‘Servus Sulpicius Galba. Caesar. New purple on an old body, but do not be deceived by the signs of natural decrepitude. I am here to rule, not to sing, dance, cavort on the stage.’ Tigellinus seemed to grin at some inner image of Galba dancing on those ghastly feet, and Galba said: ‘Who are you?’
‘Ottonius Tigellinus, Caesar, at Caesar’s service. Praetorian prefect under the late Emperor.’
‘I appoint my own praetorian prefect,’ Galba said. ‘I make my own appointments. But I do not necessarily consider that the servitors of the late unlamented butcher are unemployable. Listen, all of you whom I must consider to be the imperial court. You have lived through bad times and some of you have helped to engineer them. We must forget those bad times and look forward to a future which, in the nature of things, can hardly be a long one for me. I crown my provincial career with Rome’s highest honour, a widower whose wife is long dead and his sons, alas alas, are dead also. I appoint as my heir in my first imperial act the noble Piso Licinianus.’
Galba looked carefully at Otho when making this announcement. Otho reacted only with apparent satisfaction. Piso Licinianus, a handsome empty-faced young man in military uniform, stepped forward to be inspected by the court. None knew him, few had heard of him before, all wondered how Galba happened to know him. He did not know him; he had picked him out rather arbitrarily from the squad of young nobility which had been presented to him in Ostia. Anyone would do for the succession. Galba addressed the army prefects present, saying:
‘To the imperial forces I say this. Look for justice but do not look for special favours. I am all too well aware that the army considers itself to be a maker of emperors and a sustainer of emperors in office. I, with my own decree, make the next emperor. It is my custom to levy troops, not to buy them. I demand loyalty from you all, I do not seek it. Titellonus, stay with me a while. The rest of you may dismiss.’
The court padded or marched out. The two villains, one in advanced old age, the other certainly greying his way towards it, looked at each other. ‘So, Titilinus—’
‘Tigellinus, Caesar.’
‘Whatever your name is, was all that well said?’
‘In what capacity do you ask me, Caesar?’
‘I can see that you’re something of a rogue. Responsible for the burning down of Rome, weren’t you?’
‘That was solely the responsibility of the late unlamented, Caesar. He was an artist. He loved bright colours.’
‘Well, I’m no artist. A plain man. They tell me you were once a fishmonger.’
‘An honest occupation, Caesar. I was seduced into the imperial office I still officially hold by the wiles of the late Emperor. It was an unhappy time for me, but I did my duty.’
‘So you want no more of the imperial service? You’d rather go back to selling fish?’
‘I would wish to serve a true Emperor with every ounce of blood and sinew I possess.’
‘Very well. I’m appointing a new praetorian prefect, never mind who for the moment. A matter of a promise. Call it a matter of honour. But I need the Praetorian Guard well watched. Perhaps you can understand why.’
‘You levy troops, Caesar, you do not buy them. At Caesar’s service. I am to spy on the Guard I once had the honour of commanding.’
‘Somewhat crudely put. You’re a crude man.’
‘I am anything that Caesar says I am.’ Galba chuckled.
When it seemed certain that Galba’s appointment of Piso Licinianus as his successor was to be officially confirmed, Otho gave a party for the senior officers of the Praetorian Guard at his estate on the river. He did not at first produce the cates and vintages they expected; they looked, most of them, puzzled at the lack of the materials of revelry. They were puzzled also at the smiling presence of Tigellinus and the absence of their new prefect Cornelius Laco, but the latter was excused by his being ill of a toothache and the former explained in terms of a nostalgic desire to be with old friends. Otho had severe things to say before his guests became fuddled and lecherous. ‘Gentlemen,’ he told them in a flowery bower where undisciplined thrushes sang merrily, ‘I’ve done enough soldiering to know that it’s a hard life and that the material rewards are nugatory. As a lifelong friend of the Empire’s most distinguished soldiery I blush at Caesar’s ingratitude and, indeed, ineptitude. I think, to be charitable, we may speak of senility.’ Many of the officers looked at each other: this was bold language. ‘Seneca, a great man slain, said something very wise, as I seem to recall. He spoke of the danger of authority without power. Dangerous to the one in authority, he meant. Such a man cuts his own throat.’ He beamed at them. That was, as they all all too vividly recalled, no mere metaphor. ‘Too many promises made. Too few fulfilled. Gentlemen, I keep my promises.’
‘What exactly do you mean, sir?’ a grave senior officer asked.
‘I think, with the help of my good friend Tigellinus here, I’m in the happy position of being able to compensate you for the Emperor’s deficiencies.’ He clapped his hands in the Oriental manner and the whole roast boars were wheeled on. Flitting through the green groves which were part of the estate, white naked bodies seemed to be seen and tinkling laughter to be heard. ‘I do not, of course, speak of bribery.’ Of course not, most dangerous word. His guests, being sharpset, fell to.
Somewhat later, Galba went to address the Senate. Followed by his foolish followers Titus Vinius, who had served him in Spain, Cornelius Laco, an arrogant idiot, and the freedman Icelus Marcianus, who was after Laco’s post, he made for the curule chair. He found it turned to the wall. He was furious as the attendants hurriedly put it into its right orientation. ‘Who did this?’ he called. ‘Who had the effrontery to arrange this act of ill omen?’ None spoke. Galba said: ‘I’m well aware, reverend senators, of your attitude to your Emperor. Inured to bribery, you are unused to justice. I hear murmurs of promises unkept, sums unpaid. You will hear from me this this this – that there are steps to authority, and they make for heavy climbing, but if the climbing is helped and eased by ready hands and arms, then such aid is rightly rewarded with soft words. But at the head of the stairway stands the plateau of power, and power lies in the very name of the office, its very history and mystical resonance. I will not buy the sustention of my office. Caesar is Caesar.’
The reverend senators recollected that they had heard similar words before, composed by Seneca, intoned by Nero, now presumably passed on to the new man by that damnable Tigellinus, who had been rendered immune to senatorial vindictiveness, or justice, by an imperial fiat. They looked with little confidence on the old toothless baldhead, in whom only sharp blue eyes burned with a promise of imperial vitality, pitying and despising the gouty hands that could not even unroll a parchment unaided, wondering how many more weeks he had to go.
Tigellinus said to Galba later in the gardens of the Palatine: ‘It’s as you surmised, Caesar. The Guards were ready for mutiny. They’re a bad lot. Venal.’
‘Like the whole city. What made them change their minds?’
‘A little talk from your humble servitor. A little bribery.’
‘Whose money?’
‘My own.’
‘That takes loyalty very far. What do you want?’
‘Caesar knows what I want.’
‘I don’t sell offices, Tigellinus. Not usually. We’ll see. You say ah the ah disaffection has been damped?’
‘Caesar may walk abroad in perfect safety.’
Caesar walked abroad towards the Temple of Saturn. Icelus Marcianus told him that Otho had seized the camp of the Guards. ‘The legionaries,’ Galba panted. ‘Where are the legionaries? Immediate orders that the legionaries rally to my standard.’ He saw with panic that his entourage was, singly and at various degrees of speed, running towards the Forum.
‘The cavalry, Caesar, see.’ An unnecessary notification. Armed horsemen were galloping in from the eastern end of the city. ‘Caesar, I humbly take my leave.’ Galba found himself facing, under a hot sun, a reined-in squ
adron that raised much dust. To his relief, he heard and then saw behind him a running platoon of German troops. Then there was no relief because they ran too slowly and the swords were out and bright.
‘What is all this? What do you want of me? I don’t like those looks. Come, aren’t we comrades? You belong to me, I belong to you.’ It sounded like a popular song that would have been despised for its banality by Galba’s predecessor. The leader of the troop made a rough vocal signal, then it was all hooves and blood. Struck down. He was left there by the ornamental pool named for Curtius. The German troops about turned and marched back. The cavalry galloped back east to the Guards barracks, where Otho was being proclaimed. The bleeding body was left to the phagocytes. A common soldier knew whose it was and had a vague notion that he might be paid for the head. He sawed it off without difficulty, the neck being thin, all strings, and then he cursed it because there was no hair to carry it by. He stuck his thumb in the toothless mouth and hooked it against the hard palate. Then he bore it aloft and swaying towards the headquarters of the Praetorian Guard. He heard cheers. Otho was being borne on stout shoulders. A new Caesar. How long would he last?
Aulus Vitellius, a long man in his fifties, on whom a disproportionately gross paunch seemed to have been plastered, received the news of Otho’s accession in his camp on the lower Rhine. He chewed fibrous gobbets of overboiled boarmeat with strong brown teeth as he read and reread the letter in which Otho asked for the hand of his daughter and invited him to share the rule of the Empire. Vitellius’s slow brain, inveterately clogged with the fat of gross feeding, pondered this and pondered also his present gubernatorial appointment, which had been made by Galba. Evidently these upstart Caesars feared him. One had wanted him out of the way; the other craved an alliance. It was as good as an invitation to take over. His aide Severus agreed. Picking delicately at the bone Vitellius had offered, he said: ‘The fact is that times have changed. The Praetorian Guard thinks it makes the emperor. The days of the power of the military in the capital are done. This province of Germany speaks for the future. The Empire is its provinces.’
‘How long since Otho seized power?’
‘A few weeks.’
‘Who helped him to it?’
‘You know Tigellinus?’
‘I know the bastard. A few weeks, eh? It seems hardly fair to allow him to get settled in.’
And so Vitellius disclosed to his troops an affability he had not previously shown, embracing odd common soldiers as far as his belly would permit, showering gold pieces on them, inviting even centurions to share his breakfast, a meal which tended to be prolonged until it could be fairly called dinner, and obtaining a cheering proclamation without much difficulty. How sordid all this is. When Otho got the news that the legions of Vitellius had already been sighted in northern Italy, he reluctantly marched at the head of the Thirteenth, ready to parley, and was suicidally depressed when he found he was committed to battle. He was not a fighting man. In his tent outside Brixellum he spoke harshly to Tigellinus, who had unexpectedly changed from uniform into the garb of a civilian traveller:
‘Did not expect it? What do you mean – you did not expect it?’
‘I did not,’ Tigellinus smoothly said, ‘expect such a state of unpreparedness. I gave you my support on a different understanding. Even under my first master Nero there was a sort of stability. Which, I must admit, Nero at length totally liquidated. After all, my loyalty is to Rome.’
‘Meaning whoever is capable of taking Rome?’
‘You can put it like that, yes. It’s no unpatriotic act to leave you now, Otho.’
‘I’m still called Caesar,’ Otho said, loudly though with little conviction.
‘So briefly. So terribly briefly. Still, you’re entitled to the honorific. Vale, Caesar.’ He gave the ancient European salute and left the tent. One of Otho’s senior officers came in and looked enquiringly at his master. Otho said:
‘No, I know what you’re going to suggest. Leave all that to Vitellius.’
‘Do we fight, Caesar?’
‘Well, we certainly don’t surrender. But I’ve no real taste for civil war. I think I’d better get my papers in order.’
This took a long time. To his secretary Britannus he gave certain simple signed instructions. No punishment of deserters. All manifests of Otho’s supporters to be burnt, along with all private letters which might incriminate his friends. No records, in other words. Though an exception could be made for Tigellinus. ‘I’ll retire now. I don’t want to be disturbed till dawn. I recommend that you go into retirement. Somewhere remote and safe. You know you’re provided for.’
‘I’m grateful, Caesar.’
Otho, like so many of the personages of my story, was completely bald, but he had always worn a well sculpted toupee that dissimulated his condition even to friends and concubines. Now he took this off. In a mood of total serenity he ate a light supper and then went to bed. By his bed a good sharp dagger was waiting. At dawn the army of Vitellius roared into the camp, pillaging in a fierce red light that was the shepherd’s warning. In the tent of Otho they found the body of Otho, neatly pierced, the face above the wound relaxing from the contortion of death into a deep peace. The hair above the face was very neatly disposed. It was what was known as a Roman end.
Vitellius ate his way into Rome, crunching the votive bunches of grapes that peasants numbly handed him, digging his blunt fingers into watermelons, calling for grilled meat from the stalls by the roadside. The first ceremonial banquet would be of three days’ duration.
Tigellinus was wallowing in a bath of bubbling mud in the establishment of a certain Laetus on the outskirts of Rome when he heard the news that his days were numbered, indeed his hours. One naked handmaiden was kneading hot red mud into his groin while another shaved him. He embraced the kneader with hungry fervour before politely saying to the shaver: ‘Give me that razor. Then leave me, both of you. A gentleman sometimes has to be alone. There are certain things a gentleman can only do for himself.’ The girls snatched up bathrobes and giggled their way out. Tigellinus grasped the razor by its white bone handle, mumbling to himself.
‘Well, little Nero, it was a good run. True to one’s nature. I was always true to mine. Well, until recently. A gentleman should never scheme to obtain power. Power comes to those who can use it – for whatever end. I was a bad man, Nero. Totally bad. That in itself ought to be pleasing to some god or other. But I don’t know his name. I rose out of the mud. And here I am. At the last.’ He scored both forearms very deeply and watched with a kind of admiration the rich red flow. ‘Sleepy, a little sleepy. Back to the mud, Tigellinus.’ He sank into it.
A man like Tigellinus could be regarded as a supererogatory element in the reign of an emperor like Vitellius, whose main distinctions were gluttony and cruelty and a willingness to indulge both at the same time. There was, for instance, the time when he sat alone at table, gorging brains, livers and pancreases seethed in cream and honey, having already taken a morning snack of the sacrificial meats offered to the gods and additional bevers of sturgeon, oysters, pies made of small wild birds and sickeningly sweet pastries, what time he gloated over the forthcoming dessert of the execution of a good citizen named Octavius. Octavius stood near the block, far enough away from the dining table to ensure that no blood would stain its napery, while the axeman waited to his left and his wife, Livia, wept and pleaded on his right. With courtesy Vitellius said:
‘You will forgive my dining at this solemn moment in your life, Octavius. I have a busy day. I must eat when I can. Have you anything to say before the carver ah carves?’
‘I die deservedly, Caesar,’ Octavius said. ‘There is no worse crime than being a fool. You should write a treatise called A Short Way with Creditors.’
‘Oh, Caesar,’ Livia sobbed, ‘he did only good to you, sir. He sold his mother’s house to get you the money you said you needed. Be merciful. He won’t do it again.’
Vitellius choked on that, sprayi
ng the air with fragments of stewed milt. Octavius said to his wife: ‘Go now, Livia. Remember me as I was.’ Vitellius said to her:
‘No, don’t go, Oliva or Lavia or whatever your name is. You can still remember him as he was for a second or so. A capitate husband, so to speak. You realise, of course, that your crime is rather greater than his. You pleaded for his life. You said in effect that the imperial verdict was unjust. Headsman, try out your blade on an easy neck – delicate, swanlike I think the poets would say.’
‘I congratulate you, Vitellius,’ Octavius said. ‘I thought Gaius and Nero were the ultimate monsters. You do better than both. And you’ll meet the same end. If you don’t burst first like a poisoned dog.’
The screaming Livia was carried to the block while Vitellius ate with relish. This was no exceptional day for him. The exceptional days were marked by consumption of the great Minerva pie, which was compounded, under a thick crust of flour and eggwhite, of the organs of pikes, carp, pheasants, quails, partridges, peacocks, flamingoes and lampreys and the execution not merely of creditors but of close friends who came to the banquet smiling. There was always plenty to eat for Vitellius.