“The structure is remarkable, Taurus,” said Octavian. “Rome rejoices in your generosity.”
“I would have built a temple, but you’ve snatched up all of those,” grinned Taurus. “With great speed, I might add. Perhaps you should build a temple to swift-footed Mercury? I think he’s the only god you’ve missed.”
“I shall think on it,” replied Octavian. “I admit that I prefer religion to sport. You know I’m no lover of the games, but I am well aware how popular they are with the people. And when the people are entertained, they are easier to govern.”
“Such has always been the purpose of sport, Caesar. And I know you are a pious man, but perhaps that is also the purpose of religion.”
Caesar returned Taurus’s grin. “For a man so blessed by the gods, that is an unwise philosophy.”
Taurus laughed and held his hands up to the sky. “I take back the words, mighty Iuppiter!” He clapped his hands together excitedly and admired the stadium around them. “My architects modeled this building after the amphitheater in Capua. Of course, this one is much bigger and more modern. Rome is the Caput Mundi, and the capital of the world deserves only the best. You will see that the drainage is superior to any structure in Rome. If you look over there,”—he twisted his body and pointed—“you will also see that more private box seating is being constructed. Another box for your guests and one for the Vestal priestesses next to it. There will be all manner of hidden trapdoors for wild beasts and the reenactment of famous battles. And when it rains, a great canopy will stretch over the stands and . . . Ah, look, Caesar. They’re finally finished tiptoeing around each other and are ready to fight.”
The summa rudis, a retired gladiator who now officiated the fights, barked his final rules and warnings to the gladiators and then retreated quickly as the two warriors faced off.
The crowd erupted. Noblemen and freedmen, patricians and peasants, matrons and children—all cheered the name of one gladiator in fervent unison: “Flamma! Flamma! Flamma!”
Flamma. The Flame. A gladiator of celebrity proportions, he was idolized throughout the Roman world for having the longest winning streak in recent history. He had won over twenty matches in a row, each victory bloodier and more dramatic than the last. And Taurus was the man of the hour for having managed to snag him for today’s headline match.
In response to the crowd’s applause and cheers, Flamma thrust his gladius—the gladiator’s sword—into the air and bellowed a deep, murderous roar. The crowd descended into unbridled frenzy.
“Gods, he sounds like the Nemean lion!” said Taurus.
“From what I hear, it will take Hercules to kill him,” Octavian replied.
The great gladiator Flamma was a secutor fighter. Naked except for a loincloth, his body armor consisted of nothing more than a metal greave on his lower left leg, a leather guard over his right arm and a close-fitting helmet. He carried a heavy curved shield called a scutum along with his gladius.
As always, the secutor’s opponent was a retiarius—a net-fighter. Agile and quick in comparison to his opponent, the retiarius carried a long three-pronged spear called a trident as well as a net.
The fight was as simple as it was brutal. The secutor was to chase the retiarius around the arena trying to kill him with his gladius. The retiarius was to evade his opponent while at the same time trying to cast a net over him. If the retiarius managed to entangle the secutor in the net, he would proceed to stab him to death with the trident.
The Flame charged at his opponent, bursting with sudden violence, like some kind of fiery Vulcan belched from the mouth of an erupting volcano. The net-fighter twisted his body to barely avoid the advancing gladius. He sprinted for a few steps, sand flying under his feet and the crowd screaming in his ears, before stumbling and falling to the ground. He landed painfully on his back.
The roar of the crowd was deafening. The scent of imminent death was in the air, and like wild animals, they fell back on brutal instinct—kill him! Make it gory! Let us see it!
A flare of rage ran through the net-fighter. To die this soon would be a disgrace. He saw the flash of Flamma’s polished gladius descending upon him like a silver lightning strike from a black cloud. He gasped and turned his head at the last moment, but the point of the blade came down hard at his throat.
The retiarius scrambled to his feet, his hand instinctively going to the wound on his neck—no blood! Flamma’s blade had missed its mark by a hair’s breadth.
But Flamma didn’t know that. After his lunge, he had leapt up, tossed his helmet aside and faced his adoring fans, strutting like a peacock toward a group of young women who were shouting his name and promising him favors after the fight. In a show of overconfident bravado, he hadn’t bothered to look back at the fallen retiarius whom he believed to be lying dead in the sand.
The Flame held up his arms to Victory as the crowd jumped to its feet. Shouts echoed off the stone walls of the amphitheater, and thousands of arms waved in the air to celebrate his twenty-second consecutive win . . . But wait . . . what were they shouting? It didn’t sound like a victory cheer.
The net fell over Flamma’s head as if dropped from the heavens by Jupiter himself. The rope was heavier than it looked, and the weights fastened to the corners did a surprisingly effective job of securing it down. He struggled to find a loose spot, an opening, which he could pull over his head, but one of his feet became entangled in the mesh and he fell onto the sand of the arena floor.
Unlike Flamma, the net-fighter cared nothing for showmanship. Survival was all that mattered, and Fortuna had granted him a split second of opportunity.
In an act that seemed surreal even to him, he thrust the points of his trident into the net again and again. Blood spurted out of the net as the Roman world’s most famous gladiator thrashed about inside. From the most distant seats in the amphitheater, it could have been a net full of fish flopping on the shore.
And then the thrashing stopped. The crowd fell silent for a moment. Had they really just witnessed a no-name retiarius defeat the Flame? They burst into a maniacal cheer. They had come to watch Flamma extend his winning streak. His victory had been certain. Instead, the Fates had cut a thread that no one imagined could be severed.
“Ah,” said Octavian, more to himself than anyone else. “There’s a lesson here.”
Flowers and palm leaves littered the sand of the arena as the ecstatic spectators celebrated the underdog’s victory. The retiarius’s lanista burst into the arena and threw his arms around his star gladiator’s shoulders, hugging him tightly and promising rewards of coin, food, drink, women, boys—whatever he wanted.
Meanwhile, several arena slaves busied themselves at the body of the Flame. They untangled him from the net and rolled his huge, bloody corpse onto a stretcher. A strange horn sounded loudly as the giant doors to the arena opened wide. The crowd fell silent, their interest piqued. What was happening now?
Slowly, a frightening figure strode onto the sand of the arena floor, moving toward the body of Flamma. It was dressed in torn black robes and held a long pole with a human skull on top. It was Charon, the lifeless ferryman who carried the souls of mortals to Hades by ferrying them across the River Styx, the river that separated the living world from the afterlife.
The ominous figure lifted his black arms up and shouted in a deep, raspy voice. “Flamma est mortuus! ” The Flame is out.
The slaves lifted the stretcher and moved forward as the dark, sober figure of Charon escorted the celebrated gladiator out of the arena for the last time. In the silence of the amphitheater, a low death chant arose from the stands, and a few sobs echoed off the stone walls.
“I commend you, Taurus,” said Octavian. “Your people certainly know how to put on a good show.”
“Thank you, Caesar,” Taurus replied. “You know that I am a lover of Greek theater. A touch of it adds even more drama to a good f
ight.” He shook his finger at Flamma’s corpse as it was carried from the arena. “Did you know that he was offered the rudis four times? Yet each time he turned it down and chose to fight again. Imagine that! He could have retired a rich man, could have been coupling with his wife right now, but instead, he’s crossing the black river.” He clucked his tongue. “Why would a man make such a choice?”
“It was not his choice to fight,” said Octavian. “It was his nature to fight.”
“But for such a magnificent fighter to be brought down by such a scrawny cipher! I’ve seen chickens with bigger bones than that retiarius. Then again, I once saw a . . .” He stopped speaking and followed Octavian’s stare as it suddenly fixed on someone over Taurus’s shoulder: an exceptionally beautiful young woman and an older man walking through the arched pathway alongside Caesar’s balcony.
Taurus could take a hint. He stood and waved to the couple. “Join us,” he said, at the same time motioning for the soldiers guarding Caesar’s balcony to permit the couple to enter.
The older man looked stunned by the offer, but the young woman appeared unfazed. She strode onto Caesar’s balcony like it had been built just for her.
“Caesar,” said Taurus, “may I introduce you to Tiberius Claudius Nero and his lovely wife Livia. They are recently returned to Rome after an extended . . . vacation in Greece.”
Octavian regarded Tiberius. “We are no strangers. I hope you are well, Tiberius. Welcome back to Rome. I trust you will find it a more peaceful place than when you departed.”
“Thank you, Caesar.” The name Caesar stuck in Tiberius’s throat, but he forced himself to say it. He had no choice. Both men knew that Rome’s peace and Tiberius’s return to the city had come at a price.
As Octavian had done to so many nobles who had supported the assassins Brutus and Cassius, he had stripped Tiberius of much of his wealth and property. Tiberius had been allowed to return to Rome, but he was much poorer than when he had left it. He had also been forced to take an oath of allegiance to the new Caesar. Such was the cost of amnesty.
“What an exquisite creature you have on your arm, Tiberius,” Octavian said as his eyes moved to Livia. “You are the daughter of Livius Drusus Claudianus, are you not?”
“I was while he was alive,” said Livia. “My father killed himself in his tent at Philippi.”
Octavian held her gaze. He knew that this young woman’s father had fought alongside Julius Caesar’s assassins. He also knew that the man had chosen to fall on his sword after their defeat rather than live to see a second Caesar rule Rome.
“Your father was a man of principle,” he said. “If only all men were so.”
“He was a wise father, but a foolish man,” Livia replied. “You must forgive me, Caesar. I mean no disrespect to my great family, but my father had no mind for strategy. If in any given situation he had the choice of using his head or his heart, he would invariably choose to use the wrong one.” She glanced sideways at her husband. “It runs in the family.”
Tiberius clenched his jaw. His little trollop of a wife was ingratiating herself to Caesar by clawing over his own back. He managed to hold his temper only by imagining the ways he would beat her once they got home.
“Such sagacity in a woman is a rare thing,” admired Octavian, “and of more value than the Golden Fleece.” He looked at her pregnant belly. “Pray Juno your child will be as politic.”
“Pray Juno,” said Livia. She openly studied Octavian. So this was the divi filius? The son of the god Julius Caesar?
Because of his hunt not just for Julius Caesar’s assassins but also for anyone who sided with them, she had been forced to flee to Greece and spread her legs for Diodorus. Because of his push for power, her father had committed suicide. Because of his royal ambitions, half of her fortune and all of her dowry were gone.
But Livia Drusilla had ambitions of her own. As Caesar took his leave of her and Tiberius to exit the amphitheater, she summoned her courage and let her eyes move over him. At the same time, she stroked her pregnant belly, letting the back of her hand caress the area under her full breasts.
Caesar was unreadable; Tiberius, however, was as conspicuous and inelegant as always. The moment Caesar was out of sight, he grabbed his wife’s arm and dragged her unceremoniously out of the amphitheater and toward the litter that was waiting for them in the street.
“You’re a backbiting little harlot,” he said as she shoved her inside the lectica.
“Give me a reason to not be so,” she shot back.
They didn’t exchange so much as a look on the way home, but as soon as the portico of their house was in sight, Tiberius jumped out of the moving litter and stormed inside.
“Lock the doors,” he shouted to his slaves. “Let the bitch sleep outside like the rest of Rome’s she-wolves.”
Livia reclined against the cushions in the lectica. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of banging on the doors or begging entry to the house. She’d sleep outside all night long if it came to that.
But as it happened, it didn’t come to that.
For when night fell and Tiberius finally opened the doors and shouted for his wife to come inside, he found that to his great surprise, she wasn’t sleeping in the lectica after all.
“Where is she?” he asked a blanched-faced slave.
“Domine,” the slave dropped to his knees. “A litter came for her. It was Caesar’s litter. We were ordered to say nothing.” The slave braced for his master’s fist, but it never came.
Quietly, Tiberius turned and went back inside. Despite his aching rage and the heat of his humiliation, he couldn’t stop himself from marveling at his young wife’s audacity. It is true what they say about Fortuna, he thought to himself. She always favors the bold.
Chapter IX
Aut Viam Inveniam aut Faciam
I will either find a way or make one.
—Hannibal
rome, 39 bce
Later the same year
The Vestal Virgins were judging her. Livia Drusilla knew it. She could tell by the way their eyes moved from her belly, still distended from giving birth to Tiberius’s child only days earlier, to her saffron wedding veil—the one she had donned to wed Caesar earlier that day.
She wished Caesar hadn’t insisted on inviting them to their wedding reception at his home, but she was quickly realizing that there were few private or public functions where he didn’t drag the Vestals along. She knew she’d have to find a way to deal with them.
She pretended to scan the room of guests looking for her sister, but really, she was studying the priestesses. They were standing in the center of the triclinium surrounded by some of the most important people in Rome. Caesar was relating some kind of amusing anecdote to them, waving his arms and looking up at the ceiling as he told it.
Livia rolled her eyes. It was probably some story about how his father had dreamed that a sunbeam had burst from Octavian’s mother when she gave birth to him, or how a senator had dreamed about Jupiter giving the seal of Rome to a certain man, only to see Caesar years later and recognize him as that man.
My husband is the subject of more men’s dreams than Helen of Troy, she thought. She found herself in a scowl as one of the Vestals—the one named Tuccia—caught her eye. The priestess smiled but didn’t call her over. Livia forced herself to smile back.
They’re just jealous, she told herself. They’re jealous that Caesar divorced his wife Scribonia to marry me. They know they’re just a bunch of dried-up old crones that no man would want.
The problem was that they didn’t look old or dried-up. Well, not all of them. The Vestalis Maxima, Fabiana, and Priestess Nona were old as Rome itself, but the four priestesses who had attended their wedding and reception—Pomponia, Caecilia, Lucretia, and especially that amber-eyed Tuccia—were too attractive for Livia’s liking.
She
couldn’t even mock their barrenness to feel better about herself. While Livia had given birth twice, both children were by her first husband, Tiberius, not her new husband, Caesar. And having children by an oaf like Tiberius was barely better than having no children at all.
Still, Fortuna had always fought on Livia’s side. She thought back. Even her pregnant belly hadn’t dissuaded Caesar from wanting her. Octavian had ordered Tiberius to divorce her and had continued to take her until the last days of her pregnancy.
The moment she had pushed the baby out of her, before the blood was even wiped from its wrinkled face, Caesar had had it whisked off to live with Tiberius and their first son, the blockhead. She had only learned later that the child was a boy. Tiberius had named him Drusus.
Of course, that was all fine by Livia. She was marrying up. Yet she had her share of problems. First, there was the irritating fact that Caesar’s child by his ex-wife Scribonia was disgustingly cute. Caesar insisted that his daughter Julia live with him and Livia, and he doted on the girl as though she was born to be Empress of Rome. When he wasn’t fussing over her, he was praising his young nephew Marcellus: Look how he holds a sword! So capable for a child.
Livia’s second problem was that she could no longer claim the respected status of the univira, the virtuous woman who had married, coupled with, and borne children by only one man. As if a woman had any say over such matters.
Livia snubbed her nose at such ridiculous notions of modesty. Weren’t a cunning mind and a beautiful face, especially when matched with a noble family name, to be more desired in a woman than some fabricated idea of virtue? If so, then why were so many men tripping over their togas to speak with the Vestals?
Her elder sister Claudia, who now always dressed in royal purple to assert her new status, seemed to read her thoughts as she approached.
“You forget yourself, Livia,” she said under her breath. “You are now the wife of Caesar. We are standing in his house, your house. There is your grand husband, consulting with the greatest men in Rome—the generals Antony and Agrippa, the heads of the religious collegia, the noblest of senators and magistrates. Think on it! Only months ago you were squatting in a gruesome Greek villa and our family was forsaken. Whatever injustices you suffered there, you have redeemed your honor and our family name.”
Brides of Rome Page 13