Avenger of Rome

VI

Summer, AD 66

The Sun King looked out upon his people from the balcony of the great Golden House he had built over the ashes of Rome’s third district and felt an unexpected surge of affection. Less than two years ago thousands of Romans lived their shabby little lives on this very land, but the gift of fire had allowed him to substitute splendour for squalor and magnificence for mediocrity. The houses and apartments had been replaced by a vast country villa in the centre of the urban landscape; three hundred and sixty paces from wing to wing, with three hundred rooms each filled with rare bronzes, gilt statues and the finest artworks in the Empire, all surrounded by trees and pasture and lakes, and a great park in which roamed wild animals from all over the world. A Golden House for a Golden Age, and this would be the greatest day of that age.

With perfect timing the morning sun rose above the hills and everything around him gleamed as its rays reached out to caress the gold leaf and gold paint and golden statuary which covered the front of the vast building. The effect was such that it blinded those unfortunate enough not to be shielded by the huge cloth awning which portrayed him in his chariot driving the four horses of the sun god. His heart swelled with pride. He wanted them to be blinded. Blinded by his magnificence. Awed by his power.

He was not a fool. He understood he had lost the Senate and the aristocracy. But he still had the people and he still had the legions and he still had his Praetorian Guard. These were the triumvirate which cemented his power, not the whining politicians who complained at every expense and every little excess. The Golden House, which stretched between the Palatine and Esquiline hills, had come close to bankrupting the imperial treasury. Tigellinus, his commander of the Guard, could only ensure its completion by ordering the officials to cut the silver content of the denarius, but it was all worth it, because this — and his heart beat faster as he considered what he had achieved — this was his legacy to his people. No longer could he be compared to Divine Augustus and found wanting. In the Golden House he had created a monument to Rome’s glory that outshone anything his illustrious ancestor had been able to devise. A monument that would last a hundred lifetimes of ordinary men.

‘Caesar?’

With a smile, the Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar Germanicus turned to his imperial secretary. He had been quite lost in his own thoughts.

‘King Tiridates is here.’

‘Thank you, Epaphradotus.’ This was the second ceremony to welcome Armenia into Rome’s keeping. The first, in the forum, had been a mere appetizer compared to what was to come. Nero looked to the rear of the balcony where the king of Armenia waited in his long robes. A swarthy predator’s face, the clubbed beard reaching his chest, nose like an axe blade and heavy brows, topped by a shining thatch the colour of pitch and styled in tight ringlets. A savage face. But a noble head. A head awaiting a crown. Had another Emperor been in Nero’s place, King Tiridates would now be in the carcer, Rome’s prison, awaiting the bite of the strangling rope, for Tiridates had been an enemy of Rome. He and his brother, Vologases of Parthia, had fought two long, expensive wars against the Empire. If Nero had followed his generals’ advice there would have been a third and Tiridates would have been crushed on the battlefield and slaughtered with his army. But wiser counsels had prevailed and now the king was here to pay homage to his Emperor and to Rome.

He called Tiridates forward, and as the king stepped out into the light the massed ranks below and on the surrounding hills, and on the far-off houses, erupted into frenzied cheering, so that the balcony was hit by an almost volcanic wave of sound. Nero felt himself grow along with the volume of applause. This was what he lived for, this adulation and proof of his dominion. This was what had spurred him to invest so much effort and expense in his voice and his bearing. For a moment, he was possessed by an overwhelming urge to sing; to give them the joy that came entwined as one with his talent. But the moment passed and now Tiridates was on his knees laying the triple crown at his feet and he was looking down at the mass of dark greasy curls and the cheering was ever louder. Together, the two serving consuls, Telesinus and Paulinus, handed him the jewelled diadem of laurel leaves. With great ceremony he placed it over the other man’s head. Tiridates murmured something in his native Parthian. It could have been thanks or mortal insult, but Nero cheerfully offered his hand to his new brother king and drew him to his feet, bestowing a kiss to show his affection.

Turning to the crowd, he raised his hands and in that single movement commanded a hundred thousand people to silence. ‘Let the celebrations begin,’ he called in his high-pitched man-boy’s voice, and the cheering re-erupted.

The two rulers took the broad stairway to the ground floor, where Nero deliberately conducted his guest through the shadow of one of the wonders of the Empire, the astonishing statue he had commissioned of himself as the sun god, Sol. Close to one hundred cubits in height and covered entirely in gold leaf, it was the largest marble sculpture in the world, dwarfing even the legendary colossus which had stood astride the entrance to the harbour of Rhodes. It portrayed a pensive, benevolent Nero, with the sun’s rays radiating from his head like a crown, his left hand, holding a globe, stretched towards his people and in his right the whip with which he would drive the horses drawing his chariot. It was a glorious piece of uninhibited self-indulgence, a thousand lifetimes of wealth incorporated in a single piece of art. As he passed it, King Tiridates wondered at the colossal vanity of the unprepossessing, almost effeminate young man beside him.

There was more to wonder at in the great banqueting hall, where the Armenian king dined on the most sumptuous food the Empire could provide, in a bewildering room which revolved around its guests while the ceiling periodically showered them with flower petals and perfumed water. Such technological marvels impressed Tiridates profoundly, even more than the displays of military might Nero had been careful to provide. An Empire capable of sustaining such extravagance could send a dozen legions against him at any time. He had been right to make the treaty and his brother Vologases wrong to want to continue the war.

Nero contemplated Tiridates’ bemused expression with satisfaction, and left the room to summon his Praetorian prefect, Offonius Tigellinus. Tall and thin with a long nose and a fringe of russet hair that clung to the back of his head like a stray squirrel, Tigellinus didn’t look like the most dangerous man in Rome. He had the face of someone who had just drunk sour milk and the hangdog demeanour of an undertaker. Nero felt the familiar flutter of nerves when the man he depended on so completely approached. So many had abandoned him, or wronged him in some way that forced him to remove them. Of all the long list, Tigellinus was the only man left he could trust. What if something happened to him?

For years, the former horse trader had supplied all his needs. Nothing was beyond his reach: boys, girls, men and women, rich and poor and in any combination or number. Senator’s wife or slave, concubine or virgin, Tigellinus knew where to lay hands on them and if he could not persuade, buy or terrify them into the Emperor’s bed, his Praetorians would force them. If the Emperor needed money — and emperors always needed money — Tigellinus would find a benefactor who could be induced to contribute to the imperial purse. Licences could be granted, subsidies controlled and monopolies awarded, and the Praetorian prefect would maximize the profit. What was more, that long nose had an infinite capacity for smelling out traitors and the mournful expression hid a pitiless cruelty and fertile imagination. It had been Tigellinus who had torn the heart from the Piso conspiracy with his blades and his hooks and his hot irons, Tigellinus who had invented the exquisite refinement of torturing a man — or a woman — to the very brink of death and having them restored by a physician to face the same fate again, and again, and again. It had never failed. Nero had been so delighted by his aide’s successes that he had awarded him the triumphal regalia normally reserved for senators and consuls and erected a statue of him in the Palatine gardens.

It had been Tigellinus who suggested removing Nero’s former teacher, Seneca, once and for all when Piso and his nest of vipers were being stamped out. That was what he liked about Tigellinus: his clarity of purpose. No attempt to fabricate evidence or bribe witnesses, just a simple tying up of loose ends. Nero’s agents in Seneca’s household had reported that the old man had met his fate with dignity, protesting his loyalty to the last. A pity, but he had long since outlived his usefulness and he knew too many secrets to be left alive.

‘A most satisfactory day,’ he welcomed Tigellinus cheerfully. ‘I have never seen the people so proud of their Emperor. King Tiridates was suitably awestruck by my splendour and overwhelmed by the power of their love for me. A triumph. A triumph for Rome.’

‘A triumph for Rome’s Emperor,’ Tigellinus corrected. ‘And a triumph for her legions.’

All the long years in the imperial court and his training at Seneca’s knee had given Nero an ear for nuance. He caught a certain inflection in the Praetorian’s voice. ‘Yes, a triumph for her legions. And it is right that men should fear Rome’s legions. You have news from Judaea?’ A few months earlier the Syrian sub-province had risen in revolt after a punitive expedition against an assortment of religious fanatics had resulted in hundreds of deaths. In the violence that followed the best part of two legions had been wiped out and the eagle of the Twelfth Fulminata lost. It was the greatest military disaster of Nero’s reign and it was imperative that it should be avenged swiftly and mercilessly.

‘Gallus has been removed from his command. Vespasian will form a task force from the Syrian and Egyptian legions and lead them against the rebels. Meanwhile, General Corbulo has returned to Antioch and will offer what support he can to Vespasian.’ There it was again, that slight change in tone he had come to recognize.

‘Two of our finest generals,’ Nero ventured. ‘And our most loyal.’

‘Just so, Caesar.’

A moment of clarity. ‘But you have concerns?’

‘General Vespasian is your own appointment, a new man who is intelligent enough to understand that he would never win enough support to aspire to the throne, and his hands will be kept busy for at least two campaigning seasons. General Corbulo…’

‘Rome’s most successful commander in the past ten years…’ Nero’s voice rose an octave as he was forced to come to Corbulo’s defence.

‘Has been heard to cast doubts upon your policy of reconciliation in Armenia and Parthia. There is talk of giving Armenia away.’

Nero waved a dismissive hand. ‘A soldier’s grumbles. Even Tiridates told me that I have no more loyal commander than Corbulo.’

‘Of course,’ the prefect said smoothly. ‘I venture no accusation, I only caution.’

The Emperor stared at him, the piggy eyes narrowing. ‘Proceed.’

‘General Corbulo was appointed on the advice of Seneca,’ Tigellinus pointed out. ‘He has been in the east, in Asia and Syria, for twelve years, with the same legions. Some would say enough time to create his own personal empire.’ Nero didn’t have to ask which ‘some’; he knew the Praetorian had agents in every military command. But Tigellinus surprised him with his next admission. ‘He is a difficult man to get close to. His senior officers have been with him for years and are unfailingly loyal; the juniors take their lead from the legates. Only now have I been able to place someone in a position of trust, although, as I have said, it is generally known in his headquarters that he has been critical of your policy and your orders to act upon the defensive. His legionaries regard him as something close to a god.’ Tigellinus saw the Emperor stiffen, as he’d intended. Only emperors could become gods. ‘Normally this could be dealt with simply enough. A new posting to some less arduous front. A summons home for some new honour, a long and happy retirement on his estates in the north…’

‘But?’

‘But the situation in Judaea means that Syria is also vulnerable. It would only take one small spark for the rebellion to spread. Therefore it is important that Syria is in safe military hands, and there are no safer military hands than General Corbulo’s.’

Nero nodded. ‘And what does my faithful Tigellinus advise?’

‘We wait and we watch. If General Corbulo does his duty and defends Rome’s and the Emperor’s interests, all well and good. If he were to overstep the mark, however…’

The Emperor stared from the window overlooking the luscious parkland, its vivid greenery nourished by the blackened bones of a thousand plebeians still lying in the burned-out ashes of their homes. Not Corbulo. Never Corbulo. But then Tigellinus had never been wrong before. So they would wait, and watch.

‘Very well, see to it and keep me informed.’

Tigellinus saluted and walked from the room. The first piece was in place.