Rule of God

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All of Rome was in a fog that morning, a kind of meteorological and supernatural stupor. The streets were thinned of the usual crowds, and the overcast skies more ominous than ever. What faces Athanasius could glimpse looked vacant under the occasional flashes of lightning. The hour of dread had finally come, and by the way they shuffled along the Sacred Way near the Flavian Amphitheater, everybody knew it, as if their sole purpose was simply to reach the next hour.

Athanasius looked up at the empty, ghostly Coliseum rising into the mist. One of the statues of the gods ringing the arches of the second story seemed to move. Athanasius caught his breath but didn’t miss a step. So there were sharpshooters trained on him before he even entered the stadium. But then he never imagined Chiron was going to let him walk out of here alive.

He stepped under the arch at Gate XXXIV, one of the 76 public entrances into the Coliseum. It was the only gate from which the chains had been unlocked today. The peeling sign beside it proclaimed, “Death Guaranteed!”

Athanasius entered the maze of empty passageways and ramps under the stands, which were supported by hundreds of towering arches. There were no souvenir sellers, sausage vendors or fortunetellers to slow his march to the runway that would direct him to his section. A moment later he emerged at the end of the tunnel into tier 1 and beheld the vast arena, with nothing but Helena in the center and empty stands all around.

“Helena!” he shouted, sprinting his way toward the emperor’s box. “Helena!”

He hauled himself over the bronze balustrade and landed on the soft sand of the arena floor. He started toward her when she screamed.

“Athanasius, stop!”

Suddenly the sand before him shifted and an entire section of the floor collapsed to reveal a great pit filled with roaring lions trying to claw their way up. And if they had the usual ramps, they could have.

Athanasius stepped back and looked across at Helena, who was shaking on the other side of the pit. He then looked all around the ghostly stands, waiting for a hail of arrows or the appearance of Chiron. But none came down.

Slowly he began to circle around the pit toward Helena when he felt another vibration under his feet and stopped. Sure enough, the dust began to swirl again as another trapdoor opened and a platform rose with a towering figure in a white toga.

“I am risen!” Ludlumus proclaimed with outstretched arms. “I am risen indeed!”

A fury of thoughts and emotion engulfed Athanasius. Ludlumus alive? So his rival had faked his death to set this board and place these pieces. But what was the next move? What was his game?

“Behold the beast!” Ludlumus cried out, pointing to the pit. “Behold the Whore of Babylon!” He waved his arm at Helena. “And behold the rider on the white horse,” he said, pointing straight at Athanasius. “The one who has come to save them who shall instead be cast into the pit of fire!”

Athanasius half expected an eruption of flames to explode from the pit, but Ludlumus probably intended to save that effect until after he had cast them to its bottom, their flesh torn to pieces by the lions and their eyes looking up to him like he was some malevolent god.

But this god wasn’t omniscient, Athanasius thought, hoping that the thought and care Ludlumus put into this production had made him oblivious to the ground being pulled out from under him at the palace. Once Domitian was gone, Ludlumus would be history too.

“More games, Ludlumus?”

“The greatest of all, Athanasius. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, don’t you see?” He gestured to the ghostly stands under the overcast sky. “You have finished the race and entered the Hall of Faith. Welcome to the afterlife.”

The sand shifted again, and a gladiator and Praetorian were launched into the arena. The Praetorian was in chains and gagged, the gladiator holding a sword to the soldier’s throat. From the engravings on his breastplate, Athanasius could see the gladiator was one of Domitian’s. Then Athanasius saw the eyes turning wild under the helmet of the Praetorian and recognized Virtus.

They got him before he could steal Domitian’s dagger.

In that instant Athanasius knew that his plans had failed. If they had gotten Virtus, then they had gotten Stephanus, and Domitian was alive this very hour.

“He too was lost,” Ludlumus laughed. “But, like you, now is found.”

In the basilica at the Palace of the Flavians, surrounded by great statues of his contemporaries the gods, Domitian again picked at the bloody ulcer on his forehead as he listened to testimony on behalf of still another astrologer. This one was an Armenian who dared to agree with his late predecessor Ascletario that the recent rash of lightning in Rome augured a change in government.

What it really augured, Domitian knew, was the soothsayer’s untimely end.

It was the only certainty of the hour that Domitian knew he could control.

Ironically, it was the prosecutor Regulus who was defending the astrologer, or rather his astrology. The poor fool misinterpreted the obvious signs of Jupiter’s displeasure at those who would challenge his son Domitian as Emperor and twist the stars to suit themselves like the infernal Christians and their rising Age of Pieces, the cosmic symbol of their Christ Jesus.

“This man merely repeated predictions that have long since warned Caesar of what year and day he would die, and even the specific hour and manner,” Regulus said, looking up from a papyrus with lunar tables. “All he added was that the moon is in Aquarius and that today’s fifth hour, beginning at nine o’clock, is especially dangerous and could augur transition. But he also concluded that Caesar would be safe if he lived to the sixth hour.”

Domitian was tired of this astrological minutia. For years he had known just how unusual were the twin events of Mars setting on the Roman horizon with the moon at its lower culmination, both within minutes of each other. Especially as the moon’s position in Aquarius was exactly the same as Saturn at the time of his birth on October 24 almost 45 years ago. While this happened every month, the connection with Mars setting as the moon passed its lower culmination made it an astrologically noteworthy event.

He looked down into his empty wine goblet and then to Julius, his food-and-wine-tester, who ceremoniously poured him the last of the proven, poison-free Dovilin wine in the palace. In recent weeks he had half-hoped his former dog walker would turn purple and die after losing his beloved Sirius.

Domitian turned to Regulus and said, “However he covered his ignorance, it doesn’t negate the fact that he predicted a change in government, something that could only happen with my demise.”

“On the contrary, Your Highness, he said it was your prophecy as Lord and God that would determine the outcome.”

“My prophecy?”

Regulus cleared his throat, fully aware he was voicing what nobody else would, and yet claiming they were not his words from his own mouth but those of Caesar himself. He picked up a tablet and read from it.

“Caesar himself was overheard yesterday refusing a present of apples and telling his servant Julius, ‘Serve them tomorrow, if only I am spared to eat them. There will be blood on the moon as she enters Aquarius, and a deed will be done for everyone to talk about throughout the world.’”

“My word! My word!” Domitian stood up, beside himself. “Silence!”

The basilica was quiet.

“What time is it? What is the hour?”

Julius conferred with another member of the staff who ran out, then returned and whispered in his ear. Julius announced, “The time is 10 o’clock, Your Highness. It is the sixth hour.”

Domitian collapsed into his chair and exhaled. The hour had passed! He had survived! The gods were indeed greater than the stars!

He looked across the small group of magistrates in the hall and noted their dismay, even horror, at this reality, and stood up to address them.

“The deed has been done today that the world will talk about. Emperor Domitian Flavius is a god who defies the stars, and whose reign shall be forever. And the deed shall be memorialized with blood on the moon in Aquarius, beginning with the execution of this astrologer and all astrologers who would worship the stars instead of their Caesar. Kill him. I’m off to my bath.”

And with that, Caesar walked out of the basilica with a new bounce in his step and deaf ears to shouts from behind.

“But Your Highness!” Regulus called out.

Domitian could feel a second wind enter his body, a second spirit, a new life. To have this weight removed from his shoulders! To have the unequivocal salutation of the gods!

“I will feast tonight on the blood of my enemies!” he told his entourage of attendants as he walked, the old energy of hatred focusing his mind now that the fog of dread had lifted. “I have my list, and my Praetorian will have names.”

I knew you would protect me, dear Minerva, he prayed to himself, then turned a corner to find Parthenius his chamberlain waiting for him. Domitian stopped, as did the several attendants who had followed him out of the basilica.

Parthenius said, “Your Highness, a person has come to wait upon you with a document about a matter of great importance that simply cannot be delayed.”

Domitian frowned. That Parthenius refused to name this person in the company of the others informed Domitian that this matter was indeed important. But could it be more important than his bath? He felt like Jesus rising out of his tomb, and now he wanted to plunge into the waters of his bath like a baptism to symbolize his rebirth. At the same time, Domitian understood that word of his survival had probably scattered the panicked roaches from the shadows into the light, and he should make haste to crush them all.

“Then I will retire to my chamber,” he announced, dismissing the others and following Parthenius inside.

It was his servant Stephanus who was waiting for him with a letter, and his arm still looked no better with its bandage.

“I told you that you should have one of my doctors check that out,” Domitian told him as he took the letter and began to open it.

“I think I shall,” Stephanus said.

Domitian looked up to see that Stephanus had actually unwound the bandage, but there was no wound. Then he saw the dagger in Stephanus’s hand before it stabbed him and he screamed, “Minerva!”

He lunged for the dagger he kept under the pillow of his bed and found the sheath. But it was empty!

Stephanus pulled out the dagger and was about to strike him again when Domitian tackled him to the floor. He dug his long fingers into Stephanus’s eyes and ripped them out, making Stephanus howl and release his dagger.

Domitan grabbed the dagger and slashed Stephanus’s throat, screaming at the top of his lungs to his Praetorian outside, “Help! Help!”

He felt a stab at his neck and saw Stephanus reaching up to him, an eye hanging out of its socket, his mouth awash in blood. Domitian kicked him like a dog, grabbed the statue of Minerva and smashed it on his head.

“Die, you Christian scum! Like your master my cousin! Die, all of you!”