from Rome again because Messalina thought she hung around her Uncle Claudius too much. Many men have been banished because of those two lively girls. I remember a certain Tigellinus, who may have been uneducated but who had the finest figure of all the young men in Rome. He didn’t mind about his exile much, but started a fishery business and is now supposed to be breeding racehorses. Then there was a Spanish philosopher, Seneca, who had published many books and had a certain relationship with Julia although he had tuberculosis. He has been pining away in exile in Corsica for several years. Messalina considered it unsuitable that a niece of Claudius’ should be unchaste, even if it was a secret. Anyhow, only Agrippina is alive now.”
When she stopped to draw breath, my father took the opportunity to say tactfully that it would be best if for the moment Aunt Laelia did not attempt to do anything to help me. My father wanted to see to the matter himself without interference from women. He had had enough of female interference, he said in bitter tones, so that it had choked him ever since the days of his youth.
Aunt Laelia was about to reply, but gave me a look and decided to keep quiet. At last we could start eating the olives, the cheese and the vegetable soup. My father saw to it that we did not finish the food but left some of it, even of the-small lump of cheese, for otherwise obviously neither of the household’s aged slaves would get anything to eat. I did not realize this myself, for at home in Antioch I had always received the best bits and there was always more than enough left over for the rest of the household and the poor who always gathered around my father.
The following day, my father appointed an architect to arrange for the repairs to the family property and a couple of gardeners to put the unkempt garden to rights. A hundred-year-old sycamore tree grew there, planted by a Manilius who had later been murdered in the open street by Marius’ men. A couple of ancient trees also grew near the house and my father was careful to see that they had not suffered any damage. The little sunken house he also left as outwardly unchanged as possible.
“You’ll be seeing a great deal of marble and other luxuries in Rome,” he explained to me, “but when you grow up you will realize that what I am doing now is the greatest luxury of all. Not even the richest upstart can acquire such ancient trees around his house, and the building’s old-fashioned appearance is worth more than all the columns and decorations.”
Fie turned back to his past in his thoughts and his face clouded.
“Once in Damascus,” he went on, “I was going to build myself a simple house and plant trees all around it, to live a peaceful life there with your mother, Myrina. But after her death, I sank into such complete despair that nothing meant anything to me for many years. Perhaps I would have killed myself if my duty to you had not forced me to continue living. And once a fisherman on the shores of Galilee promised me something which still makes me curious, although I remember it only as a dream.”
My father would not tell me more about this promise, but just repeated that he would have to be content with these ancient trees, for he himself had not been granted the joy of planting any and watching their growth.
While the building workers and the architect were about the house and my father was in the city from morning to night arranging his affairs, Barbus and I walked insatiably around Rome, looking at the people and the sights. Emperor Claudius was having all the old temples and memorials repaired for the centenary festivities and the priests and wise men were collecting all the myths and tales which belonged to them and adapting them to the demands of the present. The Imperial buildings on Palatine, the temple on the Capitoline, and the baths and theaters in Rome did not captivate me in themselves, for I had grown up in Antioch where there were just as magnificent and even larger public buildings. In fact Rome, with its crooked alleys and steep hillsides, was a cramped city to one who was used to the straight streets of spacious Antioch.
There was one building, however, which entranced me with its vast-ness and its associations. That was the enormous mausoleum of the god Augustus. It was circular in shape, for the most sacred temples in Rome were circular in memory of the days when Rome’s first inhabitants lived in round huts. The simple grandeur of the mausoleum seemed to me worthy of a god and the greatest ruler of all time. I never tired of reading the memorial inscription which listed Augustus’ greatest feats. Barbus was not so enthusiastic about it. He said that during his time as a legionary he had become cynical about all memorial inscriptions, for what was left out of them is usually more important than what is put in them. In that way a defeat can become a victory and political mistakes wise statesmanship. He assured me that between the lines of the memorial inscription on Augustus’ tomb he could read the destruction of whole legions, the sinking of hundreds of warships and the unmentionable deaths of civil war.
He was, of course, born at the time when Augustus had already established peace and order in the State and had strengthened the power of Rome, but his father had told him less of Augustus, who was considered petty and mean, and more of Marcus Antonius, who sometimes stood at the speaker’s platform in the forum so drunk that, inflamed by his own words, he was forced intermittently to vomit into a bucket beside him. That was at the time when they still used to appeal to the people. Augustus had won the respect of the Senate and the pea-ple of Rome during his all too long reign, hut life in Rome had, at least according to Barbus’ father, become considerably duller than before. No one had really loved the cautious Augustus, but the dashing Antonius was liked for his faults and his gifted lightheartedness.
But I was already familiar with Barbus’ stories, which my father would perhaps have considered unsuitable for my ears had he known about them. The mausoleum of Augustus delighted me with its wonderfully simple richness, and over and over again we walked right across Rome to look at it. But naturally I was also tempted to Mars field for the noble youth of Rome, where the sons of senators and knights were already busy practicing for the equestrian games at the centenary festivities. Enviously I watched them grouping, separating at signals from a horn and then regrouping again. I knew about all this and knew that I could control a horse just as well, if not better, than they.
Among the spectators to the equestrian games there were always several anxious mothers, for the noble youths were of all ages between seven and fifteen. The boys naturally pretended not to recognize their mothers, but snarled angrily if one of the smallest fell from his horse and the mother, frightened and with flapping mantle, rushed up to save him from the horse’s hooves. Naturally the smallest had quiet and well-exercised horses which soon stopped to protect whoever had fallen from the saddle. They were certainly not wild warhorses these Romans were riding. Ours in Antioch were much wilder.
Among the spectators, I once saw Valeria Messalina with her brilliant following, and I looked at her curiously. Of course I did not go near her, but from a distance she did not seem as beautiful as I had been told. Her seven- year-old son, whom Emperor Claudius had named Britannicus in honor of his victories in Britain, was a thin pale boy who was obviously afraid of the horse he was riding. He should really have been riding in the lead in these games because of his descent, but this was impossible because his face swelled and his eyes ran as soon as he mounted a horse. After every practice his face had turned scarlet with rash and he could scarcely see ahead of him because of his swollen eyes.
Pleading that the boy was too young, Claudius named Lucius Domitius, son of his niece Domitia Agrippinas, as leader. Lucius was not yet ten but he was quite different from the timid Britannicus, strongly built for his age and a fearless rider. After the practice, he often remained behind alone and did daredevil feats to win the applause of the crowd. He had inherited the reddish hair of the Domitius family, so he liked to take off his helmet during practice to show the people this sign of his ancient and fearless family. But the people praised him more because he was the nephew of Emperor Claudius than because he was a Domitius, for then he had the blood of both Julia, the daughter of Julius Caesar, and Marcus Antonius in his veins. Even Barbus was spurred on to shout in his coarse voice both benign and indecent gibes at him, making the people howl with laughter.
His mother, Agrippina, was for her part said not to dare come and watch the riding practices as the other mothers did, for she was afraid of Valeria Messalina’s envy. Warned by the fate of her sister, she avoided appearing in public as much as possible. But Lucius Domitius did not need his mother’s protection. He won the admiration of the crowd unaided with his boyish conduct. He controlled his body well, moved beautifully and his eyes were bold. The bigger boys did not seem to envy him, but subjected themselves quite willingly to his command during the exercises.
I leaned against the worn polished fence and watched the riding longingly. But my free existence soon came to an end. My father found a dismal tutor of rhetoric who sarcastically corrected every single word I spoke and apparently deliberately made me read aloud from nothing but dull books on self-control, humility and manly deeds. My father seemed to have an infallible gift for appointing tutors who drove me out of my mind.
While the house was being repaired, Barbus and I had a room on the upper floor which was impregnated with
