The Roman (25 page)

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neglected his duties as doorkeeper and vanished to some unknown place. Aunt Laelia, frightened of thieves, demanded that I reprimand him. �I am a citizen like other people,� he protested, �and give my basket of corn to the house when there�s a distribution. You know I don�t bother much about the gods. I�ve been content to make sacrifices to Hercules occasionally when in real need, but with old age creeping on, one has to put one�s house in order. Several firemen and other old soldiers have got me to join a secret society, thanks to which I shall never die.� �The underworld is a gloomy place,� I said. �The shades will have to make do with licking the blood around the sacrificial altars. Wouldn�t it be wiser to submit to your fate and be content with the shades and ashes when your life-span is over?� But Barbus shook his head. �I�ve no right to reveal the initiates� secrets, he said, �but I can tell you that the new god�s name is Mithras. He was born out of a mountain. Shepherds found him and bowed down before him. Then he killed the great bull and brought all that is good to the world. He has promised immortality to all his initiates who have been baptized in blood. If I�ve got it right, I�ll get new limbs after death and go to fine barracks where the duties are light and the wine and honey always plentiful.� �Barbus,� I said warningly, �I thought you�d had enough experience now not to believe such old wives� tales. You should take a cure at a spa. I�m afraid your constant drinking is making you see things.� But Barbus raised his trembling hands with dignity. �No, no,� he said, �when the words are spoken and the light from his crown shines in the darkness and the holy bell begins to ring, then one trembles deep down in one�s stomach, one�s hair stands on end and even the most skeptical is convinced of his divinity. After that we eat a holy meal, usually ox meat if an old centurion has undergone blood baptism. When we have drunk wine, we all sing together.� �We live in strange times,� I said. �Aunt Laelia is saved with the help of a Samaritan magician, my own father worries about the Christians, and you, old warrior, have become involved in Eastern mysteries.�

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�In the East the sun rises,� Barbus went on. �In one way this hull-killer is also the Sun God and so the God of Horses too. Hut they don�t look down on an old infantryman like me, and there�s nothing to stop you learning about our god as long as you promise to keep quiet about it. In our circle there are both older and younger Roman knights who have grown tired of the usual sacrifices and idols.� I had at that time grown tired of races and betting, the life of pleasure with vain and conceited actors from the theater, and of Pollio and his friends� interminable talk of philosophy and the new poetry. I promised to go with Barbus to one of the meetings of his secret god. Barbus was very pleased and proud about this. to my surprise, on that day he really did fast and wash himself thoroughly. He did not even dare drink any wine and he put on (�lean clothes, too. That evening he led me along the winding stinking alleys to the underground temple in the valley between Esquiline and Coelius. When we had gone downstairs into a dimly lit room with stone walls, we were received by a Mithraic priest with a lion�s head across his shoulders, who unquestioningly allowed me to take part in the mysteries. �We have nothing to be ashamed of,� he explained. �We demand cleanliness, honesty and manliness from those who follow our god Mithras for peace in their souls and a good life the other side of death. Your face is clean and your stance upright, so I think you will like our god. But please do not talk about him unnecessarily to outsiders.� In the room was a crowd of men both old and young. Among them I recognized to my astonishment several tribunes and centurions from the Praetorian Guard. Several were veterans and war invalids. All were dressed in clean clothes and wore the sacred Mithraic insignia of rank, according to the degree of initiation they had reached. In this respect, their army rank or personal wealth seemed to make no difference. Barbus explained that if an irreproachable veteran were initiated with blood baptism, then it was the wealthier initiates who paid for the ox. He himself was intent with the raven degree, for he had not led an entirely blameless life and did not always remember to keep to the truth. The light was so dim in the underground room that one could

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not distinguish many faces. But I could see an altar and on it an image of a god with a crown on his head, killing a bull. Then silence fell. The eldest in the congregation began to intone sacred texts which he knew by heart. They were in Latin and I could understand nearly all of them. I learned that according to their teachings, a constant battle between light and darkness, good and evil, was being waged in the world. Finally the last light was extinguished, I heard a secretive splash of water and a silvery bell began to ring. Many people sighed heavily and Barbus squeezed my arm hard. Lights from hidden apertures in the walls slowly began to illuminate the crown and image of Mithras. I ought not to reveal any more about the mysteries, but I was convinced by the Mithras worshippers� solemn piety and the trust in their life to come. After the victory of light and the forces of good, the torches in the room were lit and a modest meal brought in. The people seemed relaxed, their faces radiating joy, and they conversed together with friendliness, regardless of rank and degree of initiation. The food consisted of tough ox meat and the cheap sour wine of military camps. From their pious songs and their talk, I had the impression that they were all honest if also simple men who were righteously striving to live a blameless life. Most of them were widowers or unmarried and found consolation and security in this victorious Sun God in the companionship of their equals. At least they had no fear of magic and respected no other omens than their own. I thought that they could only be of use and help to Barbus. But the Mithraic ceremonies did not appeal to me. Perhaps I felt much too civilized and young among all those serious-minded grown men. At the end of the meal, they did in fact begin to tell stories, but they were the same stories one can hear without any ceremonies around any campfire throughout the Roman Empire. But my mind was often still in turmoil. At such moments I took my wooden goblet from my locked chest, caressed it and thought about my Greek mother, whom I had never known. Then I drank a little wine from the goblet to the memory of my mother and was at the same time a little ashamed of my own superstition. I did in fact feel my mother�s good and gentle presence. But I could never have told anyone about this habit. I also began to torment myself with unsparing riding exercises,

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for I seemed to feel greater satisfaction from controlling a difficult horse and exhausting my body, than spending a tearful night with Claudia. Thus I escaped both a guilty conscience and interminable self-reproaches. Young Lucius Domitius still excelled on the riding field, but his greatest ambition was to ride beautifully on a well-schooled horse. He was chosen as the best of the youths in the Order, and to please Agrippina, we other members of the Noble Order of Knights agreed to have a new gold piece struck in his honor. Only a year had elapsed before Emperor Claudius had adopted him. On the one side of the coin, we impressed his clear-cut boy�s profile and around the portrait his new adoptive names: To Nero Claudius Drusus, and in memory of his maternal grandfather, Claudius� brother, Germanicus. The inscription on the other side ran: The Noble Order of Knights rejoices in their leader. In fact it was Agrippina who paid for it and it was distributed as a souvenir gift in all the provinces, but was of course legal currency, as were all the gold pieces struck in the temple of Juno Moneta. Naturally Agrippina could well afford this little political demonstration to her son�s advantage. From her second husband, Passmsiius Crisus, who was only briefly stepfather to Lucius Domitius, she had inherited a fortune of two hundred million sesterces and knew how to increase it by her position as wife of the Emperor and close friend of the Procurator of the State Treasury. �The name Germanicus had older traditions and was grander than Britannicus, whom we did not like because of his epilepsy amid his allergy to horses. Many stories circulated about his real descent, since Emperor Gaius had so suddenly and unexpectedly married the fifteen-year-old Messalina to the decrepit Claudius. As one of Lucius� friends, I was invited to the adoption feast and the sacrificial ceremonies connected with it. The whole of Rome recognized that Lucius Domitius had earned his new position by his noble descent as well as his own brilliant and pleasing nature. From this time on we called him only Nero. His adoptive names had been chosen by Claudius in memory of his own father, Younger brother to Emperor Tiberius. Lucius Domitius or Nero, was the most versatile and talented

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of all the young men I knew, and was both physically and spiritually more precocious than his contemporaries. He liked wrestling and defeated them all, although he was so much admired that no one seriously tried to defeat him, to avoid hurting his feelings. Nero could still burst into tears if his mother or Seneca reproached him too severely. He was taught by the best teachers in Rome and Seneca was his oratory tutor. I had nothing against my young friend Nero, although I noticed he could lie both skillfully and plausibly if he had done something Seneca considered wrong. But all boys do that, and no one could be angry with Nero for long. Agrippina saw to it that Nero was allowed to take part in Claudius� official banquets and sit at the end of his couch as near as Britannicus. In this way, both the nobles of Rome and envoys from the provinces became acquainted with Nero and had the opportunity to compare the two boys, the cheerful and delightful Nero and the sullen Britannicus. Agrippina invited the sons of the most noble families in Rom to meals with both the boys. Nero acted as host and Seneca led the conversation, in that he gave the subject to each one of their to speak on. I suspect he gave Nero his subject beforehand and helped him with his speech, for every time Nero excelled with his easy, beautiful oratory. I was often invited to these meals, for at least half of guests had already received their man-togas, and Nero seemed genuinely to like me. But I grew tired of listening to speakers constantly peppering their speeches with worn-out verses from Virgil and Horace or quotations from Greek poets. So I began to prepare for the invitations by reading Seneca�s works and learning by heart his favorite pieces on keeping one�s temper, the brevity of life and the imperturbable calm of the wise man in the vicissitudes of fate. Since meeting Seneca, I had come to hold him in great esteem for there was nothing on this earth upon which he could not give a sensible, mild and considered opinion in his well-schooled voice But I wanted to see if the wise man�s imperturbability also withstood man�s natural conceit. Of course Seneca saw through me. He was not stupid, but it must have pleased him to hear his own thoughts quoted alongside

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those of the authorities of the past. I was also cunning enough never to mention his name in my quotations, since that would have been rather too crude flattery, but I just said, �The oilier day I read somewhere,� or �I�ll always remember a word . Puberty to Nero was sheer torment, and then he received his man-toga when he was fourteen. He carried out the sacrifice to Jupiter like a man, neither breaking down nor repeating himself n lie read the sacrificial litany. The liver showed nothing but good omens. He summoned back Rome�s youth and the Senate agreed unanimously, without the slightest protest, that he should receive the rank of Consul when he was twenty, and thus as consul, the right to a seat in the Senate. At this point an envoy arrived from the famous island of philosophers, Rhodes, to apply for the reinstatement of freedom and to the island. I do not know if Claudius had become more favorably inclined toward the people of Rhodes, but Seneca considered that it was the most favorable moment for Nero to make his maiden speech in the Curia. With Seneca�s help, Nero secretly prepared for it with great care. My father told me that he had been astounded when Nero, after the envoy�s speech and a few sarcastic remarks from the Senate, shyly rose to his feet and said: �Honored fathers.� Everyone came awake. When Claudius nodded his consent, Nero moved to the oratory platform and enthusiastically outlined the history of Rhodes the island�s famous philosophers and the great Romans will) had completed their education there. Has not this rose-colored isle of wise men, scientists, poets and orators already suffered enough from her blunders? Is she not entitled to her praise?� ... and so on. When he had finished, they all looked at Claudius as if he were a criminal, for it was he who had robbed this noble island of her freedom. Claudius felt guilty and Nero�s eloquence had moved him. �Don�t stare at me like cows at a gate, my fathers,� he said early. �Make a decision. You�re supposed to be the Senate of Rome.� The vote was taken and Nero�s proposal received nearly five hundred votes. My father said that what he had liked best was Nero�s modesty. In reply to all the congratulations, Nero merely

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said, �Don�t praise me, praise my tutor.� He went up to Seneca and embraced him in full view of everyone. Seneca smiled and said, so that everyone could hear, �Not even the best tutor can make a good orator of an untalented pupil.� Nevertheless, the elders among the senators did not like Seneca for he lived like a man of the world and, according to them, had watered down the strict old Stoicism in his writings. They also said he was much too inclined to have handsome boys as his pupils. But this was not entirely Seneca�s fault. Nero hated ugliness to the extent that a deformed face or a disfiguring birth mark took away his appetite. Anyhow, Seneca never made any advances to me, and he would not let the all-too-affectionate Nero kiss his teachers. After his appointment as Praetor, Seneca was mostly concerned with civil cases which in themselves were more difficult and involved than criminal cases, since they were concerned with property, ownership, building plots, divorces and wills. He himself said he could not bring himself to condemn anyone to flogging or execution. He noticed that I faithfully listened in on all cases and one day made a suggestion to me. �You are a talented young man, Minutus Lausus,� he said �You are as fluent in Greek as you are in Latin and show interest in legal matters, as befits a true Roman. Would you consider becoming an assistant Praetor and, for instance, digging out old precedents and forgotten decrees in the tabularium under in supervision?� I flushed with pleasure and assured him that such a task would be a great honor. Seneca�s face clouded over. �You realize, I suppose,� he remarked, �that most young me would give an eye to have such an opportunity to get ahead his rivals in the line of office?� Of course I realized this and I assured him I was eternally grateful for such an incomparable favor. Seneca shook his head �You know,� he said, �by Rome�s standards, I am not a rich man, At the moment I am building myself a house. When it finished, I hope to marry and put an end to all this talk. I presume you administer your estate yourself and could pay me some compensation for my legal tuition?�