Empire

AD 61

Titus stayed true to his word: he did not call on his brother again. When next the brothers met, two years later, it was because Kaeso came to call on Titus.

Titus was in his study, completely absorbed in an old text on augury given him years ago by Claudius, when a slave tapped on the door frame to get his attention.

“What is it?” said Titus without looking up.

“You have a visitor, Master.”

Titus looked up, squinting a bit. Reading had begun to tire his eyes, a complaint not uncommon for a man of forty-three. “Do I know you?”

“I’m Hilarion, Master. The new doorkeeper.”

“Ah, yes.” Titus peered at the boy, who seemed hardly old enough to serve as a doorkeeper. There were so many slaves in the household these days, Titus couldn’t keep them straight. Chrysanthe insisted that they were all needed to run the place, but it seemed to Titus he would soon need to buy a larger house just to accommodate so many slaves. To be sure, he was at all times well attended and never had to do anything for himself: slaves tended to his chamber pot in the morning, carried his things to and from the baths, washed him, massaged him, shaved him, dressed him, took his dictation, fetched whatever he needed, carried messages to friends and business associates, taught his children, read aloud to him when his eyes were tired, did all the shopping, prepared and served his food, sang to him during dinner, and turned down his bed at night. Slaves tended to his sexual needs as well. After more than twenty years of marriage and four children, he and Chrysanthe seldom performed the act any more, but he loved her and had no intention of taking another wife, so he felt no compunction about using the comeliest slaves when he felt the urge. They never seemed to mind, since Titus was not the sort to take pleasure from violence or abuse, and he took his enjoyment discreetly, never in a vulgar, public way that caused a slave shame or embarrassment. Not all masters were so considerate.

“Who is it?” said Titus.

“The visitor says he’s your brother.” Hilarion sounded doubtful.

Titus stared into the middle distance for a long moment. “Show him in. No, wait. I’ll go to the vestibule to meet him.”

Titus rose and walked through the house, past the lush garden with a newly installed marble statue of Venus, across the reception hall with its newly laid mosaic floor, and into the vestibule. Sure enough, there was Kaeso, looking like a ragged beggar off the street. He was standing face-to-face with the wax effigy of their father.

“Have you come to pay your respects at last?” said Titus.

Kaeso jumped a bit, taken by surprise, and looked at him blankly.

“If you wish to burn a bit of incense before his effigy, and perhaps say a prayer, I would be happy to join you,” said Titus. “And I’m sure our ancestors would be delighted.” He gestured to the other effigies in their niches.

“You know that’s not why I’ve come,” said Kaeso quietly.

“I have no idea why you’ve come,” said Titus. He noticed that Kaeso was wearing the fascinum. The effrontery, to flaunt his possession of the family talisman in front of the ancestors! Titus took a deep breath, determined to be civil.

“I have a request to make of you,” said Kaeso. He sounded almost meek.

Titus nodded curtly. “I’m expecting visitors soon – a senator receives so many callers asking for favours – but I suppose I have time to see you now. Follow me to my study.”

As he led his brother through the house, he wondered what Kaeso must make of the place. Since Kaeso had moved out years ago, Titus had made continual improvements, investing in costly furnishings and exquisite works of art. His study was one of the loveliest rooms of all, with beautiful images from the Metamorphoses of Ovid painted on the walls and custom bookshelves made of oak. A mosaic on the floor depicted Prometheus giving light to mankind; the naked Titan carried a giant fennel stalk containing a glowing ember stolen from the fiery chariot of Sol, with a circle of awestruck mortals surrounding him. Titus imagined Kaeso must be quite impressed, but his brother’s only reaction was to shake his head and mutter, “So many slaves you have!”

“Slaves?”

“All over the house. We passed at least ten between the vestibule and this room.”

“Did we? I hardly notice them. Except when I need one and can’t find him!” Titus laughed.

Kaeso looked grim.

“Would you like some wine?” Titus was determined to treat his brother no differently than any other visitor. He clapped his hands. A passing slave girl at once stepped into the doorway, awaiting instructions. Titus smiled at her. She was a lovely young redhead, one of his favourites. What was her name? Eutropia? Euthalia?

“No wine,” said Kaeso quickly. “It would cloud my thinking. I need to be able to speak clearly.”

Titus gestured to the girl to move on. “What’s this about, Kaeso?”

“What do you know about the murder of a city prefect, an ex-consul named Lucius Pedanius Secundus?”

Titus sat in an old-fashioned folding chair, an antique the dealer claimed had originally belonged to Cato the Younger. Kaeso remained standing. It was not unusual for Titus to sit while his visitors stood.

“Pedanius was killed by one of his own slaves,” said Titus. “A nasty business. Slaves rarely kill a master, but when they do, it always causes a stir. People still speak of the Spartacus revolt, when slaves all over Italy turned on their owners and committed one atrocity after another. Farms were burned. Citizens were crucified. Women were raped and murdered.”

“That was over a hundred years ago,” said Kaeso.

“A hundred and thirty-two years ago, to be precise. And such a tragedy has not occurred again in the last century because extreme measures were taken at the time, and extreme measures continue to be taken whenever any crime is committed by a slave against his master. The alternative is chaos. Why are you asking about this matter, Kaeso?”

“Do you know the facts of the crime?”

“As a senator, I’ve been briefed on all the details.” Titus pressed his fingertips together. He should have asked the girl to bring some wine, whether Kaeso wanted any or not. Talking about scandal made a man thirsty. “An unseemly affair. It seems that Pedanius had owned the slave, a man called Anacletus, for many years, and Anacletus had risen in the household to a high station. After many years of obedient service, Pedanius agreed to allow Anacletus to purchase his freedom. But the slave wanted more than that: the fellow was in love with a pretty new slave boy in the household and wanted to be allowed to purchase the boy and take him with him. Pedanius, in a generous mood, agreed. But then Pedanius changed his mind; apparently he took another look at the new slave and decided he wanted the boy for his own pleasure. The next thing you know, master and slave were rivals for the boy’s affections – an absurd situation for any citizen – and there the trouble started. Pedanius not only reneged on his promise to free Anacletus, but he took to sleeping with the boy every night.”

“And then?”

Titus hesitated to continue with the seamy details. They would be common knowledge soon enough. “One night, Anacletus obtained a knife and, holding a lamp to light his way, he snuck past the night watchman and broke into his master’s bedroom. He says he only meant to threaten Pedanius. But he caught them in the act. Pedanius was unfazed. Apparently he made quite a show of flaunting his power over the boy, showing Anacletus that he could and would do anything he desired with a boy who was, after all, his property. This drove Anacletus into a fury. He stabbed Pedanius to death while the boy screamed and wept.”

“Disgusting,” muttered Kaeso. “All of it, disgusting. So there’s no doubt about the slave’s guilt?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Anacletus will be put to death?”

“Of course. He’ll be crucified.”

“And the boy?”

“The boy witnessed the crime and did nothing to stop it. The law is very clear.”

“And the night watchman?”

“He egregiously failed in his duty. Of course he must die.”

“And the rest of the household slaves – what will become of them?”

“As I said, the law is very clear. All the slaves in the household of Pedanius must be interrogated under torture – that’s happened already – and then be put to death.”

“Surely not!” protested Kaeso. “I know that our ancestors enacted such terrible penalties, but surely the law is more lenient nowadays. Such a crime is so rare-”

“It’s rare precisely because the law is so harsh. All the more reason, when such a crime occurs, that the full penalty of the law must be exacted. The common law dates from time immemorial, but it was codified by the Senate under Augustus.”

Kaeso shook his head. “Do you know how many slaves are in the house hold of Pedanius?”

“No.”

“I do. There are over four hundred of them. Four hundred, Titus!”

Titus pursed his lips. “That is a great many slaves, to be crucified all at once. I hadn’t known there were quite so many.”

“Some of them are old, Titus. Some of them are children.”

“I suppose.” Titus shifted uneasily in the chair. Antique furniture was always so uncomfortable; no wonder Cato was famous for a foul temper. Titus was parched. Why had he not told the girl to bring some wine?

“Can you remember such a slaughter of a household of slaves happening in Roma, ever in our lifetime?” said Kaeso.

“No, I suppose not. These crimes usually happen in the countryside, or in some distant province. And I suppose the number of slaves involved is usually not quite so large.”

“Think about it, Titus. For a crime of passion committed by a single slave, four hundred human beings must die. People who were elsewhere, going about their work, or probably fast asleep, completely unaware of what was happening. Surely that doesn’t make sense to you, Titus.”

“If they weren’t aware of Anacletus’s intentions, then they should have been. That’s what the law says. The statute is clear: it is the responsibility of a slave at all times and under all circumstances to protect his master, with his own life if necessary, from any harm from outside the household or from any other slave within the household.”

“But Anacletus acted alone. There was no plot. How could the other slaves have prevented the crime?”

“I will admit, sometimes, on a case-by-case basis, the law does not perfectly fit every situation. But the law is the law, and must be obeyed. Bend it in one case, and the next time a slave wants to kill his master, he’ll be thinking he can get away with it.”

“That makes no sense at all, Titus.”

“What is your interest in this matter, anyway? No, don’t tell me – there must be some Christians among those four hundred slaves.”

Kaeso took a deep breath. “Yes, I have brothers and sisters in the house hold of Pedanius.”

“Ah! You can drop your pretense of moral outrage, then. You simply don’t want to see your fellow cult members receive their just punishment. Am I right? But what do you care about their earthly fate? Isn’t the world coming to an end at any moment?”

“That’s cruel, Titus. Surely you must be moved by the suffering of so many innocent people. Have you ever thought what it must be like, to die on a cross?”

“The law-”

“How can you countenance such cruelty and call it justice, simply because ‘this is the way our ancestors did it’? How can the gods you worship endorse such wickedness? Do you feel no pity, no shame at the injustice of it? Do you not feel some impulse to do whatever you can, as a senator, as friend of the emperor, to alter the course of events?”

“Is that why you’re here, Kaeso? To petition me to take action as a senator to pervert the course of justice?”

“Is there nothing you can do?”

Titus shrugged. “There’s to be a discussion in the Senate tomorrow. I suppose the logistics of staging four hundred crucifixions will require special planning, if nothing else.”

“Then you could make a proposal for leniency?”

“I suppose I could, if I were so inclined. And if I didn’t think the other senators would laugh me out of the Senate House.”

“Surely not every senator will be in favour of the strict penalty of the law. Surely some of them possess a shred of mercy. If not the senators, then perhaps Nero might be persuaded-”

“Or perhaps your omnipotent god might be persuaded to save his followers. How about that, Kaeso? Is he not all-knowing and all-powerful? Why don’t you petition your god to change the law? He could do it in the blink of an eye.”

“Don’t mock God, Titus.”

“Then go pray to him, Kaeso, and leave me out of this.”

Kaeso trembled with anger. “Have you considered that Pedanius got what he deserved? Taunting a slave with false promises, raping that boy while the slave watched-”

“Stop there, Kaeso! If you mean to suggest that the murder of a citizen by a slave could ever be justified, under any circumstances, leave my house at once. I will not have that sort of talk under my roof. I won’t have my family and my slaves exposed to such an obscene notion.”

Clenching his jaw, Kaeso left the room without another word.

Titus sat in silence for a long time, staring at nothing.

His throat was parched. He raised his hands to clap them, then saw that the slave Hilarion was already standing in the doorway, watching him with an inscrutable expression.

Titus slept uneasily that night. He was up before cockcrow.

He left Chrysanthe sleeping and went to the garden. He had no appetite, and it was too early to go to the baths. He sat on a stone bench. In the vague light before dawn, everything around him was indistinct. The house was quiet. Even the slaves were still asleep, except for the watchman who stayed up all night, and he was probably asleep as well. What a joke it was to trust one’s safety to a watchman, if there was no one to watch the watchman and make sure he was vigilant! The watchman of Pedanius had slept through his master’s murder.

It had been a long time since Titus had simply sat alone in silence, with no distractions and no one around him, not even a slave waiting out of sight for his summons.

The Senate would meet later that morning, after its members had time to go the baths to groom themselves and put on their togas, or, more precisely, after they had been groomed and dressed by their slaves. Titus decided to attend the session. He decided that he might even take part in the debate, something he rarely did.

If he intended to speak, he should probably prepare some notes, he thought. His first impulse was to rouse one of his secretaries, dictate his thoughts, and let the fellow put his random ideas into some sort of order; an old slave called Antigonus was good at that sort of thing. Then it occurred to Titus that he might be saying some things in his speech that he did not care to share with a slave, since the punishment of the 400 slaves of Pedanius would be the subject of the debate. What a peculiar circumstance, that a senator should wish to hide his thoughts from a slave!

Titus fetched a lamp himself and figured out how to light it from the sconce that stayed lit all night. He rummaged in his study until he found a wax tablet and a stylus, and, squinting under the dim light, began to scribble some notes. Within moments his hand began to cramp; he had not written anything with his own hand in a long time. He was also uncertain of some of his spellings; when a man always dictated to a trained scribe, he did not need to know how to spell.

Writing something worthy of being delivered in the Senate House, without a slave to transcribe and edit, was rather hard work, he realized. But it was also quite absorbing, as he found himself rubbing out awkward sentences and reworking them, coming up with new ideas that needed to be inserted inside other ideas, and rearranging the order of his arguments. Before he knew it, dawn had broken and the house had come to life around him. Slaves were scurrying up and down the hallway, some of them clearly surprised to see their master awake so early. The smell of breakfast farina wafted from the kitchen.

Titus was suddenly very hungry and in the mood for something sweet. He called to one of the girls and told her to bring him a bowl of steaming-hot farina with honey and dates and pine nuts. “You know how I like it,” he said.

After breakfast, he summoned his usual retinue of slaves and headed for the baths. Often he patronized a small establishment on the slope of the Aventine above the Circus Maximus. The place was old and small, and a bit drafty, but conveniently close to his house. But on this day Titus decided to go to the Baths of Agrippa. He was in the mood for a bit of luxury and spectacle, and the Baths of Agrippa always provided that. As well, there was plenty of space in the galleries to do a bit of work, in case he wanted to polish his notes a bit more.

The baths were out on the Field of Mars, a fair distance from his house. He considered taking a sedan or a litter, but decided to walk instead. Titus did not want to become one of those effeminate fellows who never stepped outside his house without being carried by slaves.

As he strode through the markets along the Tiber and then through the busy neighbourhood around the old Circus Flaminius and the Theatre of Pompeius, it seemed to Titus that there were a great many people headed the other way, towards the Forum, and that they all looked rather serious. There was a mood in the air, an atmosphere of tension. His bodyguards noticed it, too. Titus saw them draw more closely together, looking this way and that with more than their usual wariness.

Titus could not think what was happening, and forgot all about it once he arrived at the baths. He never ceased to marvel at the grandiose beauty of the place, with its high ceilings, splendid marble columns, and galleries of famous paintings and statues. The sheer luxury of the hot plunge, the cool plunge, the warm plunge, and then a thorough massage did much to rejuvenate him after his restless night. He watched the swimmers in the long pool for a while, narrowing his eyes at the glimmer of the morning sun reflected off the water and feeling its warmth on his face. He nibbled some dried figs and almonds and sipped a much-watered cup of wine, and forgot all his cares for a while. He even forgot his speech, and did no more work on his notes. When he was finally ready to be dressed in his toga, he saw by the sundial next to the long pool that if he did not hurry he would be late for the taking of the auspices – not his duty on this occasion – and the opening of the day’s business in the Senate.

He decided to hire a sedan and told the bearers to move at a fast pace. His bodyguards trotted alongside, but the other slaves lagged a bit; they would catch up and wait outside the Senate House in case Titus needed them. The ride was so smooth that he was able to take out the wax tablet and review his notes. Taking a sedan was not such an indulgence, he decided, if one used the time to do a bit of work.

The bearers took the most direct route, between the north side of the Capitoline Hill and the Temple of Venus built by the Divine Julius. Before Titus knew it, they were approaching the Senate House from the back side. He looked up from his notes, distracted by a strange noise that came from the direction of the Forum: it sounded like the roar of the ocean, or the crowd at the Circus Maximus. As the sedan rounded a corner, Titus saw something he had never seen before: the area before the steps of the Senate House was thronged with people. There were hundreds of them, perhaps even thousands. There was no reason for them to be there; this was not a festival day, and there was no public ceremony requiring their attendance. What were all these people doing here?

The sedan came to a stop at one end of the steps. Hitching up his toga, Titus ascended a few steps, then turned to take a closer look at the crowd. It was made up mostly of men of the common sort, ill-groomed and dressed in drab tunics – the citizen rabble of Roma. He looked at their faces. They did not look happy. Some of them seemed to be drunk, but that was inevitable in any large gathering. Some were clustered in smaller groups, talking among themselves or listening to a speaker. What were they talking about? Why did they appear so angry and agitated?

Titus threw a few coins to the sedan bearers, who disappeared at once. “Wait for me here, at this spot,” he told his bodyguards, feeling an unaccustomed uneasiness. Usually he allowed his bodyguards to loiter around the Forum while he was in the Senate House, rather like dogs let off a leash, but on this day he wanted to know that they would be exactly where he had left them when he came out.

Halfway up the steps he ran into a fellow senator, Gaius Cassius Longinus. Under Claudius, as governor of Syria, Cassius had amassed a great fortune. His learned commentaries on the law had established him as the Senate’s leading expert on all matters judicial. Still, Titus could never forget that Cassius’s ancestor and namesake had been one of the assassins of the Divine Julius. Cassius’s eyesight had begun to fail; he was often in a foul mood, and today was no exception. Titus, who was much junior to Cassius in the Senate, usually would have given the older man a nod and no more, but he could not resist asking Cassius if he knew anything about the crowd before the Senate House.

Cassius squinted at the throng and scowled. “They’re here to plead for mercy for those slaves,” he said.

“Really? There are so many of them.”

“Are there? Then it’s a blessing that I can barely see them. I’m told they’ve been arriving all morning, and more are arriving every moment. You know, our ancestors saw this sort of thing all the time – mobs gathering to demonstrate in the Forum whenever there was a debate in the Senate. Sometimes the mobs would riot. Sometimes it was like this every day in the Republic, especially towards the end. Can you imagine the chaos?”

Titus gazed out at the crowd. So this was an old-fashioned Roman mob! “They look unhappy, but they’re not that badly behaved.”

“Not yet!” Cassius shuddered. “What I find so appalling is the reason they’re here. When their ancestors broke a few patrician heads for plebeian rights, or rioted at the behest of the Gracchi brothers to help the small landowners, or even when they burned down the Senate House after the rabble-rouser Clodius was killed, at least they were fighting for their own self-interest as citizens. But this shameless assembly of freedmen and citizens are here to argue for the benefit of slaves. It’s disgusting! Imagine, during the Spartacus revolt, if the rabble had gathered to tell the Senate, ‘Stop what you’re doing! Perhaps this gladiator fellow has a point!’”

“It’s not quite the same thing,” said Titus cautiously.

“Isn’t it? The law is the law, and these people are here to spit on the law – for the sake of slaves! Nero should summon his Praetorians and drive them all into the Tiber.”

“I think there might be too many of them to do that,” said Titus. Truly, outside the Circus Maximus, he had never seen such a large gathering.

Was he imagining it, or had the crowd grown more unruly in the last few moments? He gathered the folds of his toga and hurried up the steps.

He was just in time to join his fellow senators on the crowded porch for the taking of the auspices. They were favourable, though Titus thought the augur was being rather generous in his interpretation of a crow’s flight. Then the senators filed inside, pausing to light a bit of incense and say a prayer at the Altar of Victory before filling the tiers of seats that faced each other across the long chamber. There was a large turnout. Titus thought there must be more than 200 senators present.

Once all the senators were seated, Nero arrived. Followed by Seneca and a retinue of scribes and secretaries, he strode up the length of the hall to take his chair on the dais at the far end. To Titus, it seemed that the young emperor did not walk with his usual self-confident swagger; had the sight of the gathering outside unnerved him as much as it had the senators? Titus also took note of the emperor’s appearance. Nero had grown a beard, or at least a partial beard, something no emperor had worn before him; the hair was trimmed to leave only the growth beneath his jaw, while his cheeks and chin were clean-shaven. The effect was to provide a golden frame for his square face.

Even more striking was the emperor’s costume. Since the death of Agrippina, Nero’s mode of dress had grown more eccentric. On this occasion he was outfitted in his customary purple and gold, but his garment was not a toga but a gown of the sort either a man or woman might wear at home in the evening, and on his feet were what looked like slippers rather than proper shoes.

The garment left much of Nero’s arms bare. Gone, Titus noticed, was the golden arm bracelet encasing the lucky snakeskin that Nero had long worn to honour his mother. After Agrippina’s death, Nero had declared that he could no longer stand the touch of the bracelet on his skin, indeed could not stand even to look at it, and had thrown it into the sea from the terrace of his villa at Baiae. The emperor no longer has his amulet, thought Titus, and nor do I, wishing as he often did that he still possessed the fascinum of his ancestors. He could have used a bit of luck on this day.

The preliminary business of the Senate was dispensed with quickly so that the members could deal at once with the pressing issue of the murder of Lucius Pedanius Secundus and the punishment of his household slaves. The facts of the case were read aloud by a scribe. The man’s delivery, even when reading the most salacious details, was completely without emotion, but at various points some of the senators made rude, mocking noises. To be killed by a slave was shocking but also shameful, and to have it happen under such circumstances – a rivalry over yet another slave – was the stuff of scandal. If Pedanius had escaped death, he would have been a laughing stock. Instead, he was a victim of the most frightening crime imaginable, a deliberate act of violence perpetrated in his own house by one of his own possessions.

The texts of the relevant laws were then read aloud. The statutes were just as Titus had remembered and recited to his brother the day before. If a slave should murder his master, all the slaves in the household must be interrogated under torture and punished with death, without exception. The 400 slaves had already been interrogated. Now they were confined under guard in the house of Pedanius to await the judgement of the Senate. Meanwhile, in preparation for immediate executions, crucifixes were being prepared along the Appian Way outside the city.

Nero, on his dais, said nothing and merely observed the proceedings, as he often did when the Senate was carrying out its routine business.

The members were invited to rise and address the question at hand: on this occasion, was the law to be carried out fully and faithfully, without amendment or mitigation?

Without waiting to be called on, many of the senators simply shouted their opinions, and a general clamour filled the hall. Titus heard cries of “Kill them now, at once!” and “The law is the law!” But he also heard a substantial number of voices shouting, “Too harsh!” and “Mercy!” and “There should be exceptions!”

Nero covered his ears, as if the cacophony caused him pain. He gestured to Seneca, who stepped forward and called for order. “Will anyone speak formally in favour of rescinding or mitigating the penalty?” said Seneca.

There was a hubbub in the hall and a great many heads turned, but no one stood. Seneca was opening his mouth to speak again when Titus loudly cleared his throat and rose to his feet.

Seneca looked at him in surprise. “Do you wish to speak, Senator Pinarius?”

“I do.”

All eyes turned to Titus. His face grew hot. He felt light-headed. His palms were suddenly sweaty. If he wasn’t careful, the wax tablet containing his notes would slip right out of his hands -

He realized that his hands were empty. The tablet! Where was it? Titus looked around and saw it nowhere. Had he been holding it earlier, during the taking of the auspices? He couldn’t remember. Could he have left it in the hired sedan? Titus felt completely at a loss. Meanwhile, the eyes of the entire Senate were boring into him. The room was utterly silent.

He would either have to sit down without saying a word, and look a complete fool, or he would have to speak without his notes. Could he do that? He had pored over them so intently, surely he could remember at least the major points, if not all the elegant phrases he had labouriously worked out. Titus cleared his throat again and took a deep breath.

“Caesar,” he began, nodding to Nero, “and my esteemed fellow senators, we are all aware of the crowd that’s gathered outside our front door. I must say it took me quite by surprise when I arrived here. I think it’s taken us all by surprise. I’ve never seen anything like, have you?”

“No, but I’ve never seen a herd of giraffes, either,” shouted one of the senators. “What has either to do with the law?” This was met with scattered guffaws and a few cries of “Hear, hear!”

“Well,” said Titus, feeling flustered, “once upon a time the common people had their own assembly, and they did have some say in the making of laws…” Titus realized that he was straying far from his notes.

“What sort of talk is this?” someone shouted

“Seditious talk!” someone said. “Rabble-rousing!”

Titus raised his hands to quiet the clamour. “I’m merely saying that something has stirred up all those people. Every one of you in this chamber is stirred up, as well. Perhaps we should at least state the case of those who are asking for mercy, so that we can examine the argument clearly.” There, that was better, he thought, feeling that he had quieted his listeners and regained their full attention. He noticed that a scribe was taking down his words, no doubt using the shorthand famously invented by Cicero’s secretary, Tiro.

“Given the circumstance of this atrocious crime,” he went on, “who can doubt that the vast majority of slaves in the household of Pedanius are completely innocent of any wrongdoing? This appears to be a crime of passion, not a conspiracy involving other slaves and hatched over time. Unless a slave was actually in the room, or at least close enough to overhear what was happening, how could that slave possibly have prevented the crime? There is also the fact that in such a large household – four hundred or more slaves – there must be a great many who are old and infirm, or young and frail, or women, some of whom may be pregnant. Shall all those slaves die, despite their innocence? What if a slave is blind? What if he is deaf, or mute-”

“And what if a slave is blind, deaf, and mute?” shouted someone.

“Then put him to death for sure, since he’s no good to anyone!” shouted another, prompting a gale of laughter.

“Unless he’s as pretty as that boy Pedanius was diddling,” said someone else. This went too far. The offending senator received boos and angry looks.

“Senators!” shouted Titus, trying to regain their attention. “I have asked myself, why has this proceeding elicited such an unprecedented response from so many common citizens? I think I know some of the reasons. First, there has been no crime like this in recent memory, nor has there been the prospect of a slaughter of slaves on such a massive scale, at least not here in Roma. If such crimes occurred, and such massive punishments were exacted, it must have happened at a farm or country villa, where those slaves were unknown to anyone outside their own household. But this household of slaves is different. They reside here in the city, where they live and work and move about freely. These slaves must be known not only to fellow slaves in other households, but to shopkeepers and artisans and all sorts of citizens who have dealings with them. Some are errand boys and messengers, some are seamstresses and hairdressers, some are cooks and cleaners, some are bookkeepers and scribes, highly educated and valuable slaves deserving a degree of respect. Some are near the age of death. Some are newborn, just beginning life. Some are in the prime of life, at the peak of their usefulness and value. Some are pregnant and about to bring forth new life. These victims of the law are not a faceless crowd but are human beings known to their neighbours, and so we cannot be surprised if there are murmurs throughout the city that the law is too harsh.

When there is such an outcry, even here in the Senate, can no exception to the law be made?”

Well, thought Titus, that was not so hard after all. He felt rather pleased with himself. In his fantasies, this was the point at which the entire chamber erupted in applause, even from those who opposed him but admired his courage for taking a stand. Instead, after a few scattered cries of “Hear! Hear!” and some desultory murmurs of assent, the end of his speech was met by a silence almost as deep as that which preceded it.

Gaius Cassius Longinus rose to speak.

“Caesar, and esteemed fellow senators,” he said, “often have I been present in this assembly when demands were made to alter or dilute or do away entirely with the customs and laws of our ancestors. In every single instance, those changes were for the worse. Yes, in every instance the laws made by our ancestors were superior to the innovations proposed to replace them. Yet often I’ve kept my mouth shut and let the majority have its way, wishing not to become known as one of those stalwarts of the law who grows wearisome by always exalting ancient precedent. I was holding my fire, if you will, for a time when my voice truly would be needed to prevent a terrible error by the state. That time is now!

“An ex-consul has been deliberately murdered in his house by one of his own slaves. Not one of the other slaves did a thing to prevent this crime, though the law is clear that this was their duty. Vote to spare them, if you like. But if a city prefect is not safe in his own home, who among us will be? Who will have enough slaves to protect him, if the four hundred of Pedanius were not enough? Who can rely on a slave’s help, if even the threat of death is not enough to make a slave help you?

“I have sat here in silence and listened to the account of the ‘facts’ in this matter, which impute various unseemly behaviours on the part of Pedanius. I ask you, since the dead man cannot speak for himself, how and from whom where these ‘facts’ obtained? From the two slaves present at his murder, of course – the killer himself and the killer’s young paramour. No doubt this ‘evidence’ was obtained as the law prescribes, under torture, but I think we can discount their story as an utter fabrication, concocted to blacken the name of their victim and to elicit sympathy for themselves. Next we will be hearing that this murder was justifiable homicide, and Pedanius got what he deserved! Dust has been thrown in your eyes, Senators, and not by a skilled advocate, but by slaves. Shame on you!

“We also hear the argument that the other household slaves could not have known that their master was threatened. I don’t believe this for a moment. Do you seriously think that a slave plotted to killed his master without uttering a single rash or menacing word beforehand, to someone in the household? Even if this insanely jealous lover kept silent about his intention, how did he obtain a knife without anyone noticing and wondering what he meant to use it for? How did he penetrate to his master’s bedroom, past the watchman, and carrying a lamp, mind you, without anyone seeing?

“But even if some of the slaves suspected that their master was in danger, you may say, surely most of the slaves were ignorant of the fact. Perhaps. But I say that every slave in that household, whatever his degree of complicity, is irrevocably contaminated by the crime. Even a slave born into the household that very morning is contaminated and must be destroyed, like a rabid dog. Imagine a slave growing up, knowing that his first master was brutally murdered by one of his own kind and that slaves like himself went unpunished. Would such a slave have an understanding of his place in the world and of the immutable respect he owes to his owner? Would you want that slave in your household, growing up with the knowledge of a murdered master in his head, inevitably spreading that knowledge to others? I think not!

“Some of you act as if we are encountering such a crime for the very first time and must come to some momentous decision never made before. Even if a similar crime occurred in the past, you argue, this case is somehow unique and requires our special consideration. Nonsense! There is nothing new here, no novel and unprecedented situation that must be debated and settled. Our ancestors saw situations no different from this, dealt with those situations in the best possible manner, and handed their precedents down to us. Are you so ungrateful that you spurn their gifts? Are you so vain that you consider yourselves wiser than they?

“Our ancestors were distrustful of their slaves, even though those slaves were born on the same estates, sometimes even in the same house, as their masters. Lifelong familiarity did not reduce their suspicion of their slaves or induce them to treat those slaves with greater leniency. The situation we face today is far more perilous. Nowadays our huge households are filled with slaves from all over the world. Those slaves speak all sorts of languages – who knows what they say behind our backs? They practise all sorts of religions – or none at all. They form all sorts of cliques among themselves, and even join foreign, secret cults without our knowledge. We must be on our guard inside our own households now more than ever. The only way to deal with this motley rabble is by intimidation and a strict adherence to the law.

“Innocent people will die, you say. But the law has long recognized that the suffering of individuals is justified by the benefit to all. When a Roman legion suffers defeat and every tenth man is clubbed to death for shame, brave men may die along with cowards, but by such strict measures our ancestors built armies that have conquered the world. Those same ancestors gave us the law which we discuss today. Think long and hard before you trifle with it. Dismiss the law, and who knows what terrible consequences will follow. Uphold the law, and your children will sleep more safely in their beds tonight.”

Titus had dreamed of a rousing ovation, but it was Cassius who received it. Amid the cheering and applause, Titus overheard a nearby senator comment to another, “And that’s why Cassius is the best jurist alive!”

“The finest master of the law since Cicero,” said the other senator.

Rebuttals were invited. No one stepped forth.

The Senate voted by dividing the chamber. Those in favour of upholding the law without mitigation were to sit in the seats to the emperor’s right; those who wished to make some exception to the law were to sit on the emperor’s left.

Titus, who was already to Nero’s left, stayed where he was. The senators he had just overheard rose to their feet at once and crossed the chamber, as did Cassius, whose poor eyesight required him so seek assistance; numerous admirers rushed forward to claim the privilege of helping him. There was a great deal of movement back and forth, with groups of senators lingering in the middle of the room, engaged in last-moment discussions.

As always, Titus was amused to see which senators remained undecided until the last possible moment, standing in the middle of the chamber and looking anxiously from side to side to see which way the vote was trending. It was the same senators every time, the ones who had no opinions of their own and invariably voted with the majority, once they could determine which side the majority had taken.

When everyone was finally settled, there was no need for a count. Although a substantial number of senators had voted for leniency – far more than Titus had expected after Cassius’s rousing speech – the clear majority was in favour of the law. Without exception, all the slaves in the household of Pedanius were condemned to death by crucifixion. Preparations had already been made, and the sentence would be carried out that very day.

Nero had stayed out of the argument. It was his prerogative to speak at any time, but though he had listened attentively, he had said nothing. But after the session was formally closed, and the senators began to rise from their seats, a messenger ran to the dais and whispered in Nero’s ear, whereupon he rose to feet.

Seneca banged a staff on the floor. All eyes turned to the emperor.

“Senators,” said Nero, “I am told that the crowd outside has grown more numerous, and that many among them are now brandishing torches and clubs. It seems they have been informed of your judgement, and they are not pleased.”

“But the announcement hasn’t yet been made,” said a senator near Titus. “Who told them?”

“Probably one of the imperial slaves,” said another. “They’re constantly running in and out of the chamber.”

Shouting was audible from the Forum, even though the Senate House doors were closed. When the bronze doors were opened, moving slowly on their massive hinges, the muffled clamour from outside rose to a roar.

Titus followed the other senators onto the porch. He was shocked by what he saw.

The crowd had grown much bigger. The Forum was a sea of angry, shouting faces. Men stood alongside statues, on their pedestals, and on the steps and porches of every building in sight. The crowd had even overrun the venerated speaker’s platform, the Rostra, where men waving torches sat astride the famous ships’ beaks that projected over the crowd.

At the sight of the senators emerging from the Senate House, the crowd surged forward, rushing halfway up the steps before Nero’s Praetorian guards formed a cordon to stop them. They shouted, shook their fists, and brandished clubs. Some farther back in the crowd dared to throw stones at the Praetorians, who raised their shields to protect themselves. The clatter was deafening.

Titus anxiously scanned the crowd and was relieved to see that his bodyguards were right where he had left them. But he would not rejoin them yet; Titus had no intention of attempting to pass through such an angry mob. It was a sad day, when wearing a senatorial toga in the heart of Roma could make a man feel like a target!

“This is madness,” whispered Titus.

“This is exactly the sort of behaviour a speech like yours encourages,” said Senator Cassius, drawing alongside him.

“That’s absurd,” said Titus. “These people weren’t present in the chamber to hear my speech.”

“Nor were they present to see the result of the vote, yet they knew of it quickly enough. Slaves talk. And knowing that there are senators who sympathize with their cause, indeed are willing to argue for it on the floor on the Senate, however recklessly, only encourages such people to think they may obtain what they want by agitation.”

“What’s to be done?” asked Titus.

“Since this rabble lacks the self-discipline of their betters, they can be dispersed only by force.”

Nero apparently thought otherwise. While the senators continued to huddle on the porch, seeing no safe way to leave, an imperial herald pushed though their ranks and took up a position at the top of the steps. He blew a horn repeatedly until the mob grew quiet enough for him to be heard.

Such heralds were chosen for their ringing voices. This one was able to project sufficiently to fill the vast space, so that his words echoed back from buildings across the way. “Citizens, Caesar has proclaimed an edict! Listen well!”

Amid the hush there were shouts of “Nero! Nero will show mercy! Caesar will save us from the unjustness of the Senate!”

Was such a thing possible? Nero had the power to override the Senate on many matters, but would he choose to do so on this occasion? In the ancient days of the city, when Roma was ruled by kings, it was said that the monarch often took the side of the common people against the rich nobles. Kings had as much cause to fear the nobility as did commoners, so kings and commoners made natural allies. Would Nero take this opportunity to reach out to the people, over the heads of the Senate, and make himself the hero of the rabble? Could even Nero afford to flout the law and make enemies of so many in the Senate?

When the herald spoke, the crowd’s hopes were dashed. “The Senate has debated the issue which concerns you. The Senate has reached it judgement. The law will be upheld. The sentence will be carried out. Caesar admonishes you for this unseemly and threatening behaviour. This gathering is declared unlawful. You are hereby ordered to disperse at once!”

The mob reacted with howls of protest. More stones were hurled. Some landed near the herald, who quickly retreated.

More torches were passed though the crowd and set alight. The sight of so many flames was alarming. What were these people thinking, to use fire as a threat? An open flame was a force no man could control; fire could sweep anywhere, destroy anything if its power was unchecked. In the last years of the Republic, the Senate House itself had been incinerated by an angry mob. The Divine Augustus had rebuilt it in greater splendour. Was it now to be burned again?

Scanning the crowd, Titus suddenly spotted a familiar face. Hackles rose on the back of his neck. It was Kaeso. His brother was part of the mob. No, not a mere participant, but some sort of ringleader! Kaeso was brandishing a torch in the very faces of the Praetorians protecting the Senate steps, waving with his other arm and yelling encouragement to those around him.

Titus shook his head. Just as he had harboured the false hope of receiving the accolades of his fellow senators for making a fine speech, so he had been looking forward to telling Kaeso what he had done, to let his brother know that he was not such an unfeeling fellow after all, in fact that he had done something rather courageous, especially considering his position in society. What a change that would have been, to receive some approval, even praise from Kaeso! But here was Kaeso, spoiling things, as always, not just taking part in the demonstration but yelling louder than anyone else and making a spectacle of himself. Titus cringed; what if one of his fellow senators noticed Kaeso in the crowd, took a good look at him, and despite the shaggy beard and wild-eyed expression noted his resemblance to Titus and realized who he was? If the other senators knew that his brother was one of the leaders of the mob, Titus would be mortified.

Suddenly his brother looked back at him. Kaeso’s reaction at seeing him exactly matched that of Titus on seeing Kaeso. He blanched, looked shocked and appalled, then disgusted and angry. The twins stared at each other for a long moment, as if looking into a distorting mirror. Then, as neither could bear to look at the other a moment longer, at the same instant they turned their gazes elsewhere.

Soon the tramp of marching feet echoed through the Forum. Having failed to quell the mob with his edict, Nero had summoned more Praetorians from their garrison outside the city. As the ranks of grim-faced soldiers converged with swords drawn, many in the crowd panicked and fled at once. Others pulled back reluctantly, throwing rocks as they withdrew. A few dared to stand up to the Praetorians, wielding their bludgeons and torches.

Titus looked for Kaeso, but he had disappeared in the surging crowd.

To reinforce the Praetorians, Nero also called up the vigiles, the troop of trained firefighters first organized by Augustus. The vigiles also acted as night watchmen and sometimes apprehended runaway slaves. They wore leather helmets instead of armour and carried firefighter’s pickaxes, not swords, but their discipline made them more than a match for the shopkeepers and labourers in the crowd.

A few heads were broken and some blood was spilled, but soon the mob dispersed. While the vigiles extinguished the abandoned torches scattered around the Forum, the Praetorians regrouped and headed for the house of Pedanius, where the slaves were being kept under guard.

Within the hour, the slaves were driven to the place of execution outside the city, with Praetorians lining the entire route to forestall any interference. Normally the crucifixions would have been a public event – the larger the crowd, the better, for the purpose of moral instruction – but once the slaves were outside the walls, the Praetorians closed the Appian Gate and diverted all traffic from the Appian Way.

The crucifixions were carried out with no spectators. The work went on through the day and into the night.

The next morning, with Praetorians still patrolling the area, the Appian Gate and the Appian Way were reopened for traffic. For travellers arriving from the south, their first view of the city’s outskirts was the grisly display of Roman justice that lined the road. From within the city a steady stream of citizens came to witness the fate of the 400 slaves of Pedanius. Some gawked, speechless. Some muttered angry words. Some wept.

The crucified bodies remained on display for many days. Most of the senators found time to go and take a look at their handiwork, including Gaius Cassius Longinus, who cursed the failing eyesight that prevented him from beholding the full splendour of Roman justice.

Titus Pinarius did not go to see the crucifixions. He tried to forget everything that had happened that terrible day in the Senate House.