So I had said. But silently I had admitted, There were times when I felt that way about my music, but did I really? To that extent? So I would give up everything to pursue it, toss over the emperorship? Sadly, I knew the answer. No, not that much. Almost. But not that much.
But now the answer had changed. In the final test, I had given all to art: going to Greece to pursue art and staying had cost me my throne and possibly my life. The end of a dynasty—the sacrifices of Augustus, the thwarted dreams of Tiberius, the madness of Caligula, the struggles of Claudius, and Mother’s ambition, all collapsing with me. I was taking them all down with me. And I mourned them, even as I had struggled against their legacy all my life.
Forgive me. You did not think to perish thus. All the murders and schemes, to end in nothing at a freedman’s villa. The last laurel has withered and will not grow again.
Light slowly crept into the dank cellar, and Phaon came over and said, “We should go outside now.”
He would get no argument from me, and we crawled out the same way we had come in. The fresh June air was exhilarating after the dank cellar.
“There is no word from Nymphidius,” said Epaphroditus. “And we—we three—have been conferring, and realizing what you are facing—as they will find you sooner or later—we think—we believe—that you should spare yourself this fate.”
Phaon and Sporus nodded solemnly.
“You say there is no word from Nymphidius?” Again they nodded. Suddenly I knew. I knew Nymphidius had never gone to Ostia. And that he had told the Praetorians they were no longer to protect me, so they deserted me. The son of Caligula had destroyed me, where his father had failed. And Phaon had led me here, far on the other side of Rome, to make sure I could never get to Ostia. Were Epaphroditus and Sporus also part of this plan?
“Nothing,” they said in unison.
What a surprise. They might have heard something, but not anything they could tell me.
“So you advise me to kill myself?” I asked.
“That would be best, I am grieved to say,” said Phaon.
“I am not skilled. Could one of you, out of loyalty, kill yourself to show me how?” Now what would they say?
“I—we could not. We must be here to see to your body, your burial. We must protect your remains,” said Epaphroditus.
“I see. How could I overlook that? Well, then, get busy and dig my grave. You can measure it for me now, since I am right here. And gather up any pieces of marble that we can use to line it and to mark it. And we will need wood for the pyre and water to put it out. Plus an urn. Can you get an urn?”
Was I really having this conversation?
“Yes, Caesar,” was all they said, stealing glances at one another. The emperor has lost his senses. He is hysterical.
Perhaps I was hysterical. Nothing seemed real; everything seemed too real, too brutal, too sharp. While they busied themselves digging, I looked at the glory of early summer all around me and burst out, “What an artist the world is losing!” Earlier I had said the artist was losing a world, but the world was losing her most passionate artist with his best works still undone. We were a couple, entwined and dancing together, and now the dance was ending.
The three turned and stared at me, then continued digging.
The grave was almost complete when a runner found us at the back of the house. He handed Phaon a note, but before he could read it I snatched it away. It was my fate, let me read it for myself.
The Senate—the Senate I thought was now my friend—had met at an emergency session during the night. They had declared me a public enemy, just as they had Galba only a little while ago. They had ordered my arrest and execution under the ancient style.
“What is the ‘ancient style’?” I asked.
Phaon looked evasive. Finally Epaphroditus said, “The person is stripped naked, then his head is put into a forked yoke, and he is beaten to death with rods.”
O gods! No, I must rob them of the chance to do this to me. I looked around, at the waiting grave, the shovels, the wood. Where were my daggers? The daggers. I needed them.
“Here they are, Caesar,” said Sporus kindly, handing them to me. I had left them in the cellar.
I took them, tested the blades. I held one up to my throat. But the day was sweet and there was no commotion. I threw them down. “It is not yet the hour!” I said.
They recommenced their digging, and I walked around in a fog, muttering to myself in both Greek and Latin.
How can my life have come to such an end?
This behavior does not become Nero, does not become him! It is not seemly!
One should be resolute at such times. Be resolute—come, pull yourself together. Rouse yourself!
All the while the shovels were scraping, scraping.
The early-morning birdsong had died out, replaced by the stillness of midmorning in the fields. But there was a distant sound—a rhythmic sound, a pounding.
Hoofbeats! They grew louder and unmistakable. This was not one rider but a whole company of them. Come to take me. They had found me, but not by themselves. Someone had told them where I was.
I looked at the three people with me. Which one was it? Or was it all three? I had survived many betrayals, but what was it Seneca had once said? No matter how many people you kill, you cannot kill your successor. He could just as well have said, no matter how many betrayals you survive, you cannot survive the last one.
The horses were getting closer. Suddenly a line from Homer burst from me:
“‘Hark to the sound I hear! It is hooves of galloping horses!’”
Now with all my strength, I took up the dagger. No more hesitation.
Nero—Lucius!—be worthy of yourself!
LXXIV
ACTE
The June day was glorious in Velitrae. Our hilltop location guaranteed us cooling breezes, but this day did not need them, as it was perfect. I stood on the terrace of my home, looking out across the valley, toward Rome. Brown and yellow butterflies flitted in and out of the potted flowers nearby, joined by buzzing bees.
Like everyone else, I had heard of the unrest in Rome, which Nero had returned to, and the upheavals in the provinces, and the treason of Galba. I had planned to see Nero when it died down, knowing he did not need any distractions when he was so beleaguered. I constantly wore the ivory-and-ebony bracelet he had given me, never wanting to take it off, as if it were an invisible cord binding us together.
That there was danger to him I knew. I had warned him of that when he was so carefree in Greece. But even so I was unprepared for the sweating messenger who arrived, panting, at my doorstep and thrust a cylinder into my hands before sliding down the wall and nearly collapsing.
“I’ve come from Rome,” he managed to get out. “Emergency.”
I had the servants take care of him and went out onto the open terrace to read the message.
It was from Alexandra.
Nero is dead. It falls to us to bury him. Hurry. Time is not on our side.
The friendly warmth of the sun, the sweet scent of the flowers in their containers, faded all around me into a white nothingness.
Nero is dead.
Impossible words. Impossible thought. How could the world be here and he not in it? At that moment there was no world around me, either, and the white web of blankness enveloped me. The loss of such a presence as his should have sent shivers and quakes through the land. But the ground under me did not move.
* * *
• • •
I arrived at the palace with near otherworldly speed, to find Alexandra and Ecloge awaiting me in Nero’s imperial apartments. I had never been in his; it was Poppaea’s I had been summoned to. The palace was oddly deserted, although there were guards at the entrance. But the atrium was empty, and rather than servants, soldiers strolled the halls.
As
soon as I entered, Ecloge embraced me, weeping. I had yet to cry; shock had stopped all tears, paralyzed all thoughts except the one that I must get to the palace as quickly as humanly possible. But now a deluge of tears poured from me, all the hours of crying released at once, choking me so that I could hardly breathe. She guided me to a couch and lowered me gently. It was a long time before I could look up at her, and even so my vision was blurred, making her features indistinct.
“Tell me,” was all I said, and she understood.
“He was betrayed,” she said.
O gods! Was this the cause of his death? Not a noble reason but a lie?
“Who? How?”
“Nymphidius told the bodyguards and the Praetorians that Nero had fled to Egypt, deserting Rome like a coward. He then promised them each a bounty of thirty thousand sesterces—many years’ wages—if they would declare loyalty to Galba as emperor. He also announced to the Senate that Nero had fled, and they joined with the Praetorians in saluting Galba as emperor. Then they pronounced Nero a public enemy, as they had pronounced Galba one only a short time before. That is how honest the Senate is! For sale to the highest bidder!”
“But where was Nero?”
“At Phaon’s villa,” said Alexandra, sitting down beside me.
“Why in the world was he there?” I lifted the hem of my tunic to dry my eyes.
“We don’t know,” said Ecloge. “He was persuaded to leave the palace and go there. But once again, betrayal came into it. Someone alerted the Praetorians searching for him just where to find him.”
“It must have been one of the ones with him at the villa,” I said.
“All fingers would point in that direction,” said Ecloge. “Who else would have known?”
“Who was with him?”
“Phaon, Epaphroditus, Sporus.”
One of them, then. Or all of them.
“They are waiting for us now. They have his . . . him . . . ready for burial.”
Now I understood the hurry. “But where will he lie?”
“Galba’s henchman, Icelus Marcianus, has given permission for a formal funeral. He can be interred in the mausoleum of his father’s line, the Domitians. I took the liberty of ordering a sarcophagus of red porphyry and an altar of white Luna marble.”
“They cost two thousand gold pieces,” said Alexandra.
“I hope that is not why you have called me,” I said. “But of course I will pay.” I would have paid a thousand times that to keep him from the ignominy usually accorded an overthrown ruler—a shabby grave if at all, or worse, desecration of the body.
“We called you because you were his first love, and we knew he never stopped caring for you. We hoped you still felt the same. His last rites should be carried out by those who care for him.”
Of course they would have had no way of knowing anything that had passed between us in Greece. How fortunate they remembered me at all at this time.
“Oh, yes. I do care. More than that.” I stood and wiped my eyes again to clear my vision. “We must hurry, as you said. What shall we take with us for him?”
“I thought the white robes with the gold thread he wore at the New Year ceremony, when the legions swore loyalty to him, would be most appropriate,” said Alexandra, pointing to a folded bundle on the table.
“What loyalty?” I said. “Is this what he would want connected to his burial?”
“The Praetorians were loyal, until they were deceived. When they know the truth, they will repent.”
“It won’t bring him back,” I said.
“It is true his last words were about the troops’ loyalty,” admitted Ecloge.
His last words. “What did he say?”
“This is what Epaphroditus told us. He said the emperor knew his hour had come but refused to take the final strike until he heard the sound of the approaching soldiers. Only then could he bring himself to do it. Barely a few moments later the centurion arrived, to find him almost dead. Leaping off his horse, he rushed to Nero’s side, and held his cloak up to Nero’s neck, to stop the bleeding—so he could be saved, only to be executed later. Nero, still conscious, looked at him and said, ‘Too late. So this is your loyalty!’ He died right after that, thwarting their plans.”
So he knew. At the end he knew the bitterness of betrayal, as well as the small consolation of having eluded his captors and a shameful execution. Oh, my dear Nero, what a horrible death, to die with such knowledge.
Now my eyes filled with tears again, blinding me. Finally I dried them, rose, and went over to the folded robes. Privately I thought he would have preferred one of his outrageous flowered tunics, as a last gesture to his Roman critics, but this was certainly more dignified. I stroked the fine white wool, felt the roughness of the gold threads running through it. “This will do,” I said.
Only now that my eyes had cleared did I look around the chamber. Hanging on the wall, in a place of honor, was the crown of wild olive from Olympia, the winner’s wreath that he had cherished. “We need to take this,” I said.
“And his cithara,” said Alexandra. “I know he would want it with him.”
I took the wreath off the wall. Some of its fragile leaves, almost a year old, crumbled. But the rest were well preserved.
* * *
• • •
It was a long, dusty ride out of the city to Phaon’s villa. Along the way, once we were out in the country, birds swooped and dove over the fields, and hedges were in bloom. It seemed peculiarly and personally insulting to him that the world persisted in bright colors and singing birds when he lay dead.
The villa loomed ahead, surrounded by untended fields of tall reeds and bramble bushes. Phaon had done well for himself; the villa was large and sprawling. We entered through a grand front door, and Phaon’s slave greeted us. He quickly led us to where Phaon, Epaphroditus, and Sporus awaited us in the light-filled atrium. Which was the traitor? Or were all three guilty?
“Thank you for coming,” said Phaon. “We are grateful you can . . . help us.”
“And grateful to the powers now in control that he is permitted an honest funeral,” said Epaphroditus, a man with dark features and heavy eyebrows. “I wrote to you, Ecloge, with the information about his last day.”
So that was how Ecloge and Alexandra knew so many details.
“We have the funeral pyre ready,” said Phaon. “Would you like to see the preparations? They are outside, at the back of the villa.”
No, I never want to see them. Never, never. But we trudged after the men, down a flight of stairs and out a door into a large cleared area. Hideously confronting us was a large pyre, its logs piled neatly, geometrically, a pyramid awaiting a torch. At the very top there was a level place for a litter to be placed.
“We have worked hard to procure this,” said Phaon, a touch of pride in his voice.
Farther away was a rectangular hole with marble fragments lining its lip.
“What is this?” I asked, pointing to it.
“He directed us to dig his grave,” said Epaphroditus.
I shuddered at the thing. Had he stood by and watched it take shape? O gods, how cruel.
I turned away and saw a hole in the back wall, recently dug. “And what is this?” I asked.
“We had to dig an entrance here so he could enter the cellar without being seen.”
“He spent his last night in a cellar?”
“It was the safest place,” said Sporus, speaking at long last.
“Please do not be distressed,” said Phaon, when both Ecloge and Alexandra began weeping. He might as well have commanded the sun to stand still. We were overcome with the meanness of the surroundings, the humiliations heaped upon him—crawling through a broken wall in the basement of a freedman’s villa to sleep alone in a dank cellar.
I had to keep my voice steady. “And whe
re—where did the centurion find him?”
“Just here.” He pointed to a place near the corner of the villa. There was a dark spot on the ground. Blood. “He heard the sound of the cavalry on the road just outside—we are close to it here—and quoted a line from the Iliad. Then it was time, if there was to be time.”
Homer. Always Greece. I smiled, surprised that I could.
“May we go and prepare him now?” I asked. It had to be done. It could not wait.
“Yes. He is in the cellar. Not out of disrespect, you understand, but because it is cooler there.”
Yes, that I understood.
They led us into the cellar down the regular steps. We descended into the chill, dim rooms, and walked through several before coming to one that had a table covered with a sheet. Tiny windows let in slivers of light, but it was necessary to light lamps in order to see.
“Could you leave us, please?” I asked, as we stood before the silent draped table.
“Yes,” said Phaon. “You will see, there are casks of water, cloths, and towels here.” He pointed to another table. They turned and left.
Now we were alone with him. Helplessly, we stood unmoving for several minutes. One of us had to draw back the cloth. None of us wanted to. At length I steeled myself to do it, and quietly approached the table. I took the cloth in both hands and pulled it away. I almost recoiled when I saw him. Until that second I had not truly believed—or rather, comprehended—that he was dead.
They had closed his eyes—a mercy—but not tended him otherwise. The big gash on his neck had turned dark, but other than that he looked lifelike. Death’s changes had not yet advanced on him. He looked younger, like the Lucius I had first known. I leaned over and kissed his cold cheek. “Lucius is back,” I told him. “I have my Lucius again.”
Now to the grim task of uncovering him, washing him with care, preparing him for the journey. It was an honor; it was a torture. At length we clothed him in the white robes we had brought.
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