He went into his private area, where he sat sweating for some time. You worked with Abascantus, so you understand what he was trying to do…
He had been a fool. He had entirely missed the point.
Even while Petronius Secundus hedged and hinted about a transfer of power, the cornicularius had quaked at the implications. There was a plot. Officials were themselves running it. Everyone who mattered was supposed to know all about it already. Even people like Norbanus, who was unsympathetic and had not been invited, suspected what was going on. Of course it was not signalled. Nobody was going to have a big sign up on his door saying ‘Conspirators, Enquire Within’, were they?
Now as Gaius pondered in amazement, he saw that the Abascantus ‘initiative’ was extremely clever — no less devious than he would expect. No one became a disgraced civil servant without expertise in double-dealing. It was simple. All the safety committee members, other than him, were insiders. They were hidden from notice by meeting in plain sight. The people being canvassed for support were a much wider group than had turned up at meetings to munch almond biscuits. The Senate, the Guards and the staff… Most of Rome, apparently.
As for him, Abascantus had requested someone from the Guards, and Casperius Aelianus, a loyalist and a man who had missed the point, just sent along someone who enjoyed bureaucracy. Now Norbanus assumed Gaius was spying; Secundus assumed Gaius was plotting. Jupiter, what was he supposed to do?
Abascantus made him nervous: there could be a reason why Abascantus was so suddenly dismissed. Some whisper had reached the Emperor. That was seriously bad news for everyone involved. Even poor idiots like Gaius who had had no idea of anything.
Still, he knew now. Now he would have to make choices. Either he went along with this, or he must do what he had thought he was there for in the first place: observe the conspirators — the real ones — and eventually report on them. At least he had two different superiors assuring him he was their man. That ought to guarantee protection!
Once again in his life Vinius Clodianus felt that other people were pushing him into something. He had acquired a dangerous level of involvement without even understanding that.
He knew how things worked; if people were exposed for plotting, he would probably go down with them.
When he talked it all through with Lucilla at home, he managed to convince himself that until an assassination attempt was imminent, which might be never, this could not be problematical. But he felt dispirited. Nothing was clear-cut, and to Gaius that meant there was a very high chance all this would go wrong.
If he needed reassurance, it came in the absence of action from Parthenius. If the banished Abascantus really had passed a torch to the chamberlain, Parthenius must have immediately doused it. Nothing happened. There were no further meetings.
Domitian meanwhile grew more unpredictable. Nobody knew the rules. People were lazy and wanted no trouble. They would knuckle under to any system, even bad ones, provided they could understand what was expected of them. With a ruler who was mentally disturbed, quiet periods lulled them into hoping everything had settled down, but then he offended them with some new outrage. They could not even rely on previous behaviour as an index. He would go back on himself, reviewing past incidents and reaching newly disturbing conclusions. It left everyone hysterical.
A case in point was Epaphroditus. Epaphroditus had not only survived being close to Nero, Domitian too had accepted him as a secretary for years. When he suddenly banished the man, that was perturbing. Now he brooded again and suddenly recalled Epaphroditus from exile. As the freedman hobbled back to Rome, it was nearly three decades since his first master Nero committed suicide. Everyone knew that Epaphroditus helping him had been at the cowardly Nero’s own request. A loyal act, simple compassion.
That did not stop Domitian deciding he would now make an example of his elderly secretary. He wanted others to see that causing the death of an emperor, even if he asked you, was a crime.
Epaphroditus was executed.
Worse followed. Domitian suddenly turned on Flavius Clemens. Even before his cousin’s consulship ended in April, there was a mysterious charge of ‘atheism’. Clemens and Domitilla were said to have engaged in ‘Jewish practices’. What these practices were remained obscure. When Vespasian and Titus returned from their conquest of Judaea they had brought many Jewish prisoners, so some of the war booty slaves may have ended up in the Clemens household; if so, none were specifically accused of converting their master. Christians, too, would subsequently claim the couple as saints, yet there was no evidence there either.
The nebulous charge seemed to derive from Domitian’s own twisted imagination. Families tend to speak their minds. Perhaps at some private family occasion his cousins had scoffed at Domitian’s interpretation of himself as a god on earth. To them he was just a very tedious relative. Whatever Flavius Clemens did, or whether his mere existence as a potential rival coloured Domitian’s fears, the usual men with swords arrived one day, and that was the end of him.
As soon as Lucilla heard, she rushed to Flavia Domitilla. Although the poor woman had been living in dread for months, Lucilla found her in a complete daze. The couple had been married over thirty years. There was no trial; there had been no time to get used to the possibility of losing her husband. This was hideous, far worse than illness or a fatal accident.
There would be no public funeral. Certainly no interment in the great new Flavian mausoleum that had once been Clemens’ family home. Arrangements had to be scrimped and secretly conducted; Domitilla’s steward, Stephanus, arranged it.
Domitilla had nobody to turn to. A woman who lost her husband ought to rely on family support, but Domitian was now her only adult male relative; he was also her terrifying enemy.
Domitilla’s household staff were appalled. They clustered around her, most in tears. She was not condemned to death, but the Emperor had ordered that she should be taken from Rome to exile on the Island of Pandateria. Anyone who thought about it realised he could still change his mind and give worse orders. Even if not, Pandateria had a terrible reputation.
While hasty preparations for this unsought journey were made by distraught slaves, Domitilla gave tremulous instructions for the welfare of her children, whom she had to leave. She was given no time even to explain the situation to them. No one could guess what fate lay ahead for the two sons Domitian had previously named as his heirs, though it seemed unlikely he would continue to view them in any friendly light. They and the five other distressed children were orphans in a harsh world. No one who feared Domitian would dare to show them kindness.
Coming from outside, Flavia Lucilla had a clearer head than many. She discovered that although her heart was racing, she could stay calm in an emergency. She buckled to, helping Stephanus make rushed arrangements. An escort of soldiers arrived, while Lucilla was comforting her patroness; they were from the Urban Cohorts, none of them men she recognised. They were fairly polite, all awkward at having to give orders to an imperial lady, but there was underlying menace.
A small group could travel with Domitilla to the coast. Stephanus insisted on going. A couple of hastily selected maids were taken. When the party set off, Domitilla seemed to welcome Lucilla’s presence, so she volunteered to go too. She had not thought about this in advance. She had no time to notify Gaius properly, though she sent him a message, keeping it vague so as not to implicate him in Domitilla’s disgrace.
The journey to the coast took a couple of days, although the troops hurried them. Pandateria was a tiny volcanic island thirty miles off the fashionable Bay of Naples resorts of Baiae and Cumae. This remote dot in the Tyrrhenian Sea had long been a favourite location for imprisoning disgraced imperial women. The island hosted several of the Julio-Claudian family, some of whom had died there of deliberate starvation; others had been sent surprise executioners. Hardly any survived to leave. Few ships called there. The inhabitants must be accustomed to seeing themselves as jailers, jailers from whom cruelty would be welcomed by the authorities. Flavia Domitilla could only view her lonely incarceration with horror.
She was to be transferred to the inhospitable caldera by a navy ship from the fleet at Puteoli; its oars were already manned in readiness. Stephanus was forbidden to accompany her. The loyal freedman tried to insist but was dragged back. As distraught farewells were said on the quayside, Lucilla was horrified that only pallid little slaves were to be companions for their mistress. She herself abruptly offered to continue to the island. She meant it; nevertheless she was relieved when Domitilla turned her down, telling her to enjoy her life instead. So they parted.
