Caesar Dies - Talbot Mundy
"What do they propose to substitute in popular esteem?" asked Pertinax.
"I don't know. They're mad enough for anything, and their hold over
Marcia is beyond belief. The next thing you'll know, they'll persuade
her it's against religion to be Caesar's mistress! They're quite
capable of sawing off the branch they're sitting on. By Hercules, I
hope they do it! Some of us might go down in the scramble, but--"
"Does Marcia give Christian reasons to the emperor?" asked Pertinax, his
forehead puzzled.
"No, no. No, by Hercules. No, no. Marcia is as skillful at managing
Commodus as he is at hurling a javelin or driving horses. She talks
about the dignity of Caesar and the glory of Rome--uses truth adroitly
for her own ends--argues that if he continues to keep company with
gladiators and jockeys, and insists on taking part in the combats, Rome
may begin to despise him."
"Rome does!" murmured Pertinax, his eyes and lips suggesting a mere
flicker of a smile. "But only let Commodus once wake up to the fact
and--"
Bultius Livius nodded.
"He will return the compliment and show us how to despise at wholesale,
eh? Marcia's life and yours and mine wouldn't be worth an hour's
purchase. The problem is, who shall warn Marcia? She grows intolerant
of friendly hints. I made her a present the other day of eight matched
German' litter-bearers--beauties--they cost a fortune--and I took the
opportunity to have a chat with her. She told me to go home and try to
manage my own wife! Friendly enough--she laughed--she meant no enmity;
but shrewd though she is, and far-seeing though she is, the wine of
influence is going to her head. You know what that portends. Few men,
and fewer women, can drink deeply of that wine and--"
"She comes," said Pertinax.
There was a stir near the bronze door leading to the women's disrobing
hall. Six women in a group were answering greetings, Marcia in their
midst, but no man in the Thermae looked at them a moment longer than was
necessary to return the wave of the hand with which Marcia greeted every
one before walking down the steps into the plunge. She did not even
wear the customary bracelet with its numbered metal disk; not even the
attendants at the Thermae would presume to lose the clothing of the
mistress of the emperor. Commodus, who at the age of twelve had flung a
slave into the furnace because the water was too hot, would have made
short work of any one who mislaid Marcia's apparel.
She did not belie her reputation. It was no wonder that the sculptors
claimed that every new Venus they turned out was Marcia's portrait. Her
beauty, as her toes touched water, was like that of Aphrodite rising
from the wave. The light from the dome shone golden on her brown hair
and her glossy skin. She was a thing of sensuous delight, incapable of
coarseness, utterly untouched by the suggestion of vulgarity, and yet--
"It is strange she should take up with fancy religions," said Pertinax
under his breath.
She was pagan in every gesture, and not a patrician. That was
indefinable but evident to trained eyes. Neither he, who knew her
intimately, nor the newest, newly shaven son of a provincial for the
first time exploring the wonders of Rome, could have imagined her as
anything except a rich man's mistress.
She plunged into the pool and swam like a mermaid, her companions
following, climbed out at the farther end, where the diving-boards
projected in tiers, one above the other, and passed through a bronze
door into the first of the sweating rooms, evidently conscious of the
murmur of comment that followed her, but taking no overt notice of it.
"Who is to be the next to try to reason with her--you?" asked Boltius
Livius.
"No, not I. I have shot my bolt," said Pertinax and closed his eyes, as
if to shut out something from his memory--or possibly to banish thoughts
he did not relish. There came a definite, hard glint into Livius's
eyes; he had a name for being sharper to detect intrigue and its
ramifications than even the sharp outline of his face would indicate.
"You have heard of her latest indiscretion?" he asked, narrowly watching
Pertinax. "There is a robber at large, named Maternus--you have heard
of him? The man appears and disappears. Some say he is the same
Maternus who was crucified near Antioch at about the time when you were
there; some say he isn't. He is reported to visit Rome in various
disguises, and to be able to conduct himself so well that he can pass
for a patrician. Some say he has a large band; some say, hardly any
followers. Some say it was he who robbed the emperor's own mail a month
ago. He is reported to be here, there, everywhere; but there came at
last reliable information that he lives in a cave in the woods on an
estate that fell to the fiscus (the government department into which all
payments were made, corresponding roughly to a modern treasury
department) at the time when Maximus and his son Sextus were
proscribed."
Pertinax looked bored. He yawned.
"I think I will go in and sweat a while," he remarked.
"Not yet. Let me finish," said Livius. "It was reported to Caesar that
the highwayman Maternus lives in a cave on this Aventine estate, and
that the slaves and tenants on the place, who, of course, all passed to
the new owner when the estate was sold, not only tolerate him but supply
him with victuals and news. Caesar went into one of his usual frenzies,
cursed half the senators by name, and ordered out a cohort from a legion
getting ready to embark at Ostia. He ordered them to lay waste the
estate, burn all the woods and if necessary torture the slaves and
tenants, until they had Maternus. Dead or alive, they were not to dare
to come without him, and meanwhile the rest of the legion was kept
waiting at Ostia, with all the usual nuisance of desertions and
drunkenness and what not else."
"Everybody knows about that," said Pertinax. "As governor of Rome it
was my duty to point out to the emperor the inconvenience of keeping
that legion waiting under arms so near the city. I was snubbed for my
pains, but I did my duty."
"Your duty? There were plenty of people more concerned than you," said
Livius, looking again as if he thought he had detected an intrigue.
"There were the Ostian authorities, for instance, but I did not hear of
their complaining."
"Naturally not," said Pertinax, suppressing irritation. "Every day the
legion lingered there meant money for the enterprising city fathers. I
am opposed to all the petty pouching of commissions that goes on."
"Doubtless. Being governor of Rome, you naturally--"
"I have heard of peculations at the palace," Pertinax interrupted.
"Be that as it may, Commodus ordered out the cohort, sent it marching
and amused himself inventing new ingenious torments for Maternus.
Alternatively, he proposed to himself to have the cohort slaughtered in
the arena, officers and all, if they should fail of their mission; so
it was safe to wager they were going to bring back some one said to be
Maternus, whether or not they caught the right man. Commodus was
indulging in one of his storms of imperial righteousness. He was going
to stamp out lawlessness. He was going to make it safe for any one to
come or go along the Roman roads. Oh, he was in a fine Augustan mood.
It wasn't safe for any one but Marcia to come within a mile of him.
Scowl--you know that scowl of his--it freezes the very sentries on the
wall if he looks at their backs through the window! I don't suppose
there was a woman in Rome just then who would have cared to change
places with Marcia! He sent for her, and half the palace betted she was
ripe for banishment to one of those island retreats where Crispina (the
wife of Commodus who was banished to the isle of Capreae and there
secretly put to death) lived less than a week! But Marcia is fertile of
surprises. She won't surprise me if she outlives Commodus--by Hercules,
she won't surprise me if--"
He stared at Pertinax with impudently keen eyes. Pertinax looked at the
bronze door leading to the sweating room, shrugging himself as if the
frigidarium had grown too cool for comfort.
"Marcia actually persuaded Commodus to countermand the order!" Livius
said, emphasizing each word. "Almighty Jove can only guess what
argument she used, but if Maternus had been one of her pet Christians
she couldn't have saved him more successfully. Commodus sent a messenger
post-haste that night to recall the cohort."
"And a good thing too," Pertinax remarked. "It isn't a legion's
business to supply cohorts to do the work of the district police. There
were five thousand raw men on the verge of mutiny in Ostia--"
"And--wait a minute--and," said Livius, "don't go yet--this is
interesting: Marcia, that same night, sent a messenger of her own to
find Maternus and to warn him."
"How do you know?" Pertinax let a sign of nervousness escape him.
"In the palace, those of us who value our lives and our fortunes make it
a business to know what goes on," Livius answered with a dry laugh,
"just as you take care to know what goes on in the city, Pertinax."
The older man looked worried.
"Do you mean it is common gossip in the palace?" he demanded.
"You are the first man I have spoken with. There are therefore only
three who know, if you count the slave whom Marcia employed; four if you
count Marcia. I had the great good luck not long ago to catch that
slave in flagrante delicto--never mind what he was doing; that is
another story altogether--and he gave me an insight into a number of
useful secrets. The point is, that particular slave takes care not to
run errands nowadays without informing me. There is not much that
Marcia does that I don't know about." Livius' eyes suggested gimlets
boring holes into Pertinax's face. Not a change of the other's
expression escaped him. Pertinax covered his mouth with his hand,
pretending to yawn. He slapped his thighs to suggest that his
involuntary shudder was due to having sat too long. But he did not
deceive Livius. "It is known to me," said Livius, "that you and Marcia
are in each other's confidence."
"That makes me doubt your other information," Pertinax retorted. "No man
can jump to such a ridiculous conclusion and call it knowledge without
making me doubt him on all points. You bore me, Livius. I have
important business waiting; I must make haste into the sweating room
and get that over with."
But Livius' sharp, nervous laugh arrested him.
"Not yet, friend Pertinax! Let Rome wait! Rome's affairs will outlive
both of us. I suspect you intend to tell Marcia to have my name
included in the next proscription list! But I am not quite such a
simpleton as that. Sit down and listen. I have proof that you plotted
with the governor of Antioch to have an unknown criminal executed in
place of a certain Norbanus, who escaped with your connivance and has
since become a follower of the highwayman Maternus. That involves you
rather seriously, doesn't it! You see, I made sure of my facts before
approaching you. And now--admit that I approached you tactfully! Come,
Pertinax, I made no threats until you let me see I was in danger. I
admire you. I regard you as a brave and an honorable Roman. I propose
that you and I shall understand each other. You must take me into
confidence, or I must take steps to protect myself."
There was a long pause while a group of men and women came and chattered
near by, laughing while one of the men tried to win a wager by climbing
a marble pillar. Pertinax frowned. Livius did his best to look
dependable and friendly, but his eyes were not those of a boon
companion.
"You are incapable of loyalty to any one except yourself," said Pertinax
at last. "What pledge do you propose to offer me?"
"A white bull to Jupiter Capitolinus! I am willing to go with you to
the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and to swear on the altar whatever
solemn oath you wish."
Pertinax smiled cynically.
"The men who slew Julius Caesar were under oath to him," he remarked.
"Most solemn oaths they swore, then turned on one another like a pack of
wolves! Octavian and Anthony were under oath; and how long did that
last? My first claim to renown was based on having rewon the allegiance
of our troops in Britain, who had broken the most solemn oath a man can
take--of loyalty to Rome. An oath binds nobody. It simply is an
emphasis of what a man intends that minute. It expresses an emotion. I
believe the gods smile when they hear men pledge themselves. I
personally, who am far less than a god and far less capable of reading
men's minds, never trust a man unless I like him, or unless he gives me
pledges that make doubt impossible."
"Then you don't like me?" asked Livius.
"I would like you better if I knew that I could trust you."
"You shall, Pertinax! Bring witnesses! I will commit myself before
your witnesses to do my part in--"
His restless eyes glanced right and left. Then he lowered his voice.
"--in bringing about the political change you contemplate."
"Let us go to the sweating room," Pertinax answered. "Keep near me. I
will think this matter over. If I see you holding speech not audible to
me, with any one--"
"I am already pledged. You may depend on me," said Livius. "I trust
you more because you use caution. Come."
VI. THE EMPEROR COMMODUS
The imperial palace was a maze of splendor such as Babylon had never
seen. It had its own great aqueducts to carry water for its fountains,
for the gardens and for the imperial baths that were as magnificent, if
not so large, as the Thermae of Titus. Palace after palace had been
wrecked, remodeled and included in the whole, under the succeeding
emperors, until the imperial quarters on the Palatine had grown into a
city within a city.
There were barracks for the praetorian guard that lacked not much of
being a fortress. Rooms and stairways for the countless slaves were
like honeycomb cells in the dark foundations. There were underground
passages, some of them secret, some notorious, connecting wing with
wing; and there was one, for the emperor's private use, that led to the
great arena where the games were held, so that he might come and go with
less risk of assassination.
Even temples had been taken over and included within the surrounding
wall to make room for the ever-multiplying suites of state apartments,
as each Caesar strove to outdo the magnificence of his predecessor.
Oriental marble, gold-leaf, exotic trees, silk awnings, fountains, the
majestic figures of the guards, the bronze doors and the huge height of
the buildings, awed even the Romans who were used to them.
The throne-room was a place of such magnificence that it was said that
even Caesar himself felt small in it. The foreign kings, ambassadors
and Roman citizens admitted there to audience were disciplined without
the slightest difficulty; there was no unseemliness, no haste, no
crowding; horribly uncomfortable in the heavy togas that court
etiquette prescribed, reminded of their dignity by colossal statues of
the noblest Romans of antiquity, and ushered by magnificently uniformed
past masters of the art of ceremony, all who entered felt that they were
insignificant intruders into a golden mystery. The palace prefect in
his cloak of cloth of gold, with his ivory wand of office, seemed a high
priest of eternity; subprefects, standing in the marble antechamber to
examine visitors' credentials and see that none passed in improperly
attired, were keepers of Olympus.
The gilded marble throne was on a dais approached by marble steps,
beneath a balcony to which a stair ascended from behind a carved screen.
Trumpets announced the approach of Caesar, who could enter unobserved
through a door at the side of the dais. From the moment that the trumpet
sounded, and the guards grew as rigid as the basalt statues in the
niches of the columned walls, it was a punishable crime to speak or even
to move until Caesar appeared and was seated.
Nor was Caesar himself an anticlimax. Even Nero, nerveless in his
latter days, when self-will and debauchery had pouched his eyes and
stomach, had possessed the Roman gift of standing like a god. Vespasian
and Titus, each in turn, was Mars personified. Aurelius had typified a
gentler phase of Rome, a subtler dignity, but even he, whose worst
severity was tempered by the philosophical regret that he could not kill
crime with kindliness, had worn the imperial purple like Olympus'
delegate.
Commodus, in the minutes that he spared from his amusements to accept
the glamor of the throne, was perfect. Handsomest of all the Caesars,
he could act his part with such consummate majesty that men who knew him
intimately half-believed he was a hero after all. Athletic, muscular
and systematically trained, his vigor, that was purely physical, passed
readily for spiritual quality within that golden hall, where the
resources of the world were all put under tribute to provide a royal
setting. He emerged. He smiled, as if the sun shone. He observed the
rolled petitions, greetings, testimonials of flattery from private
citizens and addresses of adulation from distant cities, being heaped
into a gilded basket as the silent throng filed by beneath him. He
nodded. Now and then he scowled, his irritation growing as the minutes
passed. At each gesture of impatience the subprefects quietly impelled
the crowd to quicker movement. But at the end of fifteen minutes
Commodus grew tired of dignity and his ferocious scowl clouded his face
like a thunderstorm.
"Am I to sit here while the whole world makes itself ridiculous by
staring at me?" he demanded, in a harsh voice. It was loud enough to
fill the throne-room, but none knew whether it was meant for an aside or
not and none dared answer him. The crowd continued flowing by, each
raising his right hand and bowing as he reached the square of carpet
that was placed exactly in front of Caesar's throne.
Commodus rose to his feet. All movement ceased then and there was utter
silence. For a moment he stood scowling at the crowd, one hand resting
on the golden lion's head that flanked the throne. Then he laughed.
"Too many petitions!" he sneered, pointing at the overflowing basket;
and in another moment he had vanished through the door behind the marble
screen. Met and escorted up the stairs by groups of cringing slaves, he
reached a columned corridor. Rich carpets lay on the mosaic floor;
sunlight, from under; the awnings of a balcony glorious with potted
flowers, shone on the colored statuary and the Grecian paintings.
"What are all these women doing?" he demanded. There were girls, half-
hidden behind the statues, each one trying, as he passed her, to divine
his mood and to pose attractively.
"Where is Marcia? What will she do to me next? Is this some new scheme
of hers to keep me from enjoying my manhood? Send them away! The next
girl I catch in the corridor shall be well whipped. Where is Marcia?"
Throwing away his toga for a slave to catch and fold he turned between
gilded columns, through a bronze door, into the antechamber of the royal
suite. There a dozen gladiators greeted him as if he were the sun
shining out of the clouds after a month of rainy weather.
"This is better!" he exclaimed. "Ho, there, Narcissus! Ho, there,
Horatius! Ha! So you recover, Albinus? What a skull the man has! Not
many could take what I gave him and be on their feet again within the
week! You may follow me, Narcissus. But where is Marcia?"
Marcia called to him through the curtained door that led to the next
room--
"I am waiting, Commodus."
"By Jupiter, when she calls me Commodus it means an argument! Are some
more of her Christians in the carceres, I wonder? Or has some new
highwayman--By Juno's breasts, I tremble when she calls me Commodus!"
The gladiators laughed. He made a pass at one of them, tripped him,
scuffled a moment and raised him struggling in the air, then flung him
into the nearest group, who broke his fall and set him on his feet
again.
"Am I strong enough to face my Marcia?" he asked and, laughing, passed
into the other room, where half a dozen women grouped themselves around
the imperial mistress.
"What now?" he demanded. "Why am I called Commodus?"
He stood magnificent, with folded arms, confronting her, play-acting the
part of a guiltless man arraigned before the magistrate.
"O Roman Hercules," she said, "I spoke in haste, you came so much sooner
than expected. What woman can remember you are anything but Caesar when
you smile at her? I am in love, and being loved, I am--"
"Contriving some new net for me, I'll wager! Come and watch the new men
training with the caestus; I will listen to your plan for ruling me and
Rome while the sight of a good set-to stirs my genius to resist your
blandishments!"
"Caesar," she said, "speak first with me alone." Instantly his manner
changed. He made a gesture of impatience. His sudden scowl frightened
the women standing behind Marcia, although she appeared not to notice
it, with the same peculiar trick of seeming not to see what she did not
wish to seem to see that she had used when she walked naked through the
Thermae.
"Send your scared women away then," he retorted. "I trust Narcissus.
You may speak before him."
Her women vanished, hurrying into another room, the last one drawing a
cord that closed a jingling curtain.
"Do you not trust me?" asked Marcia. "And is it seemly, Commodus, that
I should speak to you before a gladiator?"
"Speak or be silent!" he grumbled, giving her a black look, but she did
not seem to notice it. Her genius--the secret of her power--was to seem
forever imperturbable and loving.
"Let Narcissus bear witness then; since Caesar bids me, I obey! Again
and again I have warned you, Caesar. If I were less your slave and more
your sycophant I would have tired of warning you. But none shall say of
Marcia that her Caesar met Nero's fate, whose women ran away and left
him. Not while Marcia lives shall Commodus declare he has no friends."
"Who now?" he demanded angrily. "Get me my tablet! Come now, name me
your conspirators and they shall die before the sun sets!"
When he scowled his beauty vanished, his eyes seeming to grow closer
like an ape's. The mania for murder that obsessed him tautened his
sinews. Cheeks, neck, forearms swelled with knotted strength.
Ungovernable passion shook him.
"Name them!" he repeated, beckoning unconsciously for the tablet that
none dared thrust into his hand.
"Shall I name all Rome?" asked Marcia, stepping closer, pressing herself
against him. "O Hercules, my Roman Hercules--does love, that makes us
women see, put bandages on men's eyes? You have turned your back upon
the better part of Rome to--"
"Better part?" He shook her by the shoulders, snorting. "Liars,
cowards, ingrates, strutting peacocks, bladders of wind boring me and
one another with their empty phrases, cringing lick-spittles--they make
me sick to look at them! They fawn on me like hungry dogs. By Jupiter,
I make myself ridiculous too often, pandering to a lot of courtiers! If
they despise me then as I despise myself, I am in a bad way! I must
make haste and live again! I will get the stench of them out of my
nostrils and the sickening sight of them out of my eyes by watching true
men fight! When I slay lions with a javelin, or gladiators--"
"You but pander to the rabble," Marcia interrupted. "So did Nero. Did
they come to his aid when the senate and his friends deserted him?"
"Don't interrupt me, woman! Senate! Court!" he snorted. "I can rout
the senate with a gesture! I will fill my court with gladiators! I can
change my ministers as often as I please--aye, and my mistress too," he
added, glaring at her. "Out with the names of these new conspirators
who have set you trembling for my destiny!"
"I know none--not yet," she said. "I can feel, though. I hear the
whispers in the Thermae--"
"By Jupiter, then I will close the Thermae."
"When I pass through the streets I read men's faces--"
"Snarled, have they? My praetorian guard shall show them what it is to
be bitten! Mobs are no new things in Rome. The old way is the proper
way to deal with mobs! Blood, corn and circuses, but principally blood!
By the Dioscuri, I grow weary of your warnings, Marcia!"
He thrust her away from him and went growling like a bear into his own
apartment, where his voice could be heard cursing the attendants whose
dangerous duty it was to divine in an instant what clothes he would wear
and to help him into them. He came out naked through the door, saw
Marcia talking to Narcissus, laughed and disappeared again. Marcia
raised her voice:
"Telamonion! Oh, Telamonion!"
A curly-headed Greek boy hardly eight years old came running from the
outer corridor--all laughter--one of those spoiled favorites of fortune
whom it was the fashion to keep as pets. Their usefulness consisted
mainly in retention of their innocence.