Master and God (49 page)

Lucilla smiled serenely. ‘Would you like me to kiss our Master’s tunic hem for you, darling?’

‘No! You know I try
never
to be noticed by the great.’

‘You have not done too badly then, Gaius.’

‘Yes, my father would be ecstatic.’

‘I think I’ll have a cameo carved to celebrate your glorious career. You will ride in a chariot with gambolling cupids, wearing your oakleaf wreath and looking shy of the attention. It will be titled, The Triumph of Diffidence.’

‘Have you kept my golden oakleaves?’

‘They are a swine to dust. But maybe one day the name Clodianus will be famous.’

‘If I thought that,’ said Gaius, with feeling, ‘it would really worry me!’

Lucilla was one of the first people who knew the wife of chief secretary Abascantus was ill. Hairdressers notice the health of their clients. Hair becomes lacklustre or even falls out, sometimes before any other symptoms of disease present themselves. Clients share bad news with their hairdressers too. Their special intimate relationship encourages people who would not normally open up to trust their stylist. It is understood that nothing said while the comb is plied will be passed on.

Priscilla needed a confidante. She shared her fears with Lucilla early on, yet she was concerned to keep the information from her husband for as long as possible. This was how they lived; his work for the Emperor was too important to be disrupted by anxiety for her. Domitian, of course, took Abascantus’ devotion for granted.

Priscilla was
very
ill. That quickly became obvious. Abascantus had to be informed. Although Priscilla had not previously been a favourite customer, Lucilla was upset by the situation. She tended Priscilla gently on her sickbed, making her more comfortable and tidying her when her ravaged appearance embarrassed her. Doctors came and went, but despite the very best attention it was clear there was no hope. Soon, Priscilla no longer wanted the fuss of being touched, though Lucilla continued to visit her.

When Priscilla died, Abascantus was with her. Lucilla witnessed the human side of what was supposed to be faceless bureaucracy. The man was devastated. He had lost the driving force of his life. Theirs had been a partnership where the husband was the public face, yet the powerful woman made decisions, kept him to the mark, gave him his energy and his will to prosper. While he worked late by lamplight, instead of sending slaves, Priscilla herself tiptoed in with refreshments – frugal snacks of course, because that was what Our Master and God himself liked.

Losing her, Abascantus was crushed.

A year later Statius wrote a poem of consolation, where he claimed the chief secretary had been so bereft he raved, threw himself upon his wife’s body, threatened suicide. Certainly when Gaius took Lucilla to the funeral they were both shocked by the extravagance of the cortege and the opulence of the tomb Abascantus provided, even though by that time the freedman was conducting himself with dignity.

Lucilla herself had been shaken by Priscilla’s death. It was by no means the first time she lost a customer but she was caught off guard. Gaius had accompanied her to the funeral to support her; he had some obligation to Abascantus as a member of his committee, but he would probably not have attended otherwise.

After seeing the flamboyant parade the freedman gave his wife, Lucilla muttered grimly, ‘I give it a year. You see; he will soon remarry.’

‘Men are all bastards, you think?’

‘No; he just won’t be able to bear being on his own.’

Lucilla and Gaius were at home by then. Struck by melancholy, she asked him, ‘What would you do, if you lost me? Would your grief be so outlandish?’

‘I would not show my heart to the world.’

‘No; you are very different.’

Lucilla knew Gaius would not stagily finger a sword blade, nor would he run to a high crag and threaten to jump off, as Abascantus was supposed to have done. Gaius did not issue ‘cries for help’ like
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advertisements. He was sentimental but he either endured his feelings in private or got on logically and dealt with the problem. This was in part because he was a soldier, but it also derived from his character and heritage. Although Lucilla had never met his father, from what she had heard, Gaius was still influenced by that strong-willed tribune.

Nevertheless, Gaius showed unexpected sympathy for Abascantus. ‘I can see why he splashed out on myrrh and balsam, why all those expensive statues in the tomb and the elaborate funeral banquets. He must be thinking, what is the point of the money now she is gone? What was it striven for, if not to give them a good life together? . . . If I lost you, I would feel the same. I would send you off in style, my love, if it seemed the appropriate gesture – I know there are plenty of people who would want to mourn, and I would let them. But privately, I would never, ever be consoled.’

‘Would you take up with someone else?’

‘No.’

Lucilla doubted men’s claims; that was why she distrusted Abascantus’ exaggerated display. But she believed Gaius.

After Dacia, neither needed to ask the other question: how Lucilla would feel if she lost him. But she had been younger then, and not bound to him. When she curled up against him now and cried, it was more than her grief for Priscilla. It gave belated relief for the pain she still remembered. Gaius held her, comforting her, and as she clutched his hand against her cheek, he was again moved by her deep feelings.

For Abascantus, difficulties continued. It was reported that Priscilla’s last words had been to encourage his devoted service to Domitian. That must continue at all costs. The ethos of public service was to bury yourself in your work, solace in itself.

Once the freedman was able to return to his duties, Gaius expected to be called to a new meeting of the safety committee. When it failed to happen, he risked wary enquiries. To his surprise, he learned Abascantus was no longer in Rome. Domitian’s distrust of his freedmen had claimed another victim. The Emperor continued to work his way across the secretariats, replacing imperial servants with men of equestrian rank he had chosen himself. Now he had dismissed Abascantus.

The circumstances of any freedman’s banishment were by convention murky. There was only one reason a senior official was removed: embezzlement. Fraud need not have taken place. Even if the real reason was that his imperial master could not stand the sight of him, mishandling funds was a useful public excuse. It would be ungrateful to dismiss a freedman otherwise, someone born and bred to palace service, someone completely devoted to the Emperor. (Any emperor he was stuck with.) There had to be rules, all the more so in times of upset.

Otherwise, unless imperial bureaucrats became completely decrepit, they never expected to leave; their duty to the emperor was for life. That sometimes meant their life ended prematurely. Nero famously disposed of his predecessor’s chief minister, the legendary manipulator and plutocrat Narcissus, by making him go into exile ‘for his health’. Understood by everyone as an order to commit suicide, Narcissus swiftly took the hint.

So, Abascantus had unexpectedly retired. What, Gaius wondered, would happen to the committee now?

He went next door, intending to ask Casperius Aelianus. He had another surprise. The Prefect’s office was empty, his clerical staff moping in corridors, frightened and miserable about their futures. In the latest cull of officials, Domitian had also decided to terminate the ten-year unblemished career of his Praetorian Prefect. ‘My Emperor, right or wrong’ had failed to shield the commander from suspicion: he, too, had been dropped.

Casperius Aelianus went quietly. Keeping his dignity, he made no complaint. Prefects had been replaced before; he knew there was no stain on his record. Even so, he had been popular. Men were loyal to him. Around the Praetorian Camp the musty whiff of imperial ingratitude now hummed, as if there was a problem with the drains.

Gaius had known the man since his own release from Dacian captivity. He owed Casperius Aelianus his move to the headquarters staff. He found such a change without warning hurt like a kick in the guts. He was as loyal to the Emperor as the next Guard, but he reeled for a moment, uncertain where this left him.

T
he following year Domitian awarded himself his seventeenth consulship. Statius wrote a poem.

Oh go on, surprise me!

I knew you would mock.

Grovelling bastard.

There were always two consuls. This was a Roman measure to avoid abuse of power, though it was incapable of curbing a deluded emperor. Once an annual appointment, there was a faster turnover nowadays to give promotion to more; one year, clearing a backlog, Domitian had appointed a bumper series of eleven. Hardly time to read the files before moving on.

Alongside him now in the position of honour, Domitian appointed his cousin Flavius Clemens, husband of Flavia Domitilla. Domitian’s own consulship was notional, a few days only, but Clemens was listed to serve until April. If Statius ever contemplated a poem to celebrate this public appointment, he thought better of it. For Clemens and Domitilla, it was the beginning of the end.

Lucilla became concerned. Whenever she visited, she could see Flavia Domitilla feared the consulship. She lost weight and became abstracted. From the moment the couple had been informed, when the list of consuls was published the previous autumn, Domitilla had believed they were fated. There was nothing they could do. Clemens could not refuse. No Roman turned down a consulship unless he was gravely ill, let alone when he was to hold the role at the same time as the Emperor. It was announced. It was inescapable. And it boded ill.

When Domitian became emperor fifteen years before, his first partner as consul had been Clemens’ elder brother, Flavius Sabinus. Keeping it in the family. That was the Flavian system, the way Vespasian and his own elder brother operated. Maybe Sabinus upset Domitian by his presumption he was the imperial heir. Perhaps he flaunted his hopes. He was the senior family member and events had not yet shown how dangerous Domitian could be. But Domitian executed Sabinus without offering a reason, immediately he gave up his post.

Later, Domitian repeated the pattern: Arrecinus Clemens, in-law of Titus and close to Julia: consul, then killed. Then Glabrio, allegedly impious and plotting revolution: first the honour, then lion-fighting, exile and death. Next, the stoics, Rusticus and the younger Helvidius: both consuls, both tried for treason and killed. Aelius Lamia, Domitia’s first husband: the same grim sequence.

Who would seek this supreme Roman honour now? Especially if Domitian could convince himself in his dark private ramblings that a consul had an eye on his throne?

Flavius Clemens would never put himself out to usurp. Unqualified for anything, he was despicably lazy. He had held no military or civic posts, content to enjoy his position as a fortunate member of the ruling family. He accepted the benefits without the responsibilities. It was a far cry from the Flavians’ origins, dedicating themselves to acquiring not just position and money, but honour. Vespasian and his brother Sabinus both seized every rank, packed with political energy and driven by a genuine belief that lifetime service to Rome was the highest goal.

Clemens accepted the status they won as his birthright. Vespasian and his brother would have been scathing. They would have shaken him up, too, in the way Domitian had been compelled to live with his father, in order to control inappropriate behaviour and to be trained in statecraft. Instead, as long as Lachne and Lara had served the family, as long as Lucilla herself had been associated with them, Clemens and his wife Domitilla had led an existence on the fringe of the imperial family that had little meaning or worth. They were only ever respected for who they were, never for anything Clemens achieved, for he achieved nothing.

Conversely, they did no harm. Flavia Domitilla, the daughter of Domitian’s long-dead sister, was pleasant and loved by those who knew her.

Lucilla had groomed this woman’s hair for over fifteen years now, weaving her coronets of curls since helping Lachne. Rank distanced them, yet tending Flavia Domitilla was a routine of her own existence. They exchanged little gifts at Saturnalia and on birthdays. They spoke frankly of ailments, Lucilla grumbling about the pains in her neck and shoulders that were a consequence of her profession with its frequent standing and working with raised arms. Saying she served the Emperor’s niece had undoubtedly helped Lucilla build her wider clientele.

Domitilla was now almost the only person Lucilla dealt with who had known Lachne and Lara. She would occasionally reminisce about them, a kindness which showed she understood their significance to Lucilla.

Lucilla knew the Flavians generally treated their women well. Vespasian’s mother and grandmother had brought status and money to the comparatively undistinguished provincial men they married. Both women had been astute and forthright. Vespasian had been partly brought up by his grandmother on her estate at Cosa on the north-west coast of Italy; everyone knew he had liked to return there. His mother was another strong character; she was said to have bullied him into public life when he showed reluctance. So, although their women seemed to stay in the background publicly, that was from choice. They were traditional. That had never meant subservient.

Domitilla was an only child. She had lost her mother when she was very young and whoever her father was, he faded from the scene or died too. Like her Uncle Domitian and Cousin Julia, she was brought up by others in the family. She saw no reason to treat her uncle deferentially, but sniffed at his grandiose ideas and deplored his conceit with eye-rolling glances.

It was inevitable Domitilla would be married early, and to another cousin, Clemens. Despite what people said about the repeated intermarriage of such close relations, she became the mother of seven children, for which in Roman society a woman was greatly honoured. After producing her third, the Augustan laws gave her the right to run her own affairs without a guardian although, as far as Lucilla could see, this made little difference in practice. She was never aware of Flavia Domitilla possessing estates of her own; if she did, her husband probably assumed nominal control but left everything to managers. Clothes and jewels were suitably abundant for a niece of the reigning emperor who appeared with him at court and in the imperial box at festivals. Her hair, of course, was immaculate. Lucilla’s bills for this were slow to be honoured, though she was eventually paid.