Empire (40 page)

Lucius Pinarius sighed. “If only Otho were still alive, and emperor. You were able to twist Otho around your little finger.”

Sporus, wearing an elegant silk robe, made only a grunt for an answer. She—for Lucius always thought of Sporus as “she,” and Sporus preferred to be addressed as a woman—stretched with feline grace on the couch next to Lucius. Side by side, the two friends gazed up at the elaborate scene painted on the ceiling, its vivid colors softened by the slanting winter sunlight. The scene depicted the abduction of Ganymede by Jupiter; the naked, beautiful youth was clutching a toy hoop in one hand and a cockerel, Jupiter’s courtship gift, in the other, while the king of the gods stood with muscular arms spread, ready to make himself into an eagle to carry the object of his desire to Olympus.

“Is there a prettier room in all the Golden House?” said Sporus. “I love these apartments, don’t you?”

“I’d love them more if I were only a visitor, and Epaphroditus would agree to let me to return to my own house and family,” said Lucius.

“He’s only doing what he thinks is best for you. He made a promise to your father to look after you; I witnessed the vow. If Epaphroditus says you’re safer living here, then you should be glad he still has these apartments, despite all the changes, and gladder still that he has space for you.
Besides, if you were no longer here, I should grow awfully lonely without you, Lucius.”

Lucius smiled. “A year and a half ago, we hardly knew each other.”

“A year and a half ago, many things were different. Nero still lived. Imagine that—a world grand enough to contain Nero in it! Nero was too big for this world. Galba was too little.”

“Galba might still be emperor, if he had paid the Praetorians what he owed them.”

“Galba was a bore!” declared Sporus. “A miser and a bore. His reign was seven months of misery for everyone, including himself. The soldiers were right to kill the old fool. And right to make Otho emperor in his place. It was almost as if Nero had come back to us.” Sporus sighed. “Once upon a time, back in the golden days, Otho and Nero were best friends, you know. Their parties and drinking bouts were legendary. Nero told me Otho was like an older brother to him—though he flattered himself if he thought there was any physical resemblance. Otho was so good-looking. And what a body he had! It was Poppaea who came between them. Otho was married to her; Nero had to have her. Poor Otho was forced to divorce Poppaea and head off to Spain.”

“And when the soldiers got rid of Galba, Otho was their choice to succeed him.”

“Because the people were already nostalgic for Nero, and Otho was the closest thing to Nero they could find. He was only thirty-seven; he could have ruled for a long, long time. He took Nero’s name. He restored the statues of Nero that had been pulled down. He announced his intention to complete the parts of the Golden House still under construction, on an even grander scale than Nero intended.”

“The bricklayers and artisans in Roma loved hearing that!” said Lucius.

“In every way, Otho seemed ready to rule just as Nero had done.”

“And ready to love as Nero had loved.”

Sporus sighed and nodded. “Yes. Dear Otho! Because I looked like
her,
of course. I remember the first time he saw me. It was in these apartments. He came to see Epaphroditus with some question about the household staff. Otho saw me across the room. He looked as if he’d been struck, as if he might fall. I could see his knees trembling.”

“His tunic was short enough to show his knees?”

“Otho loved to show off his legs, and with good reason. He had the legs of a mountaineer, as smooth and firm as if they’d been carved from marble. Thighs like tree trunks. Calves like—”

“Please, Sporus, that’s enough about Otho’s legs!” Lucius laughed.

Sporus smiled. “It didn’t take us long to get acquainted.”

“You dragged him straight to your bed, you mean!”

“It was his bed we slept in, though I don’t recall sleeping. It was like the night the Divine Julius met Queen Cleopatra in Alexandria—love at first sight.”

“Or lust!”

“Perhaps. Sometimes lust comes first, and love later. In private he called me Sabina, just as Nero did.” Sporus frowned. “Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn’t looked so much like
her
. What a strange destiny the gods laid out for me. Ah, well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.”

A wistful expression crossed the eunuch’s face. Lucius had seen it before, and Epaphroditus had once explained it to him: “That is the look Sporus gets when she thinks about her long-lost testes.”

Otho had reigned for only ninety-five days. Many of those days had been spent away from Roma, mustering troops and preparing for the invasion of Aulus Vitellius, the governor of Lower Germania, who had been proclaimed emperor by his own troops. Otho took to the field against Vitellius in northern Italy, but before the campaign could begin in earnest, Otho killed himself.

Why? Everyone in Roma had asked that question. Otho had every chance of winning against Vitellius, but instead chose to die in his tent on the eve of battle. His friends said that Otho killed himself to save Roma from civil war. Lucius could hardly imagine such an act of self-sacrifice, especially from a man who had been hailed as a second Nero. But the story was repeated so often and so fervently that Otho’s suicide for the sake of Roma had already become the stuff of legend.

Otho might have hoped to give the city a respite from bloodshed and upheaval, but his death and the unopposed succession of Vitellius accomplished just the opposite. The new emperor arrived in Roma at the head of a licentious and bloodthirsty army, and the city became the scene of riot and massacre, gladiator shows and extravagant feasting. To reward his
victorious legionaries, Vitellius disbanded the existing Praetorian Guard and installed his own men. Under Galba and Otho, a few brave voices in the Senate had spoken up for a return to Republican government; Vitellius’s reign of terror silenced all opposition.

Physically, the new emperor was the opposite of the statuesque Otho. He was grotesquely obese. Apparently he had not always been unattractive; rumor had it that the young Vitellius had been one of Tiberius’s spintriae at Capri, where his services to the debauched emperor had advanced his father’s career. Titus found it hard to imagine Vitellius as a pleasingly plump boy when gazing at the man in his late fifties.

The death of Otho had left Sporus without a role in the imperial household. As she had done in the confusion after Nero’s death and under Galba, Sporus again looked to Epaphroditus for protection. That was how Lucius and Sporus had been thrown together. Lucius was already residing with Epaphroditus, seldom stirring beyond his suite of rooms, trying to draw as little attention as possible to himself or to the personal fortune he had inherited from his father. There was plenty of space in Epaphroditus’s apartments to accommodate both Lucius and Sporus, but the two wards inevitably found themselves spending time together. They were about the same age: Lucius was twenty-two and Sporus a bit younger. Otherwise they had little in common, yet they never quarreled and often talked for hours, sharing gossip, laughing at each other’s jokes, and reminiscing about the dead—not only Lucius’s father and Otho, but all the others who had passed into oblivion in the tumult that had begun with Nero’s death.

So far, Lucius had remained beneath the new emperor’s notice, and so had Sporus. Epaphroditus told them that this was a good thing, but inevitably they grew restless shut up in Epaphroditus’s apartments.

Now change was again in the air. According to Epaphroditus, Vitellius might not be emperor much longer. The general Vespasian, vastly enriched by his war against the Jews and anticipating even greater riches from the sack of their capital, Jerusalem, had been proclaimed emperor by his troops in the East and by the legions on the Danube. While Vespasian and his son Titus remained in the East, commanders loyal to him were marching on Italy. Another struggle for control of the empire was imminent. The mood in the city had become increasingly unsettled and anxious. There was a sense that anything might happen, and fear of a bloodbath. Astrologers had predicted
the end of Vitellius. Vitellius’s response, besides ordering every astrologer in Roma to be killed on the spot, was to throw one lavish party after another.

There were even rumors that Nero had not died after all—that he had staged his death as a hoax—and the heir of Augustus would return at any moment at the head of a Parthian army. Sporus and Epaphroditus knew better, of course, though neither of them would tell Lucius exactly what had transpired in the last moments of Nero’s life, which has also been the last moments of his father’s life. “The emperor chose the moment and the method of his death, and he died with dignity,” was all that Epaphroditus would say, “and so did your father, who bravely decided to follow him into death.”

Lying back on the couch, Lucius gazed up at the painting of the broad-shouldered Jupiter and the slender but elegantly muscled Ganymede, who looked a bit too mature and developed to be carrying a boy’s hoop.

“I can see why Ganymede is a smooth as a baby,” said Lucius, “but you’d think a brawny fellow like Jupiter would be shown with a bit more hair on his chest, wouldn’t you? Yet the painters never seem to show hair on a man’s chest, and neither do the sculptors. Is it true that Otho didn’t have a hair on his body?”

Sporus laughed. “True: Otho had not a hair on his body. Or on his head. When he took off that hairpiece—”

“Otho wore a hairpiece? You never told me that!”

“He made me take a vow to tell no one, even if he should die in battle. Well, he didn’t die in battle, did he? He chose to abandon me by his own hand! So I’ll tell you anyway. Yes, Otho wore a hairpiece. It was a very good one, I must admit. It fooled you, obviously!” Sporus laughed. “As for the rest of him, even
I
have more hair on my body than did Otho. He went to great lengths to remove every strand. He shaved here, plucked there, and in certain delicate areas he used a wax poultice to depilate himself. He was so vain about his physique, you see. When he was naked, he wanted nothing to obscure the sight of all those muscles. And of course he liked the touch of silk against his hairless flesh. What a wardrobe the man had! This robe I’m wearing belonged to Otho. . . .” Sporus’s voice trailed off.

Lucius thought of another thing that Epaphroditus had said: “That is the look of Sporus remembering those who have died and left her behind.”

There was a quiet knock at the door. Epictetus entered.

For a long time, Lucius had been confused by the lame slave’s furtive,
almost cringing demeanor whenever he was in Sporus’s presence. Epaphroditus treated Epictetus with respect, acknowledging and even deferring to his young slave’s immense erudition, and allowed Epictetus considerable freedom to do and say whatever he pleased. Epictetus was no cowed underling, yet around Sporus he behaved awkwardly and averted his eyes; even his limp became more pronounced. Eventually, Lucius realized that the slave was in love with Sporus and painfully aware that his love could never be requited. Sporus had been the consort of two of the most powerful men on earth; she could hardly be expected to take notice of a lame slave who hid his homely face behind a shaggy beard. To be sure, Epictetus was clever; Epaphroditus declared that he had never known any man who was better read or more thoroughly versed in philosophy, which was quite remarkable considering that Epictetus was the same age as Lucius. But what good was all his learning to Epictetus when the object of his affection was more interested in muscular legs and depilating poultices than in Stoic discourse?

“There’s a visitor in the vestibule,” said Epictetus, glancing at Sporus and then at the floor.

“Epaphroditus is out for the afternoon,” said Lucius. “The visitor will have to come back later.”

“I failed to make myself clear,” said Epictetus, daring to look up again. “The visitor is here to see Sporus.”

Sporus sat upright. “Me? No one ever comes to see me anymore. A friend of Otho’s, perhaps?”

“No. He comes from the emperor Vitellius,” said Epictetus. “His calls himself Asiaticus.”

Sporus raised an eyebrow. “Not a big, muscular fellow, rakishly handsome? Struts like a gladiator but grins like a spintria?”

Epictetus frowned. “That might describe him.”

“Who is this Asiaticus?” asked Lucius. “How do you know him?”

“I
don’t
know him,” said Sporus, “but it looks as if I soon shall. Really, Lucius, you don’t know the stories about Vitellius and Asiaticus?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“What a sheltered existence your father imposed on you, sparing your delicate ears from the gossip of the court. Nero loved telling tales about Vitellius and his stud horse. The relationship between those two made Nero’s bedroom antics seem quite tame.”

“My ears are open,” said Lucius, rolling onto his stomach and propping his chin on his fists.

“Quickly, then: Asiaticus was born a slave, no different from any other slave, until in adolescence a certain appendage became rather prominent. When Vitellius saw the boy standing naked on the auction block one day, he didn’t buy him for his brains. Like a racing master who’d acquired a new stud, Vitellius took him home and tried him out right away. Vitellius was happy with his purchase.

“But as you know, in these relationships it’s not always clear who is the master and who the slave, and desire isn’t always mutual. Asiaticus grew tired of Vitellius, and who could blame him? They say Vitellius is actually rather skilled at lovemaking, but really, can you imagine having that mass of quivering flesh on top of you? Or under you, I should imagine, since I suspect that to be his preferred position. Anyway, at some point, young Asiaticus had quite enough and ran off. Vitellius wept and tore out his hair! He was heartbroken. Then, one day, Vitellius was down in Puteoli and who should he come across at a little stand on the waterfront, flirting with the sailors and selling cheap wine hardly better than vinegar, but Asiaticus. Vitellius burst into tears and moved to embrace him, but Asiaticus was off like an arrow. Vitellius’s men gave chase, knocking down half the market stalls along the waterfront, and finally caught Asiaticus and brought him back in irons. A happy ending—the lovers were reunited!”