Empire (37 page)

Epictetus leaned on his walking stick. He reached down to massage his lame leg. “I’ve come from the Senate, Caesar. They’re debating what to do about Galba. I listened to some of the speeches. . . .”

“Yes?” Nero raised an eyebrow.

“The news is not good, Caesar.”

“What do you mean? Is there no one who supports me?”

“Some. But your supporters were drowned out by the rest. The sentiment for Galba is strong.”

Nero shook his head. “And what about my Praetorians? What is Tigellinus doing to deal with the situation? Tigellinus is loyal to me, and the Praetorians are loyal to Tigellinus.”

Epictetus exchanged uncomfortable looks with his master. Epaphroditus pursed his lips and spoke. “We don’t know where Tigellinus is, Caesar. I’ve sent messengers—”

“And the messengers can’t find him?”

“We don’t know; the messengers don’t come back. Caesar, we talked about all this yesterday—”

“Yes, yes, I remember. Well, if Tigellinus has run off, where is his fellow prefect, Nymphidius Sabinus?”

Epaphroditus looked to Epictetus, who reluctantly spoke again. “Nymphidius has openly declared his support for Galba. The Praetorians seem willing to follow his lead—”

“What? Impossible! Nymphidius is a kinsman of Poppaea. He would never betray her. What can he be thinking . . . ?” Nero looked at Sporus and appeared confused. Titus frowned. Had the emperor come to believe that the eunuch was literally his dead wife?

Nero abruptly began to weep. “My Praetorians! So brave, so loyal! How have they been corrupted? What is to become of Neropolis with no one to defend it? What will become of the Golden House?”

Nero turned his back on them, drew back his shoulders, and took a deep breath. When he turned back, his smile had returned. “It’s a good thing that I’ve been strengthening my voice. One way or another, I shall be called on to use it.” He looked from one long face to the next. “Why do you all have such sour expressions? Why are you staring at me like that?”

“We are waiting to hear what Caesar plans to do next,” said Epaphroditus.

“Isn’t it obvious? I must appear before the common people, the citizens of Neropolis, for whom I’ve built new homes and baths and theaters, my beloved children, upon whom I’ve showered so many lavish festivals and entertainments. The people love me. They’re grateful for all I’ve done for them. They delight in the beauty and joy I’ve given them as an artist. It’s only the senators who hate me, all those little Galbas with their narrow minds and their spiteful jealousy and their hatred for beauty and culture. What do you think? Should I send out criers to call a public meeting? I’ll dress myself all in black and mount the Rostra to address the people. I’ll tear my hair, weep and wail, remind them of all the love I’ve shown them, plead for their help in my hour of need. I shall have to call upon all my skills as a tragic actor; perhaps I shall model my performance on Antigone, or Andromache. I shall move them to terror and pity. Terror and pity—that will rally the people to my side!”

“I think,” said Epaphroditus, speaking carefully, “that the mood in the city is far too uncertain to be sure of the people’s reaction to such an address.”

“What he’s trying to say is that the mob is likely to tear you limb from limb,” said Sporus, speaking at last. He stood apart from the rest and kept the bruised side of his face turned from them. Even the intonation of his voice was uncannily like that of Poppaea.

Nero blanched, then stiffened his jaw and glared at Sporus, who stared back at him. Nero blinked first. He swallowed hard. “Tear me . . . limb from limb?” he whispered. “Very well, if I can’t count on the people to protect me, then I’ll negotiate with the Senate. Not directly, of course. Caesar does not deal directly with his inferiors.” He furrowed his brow, then looked at Titus and smiled. “You’re awfully good at this sort of thing, Pinarius! I remember that day you spoke before the Senate on behalf of all those slaves. It took nerve to do that! You were so eloquent, so passionate. If you were to speak for me—”

Titus flushed. His mouth was dry. “Caesar, the slaves for whom I begged mercy were all crucified,” he said.

Nero blinked. “Ah, yes, so they were. Well, I suppose the negotiations can be done by letter. You can frame the terms for me, Epaphroditus.
What if I were to agree to step down as emperor, without protest, and in return the Senate makes me governor of Egypt? The Egyptians love the Greek culture handed down to them by the Ptolemies. The Egyptians would appreciate my talents. That’s where I should go, to Alexandria. They’ll love me there. What do you think, Sabina?” He turned to Sporus. “How would you like to sail up the Nile with me on a barge, as Cleopatra did with the Divine Julius?”

Sporus kept his face in profile, staring into the middle distance.

Epaphroditus assumed a pained expression. “Caesar, even if the Senate could be persuaded to grant you the prefecture of Egypt, which I doubt, I find it highly unlikely that Galba would agree to such an arrangement. The Nile grain trade is essential to the Roman economy, and the prefecture of Egypt has always been under the direct control of the emperor—”

“Yes, yes, I see your point,” said Nero. “Well then, what if I simply ask for safe passage to Alexandria? I don’t have to be the governor, I suppose. I can make my living as an actor, or playing the lyre.”

Epaphroditus grimaced. “Caesar cannot seriously suggest—”

“But I would no longer
be
Caesar,” shouted Nero, more exasperated than angry. “That’s the point! I would be free of all these endless, tedious rules of decorum. I would be my own man at last. Or do you doubt that I could support myself by my talents? Is that your worry? Are you forgetting all the garlands and prizes I won in Greece? Almost two thousand, Epaphroditus! No other performer in the history of the world ever achieved such a thing. And it wasn’t just the judges who loved me. Do you remember how they applauded me at Olympia, and the ovation I received at the Isthmian Games? Sweet memories!” Nero sighed and wiped a tear from his eye. “I should think the Alexandrians would be quite excited to receive the most famous actor in the world into their midst. The whole city will turn out for my debut. What should I perform? Something to please the locals, I think. What is that play where Odysseus is shipwrecked and finds Helen living in a palace up the Nile? We could perform it on the actual locations. But which of the leading roles would suit me best? Everyone loves wily Odysseus, but Helen is the one who flees from a burning city and finds herself in a strange land, a goddess among crocodiles, so perhaps I should play Helen—”

Sporus let out a shriek of nervous laughter and slapped his hand over his mouth. Epaphroditus groaned. Epictetus fretfully rubbed his lame leg. The freedman Phaon recommenced his nervous pacing. Titus averted his eyes and found himself gazing up at the Colossus. From such a low angle, the immense statue was hardly recognizable as a human figure; it loomed like a weird, monstrous image from a nightmare.

Nero observed their reactions and frowned. He was quiet for a long moment, then threw up his hands. “Very well, then! I’ll abandon my art and rely on statecraft. Shall we proceed directly to the last resort? I’ll go to the Parthians as a suppliant. Why not? I shall give myself up to the only other empire on earth that can rival that of Roma. The Greeks and Persians used to do that sort of thing, didn’t they? When one of their leaders was deposed, he’d flee across the border and throw himself on the mercy of his enemy. Who better than a foreign rival to understand and sympathize with my plight? If I’m lucky, the Parthians may even help me return to power. That would make me beholden to a foreign king, not an ideal circumstance, but if it means I can return to the Golden House, I’ll do it. What do you think, Epaphroditus?”

Titus expected the chamberlain to deliver another pained objection, but Epaphroditus seemed to take this notion more seriously than the others. “If Caesar is finally ready to leave Roma and the Golden House for some safer destination, then yes, I would advise Caesar to consider approaching the Parthians. But there’s very little time. We have no reliable intelligence about Galba’s position; he may be only days away. The Senate even now may be voting on a resolution to proclaim Galba emperor. And if Nymphidius and the Praetorians decide to support such a move, they may take action at any time.”

“Action?” said Nero.

Epaphroditus cleared his throat. “Caesar, I am thinking of the fate of your uncle.”

The words sent a chill through them all. The death of Caligula at the hands of treacherous Praetorians had been much on everyone’s mind lately.

“But such a journey would require a great deal of preparation,” said Nero, tapping a forefinger against his lips. “Do you remember the size of my retinue when we traveled through Greece? You kept advising me to cut back, Epaphroditus, yet we found it was impossible for me to travel with
fewer than a thousand attendants. Feeding and providing accommodations for all those people—”

“But that was because you were performing almost every night, and providing banquets to the festival organizers,” said Epaphroditus. “The journey we’re now contemplating would be a very different affair. The fewer the people who accompany you, the better. Indeed, it may be advisable for Caesar to travel incognito.”

“Incognito? Unknown?” said Nero. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Think of it as a role, Caesar. Think of wily Odysseus on the occasion of his homecoming, when he assumed the guise of a lowly vagrant to outsmart the suitors of Penelope.”

Nero nodded thoughtfully. “Ah, yes, I see your point. Dressed in tatters, even Caesar will be invisible to his enemies.” Suddenly he broke into song.

And to Odysseus in his rags Athena came.

“Why do you fret? Here is your home,

And there your lady, and your son,

As fine a son as any son could be . . .”

While the emperor sang lines from Homer, Titus took Epaphroditus by the arm and spoke in his ear. “Has it come to this? Is there no choice but to flee?”

The chamberlain grunted. “I’ve been trying to steer him to this choice for days! So far he’s refused to leave the Golden House. He says he’d rather die, and he seems to mean it, at least sometimes. Yesterday he actually sent for one of his favorite gladiators to put an end to him, but the man disappeared when he heard what Caesar wanted. Then he called for some poison which he apparently obtained behind my back, but the slaves ran off with the stuff rather than bring it to him.”

“But is it possible to flee?” said Titus. “Are there horses available? Is there a ship for him at Ostia?”

“Not at Ostia, not anymore, but it might be possible to cross the mountains and make our way down to Brundisium and hire a ship there, taking the route Pompeius took when the Divine Julius crossed the Rubicon. He would need to be incognito, as I said; we would all need to disguise
ourselves. If Caesar can be made to see the necessity, and if he can endure the hardships—”

“But is his life truly in danger? Has it come to this?” Titus suddenly felt as Nero must have felt, pushed to the limit and desperate to defy Epaphroditus’s unassailable logic. “I realize that Caligula was killed by Praetorians, but those were conspirators who plotted in secret. And Claudius later put those conspirators to death! Would anyone dare to do the same to Nero?”

“They won’t have to plot in secret. Caesar’s fate is being discussed openly in the Senate right now.”

“And do you seriously believe the Senate would dare to impose a death sentence on the rightful emperor, the heir of Augustus? Would a majority of senators vote to set such a precedent?”

Epaphroditus shook his head. “The problem is that we have no precedent for an emperor to voluntarily relinquish his position. Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius—all of them died in power. Yes, Caesar has his adherents among the senators, and some of those men are attempting even now to negotiate a way for Caesar to cede his office to Galba without bloodshed. But the prospects are slim. Even if the debate should produce an acceptable outcome, Caesar should flee to some safe haven in the meantime—”

“Eureka!” cried Nero, abruptly abandoning his song, “if I may quote Archimedes.”

“We know how he ended,” mumbled Phaon, still fretfully pacing. “In a pool of blood on the beach at Syracuse.”

Nero did not hear. “It occurs to me that we are overlooking the obvious. I should make my appeal not to the Senate, not to the people, but directly to the legions.”

Epaphroditus sighed. “Unfortunately, Caesar, we have lost the allegiance of the troops in Gaul and of those in Greece as well. You may recall that we discussed this earlier—”

“I mean the legions under Galba, the ones marching this way from Spain.”

Epaphroditus cocked his head and raised an eyebrow.

“Just because those troops are obeying orders from a rebel commander,” said Nero, “that is no reason to assume that the soldiers themselves no
longer love their emperor. What if I were to make my appeal directly to them? Yes, what if we gather a theatrical troupe, go out to meet the legions, put up a stage . . . and I deliver the performance of my life? When they see me next to that shriveled corpse Galba, the choice will be obvious. What do you say?”

Nero looked from face to face. No one responded, but his enthusiasm was undaunted.

“The soldiers will want to see me play a warrior, naturally. What do you think, would they prefer to see me as Hercules or as Ajax? Hercules is more majestic, of course, but Ajax is more tragic, and thus more sympathetic. And it’s a better singing role; nine times out of ten it’s the voice that wins over the audience. Ah, but as Hercules I could kill the Nemean lion! As you know, Epaphroditus, I’ve been training for that performance for quite a while. The last time I rehearsed with the tame lion, everything came off without a hitch. The beast was practically licking my nose! It will be a shame to kill it, but it’s the authenticity of such a performance that makes it so riveting. I pretend to wrestle the lion, I release a bit of fake blood to make it look as though I’ve been scratched across the back and the face, the spectators gasp, convinced that I may be mauled to death at any moment, and then, in a glorious turnabout, I slay the creature and raise my arms in triumph. Killing it with my bare hands would be best, but I don’t think even that tame beast would allow me to crush it between my arms; I suppose I shall have to use a club. Well, what do you all think? I invoke the divine spirit of Hercules, place my life in his keeping, engage in a death-defying struggle, and then, right before the soldiers’ eyes, I kill the most dangerous creature on earth. Well, does anyone here seriously think those soldiers are going raise a hand against me?”