Master and God

by Lindsey Davis

  He conducted research. He pored over historical records. He familiarised himself with the traditional order of events. Much was shrouded in secrecy but he made an intelligent guess at the protocol.

  He organised a runner to liaise with the college of pontiffs, so even though the snooty priests were ritually intent on not telling him anything, with luck he would at least know when the party was about to start. The Praetorians would arrive on time. If Domitian suddenly sailed down from Alba to watch, Clodianus would make sure the tribune of the day supplied an appropriate honour guard. Once the target had been dropped tidily inside her tomb, the only requirement was for a very discreet detail to conduct observation at the site. A small daily presence. With perhaps tighter precautions nightly. Just in case any subversive idiots — stoics, Christians, sons of senators out on a drunken spree, do-gooding women who should be at home weaving — scuttled up under cover of darkness to start removing earth.

  A couple of rotas would do it. That, and maniacal supervision, which he would undertake himself. Clodianus would take no chances. He would be on duty throughout.

  It was sorted. He ought to be confident. However, it was his first major exercise, when he had yet to get his feet comfortably under his new desk. It would be fair to say the new cornicularius had a few collywobbles.

  What a boy needed for that, his old aunties would tell him, was a nice big cake oozing with a lot of honey.

  So, with the Vestal’s descent programmed for evening like any traditional funeral, earlier that afternoon Vinius made his way down from the Camp towards the Forum, where the procession would start. He had had a haircut and shave. He wore the most formal degree of Praetorian city dress: hobnails, the red tunic that distinguished an officer of his standing, with his sword concealed by a toga. No helmet. A notebook with his many comforting lists was tucked in his military belt.

  He had an hour or two in hand. On the way, he was sufficiently early to call at the bakery on Ten Taverns Street, where he obtained two of their largest and gooiest confections, one for himself and one for Cretticus, his amicable landlord at the Insula of the Muses. He would have bought three, had he realised that when he walked into the peaceful courtyard garden he would find Flavia Lucilla gossiping with the old man. Undeterred, Gaius tore his own cake in two and handed her half before she could start simpering and pretending not to be hungry.

  This had the advantage of forcing her to stay there while she ate it.

  To daintily manage a thick, layered pastry, oozing with honey and dropping chopped pistachios, which had been crudely dismantled by a man with strong hands, who was now watching her, took all her concentration. Lucilla had a good excuse to stay quiet.

  It was a sunny day in early spring, warm enough to let a nonagenarian lie out on a daybed in a colonnade, with a rug over his scrawny legs and torso, while his two younger friends sat on fold-up stools.

  ‘Delightful young lady!’ the old man confided to Vinius, after he had wolfed down his cake. ‘I can never understand why you are not screwing her.’

  Horrified silence struck both his companions. Lucilla quickly licked her fingers clean, preparing to flee. Gaius already knew Cretticus was a crude old bugger, though it looked as though Lucilla had previously thought him harmless. Cretticus might always have been uninhibited, or perhaps extreme age had removed his social graces.

  It was not over. The lewd old boy went on, ‘I don’t suppose you can offer any kind of an explanation, soldier?’

  ‘I can, in fact.’

  Both Cretticus and Lucilla sat up sharply.

  Gaius spoke conversationally, as he sucked the last smears of honey off his lips. ‘It is because I am an idiot.’

  ‘Well then!’ cried Cretticus.

  ‘Exactly!’ said Gaius, aiming this at Lucilla.

  He looked at her. She looked at him.

  ‘Why don’t you take her upstairs now?’ demanded the impertinent old fellow.

  Lucilla jumped up, about to sweep off like an affronted goddess, vanishing in a rainbow trail.

  Gaius swung himself upright too. ‘A grand idea,’ he told Cretticus as levelly as possible. He had risen too fast and was in danger of cake repeating on him. Lucilla waited to hear how he got out of this. ‘But she’s looking a bit inscrutable. Besides — ’ he indicated his formal dress — ‘sad as it is, my duty calls.’

  Then he reported directly to Lucilla in a low voice, ‘I have a bad task. Assisting the college of pontiffs.’

  The old man saw they were conversing without help from him, so closed his eyes and seditiously let them get on with it.

  ‘Cornelia?’ Lucilla had always been quick. ‘You have to…?’

  Chewing a fingernail, Gaius shook his head. He thought about what it would have meant, if he and his comrades had been ordered by Domitian to conduct the cold-blooded execution with weapons of a middle-aged woman whose position in Rome they had all been brought up to revere.

  ‘No, no.’ He was as reassuring as he could be. ‘But some of us have to attend at the scene.’

  ‘Which entails?’

  ‘To stand on guard today, then afterwards, to ensure nobody interferes with the vault.’

  ‘Trying to release her?’ Lucilla knew him well enough to believe he was not looking forward to any of it. ‘You were at the trial?’ she demanded. Gaius nodded. ‘Did she do it?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Or possibly not?’

  Gaius assented again, ruefully. ‘Either Licinianus really was guilty and turned state’s evidence to save his arse, or he was innocent, but so shit-scared he lied to the court. The end result is, he has saved his skin and also saved a lot of his property — which you could call being paid for his evidence. We don’t approve of that, do we? Without any doubt, he grassed up the other lovers, and of course he condemned Cornelia. No one has heard her story. This is about as unedifying as it gets.’

  Lucilla was pleased at the way he put the story; she thought he had told it the way he really saw it, not aiming to impress. ‘It’s a terrifying death. One would hope some sympathetic friend will find a way to slip the poor woman a vial of poison… Gaius, please don’t search her.’

  ‘Not if I can help it.’

  ‘Will you have a choice?’

  ‘Ritually, I believe it is forbidden. Nobody will touch her.’

  ‘Are you in charge?’

  ‘The priests are in charge.’

  Like him, Lucilla hated everything about this trial and punishment. Gaius only hoped she was satisfied that as the Chief Vestal went to her grim fate, he at least would feel compassion. ‘So you must see the tomb sealed and guard it. Then what?’

  ‘I suppose we’ll receive orders.’

  Again, Lucilla was appalled on his behalf. ‘You mean — you may have to open up the chamber, to see if she is dead?’

  ‘I couldn’t find out from the old records whether anybody checks. I hope a priest will simply declare formally that it must be over. After, let us say, enough time passes… It will take — ’ Gaius paused fastidiously ‘- some days.’

  Lucilla’s voice was low and intense. ‘Then will you come home?’

  ‘I will,’ promised Gaius, looking into her eyes like a man who could hardly bear to leave.

  ‘Good luck’ seemed inappropriate so Lucilla murmured, ‘You will be in my thoughts, soldier.’

  Vinius Clodianus snapped to attention, kicking up dust with an expert heel-grind, as he gave her a full Praetorian salute.

  Lucilla’s departure across the garden and through the exit gateway to the street allowed him a pleasant survey of her elegant rear view. Gaius rather thought old man Cretticus, who had opened his eyes again, was enjoying the same vision salaciously.

  He stayed a few moments longer in the peristyle, as good manners.

  ‘When you do manage to bed her, leave the window open so I can hear.’ Cretticus was shameless. ‘Go on,’ he wheedled. ‘I’m ninety-one. I don’t get many thrills these days.’

  26<
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  The House of the Vestals lay towards the southern end of the Forum. Its enclosed precinct contained a large quiet garden among colonnades, with accommodation for the six Virgins, who lived there throughout their thirty years of service, only leaving if they were taken so ill they must be nursed by a respectable matron in her home. Some stayed even after they retired. No men were allowed in the Vestals’ house; the precinct was locked up at night as a precaution.

  The small round Temple of Vesta stood just outside in its own enclosure. Across the Sacred Way, the odd-shaped triangular college of pontiffs completed the religious sanctum, buildings whose origins, perhaps as a palace in the days of the old Roman kings, were long lost. A delicate contrast to that jumbled group, the beautiful white marble temple had no cult statue. It did contain the sacred fire and the palladium, a venerated object of uncertain form which had supposedly come from Troy and which, like the flame, symbolised the health and survival of Rome. It was secret; nobody ever saw it. Clodianus thought that, given what the Greeks did to Troy after they got in with the Wooden Horse, the palladium’s efficiency as a form of protection might be questioned. He did not voice this outrage. Standing among a subdued crowd at the end of the Forum, his role was to prevent trouble, not cause a revolution.

  This was a very ancient area. Rituals carried out by pontiffs and Vestals were the oldest, and occasionally the oddest, the Roman people still followed. The daily procedures of the Vestals went back deeply into history and myth: carrying water, tending fire, cleansing, and making ritual salt cakes. Today’s archaic punishment belonged with that tradition, a tradition rooted in darkness and retribution just as much as the Vestals’ life was central to survival and hope.

  The Forum had long been the starting point of funerals for aristocrats. Here many a noble family would still bring a bier with the dead body of their loved one lying on a costly mattress among precious spices — a consul or general, or even a great lady who had married famously and endowed provincial temples. They would assemble their procession of mourners, with musicians, masks of their ancestors, irreverent clowns mocking the life and characteristics of the dead. Here they would hear a public eulogy, before wending their way by torchlight and amidst the sound of flutes to their chosen great necropolis on one of the major arteries out of Rome; there the corpse would be cremated and its ashes collected in a costly urn of porphyry or alabaster, to be kept forever in the family mausoleum and, at least in theory, regularly visited.

  Today there was no corpse. Instead of an open bier, a tall closed litter was carried from the House of the Vestals. It arrived without the normal ceremonies and a leaden silence greeted its appearance. Everyone knew that Cornelia was there inside, though the interior was hidden by heavy coverings and the coverings had been tightly fastened down with cords. People made way. As a procession formed, those who were most curious followed in gloomy silence. If Cornelia’s birth family were present, the observing Praetorian could not identify them. The other five Vestals stayed in their house. Her lovers, if such they had been, would definitely not be paying respects.

  Activity in the Forum ceased. Idlers playing board-games on basilica steps, entrepreneurs fleecing contacts in the shade under ancient arches, patrons and their struggling clients who had met beside water bowls or the Golden Milestone, all stopped gossip and negotiation. Workers high up on the scaffold that housed the nearly completed statue of Domitian on horseback gazed down with curiosity. The courts were closed. Trade ended. Even bankers took a pause. If prostitutes continued their crude business at the back of temples, they did so furtively. Despondency fell upon everyone, like a cold shadow when the sun passed behind a cypress tree.

  The sombre procession set off. After crossing the Forum, participants travelled on foot to the far edge of the city; homes and businesses were shuttered all along the journey and people stood, mute and unhappy, while the severe cortege slowly passed. Its destination was beyond the Praetorian Camp, where the ancient embankment called the Servian Walls was broken at the Colline Gate, as the Via Nomentana emerged from Rome. Outside the walls was the Praetorian Campus, the Guards’ massive parade ground, empty today. Inside the walls was an area of unused, scrubby ground called the Campus Sceleratus, which meant profaned, criminal, accursed, polluted. In this bleak haunt, guilty Vestals were entombed.

  Vinius Clodianus was glad to see the public slaves had done their job; the vagrants and stray dogs had been moved on, the clutter and windblown detritus that gathers at such isolated places had been collected and cleared. There were no dumps of broken amphorae, burned-out carts, halves of dead sheep or abandoned shoes. A couple of extremely old whores who liked to sit around a bonfire offering migrant workers either a bunk-up or mild fortune-telling were keeping away today. He had personally suggested that the aediles responsible for street affairs should sign a petty cash voucher for the women’s all-day bar bill.

  Into the earth bank, a small chamber had already been dug. Temporary steps led down inside. At the bottom were a covered couch, a lighted lamp, and very small quantities of bread, water, milk and oil. This symbolic sustenance exonerated everyone from causing a Vestal Virgin’s death. They would not last her long. At some point, presumably, fresh air would run out. The lamp would falter. Perhaps before that, panic would set in. Possibly madness. For anyone who thought about it too much, this inescapable entombment in darkness and silence was horrific, the most terrifying human fear.

  A second covered litter had turned up from out of town. It halted, as if the occupant was watching, though the dark curtains never seemed to move. Gaius guessed who was lurking. He gave the Guards a discreet nod.

  Upon the Vestal’s arrival, the cords on her litter were released by the chief priest of the old religion, the Flamen Dialis. He and his fourteen colleagues had assembled in their traditional hairy woollen cloaks and leather skullcaps, each with a tuft of wool and pointed prong of olive wood, items of long-forgotten significance. They were the archaic face of Roman religion, as the Vestals were themselves.

  The convicted woman emerged stiffly, while priests enacted mysterious ritual gestures and prayers; Gaius reckoned those were really intended to stiffen the priests’ own resolve. She was not bound or chained. For one thing, that would cut across the complicated rules imposed on the Flamen Dialis, who was never allowed to see anyone in chains; by tradition, he could not even wear a finger ring.

  Heavily veiled, Cornelia advanced to the steps, where unfortunately her gown caught on a splinter. An attendant moved to help unfasten it but, professional to the end, the Virgin beat him off with a shudder of disgust, unwilling to be defiled by a man’s touch.

  The Guards stood together in a small group, as respectful as a prisoner escort can be under the discipline of an execution. They were iron-jawed and so rigid they seemed corseted, all masters of making their very impassivity reveal distaste. Less clear was whether their distaste was for what Cornelia had done, or simply for today’s events.

  Cornelia behaved with nobility, at least in the subsequent judgement of male intellectuals. Pliny, a prig devoid of emotional imagination (who had not been present), later reported this occasion to add a sensational touch to his published letters, yet with no real sense of its sordid tragedy. It was a miserable twilight scene. Every participant who walked away afterwards would be permanently soiled.

  She did not go quietly. She had been refused the right to defend herself in court, but nobody would physically gag a Vestal, so she had her moment. After calling for assistance from Vesta and all the other gods, Cornelia shouted to the assembled men (they were all men): ‘How can the Emperor imagine I would have broken my vows, when it was I who performed the sacred rites that brought him his victories?’

  This subtle undermining of Domitian’s cherished role as conqueror convinced many people that Cornelia was innocent. Had she been unchaste, surely the gods would not have responded to her ritual prayers and sacrifices when she begged for military success? The Chatti, Marcomanni and Dacians
would never have succumbed. Her purity could be presumed, therefore, and it made a bitter contrast to the hypocritical licence of the Emperor, who many believed had seduced his own niece, perhaps causing Julia’s death with an enforced abortion.

  Cornelia had the last word. Perhaps she guessed that her cry would resonate from the verge of the tomb, one bitter sliver of self-defence that Domitian could never silence.

  She took her time. Well, why not?

  The watching cornicularius felt most nervous at this moment: what if this robust Chief Vestal refused to descend underground? If she would not cooperate, he foresaw that the situation might deteriorate. Getting her down the ghastly hole was up to the priests, whom he sized up with a sinking heart. They were inbred patricians, men who were neither young nor in any way handy. Slaves did everything for them. Most could barely lift a finger to scratch their own dandruff.

  Indeed, wondered Gaius glumly, who in his senses, priest or otherwise, would try to manhandle a furious mature woman, who had spent nearly thirty years having her own way? He would certainly not order any of his men to corner her, grab her, strike her, push her or otherwise force her onto those insecure wooden steps. This was one situation where he himself would not volunteer either.

  Fortunately, Cornelia was conditioned to comply with rituals. She protested her innocence loudly enough, but made no attempt to dig in her heels or thrash about.

  The priests averted their gaze. The Vestal, who could never have been on a ladder before, climbed down; she tumbled the final distance, but managed to control her garments to preserve her dignity. Those who did look (Clodianus and anonymous public slaves who had to do the manual work today) glimpsed not so much as an ankle. The steps were pulled up quickly. Heavy loads of earth were piled over the entrance. The soil was beaten flat, levelled with the remainder of the embankment, so in years to come once the ground-cover grew back, the location of the chamber would be permanently lost.