The Kingdom of the Wicked
Page 47
Peter was locked in a cell for the night and taken to the games master early next day. The games master saw possibilities in the inverted crucifixion. It was comic, yes, but that was in order. The carpenters had better start work right away on a gallows that could be affixed inverted to a kind of cart. The remaining Christians at the end of the day’s sport could drag the cart in, with this old fellow upside down on the cross, they could sing a hymn, and then they could meet, as planned, the gladiators and be mown down. Meanwhile the old fellow could be set alight and the announcer could announce that the burning of Rome had finally been avenged. And that was the end of the Christians.
Gaius Petronius had contrived very complicated set pieces for the day’s entertainment. But, again, the Christians did not seem to recognise their duty to art. A ship on wheels was dragged on to confront an artificial island of singing sirens – men, or properly halfmen, in fair long wigs with melon breasts stuck on their chests. They wore gloves with honed razor talons, and they were to tear to pieces the naked seamen who were really Christians, these to be thrust off the boat to their doom with very sharp spears. The siren music was provided by a chorus of genuine women hidden beneath the wooden rocks. Some of the Christians preferred the spears to the claws, and others fought the sirens very viciously with their fists until, their eyes mostly torn out, they could fight no more. But many of the spectators objected strongly to seeing men dressed up as sirens. There was enough effeminacy in the city without making a public glorification of it. The Cretan labyrinth went down rather better, with the more massive gladiators in Minotaur disguise clubbing the Christian wanderers through the wooden maze. And the Trojan horse, into whose door in the flank two hundred Christians were impelled, there to be burnt alive, was considered ingenious. But the penultimate item of the day was thought to be in very bad taste.
All the Christian children that were left, some hundred of them, were clothed in lambskins. The very young ones thought this a fine sport and gambolled gleefully into the arena among others, less young, more doubtful, led by a prancing shepherd. This shepherd was quick to make his comic exit when the wild dogs, their heavy meal of the previous day long digested, leapt out and savaged the lambs. There were murmurs from the more reasonable of the audience: these youngsters had committed neither cannibalism nor incest and it was doubtful if they had had any part in the burning of the city. This was, not to mince matters, gratuitous cruelty. Many left. It was to a half-empty arena that the final show of Christians sang their song of faith and courage, dragging on the cart which displayed the nailed and bleeding old man who looked like anybody’s grandfather, absurdly inverted, seeing, if he could still see, the world fading as the world was not. This man, the announcer bellowed, had ordered the burning of the city. Few believed it. When burning pitch was applied to the poor old devil he was clearly already dead. The Christians had not responded with any zest to the swordsmen: they let themselves be cut down. No sport and a weak ending to two days of entertainment which could not properly be called games at all. The audience left murmuring.
That night Nero, in his lonely bed as big as a barge, dreamt of hell. He woke screaming and spent the rest of the night awake, gloomily drinking warm wine without water. He was in a foul temper when he met his Empress at the breakfast table, and she herself inflamed and concentrated his diffused rage by inveighing against the brutality of the games, a brutality, she would point out, which would have an effect the reverse of the imperial intention. ‘You and the Roman people. Spasming under your togas to see men and women and children torn to shreds. So easy, is it not, to give way to the beast inside us. History is supposed to record the taming of the beast. The Roman Empire takes over history and trumpets the victory of reason. But it’s the trumpeting of a rogue elephant. The beasts are with us, and they have names, but mine shall not be among them.’
‘It was your duty as imperial consort to cry out for the blood of the criminals like any good Roman, do you hear me?’
‘For the blood of Tigellinus and his accomplices, you mean. My lord, I have performed the last office of an imperial consort. I carry in my womb what may be the next Emperor. I can only pray to whatever god there is that he shall have more of the blood of my family than of yours.’
‘Your family and what other? That of a Jewish athlete running to fat? Some bearded mumbler of Hebrew mumbo jumbo? You’ve tasted of uncircumcised meat and I presume you like it. I cry the cry of all fathers – how can I know, how can I know?’
‘This child, to my shame, is yours. I would to God it were some other’s.’
‘God, eh? Which god? You whore, you loathsome hilding. You’ve named the beast, you say. Go on naming him, go on—’ And with this he knocked the Empress to the hard floor and viciously kicked her belly. She writhed and screamed and then she stopped screaming. Nero gave her one last kick. There was no response of fear or pain, and he grew frightened. And then he was not frightened, recognising that, being on the side of the destroyer, anything was permitted him except fear or compassion. There was dignity in destruction when that urge to destroy was seen in the context of a kind of cosmic struggle. The religion of the Romans failed there. There was a kind of holiness in fighting God.
We must not be surprised if the sufferings and courage of the dead Christians and, indeed, one element, in their eschatology furnished images in the furtive talk of virtuous Romans who were heartily sick of their Emperor and wished to be rid of him. Gaius Calpurnius Piso had picked up the word martyr and, in the view of Subrius Flavus of the Guard, overused it. ‘Very well,’ Flavus said, ‘some of us will have to die, but to dwell on that is morbid and not in the Roman tradition. Stick to solid positive action and forget the refinements. If we die, we die, and it’s damned bad luck. But we go into battle to win.’ The two of them sat in Piso’s house, one of the many senatorial mansions untouched by fire. From the terrace one could see the work of reconstruction proceed, slave labour unlimited, the fiscs of the provinces heavily ransacked for the quarrying and transportation of the marble, the precious stones, the gold, the filched statues of Greece. Piso said:
‘How are things with the Guard?’
‘The Guard’s behind you. Those who aren’t scared.’
‘There are too many scared.’
‘You have the look of one of them, Piso.’
‘For me it’s in order. To denounce Tigellinus publicly was not the most discreet of acts. Nero has grown accustomed to being denounced and takes little notice. Tigellinus knows that I know certain things. I have sworn affidavits from some who saw him on the night of—No matter. The question’s very simple – who? And, of course, when and where?’
‘You mean the head and not the right arm?’
‘Root and branch.’
A slave named Felix heard all this while he was serving wine. That night, in the sordid quarters he shared with other slaves, he lay awake meditating on what the nature of the reward might be – manumission, of course, but what besides? – while two fellow slaves, male and female, groaned in the act of love. He waited until the transport had finished, then he got up and put on his single simple garment and his sandals.
‘Where are you going?’
‘The cloaca. Ate something I shouldn’t.’
He went into the city, seeing in moonlight mountains of marble slabs, cranes, cement mixers. He ran and walked alternately to the town villa of Tigellinus, which lay south of the Castra Praetoria.
Tigellinus was in bed with a boy. Lamps glowed on either side of the bed: Tigellinus liked to see what he was doing or having done. There was a knock at his door. At this hour?
‘Gnaeus, sir.’
‘What do you want?’
‘It’s something urgent, sir.’
‘It’s always something urgent. Come in, blast you.’
He motioned to the naked boy to leave by another door. He yawned, settled himself on his pillows. Gnaeus, a portly bald freedman, came in. ‘There’s this slave here, sir. He’s got information. He
wants a reward for it.’
‘A slave? Whip him and stuff his information up his. Whose slave?’
‘He says he’s the slave of the senator Piso.’
‘Piso? Send the scoundrel in.’
The scoundrel came in, trembling. ‘Every day, sir. They mention different names. People they’d like to have in on it but aren’t sure about.’
‘Such as?’
‘One name was Seneca, sir.’
‘I see. And you say Subrius Flavus was there. Are you sure? Think carefully. Subrius Flavus is a high officer in the Praetorian Guard.’
‘It was he did most of the talking, sir.’
‘You’re a good boy,’ Tigellinus said, ‘and a fine patriot, not, of course, that you have any of the rights of even an unpatriotic citizen. But a slave should always be loyal to his master. Go and see Gnaeus out there. He’s got the whip ready.’
‘But, sir, I thought—’
‘Slaves aren’t paid to think. Slaves aren’t paid at all, are they? Get out.’
Get out was what he wished to say next day to Gaius Petronius, seated in his exquisite violet robe and soft leather boots with Caesar in an arbour from which one could hear the heartening din, sufficiently muted by distance and greenery, of Rome’s rebuilding, the creation of Neropolis. Petronius was talking of Nero’s voice – ‘a poignant sword that strikes to the very pia mater, that impales the centres of love like an almost intolerably potent aphrodisiac.’ And Athens: the Athenian judges had given the award to their Emperor in absentia: they knew, with their Greek subtlety, the invincible excellence of Caesar’s voice without having to hear it.
‘Some day,’ Nero said, ‘they shall hear it. They shall have The Burning of Troy.’
‘But not, I trust, with the pyrotechnical accompaniment that distinguished your last performance of that immortal work.’ Petronius saw from his master’s scowl that he had been indiscreet. ‘I refer, naturally, to the burning of the aesthetic passions of those who heard you.’
Tigellinus could stand no more of this. Besides, there were urgencies. He strode from the leafy flowery trellised entrance to the arbour into Caesar’s presence and said:
‘News. Urgent. Does this waterlily have to stay while I give it?’
‘My butterfly? If I let him flit away I may not be able to catch him. You’re rude, Tigellinus, you’re coarse. Oh, I’ll come over there if you have things to whisper.’
They spoke together, and Petronius could not hear, nor did he wish to. A spot of birdlime had disfigured the toe of his left boot. He wiped it off with a sycamore leaf. Nero called: ‘Petronius!’
‘Dear Caesar?’
‘You know elegant ways to live. Do you also know elegant ways to die?’
‘Oh, suicide,’ Petronius said promptly. ‘In a hot bath preferably. A gentle slashing of the wrists. The water reddens to a delicate rose and deepens to a royal purple. One fades out as in a dream.’
Tigellinus said: ‘This you know?’
‘This I imagine.’
Tigellinus nodded. ‘That will do for Seneca. But no delicate rose and royal purple for Flavus. Not for Flavus.’
When, some days later, Flavus stood with his hands bound, ready for the axe, which was ostentatiously being sharpened on a whetstone, he insisted on speaking. A word.
‘You will say no word,’ Tigellinus told him.
‘I wish to address the Emperor. I have nothing more to say to you, except that you were more acceptable when you smelt of fish than now, when you smell of blood.’
‘Oh, let him speak,’ Nero said. ‘He has a certain rough talent for rhetoric.’
‘Caesar, I was loyal to you when you deserved loyalty. When you ceased to deserve it, I gave it still. But I began to hate you when you murdered your mother and your wife, when you paraded yourself as a second-rate singer and actor, and my hate brimmed to overflowing its cup when you turned yourself into an incendiary. You have ruined the Empire, and that Empire is now withdrawing its loyalty from Rome. The provincial governors proclaim their independence from Caesar. The barbarians revolt. We needed a ruler, and all we were given was a slovenly singer and dancer, a slovenly murderer, a matricide, an uxoricide, a sodomite, and a fireraiser.’
His grave, six feet away, was still being dug.
‘A slovenly job, like everything perpetrated under your rule. I shall be glad to be released from that rule. Strike, when you’re ready.’ Nero and Tigellinus watched. Nero said:
‘One stroke. Half a stroke. Hm. Slovenly, he said. Very nasty, Tigellinus.’
Seneca received his orders for suicide, and the precise mode in which that act should be performed, with little surprise. He had been mentioned as one asked to conspire, and he had refused. But the mere mention was enough. It was typical and wholly fitting. He lowered himself into his warm bath with arthritic care: his slaves wept to see his shrunken body. There was not much blood in it, and the arteries were reluctant to flow. ‘Don’t weep,’ he said. ‘Life is a hard burden, even for free men and women. Leave me now.’ He used the razor again, but the blood flowed sluggishly. Soon it responded to the heat of the water and Seneca faded into sleep. Medea superest. Seneca superest. It was not true: nothing remained.
When Gaius Petronius’s orders came, he protested that he had done no wrong. He was Caesar’s friend, was he not? But therein danger had always lain: Tigellinus did not like Caesar to have friends, especially friends of the exquisite ability of Gaius Petronius. He put off the act until he heard that the praetorian prefect was impatient, that armed troops would come to dispatch him more brutally than a mere razor could. Petronius was no Stoic. He had been charmed by some of the more poetic aspects of the new faith but disappointed in its adherents, who had a brutal concern with morality that overrode the delight in beauty which was civilised man’s most characteristic trait. They worshipped a god whose visage was still to be revealed to the brutish world. Ah, well.
Petronius duly cut his wrists, admired the rich red flow, but then ordered his new medical man to bind them up for a time. He had lost Luke, who had exquisite Greek hands and some remarkable Asiatic potions and salves. Ah, well. His suicide, exquisitely prolonged, was to be in public, that was to say among his friends, who drank and ate and made love all about him. Life, he was leaving life. This admirable chamber, marble, hung with flowers of the season. This beautifully set table, at whose head he lay encouched. To his friend the young poet Hortensius he said:
‘Those exquisite lines of Catullus.’
‘Of course.
‘Soles occidere et redire possunt:
Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux
Nox est perpetua una dormienda.’
‘Exquisite. Suns rise and set. When our brief light has sunk and died, there remains only a long long night to be slept through. Do you believe that to be true, Hortensius?’
‘A thin life whimpering for human blood. Hardly worth having. Or else nothing. Nothing is best.’
‘Life was sweet, you know. And I did no wrong.’
‘I think it’s time now, Petronius. There are soldiers waiting outside. They will want to ride back to Rome with the news.’
‘Keep them out of here. Rough soldiers. Will you do it for me?’
‘You know I can’t.’
‘Very well, then. We will unbind the mortal wounds and see the blood flow. I will even cut again. I will pretend that I am going to shave this delicate golden flue on my forearms and render them as naked of hair as a eunuch’s. Oh, but a little more wine. Some more Catullus.’
‘No. Now.’
‘Louder music, please.’
It was soft music that Nero was plucking from a lyre ineptly tuned. Tigellinus said: ‘He’s gone.’
‘Who?’
‘The waterlily that had a snake hiding under it.’
‘The only man who truly appreciated my singing. And you had to have him killed. You’ve had everybody killed, haven’t you? You turned Rome into a prison and then into a bath of blood—’
‘I didn’t foresee that things would be like that at all. All I wanted was to make people happy. I never wanted to be an emperor. A great artist, that’s all. And I was a great artist – am.’
‘With no audience. I leave you now, Caesar.’
‘You leave me? You?’
‘The games are finished. The slaves sweep fruitpeel and nutshells out of the empty arena. I have to go. The Senate wants my head.’
‘Your head, yours? Who’s master here? What is the Senate that it should want—Does it want my head too? Does it?’
‘Get out of Rome is my advice. Now.’
‘Why does the palace seem so empty? I can hear my voice echoing. Where is everybody?’
Tigellinus grinned sadly and said: ‘Vale.’ He left quickly.
‘Where are you all? Lepidus! Myrtilla! Phaon!’
Phaon, a freedman, neither insolent nor deferential, came in, saying: ‘Caesar called?’
‘Oh, thank heaven you’re still with me. Where are the others?’
‘Gone. And it’s time for us to go. The villa. Only four miles. There aren’t enough slaves to carry a litter. I might find a couple of horses.’
‘Leave Rome? My Rome? My great gift to the world? Oh, very well. My cloak, Phaon, my riding boots.’
‘Caesar knows where they are. I have my own arrangements to make.’ He went out. Nero cried to an invisible auditorium:
‘Phaon! Phaon! I’ll have your head for this!’