The Confessions of Young Nero

by Margaret George

  “It is un-Roman,” admitted Burrus. “Except when they are slated for execution, as it is illegal in Roman law to execute a virgin.”

  “Execution? They shall be executed! I want the names of the men who did this. They will be punished—executed for shaming Rome so. No stripping and flogging for them.” I was so angry I would have strangled them myself.

  “They are probably already dead, Caesar, so there can be no vengeance from us. Not on those men. But it is almost certain they have paid the price.”

  “Explain yourself,” I said.

  “The bloodied queen pulled herself up from the dirt and vowed revenge, calling on the war goddess Andraste. And quietly, over the winter, she gathered forces from not only her own people but from the neighboring Trinovantes and other tribes who also had grievances against Rome. They resented the very presence of the huge Temple of Claudius and being taxed for it, and the two persons selected as priests there had to bear the expenses of the office that they didn’t even want. Furthermore, the agents had demanded repayment of the money Claudius had distributed to them when they submitted, renaming it a loan rather than a gift. And, last, Seneca’s calling in his huge loans so suddenly was more than they could pay.”

  Burrus pointed to something in the report. “She was very clever. She knew all the movements of our troops, even which legions were filled with raw and inexperienced recruits, and exactly when they were due to replace the veterans who would retire, taking their expertise with them. She waited until Paulinus and the Fourteenth were tied up in Wales, far away, to strike.”

  “How many people does she have?” I asked.

  “One place in the report says one hundred and twenty thousand to start with,” said Burrus, who seemed to have recovered his wits and was once again the soldier.

  Oh, gods! “And us? Were we not at four-legion strength?”

  “Were,” said Burrus. “No longer.”

  “The Ninth—” began the messenger.

  “Let me tell it now,” said Burrus. “In the proper order.” He took a deep breath. “Boudicca’s army consists of chariots, warriors armed with massive shields, made of oak planks covered with hide, and spears. They are not trained to fight in formation but en masse. They descended on Camulodunum, our colony and capital, which had no defenses—we trusted the people!—and savagely destroyed it. The retired soldiers of the Fourteenth and the small guard left behind barricaded themselves inside the Temple of Claudius, along with townspeople. Boudicca surrounded it and, acting on informers’ information, her warriors overran the temple, set it on fire, and burned the people inside alive. Then they attacked the town, killing men, women, children, Romans, yes, but anyone who had been associated with Rome.”

  He reached for the wine and downed a cup before continuing. “Prisoners were taken to an open area and tortured and killed. Some were burned alive, others crucified, others hanged. Men and boys had their genitals cut off, women had their breasts cut off and sewed into their mouths, then were impaled on stakes. The British women who had married Romans, particularly centurions, got the worst treatment. But children suffered the same as their parents.” He poured another cup of wine as if to rinse out his mouth. “Then they had a wild sex party, in the name of their war goddess Andraste.” He spit out the wine into a saucer.

  “But that is not all,” said the messenger. “Next they went to Londinium, where there were also no walls or defenses, and repeated the massacres. The Romans had abandoned the Londoners and they had to fend for themselves. All the merchants left, so there was not a single ship in the docks. Only the old, sick, and stubborn stayed behind. Meanwhile, the procurator Decianus abandoned Britain and fled to Gaul.”

  “Is that all? Are you finished?” I asked. I was beyond stunned. Now I knew why Burrus had been speechless.

  “No,” said Burrus. “The Ninth Hispana came down from a hundred miles north to help Camulodunum but were ambushed by Boudicca and annihilated.” He winced and rubbed his throat. “And the Second Augusta, ordered to meet up with Paulinus’s Fourteenth, refused the order and stayed put in the far west. So all we have to face Boudicca, whose army has now grown to well over two hundred thousand, is the men of the Fourteenth. She has destroyed Verulamium about thirty miles north of London, as she has anything in her path. Altogether seventy thousand people have been killed. All of the province now lies in the hands of the insurgents. The only thing standing between us and the total loss of Britain is Paulinus’s Fourteenth and the soldiers of the Twentieth that are with it. Perhaps ten thousand men—against two hundred and thirty thousand. Odds of twenty-three to one.”

  LIX

  Clutching the dispatches, I reeled back to my apartments, seeing the burning towns and hearing the screams of the victims—victims whose only crime was to be Roman, or to have cooperated with Romans. I rushed into my innermost room, the one where no one could enter or disturb me—unless Boudicca herself stormed them.

  Boudicca. Who was this woman, to lead an army? Feverishly, I unrolled the scrolls and scoured them for information about her. The dispatches were detailed, and I would read every word later, but for now I sought only to know my adversary. For she was my adversary as surely as if we faced one another in person. And so far I had never been vanquished by an adversary; I had always outsmarted or outmaneuvered every one of them. But this was different.

  Finally I found a description. It said she was tall, fierce, and uncommonly intelligent. That she had masses of waist-length tawny hair and wore a gold necklace (like the one I had brought from the archives?), brightly colored patterned cloaks, and brooches. That she had a harsh voice, which she used to address her followers. A speech was included—she was a stirring speaker.

  As I read it I had to admit she was a born leader. She would make anyone want to follow her, as she spoke meaningfully about liberty and freedom, and she knew how to appeal to the people not as their queen but as a fellow sufferer under the yoke of Rome. To aid her speech in effectiveness, she brandished a spear.

  I am descended from mighty men! But now I am not fighting for my kingdom and wealth. I am fighting as an ordinary person for my lost freedom, my bruised body, and my outraged daughters. Nowadays Roman rapacity does not even spare our bodies. Old people are killed, virgins raped. But the gods will grant us the vengeance we deserve! The Roman division which dared to fight is annihilated. The others cower in their camps, or watch for a chance to escape. They will never face even the din and roar of all our thousands, much less the shock of our onslaught. Consider how many of you are fighting—and why. Then you will win this battle, or perish. That is what I, a woman, plan to do!—let the men live in slavery if they will.

  It moved me, the enemy she was facing. I read on.

  Have no fear whatever of the Romans; for they are superior to us neither in number nor in bravery. Indeed, we enjoy such a surplus of bravery that we regard our tents as safer than their walls and our shields as providing greater protection than their whole suits of mail.

  But these are not the only respects in which they are vastly inferior to us: There is also the fact that they cannot bear up under hunger, thirst, cold, or heat, as we can. They require shade and covering, they require kneaded bread and wine and oil, and if any of these things fail them, they perish. For us, on the other hand, any grass or root serves as bread, the juice of any plant as oil, any water as wine, any tree as a house. Therefore, let us show them that they are hares and foxes trying to rule over dogs and wolves.

  She then practiced some sort of divination by letting a hare loose from folds in her cloak and, interpreting it as favorable, thanked Andraste.

  I thank thee, Andraste, and I call upon thee as woman speaking to woman; for I rule over no burden-bearing Egyptians as did Nitocris, nor over trafficking Assyrians as did Semiramis, much less over the Romans themselves as did Messalina once and, afterward, Agrippina, and now Nero, who, though in name a man, is in fact a woman
, as is proved by his singing, lyre playing, and beautification of his person—

  My eyes bulged out when I read this. Calling me a woman!

  I pray thee for victory against men insolent, unjust, insatiable, impious—if indeed we ought to term these people men who bathe in warm water, eat artificial dainties, drink unmixed wine, anoint themselves with myrrh, sleep on soft couches with boys for bedfellows—boys past their prime, at that—and are slaves to a lyre player, and a poor one, too. Wherefore may this Mistress Domitia-Nero reign no longer over me or over you men; let the wench sing and lord it over Romans, for they surely deserve to be the slaves of such a woman after having submitted to her for so long.

  I almost dropped the scroll. I wanted to say, How dare she? But this was war, and any invective must serve to be marshaled against the enemy, as Augustus had done to Antony. But to say I was a poor lyre player—! Oh, she was clever and, like all great warriors, knew exactly how to wound. We each commanded thousands, but she had made it personal, one enemy staring down the other across all the miles, the armies behind us fading to pale in the background. She would see what this lyre player could do, and regret her words.

  • • •

  I had more of the temper of Germanicus and of Antony than I had recognized. Now all hinged on the confrontation between the two armies in Britain. For the first time ever, I longed to lead troops, to clash with the enemy. But all that was out of my hands. I had to rest my trust and hopes on what resources I had already placed there. There was no time even to send reinforcements from Germany; in fact, the battle may have already taken place.

  And if it had? If we had lost? Then I would be the first emperor to lose a province. Oh, the shame of it. It was not to be borne. We could not lose. We could not lose. We could not lose.

  • • •

  Days passed; days in which we waited for a messenger bringing news. It would come by the swiftest military post possible, but it would still take nine days at best. I had memorized the dispatches, memorized every detail of the battles—the tactics, the chronology, the geography. The question was, where would the armies finally come to engage? Paulinus was a cautious but steely general and he would try to find a way to neutralize the great numbers of his foe. That had been done in Greece, in the battles of Salamis and Thermopylae against the Persians. The trick was to get them into a position where they could not maneuver, where their numbers conferred no advantage, rather the opposite.

  But the countryside of Britain was mainly flat, with a few rolling hills, and forested, except in cleared farmland. It would be difficult to find a place to box them in. And would Paulinus retreat, withdrawing back toward Wales, luring them on? If he retreated too far, he would have the Welsh at his back and be trapped.

  But the farther he lured her, the farther she would come into unfamiliar territory and lose her advantage of intimate knowledge of the terrain. He must find exactly the right balance. It might take a long time to play out.

  Any commander knew to choose the site most advantageous to his strengths, and any foe knew to prevent this. But knowing is not doing.

  • • •

  I hardly slept during those days. For it was days and days—twenty since the first news—before a trembling messenger knelt before me and handed me a sealed dispatch. I took it, oddly calm, and withdrew into my rooms. I put it down on the marble table, where it rolled a little way before stopping. The brass container glinted in the morning sun. Within that vial lay the truth. Such a small and innocent-looking instrument, with momentous contents. But the same can be said for a bottle of poison, or a gold box with an enormous ruby.

  I let it sit there for several moments, as if to touch it was dangerous, as if it housed a ferocious creature. Which it did: my future, and the pride of Rome. Finally, chiding myself, I opened it. Unrolled it. A very long missive. Words, words, words.

  Better for us to fall fighting bravely than to be captured and impaled . . . frontline standard-bearer . . . Jupiter Best and Greatest, protect this unit, soldiers all . . . tree-lined plain . . . Cavalry . . . Form wedge . . .

  My eyes raced down the scroll, searching, leaping over the phrases, till, breathless, I read:

  The day is ours. Casualties: four hundred Romans, seventy thousand Britons.

  I put it down, let it rest, still unrolled. We had won. Britain was still ours. And I would not be remembered as the emperor who lost a province. I thanked the gods, at first wordlessly, then murmured, “Jupiter, Mars, I am grateful forever, forever and ever.”

  • • •

  With Burrus and the Consilium and senior officers of the army, all the details were discussed and recorded. The battle had taken place some ten days after the burning of Verulamium, twenty to thirty miles farther north. Paulinus had been searching for the right terrain to take his stand and another day’s march northwest would have put him too close to Wales. He found what he was looking for: a narrow defile with a dense forest in back of it and a wide-open plain before it. He would place his men in the narrow part, after having secured the forest behind him. The forest would preclude the use of the British war chariots, and the narrow defile would cause a bottleneck and prevent the large army from spreading into a frontal array.

  “He was damn lucky to find that spot,” said Burrus. “Britain isn’t like Greece, with its handy hills and gorges.”

  Boudicca’s army had not only its warriors but the families of the warriors, who had followed in wagons. These drew up in a semicircle at the back of the plain.

  “And here was where the gods proved they were looking out for us and not them,” said Senator Vibius Procolus, a former army legate.

  The Britons had employed their usual procedure: In her chariot, Boudicca rode around the army with her last instructions and exhortations. In the front rank of the fighters were the chariots, then the tribesmen. Paulinus had ordered his troops not to move until the chariots had come and gone. At Boudicca’s signal, the charioteers raced forward across the plain and launched their spears at the Fourteenth, who were waiting stolid and motionless for them, a line of soldiers across the defile with the cavalry filling the remaining gaps on either side. When those missiles were spent, hurled fruitlessly against the wall of Roman shields, and the chariots wheeled away, the tribesmen rushed toward the Romans, yelling unearthly cries and wails.

  Under Paulinus’s orders, the Romans waited until the Britons were fairly close before they threw their first javelins, felling many. The Britons kept coming, and now the Romans threw their second, heavier javelins, felling even more. Still the waves of Britons kept rushing forward, but now there was a barrier of the newly dead piled before them.

  Then the trumpets blared the signal and Paulinus cried, “Form wedge!” Next the trumpets sounded, “Advance!” and slowly, methodically, the front line moved forward, three wedges, wading out into the enemy.

  “The wedge is the secret,” said Burrus. “It can slice through anything.”

  And indeed it had, dividing the Britons into smaller sections, sections that could be attacked from either side of the wedge. The Romans kept protected behind their shields, slashing with their swords around the shields, marching ever forward, stepping on the dead, pushing the Britons tight against one another, where they could not free their spears or shields or even move, while the Roman cavalry used their javelins as lances to hem them in. Back and back they were forced, until they hit the still-oncoming warriors. Then they were halted, and the back line began to retreat, seeking space, but there was none to be had.

  “Their wagons trapped them with nowhere to retreat. They were hemmed in, pushed up against their own families, while the Fourteenth kept coming, bodies falling all around them,” said Senator Quinctius Valerianus, rereading the dispatch, shaking his head.

  “The wedge is formidable,” said Burrus. “But it requires rigorous discipline and training, which the Britons didn’t have. They were brave
, yes, but bravery alone can’t win a battle. Discipline and practice will.”

  The entire tumultuous and consequential battle had taken only an hour or two. At the end the corpses lay strewn all over the field. The Romans did not bury them but left them for a warning.

  “Boudicca,” I said. “What happened to her?” That had not been in the report.

  “She disappeared. No one knows,” said Burrus.

  That was fitting. I would not want to see her in chains, paraded in Rome as a prisoner. She was too fine and fierce for that. A worthy adversary, one I admired. I wanted to imagine she survived and could rest in the knowledge that she would be legendary.

  But the lyre player had won.

  Perhaps I would compose a song about her. She had surely earned her poetic remembrance, even if she would not have wanted it from me.

  LX

  I was proud to address all the Praetorians, and indeed all of Rome, announcing our victory. For their courage and steadfastness I pronounced the Fourteenth Legion Rome’s “most effective,” transforming them into Homeric heroes. From then on, admirers would flock to them when they marched, flinging flowers and gifts in their path. Highest honors went to their commander, Paulinus, the man who’d saved a province.

  “Just by the skin of our teeth,” said Tigellinus, as we sat discussing it in my office. “A near miss. But now we will grasp it firmly, squeeze it until it gasps for air and goes limp.”

  That was already an issue of contention. The general pattern of Rome was to be vindictive in victory. We burned cities, turned the inhabitants into slaves, plundered and looted. In Britain we had lost seventy thousand people, and Paulinus had seen it with his own eyes. In such a case, it is almost impossible to be magnanimous; the siren song of revenge calls. But the Britons were suffering from a severe famine as well as the loss of so many people.