Saviour of Rome

XI

Rome

‘Tiberius likened ruling the Empire to having hold of a wolf by the ears. I do believe he understated the complexity. It is much more like trying to control an entire pack.’

Vespasian’s tone was cheerful enough as he made the pronouncement, but Titus could see that the cares of high office were already taking their toll of his father. Worry lines furrowed his brow and his mouth had assumed a habitual downturned look of grim contemplation. Sometimes it seemed that only in the arms of his lover, Antonia, did his father find peace. Not that the knowledge brought Titus any consolation. He still couldn’t wholly forgive Vespasian for ordering him to set aside Berenice, whom he’d loved with just as much devotion and passion. But that was in the past. Now they held the wolf by the ears and the first priority was to keep hold of it.

‘You would rather we had left all this to Vitellius?’ Titus waved a hand at the raised platform where Vespasian’s predecessor’s golden throne had sat until it was carried away to be melted down. The receiving room was in the heart of the great Golden House constructed by Nero. Vespasian was never comfortable in the grandiose palace complex, but had yet to find a use for it.

‘Thirty steps,’ the Emperor marvelled. ‘Perhaps he believed the closer to the gods he sat the more like them he would become. Poor man.’ Vespasian inspected the rear of the platform and the curious contraption there. ‘It’s rather like the lifts that take the beasts to the main level of the arena.’

‘He was so fat by the end he couldn’t climb the stairs.’ Titus didn’t hide his scorn.

‘Then he was no fool,’ his father said, a mild rebuke in his tone. Usurper or no, Vitellius had been Emperor. The legionaries of Marcus Antonius Primus claimed the Golden House had been stripped bare by the time they took the place. Vespasian’s younger son Domitian had not been inclined to believe them, but a few months earlier a building crew clearing the site of Vitellius’s burned-out villa had uncovered a fortune in gold coins and statuary buried in the garden. The Emperor bent and picked up something from the floor behind the platform. ‘A horse on wheels. A child’s toy.’ He shook his head. ‘I never intended for him to die, or the boy. In fact I ordered otherwise. He could have passed away his remaining years in relative comfort on Sicilia and I would have encouraged Lucius through the cursus honorum.’

‘Then the men who killed them did you a service,’ Titus said brutally. ‘It’s much tidier this way.’

‘True.’ A wry smile flitted across Vespasian’s puffy features and he replaced the toy. Titus returned the smile. His father could be kind-hearted and was seldom vindictive, but he could also be ruthless when he needed. He’d duped thousands of civilians to surrender at Tarrichaeae in Judaea with a promise of freedom, only to slaughter the elderly and infirm as a signal of the price for defying Rome’s rule. It had worked. All but three Galilaean fortress cities surrendered as soon as the legions appeared at their gates.

‘Ah, Domitian, you are here at last.’ Vespasian turned as a slight figure appeared in the doorway.

‘Father.’ The young man bowed. ‘Brother. I hope I see you well?’

‘All the better for seeing you, brother,’ Titus replied with an equal lack of sincerity.

‘I wanted to show you what we intend,’ Vespasian smiled, ‘before it is announced in the Senate.’

The smile on Domitian’s face froze at the word ‘we’. That ‘we’ meant the two men who jointly ruled Rome. A ‘we’ that excluded the third, and in Domitian’s view just as capable, member of the Flavian dynasty. They seemed to forget – or deliberately forgot – that in his father’s absence Domitian had taken control of Rome after the death of Vitellius. Reigned as Emperor in all but name for more than six months. He’d begun the rebuilding of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus and the Castra Praetoria, both destroyed in the fighting. Since then he’d been reduced to minor roles. Even his consulship had been a mere suffect appointment, both temporary and honorary. Titus on the other hand was feted wherever he went, everyone’s favourite. Always at his father’s right hand and given command of the Praetorian Guard, a position of immense power. Domitian had been forced to ride with the generals in the wake of the chariot carrying Vespasian and Titus at the triumph to celebrate their victory in the Judaean Wars. Hundreds of thousands of Romans had hailed Titus Imperator as he rode with his father at the head of five legions and countless carriages piled high with the spoils of Jerusalem. Gold and silver wrought in every way imaginable, gems of extraordinary colour and lustre, loose or worked into crowns or diadems, bolts of silk in purple and gold. Had Domitian not fought too, in the final battle that defeated the Batavian rebels of Julius Civilis? And what was his reward? Nothing. Not even a word of thanks from his father, while Petilius Cerialis was appointed governor of Britannia.

‘You look out of countenance, my son. Is something wrong?’

‘A bad piece of fish,’ Domitian lied.

‘You should whip your cook,’ Titus said solemnly. He’d noticed his brother’s reaction and was perfectly aware of the reason. Perhaps if Domitian hadn’t styled himself Caesar and placed himself on the throne the moment Marcus Antonius Primus had retaken the city he might have fared better. It hadn’t helped that he’d married without his father’s permission before the Emperor returned to the capital. And there was something odd about that union. Titus was acquainted with Domitia Longina Corbulo. Clever, beautiful if you liked your women slight and delicate, and with a strong personality that mirrored her soldier father. Too strong, he thought, to be attracted to someone like Domitian. But then, who knew with women? He studied his brother. Unlike Titus, Domitian had failed to inherit his father’s strong features or physical presence. He had a weak chin and a curiously feminine mouth. Where Vespasian was straightforward, loyal to his friends and trustworthy, Titus knew Domitian could be cruel, capricious and downright treacherous. And then there was the matter of Valerius. ‘Come, brother, some fresh air will dispel the ill humours.’

As Vespasian led the way through the corridors to Nero’s man-made lake the two younger Flavians held slightly back.

‘A rumour reached me that a certain member of your household has been in touch with members of the Society,’ Titus said quietly.

‘You should know better than to believe everything you hear at the baths, brother.’ Domitian’s tight smile told his brother he’d been correct. The Society was a guild of criminals: gangsters, thieves and killers for hire. They had their stronghold in the Subura, a pestilential slum in the centre of the city, but their tentacles stretched across the Empire.

‘And you should know that Gaius Valerius Verrens is under my protection – and my father’s.’

‘Why should a crippled upstart with ideas above his station concern me?’ Domitian sneered.

‘You understand exactly what I mean, brother.’ Titus allowed his voice to harden. ‘Verrens is on a mission vital to all our interests. If he is not allowed to complete it you and I may end up in pieces on the Gemonian Stairs like uncle Sabinus.’

‘If he does not complete this vital mission it will not be because of anything I do, it will be because you selected a dangerous fool for the task.’

They glared at each other for a moment. Vespasian tutted. ‘You must never fight, my sons. Our unity is our greatest strength. We three are the future of Rome. Come, Domitian.’

They followed their father out on to the balcony overlooking the lake. ‘This is where I will build our legacy. We will drain the lake and build the greatest arena the world has ever seen’ – he turned to his sons with a smile – ‘and a hundred generations of Romans will give thanks to the Flavians. I will place Nero’s colossus at the gates … with a few alterations, of course. It would be a pity to waste it.’

But Domitian’s thoughts were elsewhere. Rome’s future? His father was in robust health and might live another twenty years. Titus could last another forty and there was no reason he should not yet beget an heir. Only by a happy accident would Titus Flavius Domitianus ever wear the purple. And then there was Verrens. Had his brother been telling the truth about the urgency of this mission?

In a way it didn’t matter. An arrow loosed could not be returned to the bow no matter the good intentions of the archer. He had loosed the arrow and the arrow would take its course. But he had seen what was left of his uncle Sabinus on the Gemonian Stairs and he had no intention of ending up there. It would bear thinking about.