though I am some years older than the beardless ganymedes with whom he chooses to surround himself and who delight his rather excessive hours of leisure. (He has many merits, this Mucianus, but the ability to work long and hard is not among them.) Be that as it may, I admire his sagacity, the penetration of his intellect. He is clear that it would not be to my interest to be named by Galba as his heir. 'The Empire,' he says, 'is not now in any single man's gift. It is carried on the point of the soldiers' swords. To be nominated by Galba is to be condemned to failure and an early death. Caesar and Augustus won their supreme position by force of arms, and the exercise of their political skills. We are again in the same position as they were: the Republic in ruins, and all to play for. But believe me, dear boy, it is only when much blood has been shed and battles fought that stability can be restored.' It is remarkable that one who loves to lie in perfumed softness should speak with the accents of a cold clear morning. But I am not asking you to dissuade my uncle from his endeavours, if only because you must fail to do so, and he would think it strange, even suspicious, that you should make the attempt. In any case, it won't do our cause any harm, if people hear my name mentioned in that context. Meanwhile the urgent matter here is to quell this ridiculous Jewish revolt, that we may be free to march to Italy when the time is ripe.'
XI
Tacitus complains that my accounts are disjointed, that I veer off into personal reminiscences irrelevant to the great matter of his History. No doubt he is justified. Yet, as I sit here, there is more pleasure to be had, a quickening of the blood, in remembering how I occupied myself with Domatilla, and with fancies concerning her, than in recalling the dismal and brutal catalogue of crime and misery that goes by the name of history. Besides, it is only when I lose myself in memories of erotic moments, that the past seems real to me. But to work. Tacitus: you do well to chide me. I shall strive to keep to the point.
I was in the Forum the day that the news of the revolt of the German legions was confirmed. It was bitterly cold, being the first week of January, and there was snow on the hills above Albano. The confirmation came from the Procurator of Belgica, in a dispatch to the Senate. I think his name was Pompeius Propinquus, but what his relation was to the great Pompey escapes me. He reported that the troops on the German frontier had refused to accept Galba as Emperor. He gave, prudently, no reason. Some said it was on account of Galba's age, some on account of his reputation for meanness. Most however thought it was simply because he was not their general; and that they had therefore little to hope from him. They had not yet elected an Emperor themselves, but instead required the Senate and the Roman People to name one agreeable to all.
That's the official line,' Domitian said, tugging my sleeve, 'but I know better. I have it on good authority that while they have sworn an oath of loyalty to the Senate and the Roman People, they have other plans.'
'Well, they must have,' I said. 'Everyone knows that the way things are such an oath is perfectly meaningless. Do they intend that the Guards should choose the Emperor?'
'That is not my uncle's opinion. He says they do not know what they want, only that they don't want Galba.' 'Who is there else?'
Domitian laughed: 'I thought you would be sure to know. You always pride yourself on being a couple of steps ahead of the game. This time you are well behind me.' And he went off preening himself.
The truth was, it seemed to me, young and confessedly ignorant, that my question was good. The new commander of the legions in Germany was Aulus Vitellius, and it was to me impossible that soldiers could suppose that he was capable of Empire. It was true that I had never encountered Vitellius, but I had often heard my revered mother speak of him, and always with contempt. He had been, she remarked, the favourite in succession of Gaius Caligula, Claudius and Nero, 'which proves him to be a man of mean and despicable character'. He had often acted as procurer of virgins for the first and third of these Emperors, and it was his addiction to every form of vice which had secured him the continued favour of Nero, who could forgive anything except virtue. It was said that he had run through three fortunes, the last brought him by his most recent wife, and that he had had to pawn her jewels in order to finance his journey to his German command.
Yet in the fevered atmosphere of the Forum nothing was impossible. In any case, men said, Vitellius will be a puppet, and his two legates, Fabius Valens and Alienus Caecina, are able men and popular with the troops.
So rumours ran this way and that and everyone was calculating which way to jump.
It was in these days of unreality and fear that Titus suddenly arrived in Rome, sent when his father yielded to his uncle's insistence that there was a real chance that Galba would take a fancy to the young man and name him as his heir. His arrival perplexed me, on account of his most recent letter.
He had been in Rome two days before he came to see me in my mother's house, where I was confined with a heavy cold. My mother, having made him welcome and supplied us with wine, left us alone.
For the first time distance stretched between us. In the thirty months since we had last met, Titus had grown fleshy, I had acquired a beard. It was impossible to feel what we had previously felt.
By unspoken consent we did not dwell on what had gone before, though Titus thanked me for my letters which had, he said, been of more use to him than any other reports he had received. 'My father thinks well of them, too,' he said.
'Surely you didn't…' I paused, recollecting some of the passages in my early letters, before Domatilla had supplanted her brother in my affections.
'Father cares nothing for any of that stuff,' he said and, stretching out, pinched the lobe of my ear between thumb and forefinger. 'I haven't been faithful to you,' he said carelessly. 'Greek boys, of whom there is an abundance in Antioch, are too fetching and willing also. Greek girls, too, if it comes to that. Lustrous curls and glistening skin. Delightful. You should come to the East with me. I'd take you back with me, if it wasn't for this mess here in Rome – and the value I set on your reports, and your judgement. I hope you can stop my little brother from making a fool of himself
'Would it still,' I asked, 'be against your interests to be named by Galba as his heir and partner in Empire…?'
''The partner of my labours'. That,' he said, 'as you will doubtless remember, my dear, is what Tiberius called Sejanus – just before he did for him. No, I don't want that. Galba is an old cunt who can't deliver anything.' 'You're right,' I said, 'he's finished, almost before he's started.'
It amazes me that I could have been so certain. But then, you must admit, my dear Tacitus, that, till I miscalculated in a manner that I now find explicable, if not pardonable, I showed a rare ability to judge men. Galba himself had outlived his abilities. He showed no understanding of the world in which he found himself: that claim to command soldiers, not to buy their loyalty, was sufficient evidence. And the men with whom he surrounded himself were third-raters. There was indeed no future in Galba; he was an actor waiting to be howled off stage.
The question is,' Titus continued to fondle my cheek, in an absent-minded manner, as if the touch of once- desired flesh stimulated his mental processes. 'The question is,' he repeated… and then laughed. 'For the moment, my dear, the question that really concerns me is whether we should have another bottle of wine.'
Later in the evening he spoke of the Jewish Revolt. It fascinated him, while the struggle for the succession here in Rome seemed only to fatigue him. 'Little men,' he said, 'with no conception of the meaning of Empire.'
'I don't understand that myself,' I said. 'I mean, it seems to me that we sort of stumbled into Empire, acquired it even in a fit of absence of mind, with no desire other than immediate gratification, and perhaps the chance to grab the spoils of Asia.'
'There is that,' he said, 'but there's more to it also; and that's why I view the likes of Galba and Vitellius with such contempt; and know that, if we bide our time and keep our nerve, they will trouble us for only a little.'
As I listened I felt what I had not known in Titus before: a strength of will was now added to his keen intelligence and charm. It even frightened me to think of what had passed between us, for I saw that, if the memory of this were ever to embarrass him, he would rid himself of me without compunction.
He said: 'We are in danger of slipping back into the old politics when men competed for glory as well as office. Augustus destroyed Republican virtue, as men chose to call this strife. Tiberius suppressed it. The feebleness of his successors has allowed it to flourish again, like a noxious weed. I should not complain, since I shall be the beneficiary of this new, or rather renewed, struggle to get to the summit of riches and power over things. I have
