Empire (6 page)

Eye to eye with the ruler of the world, Lucius was buoyed by a curious sense of confidence, remembering the premonition he had experienced in the Temple of Apollo that something very important was about to happen.

“Shall I send him away, Great-Uncle?” said Claudius.

Augustus stared at Lucius, so long and hard that Lucius’s confidence began to waver. The old man finally spoke.

“No. Young Lucius Pinarius may stay. He is an augur now, is he not? And his ancestors were among the very first augurs in Roma. A Pinarius accompanied Romulus when he took the auspices, and before that the Pinarii were keepers of the people’s first shrine, the Great Altar of Hercules. The state assumed that duty over three hundred years ago; perhaps I should return the Great Altar to the hereditary keeping of the Pinarii. Reviving ancient traditions is pleasing to the gods. And he is a blood relation, for whatever that’s worth. Perhaps, Lucius Pinarius, the gods themselves delivered you here to me tonight.”

Lucius averted his eyes, humbled by the emperor’s scrutiny. He stared at the mosaics above them.

“Images from the life of Romulus, as you no doubt perceive,” explained Augustus. “The chamber in which we stand is the Lupercale, the sacred cave where the foundling twins Romulus and Remus were suckled by the she-wolf. I myself discovered the cave when the foundations for this house were being laid, and under my directions it’s been decorated as a sacred shrine.”

“The mosaics are exquisite,” said Lucius.

“Yes. There you see the twins suckled by the she-wolf, and there, the rescue of Remus by his brother, the slaying of King Amulius and the taking of his iron crown. There, the sighting of the vultures, and Romulus plowing a furrow to mark the city boundaries. There, the first triumphal procession, and the king’s ascent to the heavens during a thunderstorm.”

Lucius nodded. He recalled something Claudius had told him, that the emperor had considered taking the name Romulus as a title, rather than
Augustus, but ultimately rejected the name as unlucky; Romulus murdered his brother, after all, and though legend said that Romulus was taken alive by the gods to Olympus, some historians believed he was murdered by conspiring senators.

“Of course, one cannot take the legends too literally,” Claudius noted, pointing to the image of the suckling she-wolf. “My tutor Titus Livius says that our ancestors used the same word,
lupa,
to mean either a she-wolf or a whore. Livius suggests that the twins may have been raised not by a wild beast but by a common prostitute.”

“Don’t be impious, nephew!” snapped Augustus, and seemed about to say more when a crack of thunder shook the room. The emperor frantically reached for the sealskin amulet he wore on a chain around his neck. “Even here, so deep under ground, the earth shakes!” he whispered. “Is it possible the house has been struck by lightning two times in one night?” His rheumy eyes flashed with something Lucius could only interpret as fear.

“Why did you s-s-summon us, Great-Uncle?” asked Claudius quietly.

“I’ll show you now—though to do so, we’ll have to leave the safety of the Lupercale.” Augustus frowned, then braced himself and led the way up the stairs, taking them slowly. Euphranor was waiting for them at the top of the steps. At Augustus’s order, the freedman brought each of them a torch to carry.

“When you see the omen, Claudius, you’ll understand why no one else must know of this. No one!” Augustus turned to Lucius. “Do you understand as well, young man? Any omen that regards my person is a state secret and must never be divulged. There’s no telling how it might be used by those who wish me harm. To divulge such a secret is a crime punishable by death.”

He led them to a courtyard. The neatly trimmed hedges and paving stones glistened. The rain had relented; only a light mist descended on them. The courtyard was dominated by a bronze statue of the emperor himself, painted in lifelike colors.
Did he ever look like that?
wondered Lucius, for the statue of the serenely self-assured, handsome young warrior scarcely resembled the shaken old man standing beside him.

As they stepped closer to the statue, Lucius’s torch illuminated something on the ground, on the far side of the pedestal. It was the dead body
of a young man, dressed in the charred remains of what once had been the tunic of an imperial slave.

“Look there!” cried Augustus. “Wisps of smoke still rise from the corpse. He burns from the inside, like a coal in a brazier.”

Claudius pursed his lips. “This slave—he was k-k-killed by the first lightning bolt, the one that struck while Lucius and I were in the Temple of Apollo?”

“Yes. Lightning struck the statue. The slave must have been standing too close. See the damage to the statue—the places where the paint has been scorched, the way the ivory inlays for the whites of the eyes have turned black!” Augustus sucked in his breath. “By Hercules, the statue has been struck again, by that second lightning bolt, the one we felt down in the Lupercale! It’s incredible. . . .”

“Impossible!” protested Claudius. “All authorities agree, lightning n-n-never strikes the same spot twice. Such a thing is unheard of.”

“And yet, it’s true. The bronze plaque on the pedestal wasn’t damaged before, I swear to Jupiter it wasn’t—but now, see how the letter
C
is missing, blasted into nothing.” Augustus swallowed hard. His face was ashen.

Looking closer, Lucius saw that the damage was just as the emperor had described. On the bronze plaque with an embossed inscription, the first letter of CAESAR had been melted away, leaving almost no trace.

“What does it mean, Claudius?” asked Augustus. “Such freaks of nature are always signs from the gods. Useless as you are for most things, skulking in that library of yours, you do know everything there is to know about omens.”

Claudius touched his fingertips to the scorched bronze plaque, then quickly drew them back. “Too hot to touch!” he gasped, then stared at the plaque and whispered,
“Aesar.”

“What’s that you say?”

Claudius shrugged. “I was simply reading the word that remains, without the letter
C.
”

“But
aesar
is not a word.”

“I think it might be, in Etruscan. I’m not sure.”

“Then find out!”

“T-t-time, Great-Uncle. It will take time to properly interpret such an
omen. Do you not agree, Lucius? We must know to the minute the time of the two lightning strikes. We must know the name of the dead slave. Even the name of the sculptor who made this statue might be significant. I must retire to my library to look through the literature, to c-c-consult my Etruscan dictionaries, to study previous omens derived from lightning.”

“How long will this take?”

Claudius furrowed his brow, then brightened. “Lucius will help me. As you yourself noted, Great-Uncle, it’s no accident that Lucius was with me when you sent that summons. Together, I promise you, Lucius and I will determine the meaning of this omen.”

“Do it quickly!”

“Qu-quick as asparagus, Great-Uncle!” Claudius smiled crookedly and wiped a bit of drool from the corner of his mouth.

“Perhaps our fortunes are about to improve, Lucius,” said Claudius. “We’ve just been given a very important task by the emperor himself. That makes us important men. We’d better get started.”

They were in Claudius’s library. The room was brightly lit by many lamps. Lucius had never seen so many scrolls and scraps of parchment in one place, all neatly, even obsessively, filed and sorted. There were histories, maps, calendars, and genealogies. There were detailed lists of every magistrate who had ever served the Roman state. There were numerous dictionaries, not just of Latin but of Greek, Egyptian, Parthian, the Punic tongue that had died with Carthage, the virtually defunct Etruscan language, and even languages Lucius had never heard of. There were sketches of historic sites Claudius has visited, together with his personal notes and copies of inscriptions taken from statues and other monuments.

Searching among the documents, Claudius found a scroll of heavy parchment, unrolled it on a small table, and placed weights to hold down the corners. A large circle drawn on the parchment was divided into quarters by a vertical line and a horizontal line and surrounded by notations. Though he knew little about astrology, Lucius recognized it as a horoscope.

“And not just any horoscope, but that of the emperor himself,” said Claudius. “This is an exact copy of the very horoscope that was cast for the young Octavius by the astrologer Theogenes of Apollonia. Surely you know the story? No? Ah, well, then . . .” Claudius cleared his throat.

“This was back in the days when the Divine Julius was still on earth, though very near the end of his life. He decided to send his nephew to be educated at Apollonia, on the west coast of Greece. For a companion, Octavius took along his dear friend Marcus Agrippa. The boys decided to have their horoscopes cast by the famous Theogenes. Agrippa went first, telling the astrologer the exact time and place of his birth. Theogenes disappeared into his study while the boys waited. The horoscope that resulted was so f-f-favorable—Theogenes swore he had never seen one to match it—that Octavius decided not to have his done after all, for fear that it would pale beside that of his friend. But Agrippa pressed him—teased him mercilessly, I should imagine—until Octavius relented and gave the astrologer the information he needed. Again the boys waited. When Theogenes finally emerged from his study, he fell to his knees before Octavius in awe, and declared that Octavius would become the master of the world. They say—though I have never been able to verify this for certain—that the horoscope was delivered to Octavius at the very moment that his uncle was murdered back in Roma.

“Ever since that day, the emperor has been so sure of his d-d-destiny that he’s made no secret of the hour of his birth. He even puts his sign, Capricornus, on his c-coinage. If anything merits classification as a state secret, you’d think it’s the emperor’s horoscope! Yet here it is, for you and me to study, just as Theogenes cast it. And since we have access to the information, we might as well use it.”

“But, Claudius, I know nothing about astrology.”

“Then you shall leave this room knowing more than when you entered.”

“But the magister says that augury is sufficient for all divinations.”

“I suspect the magister is a bit envious of the increasing popularity of astrology. I myself see no conflict between the principles of augury and the study of astral science. Any thoughtful person must perceive that heavenly bodies exert an influence on objects both animate and inanimate.
Certain effects of the sun and moon are obvious: they cause vegetation to grow, determine when animals sleep and rut, and control the tides. Likewise, the stars control storms and floods, which can be observed to come and go according to the rise and fall of certain constellations. This influence is invisible, as is the influence of a magnet. Considering the all-pervasive nature of this invisible influence, it would be irrational to presume that it does not exert an effect on human beings.

“It was the Babylonians who first charted the movements of the stars and created a vocabulary to describe their influence on humankind. After Alexander the Great conquered Persia, the study of astrology spread to Greece and Egypt. It was the Babylonian priest Berossus who moved to Cos, founded the first astrological school in Greece, and translated
The Eye of Bel
into Greek. It was Bolus of Egypt who wrote
Sympathies and Antipathies,
which remains the standard textbook. I’ve almost worn my copy out.”

Lucius stared at the horoscope, puzzling over the mathematical calculations and the notations about houses, signs, and planets. “Do you really think the solution to the lightning omen lies in the emperor’s horoscope?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it has some role to play in our research. But I think we should begin by consulting my Etruscan dictionaries, to see if I’m right about this word
aesar
. . . .”

All night the storm continued, rattling the shutters, pelting the roof with rain, and shaking the ground with thunder, while Lucius and Claudius pored over various texts. From time to time, slaves brought them food and drink and replenished the lamps when the oil ran low. Lucius was not aware that dawn had broken until he heard a cock crow. Claudius opened the shutters. The storm had passed. The sky was clear. But the pale morning sunshine could not dispel the grim mood in the room. They had succeeded in interpreting the omen.

“Perhaps we could tell him that the omen defeated us, that we discovered nothing,” said Lucius.

Claudius shook his head. “He won’t accept that. He’d be able to tell at once that we were hiding something.”

“Then perhaps he’ll simply dismiss our interpretation. Why should he believe the two youngest augurs in Roma?”

“Because our interpretation is correct, as he will see for himself. Great-Uncle
has a deep and abiding faith in omens. The outcome of every one of his b-b-battles was foretold by an omen which he himself divined—the eagle that drove away two ravens at Bononia, which foretold his eventual triumph over his fellow triumvirs; the shade of Caesar that appeared before Philippi; the driver and ass he met on the road before the battle of Actium, one named Eutychus and the other Nicon—Greek for ‘prosper’ and ‘victory.’ ”