Nero_s Heirs

by Allan Massie

  Consider Galba. At the age of seventy-three he had enjoyed prosperity all his days. He was rich, had won the esteem, or at least the respect, of his peers. Why should he put all that at risk merely to wear the purple and be saluted as Emperor?

  And Otho? A man you would have said formed for pleasure. Was that not enough to content him? There are pleasant orange groves, soft breezes and lovely docile girls in Lusitania. Yet he, too, would be called Emperor, by men no one of intelligence or taste could respect.

  'Isn't it the case,' I remember saying to Domitian – perhaps not that evening, but one soon after – 'that the condition of man is a war of everyone against everyone?'

  I did not believe this. That is, I did not believe it should be so. Or did I? Should be? What is there to form 'should be'?

  Domitian said: 'If you are right, and life is warfare, then it behoves one to make sure of winning.'

  Flavius Sabinus laughed. You speak like a child,' he said. 'It is not in mortals to command success. Therefore…'

  'Therefore, what?' I said. 'Trust to the gods? They are deaf. Seek to deserve it? I have not noticed that merit is rewarded.' Flavius picked up the dice-box and threw. 'A pair of sixes,' he said. 'There's no merit in that, sir,' I replied. 'Who said there was?'

  Domitian said, 'It is wrong to speak against the gods. I myself have a particular devotion to Minerva, Goddess of Wisdom, and I believe she rewards her devotees by guiding them on the true path.' 'The bird of Minerva flies only by night,' I said. What is that supposed to mean?'

  'I don't know, I'm sure,' I said. 'It's something I heard a philosopher, a Greek sophist, say once. It may not mean anything, like most that philosophers say, but it's stuck in my mind and I daresay it makes as much sense as your belief that Minerva has a care for you. If she does, why' – and I threw, I recall, a cushion at him – 'are you such an ass?'

  Flavius Sabinus again rattled the bones and once again threw a pair of sixes. 'Do it a third time, and I'll be Emperor,' Domitian cried out.

  'Silly,' Domatilla said. Turning to me she added, 'What will you be if uncle throws again and Dom wears the purple?'

  'His fool, I suppose,' I said and, turning, smiled to her, as the dice-box rattled, and a pair of sixes were disclosed on the table. The German boy Balthus tells me he belongs to the tribe of the Chatti, and that his father was taken captive in Domitian's campaign against them. I remember that campaign and the sweet valley of the Neckar and a German woman I took as my concubine. Remembering made me sentimental. I drank wine with the boy and did no more than stroke his cheek and kiss him a couple of times. He protested, but gently. Then he looked at me in fear, aware of his slave-status.

  XVI

  A letter from Titus, undated but received (I surmise) early in February: Dear Boy: your account is riveting. What a catalogue of folly! I am grateful to you for restraining my little brother, but I do wish you had sent me a copy of his poem in praise of Galba. I have become a connoisseur of bad verses.

  And of other things too, for I have a new diversion of which you are not to be jealous, for, be assured, you retain a special place in my heart. This diversion is a lady, a queen indeed, Berenice by name. She is the daughter of Herod Agrippa who was reared in the court of Tiberius and befriended by the Emperor Gaius. So Berenice knows our ways, for she was not herself brought up to respect all the narrow superstitions of the Jews. She is, I confess, somewhat older than I am, and has been married two or three times – sometimes she talks as if she has had so many husbands she has lost count. Moreover, when I first heard of her, I was told she had lain incestuously with her brother the king, Herod Agrippa II. Add to this that she is as beautiful as the loveliest depiction of Venus you have ever seen, and is possessed of more arts of love than Ovid told of in that poem which you will remember reading with me, delightedly, on the shores of the Bay of Naples, and indeed of more than I have ever found in any Greek courtesan, even from Corinth, and you will understand that she is, to one of my temperament, utterly irresistible. In short, if that great-great – is there one more great? – uncle of yours, by marriage as I don't forget, Mark Antony, of whom you have so often spoken to me with a very natural and unstinted pride, thought the world well lost for love of his Eastern beauty Cleopatra, why then, I too – the Antony of our days – am utterly consumed with passion for Berenice, and would let war, Empire, glory, reputation go hang themselves, if they were to be found in competition with my love. Fortunately, it is not so, for Berenice is herself a politician!

  So congratulate me and when at last I am able to bring you to this East – a garden where all we have ever dreamed of is given to us – see if I don't supply you with a girl who will offer you whatever you desire; my Berenice has two daughters ripe for gentle plucking.

  Is love not better than Empire? Is it not the true empire of the heart? Ah, my dear, in the words of a Persian poet which my Berenice has taught me, 'God planted a rose and a woman bloomed.'

  'But,' you may say, 'this outpouring of delight is poor return for the grim and grisly chronicle I sent Titus. Does he not reckon what is happening in Rome equal at least in the balance to his bed-tumblings?' So you will chide me, Best (in his own way) Beloved.

  Therefore I shall desist from one seriousness – for love is… oh, hang it, I am out of such language. Let me just say, love is one thing, war and politics another, and for the moment you, dear boy, are caught up in the latter.

  So, first, what of the war here? We make progress. We have reduced most of the cities and strongholds of Judaea: wearisome work of sieges, and much digging for the troops. But we get on top of the revolt. The better class of Jews have returned to their duty, chief among them their most able general, one Josephus. You would be impressed by him, as I am, for he has none of the bitter temper characteristic of the Jews, but is possessed of a breadth of knowledge and a rare capacity to weigh what is essential against what is inessential, and to judge the advantages and disadvantages of a case. So he has concluded that, since our Empire cannot be overthrown, it must be the will of the Jewish god that we prevail, and therefore it behoves him to collaborate with us; and this conclusion is very helpful to our cause.

  Furthermore, Josephus understands what he has learned by experience: that the revolt (in which he formerly took part) is aimed not only at our rule, but at the overthrow of all that is worthy of respect in Jewry itself. 'For,' he says, '"the Zealots",' which is the name given to the most extreme and violent enemies of Rome, 'seek not only to throw off your yoke, but to effect a social revolution also. They would destroy the authority of the High Priests, and raise up the poor and malignant to a position of power. Therefore if we are to defend what has long been established among our People, and the natural order of society, we must ally ourselves with the Romans against these maniacs, who can build nothing but seek only to destroy what has been the work of centuries approved by Almighty God.'

  You won't, of course, make any sense of his conception of this 'Almighty God', for whom by the way the Jews have no name (or, if they have, it is one which they dare not utter). You must understand however that this strange people see the purpose of their god in every unfolding of history. This is odd, but makes some sense to them as I cannot doubt, having spoken at length with this Josephus whom I have come to respect.

  Moreover, at certain moments anyway, Josephus understands that the day of small nations, or small nation-states, is over. He sees, too, that if the narrow exclusivity of the Jews has maintained their sense of themselves and of their religion (which, as I say, is unlike any other, for they have no image of their god and call the reverence we pay to images, idolatry), it has also denied them opportunities of acquiring a greater culture, and also prosperity. We have had long talks, and I have opened out to him my theory of the new Imperialism which, though it derives from Rome, is more than Roman, and would be diminished if it was only Roman. Consider, my dear: that a huge Empire has grown up around us, full of problems on which our previous experience sheds little light. Our
motives in winning this Empire were not admirable. I can't pretend they were. We were driven on by greed and lust for power. Nor was our government good in the days of the Republican empire. Then the only thought of our Proconsuls was to exploit their provinces and enrich themselves. They were extortioners. The noble Marcus Junius Brutus, making loans to the provincials under his care in Cyprus, levied interest at the rate of eighty per cent; deplorable and, by any standard you choose to apply, unethical. It was, as I have learned from my studies, that much maligned Emperor Tiberius who succeeded where even Augustus had struggled in bringing an end to such practices. He said the provincials were his sheep, and must be only sheared, not skinned.

  Now things must change, Tiberius' way. No state owes its greatness in any true sense to its material strength, but to the ideas it embodies. And at the heart of our Roman world is the belief in Law, not the Law that is imposed by tyrants, but the true Law that regulates relations between free citizens; and the basis of that Law is contract.

  Josephus accepts this, but then he asks, provocatively, why it was necessary for us Romans to range the world and add states and kingdoms, once free and independent, to our Empire. I could enquire of him what their freedom meant – without an understanding of the law of contract; but I choose not to, and I admit that, as I have said, we acquired Empire for no noble motive. And yet, to you, I may say that the extension of our Empire was also necessary to cure the disease of the Roman State. We were like a man fainting from foul air and revived under the winds of heaven. Indeed, I shall put this argument, which I have just thought of, to my friend Josephus and invite him to apply it to his own nation – pestilential narrow-minded monotheists, who in their own eyes are ever right and all the world wrong. Will they not, I shall ask him, expand and fructify if liberated from their narrow estate and set to roam in the lanes and highways of the world? That indeed is why this Jewish War, which I detest, must be carried to a successful conclusion: that the Jews may also become part of the great imperial scheme.

  The Empire is Roman, but it is not merely Rome; and if it was it would be a mean thing. I am not, as an Imperialist, inclined to any cheap complacency. On the contrary, I burn with ardour when I consider the magnitude of our task. For, ultimately, the Empire is peace – peace, justice and that prosperity in which alone true liberty, the liberty of the untrammelled philosophic mind, can flourish. You can tell, can you not, that it is late at night, when I write like this. Indeed it is so late that the hills of Galilee are touched with dawn's rose-pink fingers.

  Yet, excited by my rhetoric, and reassured that you, my audience of one, will understand my sentiments and feel them with me, I can scarce bring myself to stop.

  The aim of Imperialism then is not conquest, though conquest was needed to make its realisation possible. But conquest was the preliminary to the great task of consolidation and development, and the still greater task of bringing all the subjects of the Empire into citizenship, that they may share in the traditions, faith and liberties of Rome.

  Read Virgil, and you will find the meaning of Empire stated more clearly than I can define it.

  I believe that I am destined to make the dream of Imperialism a reality for all within the borders of the Roman world. There is great work to be done, by me or my successors. For example, one evil that I see is that too many men are rich beyond their needs and too many miserably poor. There is a great work to be done in reorganising what I call the world economy. Prosperity should benefit all, not merely fat, greasy bankers and speculators, and those granted the farming of the taxes. Oh, I have so many ideas…

  But – you will say – Titus is mad, he is running ahead of reality. He is not Emperor, he is not even a provincial Governor, only the son of Vespasian who was pelted with turnips by citizens, and meanwhile Rome itself is like a beautiful woman threatened with rape by conflicting suitors. Indeed the poor lady is being raped daily; the city brought into being by the kindness of a she-wolf is now laid waste by wolves that know not, or have forgotten, the very word kindness; forgotten humanity, forgotten duty, and think licence liberty.

  Your account of the fall and death of Galba was pitiful, because it was evident that Galba had no understanding of his position, that, lacking such understanding, he had recourse to ancient manners and modes of thought meaningless today. He was a man born to play a subsidiary role, as a mere functionary, thrust by his own foolish ambition into a part that had not been written for him – you were right there, in questioning why he did not turn aside the offer of the purple, which he was incompetent to wear. And to have chosen that Piso as his son, heir, and companion in Empire, bespeaks a mind that was dull and conventional.

  And how, I ask myself, could Piso have supposed himself capable of Empire – Piso who had never commanded an army in his life, not even a legion, who had no imagination and never once entertained a generous thought.

  Now there is Otho… well, he will be popular for a few months – and then? Then he will be revealed for what he is, a clever fellow, witty, charming, everybody's friend – and respected by nobody. It is impossible to govern if you are not respected.

  Meanwhile the German legions are on the march, as if we were back in the days of the Republic and the Civil Wars. Which indeed is where we seem to be.

  But don't be deceived. Either a strong Emperor must emerge, which won't be either Otho or – save the mark! – Vitellius, or the Empire will crumble and disintegrate – which is impossible, since our Destiny, promised to the pious Aeneas, has not yet been fulfilled. Hence my confidence and my serenity.

  There are three words I would have you lodge in your mind, for they express my purpose, which is Rome's: Humanity, Liberty, Felicity. If we are guided by the principles incorporated in these words, then Rome will indeed be the Eternal City.

  But, though I am sure in my destiny, I am not so great a fool as to suppose that it is wise, or even possible, to succeed if one neglects tactics and even base information.

  So, though you are not base, it is what you may learn of the mean ambitions and base practices of those who compete for power in this wounded Italy of ours that I require of you – if you love me, as I am happy to believe you do.

  Continue then, my dear, to send me all you can glean of what passes in Rome – and when happier days return, why, I shall introduce you to Berenice's daughters, and give you the pick of them.

  I send you all my love or all the love it is proper that I send, and then more. You are part of me for ever and I of you. Titus. So in all my wanderings I have kept this letter, which I shall not send to Tacitus.

  XVII

  You don't, you say, Tacitus, want my opinions, but only my memories. Dear man, do you suppose the one can be distinguished from the other?

  The strange thing was that Otho's reign seemed for a few weeks to be an exercise in virtue. He set aside the pleasures in which he had extravagantly delighted. He behaved with more dignity than any Emperor since Tiberius. That was my mother's opinion, which you will therefore respect as you always respected her. The competition since Tiberius was not, admittedly, stiff. Nevertheless, I suppose you will say that Otho was a hypocrite and that in time his vices would have re-emerged, all the more powerfully and disgracefully on account of their period of suppression.

  But virtue was expressed in acts. His treatment of Marius Celsus was only one example. He had been a faithful friend of Galba who had arranged his nomination as Consul elect. The mob demanded that he should follow Galba to the grave. Otho hesitated to save him, and ordered him to be loaded with chains and carried to the Mamertine prison, that execution chamber from which, throughout Rome's history, few have emerged alive. But Otho made Marius Celsus an exception. As soon as the fickle fury of the mob had spent itself, Otho released him, and even appointed him to a military command. That was honourable.

  Nero's favourite, the freedman Tigellinus, whom he had made commander of the Praetorians – a man who had prompted Nero to every cruelty, wickedness and act of folly – had es
caped punishment from Galba, being protected by Vinius. The reason given was that at some unspecified date Tigellinus had himself placed the shield of his protection over Vinius' daughter, saving her, though whether from disgrace or death I cannot recall. No doubt this was policy, for Tigellinus, fearing a reversal of fortune, was careful to cultivate some private friendships which he trusted might preserve him from the justice to which he would then be exposed. Now, his protector gone, Tigellinus found he must answer for his crimes. Otho sent to tell him he had cumbered the earth too long, and to advise him that the mob was ready to tear him limb from limb. Tigellinus received this unwelcome news with unexpected courage. He bedded the current favourite among his mistresses – all well-born girls whom he had seduced when they were under age – and then, dismissing her, cut his throat.

  This news added to Otho's popularity, and many said he would prove a good Emperor. Even his decision to spare the life of Gallia Crispinilla, one of Nero's mistresses who had fomented rebellion in Africa and – it was believed – attempted to prevent the corn ships from sailing to Rome, was soon forgiven. As my mother said, 'The woman is a trollop and utterly unprincipled, Otho's enemy too, but to consent to her execution would have been barbaric'

  In many ways indeed he suggested that he might make at least a tolerable Emperor – if he did not tire of the part, as my mother, though indulgent to him, advised me he would. He did not interfere with the public appointments and pleased the Senate by granting positions to elderly Senators of eminence. Young nobles who had returned from the exile to which they had been condemned by Nero or which they had fearfully chosen were greeted warmly and invested with priestly honours held by their fathers and grandfathers. If Caesar's watchword after his invasion of Italy had been clemency, Otho's appeared to be conciliation. For instance, he sent ambassadors to Vitellius who, with the German legions, had marched deep into Trans-alpine Gaul, with instructions to discover their grievances, and propose remedies. They were also to assure Vitellius that, if he collaborated in the restoration of peace, he should have an honourable position as second man in the Empire.