The Blood Of The Martyrs. Naomi Mitchison
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whether Nero is going the same way as Tiberius and Gaius—what do you think, Gallio?’
‘He’s not mad; he’s bad,’ Gallio answered. ‘It would take more than my poor brother and Burrus to hold a boy like that. He took after his mother. And she was a devil. But he only murdered her for a worse woman yet. Women and slaves!’
‘But, oh dear, why must the gods treat us like this?’ said Crispus.
‘Why? I’ll tell you. We’re to blame ourselves. Power’s a nasty, dangerous stuff, bad enough for a grown man. Poison to a boy. Even if Nero hadn’t had that mother. And we’ve been so afraid of civil war again—and the gods know we had reason to be afraid—that we let these Julio-Claudians have power. Tons of it. Enough to burst them, to send them mad. We gave it them with both hands—anything to keep us out of a civil war. We wouldn’t see that it was more than they could stand, any of them.’
‘Augustus stood it.’
‘He didn’t have it from childhood. And it wasn’t all in his hands, either. There was still a Senate and People of Rome with a will of its own that it could make known. And certain powers not given up. But now: think! We’ve given everything. Civil and military power. Judicial and executive. Haven’t we, Balbus?’
‘It’s not possible to run an empire efficiently unless there’s power at the centre; what we complain about is its misuse. It keeps on getting into the wrong hands—creatures like Pallas and Narcissus in the last reign—not even Italians!—and now men like Tigellinus and all those clever little snakes of freedmen, who can’t even get the whip marks off their backs, and women like Poppaea—the Divine Empress creeping from one bed to another—oh, it makes my blood boil!’
Gallio laughed. ‘Drink and cool down. It’s our doing. Not that we could have helped it. Being what we are. And the world as it is. The people who want power are the ones who get it, and it’s not a thing that decent people want. You wouldn’t like to be Emperor, would you, Crispus?’
‘The gods forbid!’
‘Nor I. We’ve some regard for our souls. It’s the ones without souls—women and half-men like these Imperial Ganymedes, and brutes without education like our dear Tigellinus. They’re the kind that want power. And take it.’
‘But the Emperors?’
‘Can an Emperor have a soul? Ask my brother: Seneca’ll tell you fast enough! Poor little silly Imperial soul, smothered to death with flattery and luxury and pride and anger uncontrolled. No, you can’t have it both ways. Not power and a soul.’
‘At any rate,’ said Crispus, ‘it isn’t so bad in the Provinces; they say that in Gaul, for instance, there is something nearer the old Roman life.’
‘Comes of being a week’s journey from the capital. Gaul can’t be gathered up into the same bundle of power as Rome. But suppose now—well, I’m no poet, this is more my nephew’s line!—but say one could get letters—and legions—to and fro to the Provinces in a matter of hours: flying horses! Well, then, they’d be under the same power too, and no different.’
‘In the same fear and shame as we are.’
‘Yes, but mark you, Crispus, the Empire’d be that much more efficient. The Imperial administration that much more unified. No rebellions possible. Can’t have it both ways. See, Crispus?’
Balbus, who had been calming down, swirling the wine round in his cup, broke in: ‘I’m not so sure, Gallio; is it all so damned efficient? What about the finances? Rome could live on what she made and took—well, in the usual way!—under the Republic. If you were a citizen that meant a decent security. But an Imperial Court with all the trimmings is a different matter; it’s upset the balance of things. It has to be fed and paid for, with imports all the time, and I’m not sure if that’s going so nicely. Here in Rome, half the citizens are on the dole. And I’d like to know just how the Exchequer are paying for these pageants and parades and cardboard imitations of the Olympic Games that are got up to keep their minds off reality!’
Crispus sighed. ‘We all need to have our minds taken off reality these days. It’s nice to think of those two young people starting life together. Though I could have wished your Candidus hadn’t chosen to go into the Praetorians.’
‘He’d set his heart on it,’ said Balbus, ‘and it’s certainly a career. When the old ways of looking at things are breaking down—the continuity of the family and all that—well, young people want to make their own lives. We shall have to see the astrologers, Crispus, and get them to fix a day.’
Gallio grunted. ‘Astrologers! Mean to say you believe in that sort of nonsense, Balbus?’
‘Well, my dear fellow, there’s a lot in it, y’know—’
‘Lot of moonshine. Well, good night, Crispus, and thanks. Coming, Balbus? Yes, of course I’m walking. Think I’m going to be carried about in a litter like one of Nero’s nancies? You don’t know old Gallio!’
When he had seen his two old friends off, Crispus went along to bed, still sighing and shaking his head and wondering if it could be true that the Emperor was no better than the rest, that something was really wrong, so badly wrong that it could not be put right by going back—back to the manners and decencies and truthfulness and civilisation of Augustus—or farther. The slaves, however, waited to clear up, and Lalage was waiting to be paid. Hearing Crispus call for his personal servant to give him the usual ten minutes‘ bedtime massage, Argas came back to the dining-room. But by then Beric was there again, sitting on the end of the couch in his old place and glaring across the table at the other couch where Candidus had been. He shouted at Argas to get out and keep out. Argas who had seen what happened, the spilled wine and the blow! Argas shrugged his shoulders and went out. ‘No good,’ he said to Sannio, ‘the Briton’s there. And a nasty temper he’s in.’
‘Well,’ said Sannio, ‘the little cat’s done the dirty on him. Sitting there as if butter wouldn’t melt in her claws. Oh my, oh my!’
Phaon was crying, clutching and rubbing himself where Tigellinus had pinched him. ‘I hate him!’ he said, ‘I hate him, I’d like to kill him!’
Argas caught hold of him. ‘No, you don’t,’ he said, ‘you don’t, Phaon.’ And he whispered some words to Phaon which seemed to calm him down. The slaves yawned. They would have liked to go to bed, but they knew they’d catch it if they left the clearing-up till morning. Lalage was talking in a corner to Manasses, quite low, about something which seemed to interest them both. Sannio made a dirty joke, but Argas didn’t laugh.
At last Lalage said, ‘Well, I shall go in, temper or no temper, and make that precious Briton of yours pay up. And extra for Tigellinus!’ She patted Phaon and he smiled a little. The accompanist had nodded to sleep on a bench.
Lalage went into the room quietly, for she could be very quiet, and found herself behind Beric; she stood and watched him, for something seemed to be happening to him which was the kind of thing she understood. He was standing beside the couch where Candidus had been and he was talking to empty air, but, as Lalage listened, it became quite plain what he was doing. ‘Now, you swine,’ he snarled, ‘you Aelius Candidus, you’ve struck me. Struck me before witnesses. Me, a king’s son.’ He clutched about with his hands, felt at his belt, drew out a knife and pulled its edge across his thumb. Then he lifted it and held it point down and spoke again to emptiness, again from snarling misery. ‘No, go down on your knees, Roman, and beg for your miserable life. Say it. Say it after me. I, Aelius Candidus, in fear and trembling, beg of you, Beric, son of Caradoc the King …’
But already the harsh aching voice was quivering and dropping. He let the knife go, and, as it dropped with a little clatter, he turned and saw Lalage. In the moment before his anger, she spoke, gently: ‘But it wouldn’t have been any good, you know, even if you had done it then.’
‘It would have been!’ said Beric. ‘Now—now—oh, she said I was dirt and I’d