak hung smartly. Most spectacularly, he had been loaned a gilded cavalry helmet, not crested like the usual parade helmet, but crowned by an eagle’s head. Its full-face metal mask, with shadowed eye, nose and mouth holes, looked remote and mysterious, although the only effect for the soldier inside was to make breathing difficult.

  ‘Very pretty!’ smirked the cornicularius. He still thought that Vinius Clodianus lusted after his job. He could not decide whether to loathe his cheek or admire his hunger. ‘Women who like a man in uniform will be lined up with their legs open.’

  ‘I’m in luck then, Cornicularius sir!’ The face-covering helmet muffled how much Vinius disliked the idea.

  ‘Shag one for me, son.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  ‘Suit yourself!’ the cornicularius grumbled under his breath, as he sensed that this fussy soldier would never take advantage of the hypothetical queues of good-time girls.

  The official view of Clodianus was complimentary. From behind the parade helmet, he was conscious of being inspected by Rome’s most senior men. He saluted so often, and so smartly, he got pins and needles in his arm. Both Praetorian Prefects approved his turnout as if they had buffed his breastplate and sharpened his sword themselves. The Prefect of Vigiles had a good word for him. The gruff Prefect of the City, most senior of all, was Rutilius Gallicus who had served as Domitian’s deputy in Rome when the Emperor left on campaign and opened the city gates to receive him for his double triumph; Rutilius had less to say, though it clearly was not personal. He hardly spoke to anyone. On a night when Domitian was tweaking senators’ fears of death, perhaps Rutilius Gallicus was remembering that he inherited his lofty position when his predecessor was executed.

  Occasion was taken to award Clodianus promotion: ‘liaison officer’, a runner for the cornicularius.

  ‘I think I’m going to drown myself!’ groaned that worthy, although Gaius was certain he must have been consulted. His own modest fears about the responsibility were biffed aside. ‘Take the money,’ ordered his superior. ‘For a scroll-worm like you, it will be a piece of piss.’

  While the guests choked on their dinner, the Praetorian had to stand sentry outside. He joked with himself grimly that his role was not to prevent unsanctioned intruders but to stop guests making a getaway.

  Towards the end, he spotted Flavia Lucilla. She was sitting on the edge of the great courtyard pool. Hugging his knees alongside her was a misshapen figure in red. Vinius saw it was Domitian’s dwarf, a man-child with an extremely small head to whom the Emperor often whispered comments on people at the court. Lucilla and the confidant were deep in conversation.

  Vinius marched over and put a stop to that.

  ‘Hop it, Diddles.’

  The dwarf grumbled but ambled away, while a shocked Lucilla snarled, ‘You arrogant bastard, Vinius!’

  Vinius Clodianus removed his fabulous helmet. ‘How did you know it was me?’

  ‘Footfall. Voice. Bad manners.’

  ‘I’ve seen you in some company, but that beats all.’

  ‘The lad needs friendly conversation. He listens to terrible things all day: “Do you know why I appointed so-and-so to a praetorship…?” No one will have anything to do with him because he looks so odd and they are petrified he will inform on them to Domitian.’

  ‘You, on the other hand, befriend any freak at court.’

  ‘Yes, I have even been a friend to you in a crisis!’

  There was a silence, broken only by the soothing splash of waters. Vinius massaged his earlobes where the helmet had rubbed. On another occasion, he might have dropped beside Lucilla, but he would not sit where that dwarf had squatted; anyway, on duty in full uniform, he was obliged to stand smartly. Leaning on his shield, he held the parade helmet in the crook of the other elbow, posing: the noble warrior.

  After fiddling with her baskets, readjusting her sandal straps and brushing off water droplets from her hems, Lucilla deigned to take notice.

  ‘Nice rig.’ She was really thinking Vinius had a strange hard attitude these days.

  ‘I am glad you’ve seen me in it.’ Vinius then heard himself give her a line even he cringed over: ‘Once I’m released from duty, I shall need help taking it all off.’

  ‘You are pathetic.’ Lucilla grasped the handles of various baskets and struggled upright. ‘Find another handmaid to unarm you!’

  She skittered away. Vinius loped after her.

  ‘Is this because I said no the other night?’

  ‘Weak moment.’

  ‘Give me another chance.’

  ‘No. Don’t pester me.’ Lucilla had not expected to see Vinius, she was tired after painting wriggly pageboys black all afternoon, and the soldier looked so fine tonight that fending him off was killing her. He seemed equally unsettled. Tiptoeing around the matrimonial laws was hard enough, but grappling with their own confused feelings was beyond these two.

  ‘I know you want me.’

  ‘ You don’t want me. Too risky. You could be cashiered…’ Lucilla was testing him, to see if her interpretation of his scruples was right. ‘Vinius, you are so wise! Think about Plum Street: you could be accused of “making a room available for illicit sexual purposes”.’

  ‘ I’ve never had any sex there!’ grumbled Vinius bitterly.

  ‘Whose fault is that? Pious you, the noblest Roman of them all.’

  The dinner was ending. Fraught guests began coming out to the vestibule. Someone whistled to Lucilla and she shot off, as if the summons was expected. She had scampered down a flight of steps. Vinius followed, but slowly; with his one eye, downhill treads always troubled him, and studded military boots could be lethal on marble. By the time he negotiated the obstacle, Lucilla had disappeared.

  The evening was going disastrously wrong. Then Vinius ran into the dwarf again. Jealous of this creature’s familiarity with Lucilla, Vinius was filled with loathing and wild fantasies. If the dwarf laid a paw on her, Diddles would find himself hung upside down in the elegant fountain until he suffocated among the sluicing water-sheets and his tiny feet stopped kicking in the spray…

  ‘Be careful!’ Vinius warned him off. ‘You could be had for following a married woman around.’

  ‘Catch up, you prick!’ The dwarf spent so much of his time being pleasant to Domitian that when he was released he became filthy-tempered and foul-mouthed. Many men are complete opposites at work and at home. The imperial dwarf was no different.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  The dwarf tended to speak too loudly. ‘She fucking left him. So get to the back of the queue, soldier!’

  Gaius Vinius Clodianus was not a man who queued.

  Storming off in the direction he had seen Lucilla vanishing, he followed his instincts and, eventually, much noise. He happened upon her, which was just as well because as he coursed through the spectacular spaces of this palace, he had absolutely no damned intention of asking anyone for directions.

  Flavia Lucilla was divorced!

  Flavia Lucilla was giving him the run-around.

  She had gone to a bath house. It took a while to find her. Then, Vinius stepped into a scene so extraordinary he almost lost his equilibrium.

  Ever
y exalted guest at the Black Banquet had had a painted boy attendant; all those boys were now being hastily cleaned up in a vast marble warm-room. The noise was appalling: shouts, squeals and splashes, plus continual clanks of buckets and swooshes of rinsing water. The conceited little midgets would not behave. Swilling the boys down amidst the steam to a tight timetable, slaves and attendants were red-faced and frantic.

  Lucilla was near the door, rubbing a sponge over a reluctant child who suddenly made a bolt for it. Vinius blocked him with his shield, then dropped it and grasped the naked escapee. This forced Lucilla to paddle over, through the ankle-high wash of diluted lamp-black, or whatever it was. She was barefoot and wearing just an old sleeveless undertunic, having anticipated this dirty task. Her bare arms and legs disconcerted Vinius briefly.

  She resumed sponging the boy so roughly it was easy to see why he fled.

  ‘Explain?’ demanded Vinius. ‘- Ah shit, your little blighter dripped dye on my moon and stars!’ As well as the soiling on his shield, he was disgusted to find the hand with which he had grabbed the boy was covered with sticky black goo.

  ‘Next stage of the torture. The diners have been sent home,’ Lucilla told him. ‘Their last scare will be Domitian sending presents. They will assume it’s their personal executioner. But they will get their pageboy, washed and adorned, plus their fake tombstone, which will turn out to be a big slab of silver, and the platters they were served off, also made of costly materials.’ Gripping the boy by his hair, she dredged off the last of his paint, sloshing water from a pannikin.

  More outrage gripped Vinius. ‘You are washing him all over!’

  ‘Yes, first I painted his little winkle — what a thrill — and now I have to clean it off… One imaginative evening takes hours of unseen work.’ Lucilla gritted her teeth as she struggled with the flailing child. ‘Don’t be pompous. It’s only the same as bathing my nephew.’