not guess, I thought it vain to speculate, my lord.'
'Spoken like a true Claudian – save that 'my lord'. I had a great respect for your mother when she lived at court. She was kind to me as a boy. I observed you last night. You behaved well in that – what shall I say? – ridiculous and frightening business. In a manner, again, worthy of a Claudian. Are you a good Claudian or a bad Claudian?'
Of course I understood the question, as you will, Tacitus, but you may have to remind your readers (if you make use of this dialogue), that there were reputedly two sorts of Claudians: those who served the Republic dutifully, and did the State great service, and those who… well, didn't; but were self-willed, domineering, reckless, dangerous to others and to themselves. 'I am not yet nineteen,' I said. 'It is too early to know.' He laughed.
'I think,' he said, 'that is the most honest thing said to me since I began to play this part; and the wittiest. Usually it is only licensed fools who jest with Emperors. That at least is a tradition not yet abandoned. So your answer pleases me. You're a handsome fellow, too. Come, sit beside me.' I obeyed, with misgivings. Not this, I thought. He laughed again, reading my mind.
You've nothing to fear,' he said. 'I have no intention of practising a perverted species of the lex primae noctis, a custom which, even in its normal form, disgusts me. Women should be won, not taken; that is my opinion as an ageing debauchee, now satiated in the lists of Venus. But I think we could do business.' I remained silent. He questioned this.
'My mother taught me,' I said, 'that if you have nothing to say, then say nothing.'
'Good advice. Follow it and you will be a politician. Or a general. Silence is a good weapon. There is nothing so disconcerting as silence. Unfortunately, I have always been talkative. It's done me harm…' Candour is charming, and to be distrusted.
'I never had any great taste for boys anyway,' he said. 'When you have learned to enjoy a woman, no boy can ever fully satisfy. Have you discovered that yet? Come, don't blush. The light is dim but I can still feel your blush, there's a glow in your face. You were, I'm told, the lover of Titus, son of Vespasian. Are you that still?'
I hesitated, like a man on the threshold of a dark house, through which the wind is blowing. Danger can have no smell, not being corporeal; yet often I have scented it. Fear, of course, has a smell -the smell of cold sweat; and danger and fear are close blood-brothers. 'We were boys,' I said, 'now we are men.'
'And Titus fucks an Eastern Queen, Berenice, they say. Are you jealous?' Titus is my friend. What makes him happy pleases me.'
You choose your words with care. I like that. My life would have been more fortunate had I possessed that ability.' You are Emperor, sir. What more can fortune grant you?'
'It could start with sleep. Yes, I am Emperor. But for how long? Galba was Emperor. So was Nero, once my friend. So was Claudius, murdered by his wife. At least I have no wife now. I had one once, you know, and loved her, though she was a whore, dissolute as myself in those days. Nero killed her, as an angry child might kill a puppy. Now, I have no wife, nor son either.'
Jupiter, I thought – this is genuine, Tacitus, I swear it – he's not about to adopt me, is he, make me his Piso. No thanks. But how could I evade him if he made the offer?
'But your friend Titus still keeps a troupe of dancing-boys, Syrians, they say, and what he does with them requires no guessing. You're not jealous of that either?'
'If you were not Emperor, sir,' – I couldn't bring myself to say 'my emperor' – and left the answer hanging in the incense-scented air of the little room which now seemed to enfold the pair of us with a nauseating closeness.
'If I was not Emperor, you would tell me to go hang myself – eh? Is that it? Good. I like your spirit and your unspoken response.'
He lifted his cup, emptied it in one gulp, as drunkards drink, or men in the grip of sorrow or despair, and passed it to me to fill again.
'It's a lonely business being Emperor. I've discovered that already, in a matter of weeks. Nero enjoyed it, of course. But then Nero was a fool, a clever and often amusing fool, but still a fool. Tiberius, who was a wise man, loathed it. So my father used to say, and he knew the old man well, and revered him. He used to hint that he might be the Emperor's bastard. I don't know. His father, my grandfather, was a client of the great Livia Augusta. He owed his place in the Senate to her. There are not many men left in Rome who know more about emperors than I do, or what it means to wear the purple.' He paused and drank again. 'I know what you're thinking: that I sought the crown. So I did. Who wouldn't when the chance presents itself? Even that dull fellow Piso yielded to the temptation. Even Vitellius, and of all those I have known, none has been less fitted. But that does not restrain him, and now, thanks to the energy of his legates, Valens and Caecina, he is a danger to me. What do you say?'
'What can I say? We are reared to thirst for glory, and to compete for posts of honour. Mark Antony was my great-great-uncle, if only by marriage. Is that answer enough?'
'It will serve. There were two Triumvirates, formed to dominate the State. Each left only one survivor, after terrible wars: first, Caesar, then, Augustus. I should like to avoid war. Romans killing Romans is a beastly business. Civil war sets brother against brother, destroys friendship, which we are also taught to prize. But… I have sent ambassadors to Vitellius. They have not returned. Perhaps they have chosen to remain in his camp, perhaps they are held there. Who can tell? But the conclusion is clear: Vitellius – or the men who control him – are determined on war, with all its terrible and unknowable consequences. We are perhaps evenly balanced, Vitellius and myself, our forces being equal in strength and valour. But there is a third force in the East, another great army, whose influence may be decisive. Mucianus, Vespasian, your bosom friend Titus – what do they want?' 'I am not in their confidence, sir. I am not privy to their ambitions.' 'Don't try to deceive me, boy, don't play the fool with me…' A note, as of metal ringing on stone, entered his voice. He pulled himself up to lean on his elbow and regarded me searchingly. I felt his power, like the cold wind of winter dawn.
'Come,' he said, more gently, 'let us understand each other. I've no wish to have secrets between us. We live in evil times, when liberty is perforce constrained. You carry on a regular correspondence with Titus. Sometimes he employs the imperial post, and then his letters are routinely intercepted, deciphered – the code you use is simple and presents no problems to the imperial agents – and copied before being sent on to you. If you examined the seals more closely you would have been suspicious. Sometimes he sends you more private missives by the hand of one of his freedmen. Last week one such was arrested at Brindisi. The threat of torture persuaded him to surrender the letter he was carrying to you. I have read it. While it is not positively seditious, a man more given than I am to seeing conspiracies around him would find there sufficient grounds to order the arrest and even execution of Titus. Here is the letter. You see, he makes no bones about his determination to wear the purple, nor of his expectation that he will do so. 'Otho cannot last,' he says, Vitellius is a clown. The way will soon open before us.' Well, I do not dispute his judgement of my rival, Vitellius. How it disgusts me,' he drank more wine, 'to call that thing my rival. But what do you say? Your friend is rash indeed, his rashness matching even his ambition. And some might call that inordinate. How old is he? Not yet thirty? Twenty-six? Twenty-seven? Too young to be Emperor, too old to be so foolish. What do you say?'
'It was a private letter. To a friend. People talk loosely to friends. Not all they say is to be taken seriously.'
'A gallant answer, but you know it won't do.' He took my hand, squeezed it twice, and let it fall. 'I've no wish to quarrel,' he said, 'and I haven't brought you here to punish you, not even to upbraid you for carrying on a correspondence which verges on the treasonable. The times are disturbed. It's no wonder if many men entertain ambitions which at other seasons might be taken as seditious if they found expression. Indeed, I almost admire Titus for his audacity. But it won't do either.' He bit his nails, and was silent a long time.
'Three forces,' he said. 'In any battle of three, it's two against one, unless… unless one of the three stands aside and waits to feast on the carrion. That wouldn't be your Titus' way, I can tell that. But his father, Vespasian? Nobody ever took much account of Vespasian. Nero thought him a joke, he used to mock his accent, his habit of saying o for au, provincial and lower-class. He was in the mule trade once, you know, and his mistress, Caenis, is even commoner than the man himself. Then he offended Nero by falling asleep during his recitals, and even snoring, an act which showed a judgement that was aesthetic rather than prudent. But he's survived. He's a mangy old cur, but a wise dog. Which way will he jump? Will he stay in his kennel? Vespasian puzzles me, and troubles me. I don't reckon on Mucianus, he lives for pleasure, as I once did, and his pleasures are perverted and degenerate as mine weren't. But Vespasian? I'm thinking aloud, boy…'
The thinking aloud was an act, or in part an act. I felt that even then, for I guessed he had already made a
