matter to the back of his mind. Why had he thought that some action was called for on his part? If even the neighbour’s wife knew such a rumour, then everyone knew it, so it hardly fell to Titus to run to Claudius to warn him that his unfaithful wife might or might not be plotting against him.
The next morning, Titus received a summons to the imperial residence, in the form of a message from the emperor himself. The courier handed him a little wax tablet bound in elaborately decorated bronze plates and tied with a purple ribbon. Inside was written, in a crabbed hand that must have been that of Claudius himself, “Come, my young friend, quick as asparagus! I require a very private augury.”
The reference to asparagus meant nothing to Titus, but he quickly put on his trabea and fetched his lituus.
It had been some time since Titus had been inside the imperial residence. As the courier led him through various rooms and corridors, he noticed changes in the decor – new mosaics on the floors, freshly painted images of flowers and peacocks on the walls, gleaming new statues of marble and bronze. Since Claudius cared little about decoration, Titus assumed it was the hand of Messalina that he saw at work.
He and the courier were made to wait in a room where two statues faced each other across a green marble floor. The marble statue of Messalina presented a familiar image. There were several statues of her around the city, all depicting her as a dutiful mother. Her body was wrapped in a voluminous stola with one fold draped over her head like a mantle. With a serene expression she gazed upon the naked baby Britannicus cradled in her arms.
Across from the Messalina was a bronze statue that Titus had never seen before, depicting a nude, heroic figure. Gold covered the naked flesh, while the Greek helmet cradled in the left arm, the upraised sword in the right hand, and the nipples on the muscular chest were chased with silver. The precious metals shone with fiery brilliance in the slanting rays of morning sunlight. The shoulders were so broad and the hips so narrow that one might have thought the artist had taken liberties, but Titus could attest that the portrayal was accurate. The inscription on the pedestal said AJAX, but the model had clearly been Mnester.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said the courier.
“Stunning. It must have cost a fortune.”
The courier smiled. “There’s an interesting story about that. After Caligula was gotten rid of, the Senate voted to have every one of the coins that bore his likeness taken out of circulation and melted down. They never wanted to see his face again! The bullion sat for a long time, until the emperor gave instructions to use the silver and gold to decorate this statue. The emperor is certainly fond of Mnester, but they say it was his wife’s idea to make this statue.”
“Is that right?”
“She said it was proper to use Caligula’s coinage to honour Caligula’s favourite actor.”
“I see.” The two statues had been situated so that they faced each other across the room; the eyes of the two figures appeared to meet, as if exchanging knowing looks. It was cruel of Messalina, thought Titus, to flaunt her affair, even in this covert manner, in the very heart of the palace, under her husband’s nose and in front of his visitors.
At last Titus was called for.
A thorough inspection was required of anyone entering the emperor’s presence. Not even women or children were exempt from the indignity of being searched for weapons, and even the lowliest scribe was made to empty his stylus box. Titus had been through the process before and was ready to have his lituus examined and the folds of his trabea shaken. But on this day the examination was more thorough than ever. He was taken to a private room and politely asked by a hulking Praetorian to remove his trabea.
“Surely that’s not necessary.”
“It is,” said the Praetorian.
“And if I refuse?”
“You’re here at the emperor’s request. This is the prescribed procedure. You can’t refuse.” The guard crossed his arms. Titus saw that the man had positioned himself to block the door. He felt a tremor of uneasiness.
As he removed the trabea, he was reminded of his first visit to the imperial residence, long ago, and the audience with Caligula. He drove the memory from his mind with thoughts of how Caligula had met his end, bleeding from thirty stab wounds. That was the reason, after all, for this indignity: Claudius had never forgotten the violent manner of his predecessor’s death, and had no intention of meeting a similar fate.
Once upon a time, it had seemed that the emperor was invulnerable and untouchable, protected by the gods; the beloved Augustus and the detested Tiberius both lived to be old men and died in bed. But the violent end of Caligula changed all that. His murder proved that an emperor could be made to bleed and to die just like any other mortal. Caligula’s assassination rid the world of a monster but set a terrible precedent; that was why Claudius, instead of rewarding the tribune Cassius Chaerea, eventually had the assassin put to death. No man could be allowed to kill an emperor and get away with it, not even by the man who had benefited most by becoming the next emperor.
At last the indignity was done with, and Titus was allowed to dress. Clutching his lituus, he was shown not into a formal reception room but into the emperor’s private study. The shelves were crammed with scrolls and the tables covered with scraps of parchment. Maps, genealogical charts, and lists of magistrates were hung on the walls. The dust in the air made Titus sneeze.
Claudius was fifty-eight but looked older. His purple toga was askew, the way one sometimes saw togas on old men who could not look after their appearance and had no one to do it for them. There was a dark spot just above his chest; while Titus watched, Claudius clutched that bit of cloth and used it to wipe the spittle from the corner of his mouth. He seemed fretful and distracted, shuffling through piles of scrolls and glancing this way and that before looking at Titus.
“You must p-p-perform an augury for me, Titus.”
“Certainly, Caesar.” This was the title Claudius preferred to Dominus. “What is the occasion?”
“The occasion?” Claudius put his fist to his mouth and made a strange noise. “The occasion is a decision that I have to m-make.”
“Can you tell me more?”
“No, not yet. But I can say this: someone will d-d-die, Titus. If I make the wrong decision, people will die, and for no reason. Or I could d-die. I could die!” Claudius gripped the folds of Titus’s trabea. Titus saw fear in his cousin’s eyes, such as he had seen on the day of Caligula’s murder.
“People have died already, of course, because of her. Because I was an old fool and believed everything she told me. Polybius, with whom I spent many happy hours in this room, reading b-b-books no one but the two of us had ever heard of… and my good friend Asiaticus, whom I would have acquitted of treason except for her meddling… and young Gnaeus Pompeius, the last descendant of the triumvir, stabbed to death in his b-b-bed in the arms of a b-b-boy – all dead, because she wanted them dead! And when I think of the family members and old friends I’ve sent into exile, because of her scheming – oh, Titus, you are lucky man, that you never crossed her!”
Titus nodded, his mouth dry.
“But before I say another word, you m-m-must take the auspices. I’m afraid to do it myself.”
“But I still don’t understand the purpose of the augury.”
“You needn’t know. The gods know my mind. They know what I intend to do. You must merely ask if they favour my intentions – yes or no. Here, we can do it in the garden off the study. There’s a clear patch of sky to the north.”
With Claudius standing behind him, Titus marked a section of the sky. For long, tense moments the two men watched in silence, until finally two sparrows appeared, flying from right to left. Titus was ready to declare that the auspice was negative, when from nowhere a hawk descended on the sparrows, seizing one of them in its talons. The hawk with its prey flew in one direction, the surviving sparrow in the other. From the empty sky a single sparrow feather drifted down and landed on the far side of the garden.
Behind Titus, Claudius sucked in his breath. “Without question, a favourable omen! Do you agree?”
Titus’s heart pounded. “Yes,” he finally said. “The gods favour your action. What do you intend to do, Caesar?”
Titus felt his cousin’s hand on his shoulder and flinched. Claudius seemed not to notice his reaction. “Thank the gods for the Pinarii! I could always unburden myself to your father, and though the gods took him from me, they gave me you in his stead.”
