Authors: Lindsey Davis
Strictly speaking, the wider supervision of law and order, including intelligence collection, came under the Urban Cohorts, governed by their Prefect, Rutilius Gallicus. He had a reputation for restraint and fairness, although trying to reconcile such an attitude to Domitian’s punishing regime could well have helped his mental health deteriorate. The Urbans supervised the triumvirs, a board of three who organised the ceremonious burning of seditious books – or books that Domitian called seditious – a bonfire in the Forum that was now lit with depressing regularity. They ran the political espionage team who investigated treason and social crimes. They carried out interrogations, often using torture, even though that was recognised as unreliable because some suspects were too tough to give in, while others collapsed at the first hint of menace and would say anything they thought the arresting officer wanted to hear.
As censor, chief magistrate and as Pontifex Maximus or chief priest, the Emperor himself judged many criminal proceedings. If Rome was a collective household, Domitian was its head. He presided over serious trials. Theoretically, he would never initiate charges himself, but when names were handed in by informers, the facts (or fantasies) had to be checked to gauge the likelihood of securing a conviction; where Domitian was the judge, his Praetorians liaised closely with the Urban Cohorts. Vinius Clodianus helped the Urbans evaluate cases and gave them ideas for following up evidence.
He was startled by what he saw. As censor, Domitian’s actions were meticulously correct, yet some seemed crazy and unjust; he ordered that when a juryman was convicted of taking bribes, all his colleagues on that jury should be punished too. He expelled someone from the Senate because he had acted in pantomimes. An ex-centurion was proved to be a slave after many years living as a free citizen; he was returned to slavery with his original master. Charges that the Emperor hounded married women for adultery were coloured with tales that he had often seduced the women himself first – though at Plum Street Clodianus once overheard one of Lucilla’s clients maintaining that if true, the women would not submit quietly but would come out and accuse him openly. What was there to lose? And why should Domitian get away with it? (Lucilla realised Vinius was in the apartment and shut the woman up fast.)
Sometimes accusations revived old injuries: Vespasian had once decided not to prosecute an opponent called Mettius Pompusianus, declaring that leniency would force him to be grateful and therefore loyal. Domitian first exiled Pompusianus to Corsica, then put him to death for having a map of the world painted on his bedroom walls, indicating supposed political ambitions. The man had also taken an interest in historical royalty. Studying bad rulers from the past was always seen as suspicious by bad rulers of the present; a philosopher died after an unwise speech criticised tyrants.
Domitian had no compunction about making an attack personal. Aelius Lamia perished; his only crime was to have been Domitia Longina’s first husband. Although at one point Domitian had made him consul, Lamia was never reconciled; he took his loss hard and made no secret of it. Someone complimented him on his voice; he joked that he had given up sex and gone into training (as vocalists did). Then when Titus once urged him to remarry, Lamia scoffed, ‘Why – are you looking for a wife yourself?’ In the end, he was prosecuted on a trumped-up charge. He was supposed to have composed libellous verse.
The written word was always dangerous. Suspicion was so invasive that on two occasions issues of intellectual freedom drove Gaius and Lucilla further apart. What Lucilla had heard about Vinius at work, in gossip from his family, convinced her that he had become an accomplice to Domitian’s repression.
The first time they clashed was at the home of Felix and Paulina when Lucilla was invited for Marcia’s birthday. Vinius did not attend the meal, but turned up with a present for the young girl afterwards. It was raining; he was wearing his hooded military cloak and although he unfastened the front toggles, he kept it on so was clearly not staying. To avoid him, Lucilla stepped out on a sun terrace ‘for air’, but he followed her.
It was ages since he had spoken to her directly. He came out munching cake in a casual way, but the confrontation was preplanned because he quickly broached the unusual subject of a poem by her friend Statius, about Rutilius Gallicus. This happened after the City Prefect regained his health and resumed his duties. How Vinius knew about the poem was never clear, for Statius had not yet published his collection; an informer must have gone to one of the poet’s popular readings, heard him recite a draft addressed to Rutilius, and made an insinuating report.
‘The piece began, “Rutilius has recovered, thank you, gods; you do exist!” Makes you vomit,’ declared Vinius, a frank critic.
‘Papinius Statius writes in what is called the mannerist style,’ Lucilla replied in a haughty tone, staring out at the rain which had come on suddenly earlier and still drenched the empty streets. A damp breeze chilled her arms; she huddled in her stole. ‘Much as I like him, I agree the heavy classical allusion can seem overdone.’
‘He must be taking the piss.’
‘He writes occasional poems to mark public events, or poems of friendship. Celebrating a marriage, bon voyage, a new bath house—’
‘Lament for a dead parrot!’ snorted Vinius. Lucilla was already dismayed, then he went into startling detail: ‘Listen: in this Rutilius effort, according to your crazy poet friend, the god Apollo and his medico son Aesculapius personally flew here and saved the Prefect with a mystical infusion of some herb called dittany from Crete. What rubbish. It’s an insult to the excellent Themison of Miletus, who I know used a very successful healing regime based on sympathy and rest. One passage described Rutilius sprawled and inert – it mentions overwork, lack of sleep, how he was frozen in inactivity –’
Alarmed, Lucilla interrupted, ‘Is this an official visit?’
Vinius stared at the depressing weather.
‘Gaius Vinius, are you
interrogating
me?’
‘If it was official I would have the militia outside.’
Inside in fact, with you tied to a chair
. . . ‘One question: I see nothing to be ashamed of in the man’s collapse. Rutilius seems open about it. Everyone knew he was unwell. But to avoid a crisis of confidence, it was officially decided not to give out exact details.’
Lucilla finally understood. ‘You think
I
told Statius what happened?’
‘I am trying not to believe that.’
‘You’re scared you’ll get into trouble for having said too much to me!’
Vinius glowered. ‘Think that if you must. So, Flavia Lucilla, did you pass on what I told you?’
‘No.’
‘Thank you.’
Although bitterly resentful, Lucilla tried to diffuse trouble: ‘Rutilius writes; he attends the literary circle. During his recovery he talked freely about his symptoms. He told Statius himself.’
‘Fine.’
‘Is that it? You are not much of an interrogator; what if I am lying?’
‘Are you?’
‘No.’
‘Case closed then.’ Vinius shrugged. Refastening his cloak toggles, he appeared to be leaving. ‘Sorry. Mistrust festers, until even the innocent are seen as guilty. The worst is, it takes almost nothing to make you
feel
guilty.’
‘It must be hard to do your job,’ sneered Lucilla.
‘Better I do it, than somebody less scrupulous,’ said Gaius briefly, as he left her alone on the wet terrace.
Perhaps he really believed that.
She called after him from the doorway. ‘I thought you might mention artichokes!’
All the family indoors were listening. Gaius gave her a pleading look that had been known to win over the sternest of aunts. ‘An accident. I just couldn’t resist. I had hoped my replacement met your schedule of reparations.’
‘Nobody buys me!’ Lucilla hooted.
Pretty well everyone else in Rome was being bought. Vinius Clodianus was fielding accusations more often than he liked his friends and family to know. Having to keep secrets from your own circle was part of the insidious process. He tried only to take action when he thought action was justified, but sometimes he was given orders from above against his inclinations. If people were guilty, he supported arrests. But sometimes it went too far, he had to admit.
Informing ran through society from highest to lowest level. At the top, where Clodianus was little involved, were members of Domitian’s own council, senators who had been informers under Nero or advisers to Vespasian; some now claimed to have given up, yet remained as shadowy presences behind the scenes. Domitian encouraged senators to accuse one another; he liked the divisiveness. A stigma attached to great men who indulged in prosecutions against their equals. If encouraged by the Emperor, that stigma disappeared, so a star orator might put himself at Domitian’s service almost on a salaried basis. To challenge such activities would question the legitimacy of Domitian’s regime. Few attempted it. Lower down society snuck weasels who would independently lay an information in the hope of being allowed to prosecute for profit, or who even sometimes named names anonymously. These professionals came from all levels, including very baseborn profiteers. Clodianus saw their work all too often.
Sometimes an informer’s involvement was casual. Every evening the actor Latinus would drop by the imperial quarters while Domitian was relaxing, and amuse him with the day’s gossip. Names to investigate then came into the Praetorian office the next morning on chits from Domitian’s palace freedmen.
At the lowest end of society were slaves who betrayed their masters and mistresses. Strictly speaking, it was illegal for slaves to act as witnesses against their owners, but a device had always existed to get around that; they were first bought by the state, using compulsory purchase orders. Although penalties for disloyal slaves were severe, in practice they stood to gain large financial rewards, plus their freedom. One harsh word at home could make them eager for that.
Domitian used defecting slaves as a constant resource nowadays. No one was safe from hostile eyes in the dining room, hostile ears in the bedroom. Clodianus was not obliged to involve himself in domestic enquiries, the Urban Cohorts did that; but as ex-vigiles his expertise had been recognised. He could give the Urbans a steer about which doors to knock on, when the door should be kicked down instead, whether interviewing slaves in a discreet bar might work, or when the slaves should just be picked up and tortured without ceremony.
Although the moral conduct laws offered the most notorious possibilities, many other charges were made. It was not all bad news. Abuse of office had once been rife – either overseas governors who acted like bandits in their provinces or officials in Rome who took bribes. Proving bribery could be difficult because the donor had also committed an offence and if they achieved what they wanted, they kept quiet afterwards. In fact, Domitian’s reign showed a marked decline in abuses of office, due to his obsessive control over appointments.
Otherwise, the crimes Clodianus regularly looked into were usury (which was illegal but of course happened everywhere), inheritance fraud (often keeping quiet about a will in order to avoid paying tax), and religious deception; that mainly involved Jews who, for financial reasons, pretended not to be Jewish. A tax of two denarii per head was imposed on Jewish men, women, children and the elderly, and also converts; it was used to build and maintain the Capitoline Temple of Jupiter, a deliberate humiliation as it replaced a tithe previously paid by Jewish males to maintain their Temple in Jerusalem, which Titus had destroyed. Many tried to escape this tax. If there was no other solution, men’s tunics were lifted to see if they were circumcised.
There were fictitious adoptions or supposititious births (frauds for inheritance reasons, occasionally to conceal adultery, but sometimes just because a couple were childless). Absenting oneself from the Games or public feasts drew attention; maybe someone just had a reclusive nature or was easily bored, but it was viewed as a protest against the government. For a man to abstain from public office when he was qualified to stand looked similarly dubious, a subversive refusal to support Domitian – which he took personally. Publishing, or just privately writing, seditious or libellous material was inevitably fatal. Using magic (anything from witchcraft to mathematics), or possessing somebody else’s horoscope, especially that of the Emperor, was illegal and carried a scandalous frisson that enlivened a trial and generally guaranteed a conviction.
Many thought such cases involved unpalatable intrusion into domestic life. Once an informer had handed in a name to the authorities, even on a spurious excuse, investigation inevitably followed, often carried out with physical violence. Clodianus did not beat people up. He just sometimes gave the orders and occasionally had to watch.
There were risks. To make an accusation that could not be substantiated ultimately ran up big financial penalties, plus lasting disrepute. In order to be seen cleaning up the courts, Domitian made a point of being harsh with informers who laid false claims. To expose rotten prosecutors suited his austere image of himself, however guilty he was of the same evil. Danger from Domitian’s judicial rigour threatened even the highest; a potentially illustrious career could be ruined by one misjudged court case.
On the other hand, lucrative careers were made out of prosecuting malicious informers . . .
Vinius Clodianus thought himself dispassionate. He genuinely fought the temptation to slip over the boundary from fairness into something much blacker. It would have been easy for him to become corrupt. That threatened to happen over Flavia Lucilla’s ex-husband, the second time she and Clodianus clashed about his work. With so many victims being denounced, endless people feared they might come under suspicion after some slip-up. One, it transpired, being Nemurus.
Domitian’s annual games at Alba in honour of his patron goddess Minerva were close to his heart. That March, Statius had submitted a poem called
de Bello Germanico,
‘On the German War’, a honeyed paean to the new conqueror of the Chatti and Dacians. Its author was thrilled when he won the poetry prize and received a scintillating gold wreath from Domitian’s own hand.