Murder in Hadrian's Villa

by Gavin Chappell

  He wasn’t at all sure about his chief centurion. The man had the constant air that he knew more than he let on, and Flaminius was more than half sure that he was an agent for the conspirators.

  Or maybe he was starting at shadows. Well, maybe he had reason. Maybe it was just the man’s manner. But he wouldn’t trust the centurion as a confidante, that was certain.

  As the cavalcade reached the main villa complex, slaves appeared from the buildings, and rushed to hold the horses’ reins as Flaminius and the others dismounted. The Praetorians formed a guard of honour leading to the empress’ carriage. After a short pause she disembarked with the aid of her handmaidens and waddled up to the main palace, followed by Ursus Servianus, Suetonius Tranquillus, the handmaidens and several other hangers on. Once the empress had mounted the steps to the villa, Flaminius left a small contingent of Praetorians on guard outside and led the rest of them to the barracks.

  After posting guards and despatching patrols, he settled into his office and contemplated his next move. He was really no closer to identifying Messalus’ murderer, although he had gathered some circumstantial evidence that Septicius Clarus was conspiring against the emperor—hopefully more solid proof would be provided by the commissary interrogators. For the moment, however, his investigation into Centurion Messalus’ death had been stymied.

  As he was going over the evidence so far he heard a knock on the door. He shouted ‘Come,’ and in came a Praetorian and an imperial chamberlain. The guard gestured at the chamberlain.

  ‘Messenger from the empress,’ he said.

  The chamberlain minced forwards. ‘Ma’am requests your presence in the main atrium,’ he said. ‘Please follow me.’

  ‘Very well.’ Flaminius was glad of the excuse to get out of the office, although he had a nasty feeling the empress would want to discuss the investigation.

  He followed the chamberlain from the barracks, and up the steps beneath the great portico. On entering the hushed, softly lit, slightly perfumed apartments, he was taken to the main atrium. The empress lounged on a couch in the sunlight, looking a little bored, surrounded by her usual coterie of handmaidens. Medea sat at the back. Flaminius met her gaze but she looked away. Two Praetorians stood on guard at the entrance.

  Suetonius Tranquillus sat nearby, reading from a scroll. The empress clapped her hands. ‘That will be all, secretary,’ she said, interrupting him in mid flow.

  Suetonius Tranquillus looked up. ‘Ah,’ he said a little coldly, ‘I see the tribune is here. Would you like me to continue my reading later?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ the empress said, flapping a hand. ‘Return in an hour. I wish to discuss the progress of the tribune’s investigation. Run along now, all of you. Yes, you too, girls. It will be just the tribune and I.’

  Suetonius Tranquillus rose, tugging his toga round his bony shoulders, put the scroll into a long thin box which he slung over his back by a leather strap, and stalked out. Medea led her fellow handmaidens through a different exit.

  Smiling, the empress patted the seat on which Suetonius Tranquillus had been sitting. ‘Sit down and tell me all about it,’ she instructed him. ‘Your superior the prefect will be joining us later, and you can give him your formal report. But for the moment, you can tell me everything you have learnt.’ Her eyes grew wide. ‘Have you made any progress since our last meeting? Are you any closer to learning who the real killer was?’

  Flaminius sat as ordered. He was about to answer when he saw Medea still standing in the doorway, half hidden behind a gauzy curtain. She was listening intently. The empress followed his gaze and her eyes narrowed.

  ‘I said run along, girl,’ she said, her voice frosty.

  Medea looked up, startled, then vanished out of sight.

  ‘Nosy, that young woman,’ the empress remarked. ‘Never mind. Now, tell me all about it.’ She sipped at a glass of wine without offering him one.

  Flaminius was quite glad she didn’t. He had got into the habit of exchanging glasses whenever anyone offered him one, and he couldn’t see how to take that precaution here.

  ‘Well, ma’am,’ he began. ‘There have been a number of developments. I can’t say for certain who the murderer was but…’ He paused, and added awkwardly, ‘The murder seems to be part of a larger conspiracy.’

  The empress giggled with delight. ‘You’ve uncovered a plot? How thrilling. Tell all.’

  ‘I’d rather not say too much without more evidence,’ he told her, ‘but I assure you that it is no laughing matter.’ It would be a bad idea to accuse the prefect without solid proof. ‘Do you remember how I came to be seconded to the Praetorian Guard?’

  She looked at him blankly for a moment, then it all came back to her.

  ‘Your daring rescue of my husband,’ she said. ‘There was that man Rufinus Crassus who you dealt with. He died of a sudden distemper, or according to Erichtho he was poisoned. But that was all before you joined the Praetorians, and long before your chief centurion was murdered.

  ‘That’s what you’re supposed to be doing, you know,’ she added reprovingly. ‘Investigating his murder. Not wallowing in nostalgia.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Flaminius. ‘I hadn’t forgotten. But I think that there’s a connection between the two murders. And yes, I do think Rufinus Crassus was murdered.’

  The empress rubbed at her brow as if she had a headache. ‘So who murdered Rufinus Crassus?’ she asked. ‘If it’s true, whoever was his murderer should also be brought to justice.’

  ‘I think justice has been served,’ he told her, ‘of a sort. I’m pretty sure it was Messalus who murdered Rufinus Crassus.’

  Her face seemed to clear. ‘You think it was the late senator’s family who had the centurion killed? But they’re of senatorial rank. They surely wouldn’t have to resort to poison.’

  ‘I don’t think the family murdered him,’ he assured her. ‘I’ve spoken to the widow and she has no idea why her husband was killed. No, I think Rufinus Crassus was murdered at the orders of the conspirators.’

  The empress wriggled to make herself more comfortable. ‘Ah yes, your conspiracy,’ she murmured in indulgent tones. ‘But you said that you think Messalus killed the senator. Was he part of this plot? Surely not. A mere centurion?’ Then a thought seemed to strike her. ‘Surely a conspiracy needs to have a purpose. I’m confused. What were these mysterious conspirators intending to achieve?’

  ‘Not were, ma’am,’ he corrected her ominously. ‘I think the conspiracy still exists, if in a modified form. I strongly believe that the conspirators plan to assassinate your husband.’

  After long a silence, the empress said, ‘But you say you don’t have any evidence?’

  He spread his hands. ‘Nothing very conclusive. Except that Rufinus Crassus attempted to murder the emperor.’

  ‘That’s old news,’ she said. She rubbed at her temples. ‘Are you suggesting that the senator who tried to assassinate my husband during my birthday celebrations last year was a member of this supposed conspiracy?’

  Flaminius tried to conceal his impatience. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he told her. ‘That’s exactly what I believe.’

  ‘And Messalus killed him?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Then I must give my thanks to the shade of Messalus!’ she told him. ‘But you said you think Messalus was part of the conspiracy. It doesn’t make any sense. Surely, if he killed the assassin and then was killed himself, that would mean that these mysterious conspirators—who you have yet to identify—killed him because he killed their assassin. Wouldn’t that make him as much of a hero as you are?’

  He stared at her in disbelief. The emperor had not married Sabina for her intelligence.

  ‘I think,’ he said patiently, ‘that he was killed because he was about to confess to me that he had murdered Rufinus Crassus.’

  He saw a watchful look come over her. ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘He did admit to murdering one senator,’ Flaminius explained. ‘Sen
ator Nigrinus. One of your husband’s old enemies from before he was emperor. Do you remember?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said instantly. ‘He and three others were put to death on my husband’s orders.’

  This would confirm that Hadrian himself had had the senators put to death, and it hadn’t been the work of an overzealous prefect. Still, he didn’t get the impression that the couple were close. Quite possibly she knew no more of her husband’s affairs than anyone else. Or was the emperor really a tyrant who operated Praetorian death squads?

  ‘He murdered Nigrinus,’ she went on. ‘But what has that to do with Rufinus Crassus? I remember,’ she added, ‘that everyone was very upset about the killing of Nigrinus and his colleagues…’

  Upset! Flaminius thought satirically. ‘I spoke to Centurion Messalus,’ he told her, ‘and asked him a few questions. In his cups, the centurion admitted to assassinating Nigrinus. He was about to admit to another killing—I’m sure it was of Rufinus Crassus—when something happened to distract him, and I never got another chance to ask him.’

  ‘Why not?’ she asked.

  ‘Because he was murdered later that night,’ he said.

  ‘And you don’t yet know who murdered him?’ she said. ‘Remember, you are the only person who has been accused of the murder. No one else has even been accused. And from what I’ve heard from your superior, you have not conducted yourself well during your brief time in the Guard.’

  Suddenly she was in deadly earnest.

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know who murdered him,’ he said. ‘I have my suspicions, though.’

  ‘Oh?’ she challenged him. ‘Pray tell.’

  He took a deep breath, then remembered his previous resolution. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I won’t accuse anyone without hard evidence.’

  ‘But you suspect someone,’ she said, ‘and you must have a reason, if not hard evidence. Who do you suspect and why?’

  ‘Septicius Clarus,’ he said. She laughed.

  He stared at her in confusion. She wiped tears from her eyes. ‘You think the prefect poisoned your chief centurion?’ She seemed to think it absurd.

  Nettled, he gave a curt nod. ‘I think so,’ he said. ‘I think he is part of the conspiracy against your husband.’

  She went quiet. ‘That’s a very serious charge,’ she said after a moment. ‘And you haven’t explained why you think the prefect is involved.’

  Flaminius picked his words fastidiously. ‘Everyone thought I had poisoned Messalus,’ he said, ‘because I had obtained that cantharadin from Erichtho. But when the prefect visited me in my office, he picked up the phial and inspected it.’

  ‘What of it?’ she asked. ‘I’m sure many men are familiar with the drug; not as a poison, naturally, only murderers and assassins would have that knowledge—but as a cure for… small, personal problems,’ she added delicately, spoiling the effect with a girlish giggle. ‘This certainly isn’t enough evidence to implicate your superior in murder and conspiracy. Besides, he has an alibi—namely, me. He was in the palace at the time of the murder, and shortly after he was called from there by the guards who found the body. Is this all you have? He looked at your phial of cantharadin?’

  ‘And it went missing shortly afterwards,’ Flaminius said. He was sweating. Put into words, told to an independent observer, it sound ridiculous. ‘There are other reasons why I think he’s involved in a conspiracy,’ he added lamely. He knew he shouldn’t have spoken without being able to give solid evidence; now he looked a fool. He rose and began to pace up and down the mosaic floor.

  ‘I’d be fascinated to hear them,’ she said, suppressing a snort of laughter. ‘Are they all as threadbare as the first?’

  Angry, he said, ‘Do you want your husband to be murdered?’

  In silence, frowning, she shook her head.

  He sat down again. ‘Let me tell you, I have reason to believe that the Praetorian Prefect is planning an uprising. He means to get rid of the emperor, your husband.’

  ‘And put himself in his place?’ she giggled. ‘The senate would never accept it. The fellow’s only an equestrian. You might as well try to make yourself emperor as the prefect.’

  She was openly mocking him now.

  ‘I never said he wanted to make himself emperor,’ he told her coldly. ‘He has senators amongst his co-conspirators. I first got wind of this plot in Britain. That was how I came to rescue the emperor from Rufinus Crassus…’

  She yawned. ‘I think that single event has gone to your head!’ she told him. ‘We’re all very grateful for your dashing heroic act, saving the day. But you can hardly hope to trade on it forever. I can see no reason to link Rufinus Crassus’ assassination attempt with the Praetorian Prefect, of all people. After all, he ordered Centurion Messalus to murder the man in his cell. That doesn’t make him part of any imaginary conspiracy, simply the man who had the assassin dealt with. And quite right too.’

  Flaminius said nothing. He studied her intently. After a moment, he said, ‘Very well, perhaps I’m wrong. I told you that I had no hard evidence. Let me continue my investigation and I’m sure the prefect will be exonerated in time.’

  She looked doubtful. ‘Well, you just remember, if you can’t provide hard evidence that someone else murdered Centurion Messalus, we will have no option but to try you for the crime. And as your prefect pointed out, without any other suspects, the chances are that you will be found guilty. That’s the sword of Damocles hanging over your head, tribune.’

  ‘Yes ma’am,’ he said, turning to leave. ‘Thank you, ma’am.’

  Briskly he hurried from the atrium, helmet under his left arm, the picture of military efficiency. Sabina watched his departure in silence, mulling over his discoveries and his assertions. Back came his theory about who had killed the centurion.

  She lay back, body wracked with silent laughter.

  ‘Septicius Clarus…!’ she said scornfully. It was too much.

  Suddenly she was bored and lonely. She called for her handmaidens and they came fluttering back into the atrium in all their gauzy, gaudy loveliness. Medea was among them.

  ‘Were you listening, you naughty girl?’ Sabina teased her. ‘After you were told not to?’

  Medea flushed. ‘I overheard something,’ she said. ‘Does Gaius think Septicius Clarus murdered his centurion?’ She looked concerned.

  ‘Gaius?’ Sabina asked vaguely. ‘Oh, you mean Tribune Flaminius.’ She sighed. ‘Yes, the tribune believes that Septicius Clarus is at the back of the conspiracy.’ She threw her head back. ‘He knows nothing. Conspiracy indeed! I know of no conspiracy.’ She flung a look at Medea. ‘Do you?’

  Medea bit her lip, looked down at her feet and shook her head.

  ‘I’m fed up,’ Sabina announced. ‘We were halfway through the secretary’s exciting account of the dark days of the Emperor Nero. Go and find him, Medea, and bring him back. It wasn’t quite as thrilling as I anticipated, but what else is there to do today?

  ‘I do wish my husband would come back from the wars. Then at least there would be someone I could have a good quarrel with…’

  Medea slipped out. while she was gone, the other handmaidens did their best to entertain Sabina with their conversation. The poetess Julia Balbilla recited a short ode, whose high flown metaphors and literary allusions quite went over the empress’ head. The Nubian girl, Amanitore, told them tales of her upbringing among the anthropophagi, in lands where all were as dark skinned as she.

  Sabina had heard that in those barbarian countries some men had no heads but kept their eyes in their chests, while others had only one leg and one foot which they used to shade themselves from the sun. But Amanitore had never met any of these people, and claimed never to have heard of them. Sabina yawned, disappointed. She’d heard the stories a hundred times before, so had the others. She really needed something new and exciting in her life.

  Instead, Medea returned with Suetonius Tranquillus. The secretary unrolled his scroll again. ‘Shall I begin,
ma’am?’ he asked self-importantly.

  ‘Go on from where you left off,’ she told him.

  He scrolled onwards a little, then cleared his throat, struck what he presumably considered to be a dramatic pose, and continued:

  ‘He began his career of parricide and murder with Claudius, for even if he was not the instigator of the emperor’s death, he was at least privy to it, as he openly admitted; for he used afterwards to laud mushrooms, the vehicle in which the poison was administered to Claudius, as “the food of the gods,” as the Greek proverb has it. At any rate, after Claudius’s death he vented on him every kind of insult, in act and word, charging him now with folly and now with cruelty; for it was a favourite joke of his to say that Claudius had ceased “to play the fool” among mortals, lengthening the first syllable of the word morari, and he disregarded many of his decrees and acts as the work of a madman and a dotard. Finally, he neglected to enclose the place where his body was burned except with a low and mean wall.

  ‘He attempted the life of Britannicus by poison, not less from jealousy of his voice (for it was more agreeable than his own) than from fear that he might sometime win a higher place than himself in the people’s regard because of the memory of his father. He procured the potion from an arch poisoner, one Locusta, and when the effect was slower than he anticipated, merely physicking Britannicus, he called the woman to him and flogged her with his own hand, charging that she had administered a medicine instead of a poison; and when she said in excuse that she had given a smaller dose to shield him from the odium of the crime, he replied: “It’s likely that I am afraid of the Julian law;” and he forced her to mix as swift and instant a potion as she knew how in his own room before his very eyes. Then he tried it on a kid, and as the animal lingered for five hours, had the mixture steeped again and again and threw some of it before a pig. The beast instantly fell dead, whereupon he ordered that the poison be taken to the dining room and given to Britannicus. The boy dropped dead at the very first taste, but Nero lied to his guests and declared that he was seized with the falling sickness, to which he was subject, and the next day had him hastily and unceremoniously buried in a pouring rain. He rewarded Locusta for her eminent services with a full pardon and large estates in the country, and actually sent her pupils.’ [16]