“I’d prefer to live for the future,” said Kaeso with a faraway look, fingering the fascinum at his throat.
“And I’d prefer to live in the present!” Titus laughed. “But speaking of the future, how soon might we have the honour of meeting the emperor? We should like to thank him in person, not just for allowing us to return, but for restoring the honour of our father’s name. With our full rights as citizens and patricians restored, someday we might even be able to gain admission to the college of augurs.”
“How that would please the shade of your father!” said Claudius. “Of course I’d be proud to oversee your studies, and to sponsor one or b-b-both of you for admission.”
Kaeso made a face. “It’s Titus who dreams of becoming an augur, not I.”
“I brought father’s old trabea and lituus with me, from Alexandria,” said Titus. “But what about meeting the emperor?”
Claudius averted his eyes. “Yes, well, if the emperor should summon you for an audience, of course you must go. But in the great press of affairs – Caligula is so generous to so many of his subjects – it’s entirely p-possible he will forget all about this particular instance of generosity, and if that should happen, well, perhaps it’s best if you don’t remind him. Indeed, it might be b-b-best if you do nothing at all to call attention to yourselves.”
Titus furrowed his brow. “What do you mean, cousin Claudius?”
“How can I explain? Exile is a curse, but it can also b-be a blessing. Despite his sorrow at being sent so far from the city he loved, your father was fortunate to miss the terror visited on this city by Sejanus, and all the casual cruelties of Tiberius. Then, when my nephew succeeded Tiberius, it seemed that a new era was dawning, a time of hope and fresh confidence. I was eager for your father to return. So was he. P-p-perhaps we were too eager. P-p-perhaps we should have been less optimistic, and waited a little longer.” He shook his head. “It was Caligula’s father, my brother Germanicus, who should have become emperor. Everyone says so. My brother’s military skills were first-rate. His temperament was ideal. Germanicus was loved by the legions, by the people, even by the Senate. But not so loved by the gods, who saw fit to take him from us – the gods, or else Sejanus, or Livia, or Tiberius. What does it matter? They’re all dead now. All dead.”
Kaeso put his hand on the older man’s shoulder. “What are you trying to tell us, Claudius?”
“Unlike his father, my nephew was always a bit… unsound.” Claudius twitched. He wiped away a bit of drool. “I suppose that sounds judgemental, even absurd, coming from the likes of me, but it’s true. As a b-b-boy, little Gaius was troubled with the falling sickness.”
“So was the Divine Julius,” said Titus.
“Perhaps, but I suspect Caligula’s case was rather more severe than that of Julius Caesar. All through his youth he was struck by spells that rendered him b-b-barely able to walk, or to stand, or even to hold up his head. He would be dazed afterwards, unable to collect his thoughts, but he always recovered. As he grew to manhood, he seemed to outgrow the affliction, and that gave us hope. We certainly never had cause to worry about his… sanity.”
“And now?” said Kaeso.
Claudius hesitated, but once again he could not resist the need to unburden himself. “The change occurred suddenly – overnight, in fact. It was caused by a love p-p-potion given to him by that horrible wife of his, Caesonia. She’s much older; she was already a mother of three when they began carrying on. If you ask me, it’s unnatural for a young man to take an older partner; it should be the other way around, don’t you think? As it is with m-m-myself and Messalina.”
“Quite,” agreed Titus. “But you were telling us about the emperor.”
“Yes. Well, apparently Caligula’s lovemaking was a disappointment to Caesonia – a harlot of such vast experience – so Caesonia decided to remedy the situation by giving the boy an aphrodisiac. The gossips say she fed him the substance the Greeks call hippomanes – a fleshy mass sometimes found on the forehead of a newborn foal.”
Kaeso wrinkled his nose. “It sounds disgusting.”
“Does it work?” asked Titus.
“One m-mixes it with wine and herbs to make it palatable,” said Claudius. “It’s a well-known aphrodisiac – various scholars mention it – but in all my research I can find no other case where it drove a man m-mmad. I suspect Caesonia adulterated it with some other ingredient.”
“She deliberately poisoned him?” said Titus.
“No. Whatever ingredient she added was probably harmless by itself, but when mixed with the hippomanes created a combination that was toxic. That at least is my theory. I have a suspicion that Caesonia may have duplicated the very love p-p-potion that drove Lucretius mad.”
The twins looked at him blankly.
“The p-p-poet Lucretius,” he explained, “who lived in the days of the Divine Julius. They say Lucretius’s madness came and went. In his lucid moments he was able to write his great work, On the Nature of Things, but eventually he was driven to suicide.”
“Are you afraid Caligula may kill himself?” said Kaeso.
Claudius shivered, hugged himself, and whinnied like a horse. The twins feared he was having a fit, but he was only laughing. “Oh, no, Kaeso, that is not what I’m afraid of! Caligula’s behaviour makes even the worst excesses of Tiberius seem trivial. The stories I could tell you – but look, here’s Messalina, and your lovely wives.”
The women rejoined their husbands. In all of Roma, it was unlikely that one could find three more beautiful women standing side by side. The twins had chosen wives who might have passed for siblings themselves; Artemisia and Chrysanthe both had buxom figures and wore their thick black hair in long plaits, after the Egyptian fashion. Messalina was the youngest of the three, but she affected a matronly look, with her black hair pulled back from her face and pinned in an elaborate coiffure, and a voluminous stola that covered her from head to foot and concealed her arms as well. At a distance, the loose stola concealed her condition; seen closer, her swollen breasts and protruding belly made it obvious that she was pregnant.
“What have you lovely females been talking about all this time?” said Titus, glancing at Messalina’s breasts even as he took Chrysanthe’s hand.
“This and that,” his wife said. “Hairstyles, mostly. Artemisia and I look terribly provincial. Messalina promises to send the slave who dresses her hair, to give us instruction on the latest Roman styles.”
“Don’t complicate your b-b-beauty too much,” said Claudius. “You’re lovely as you are.” He kissed Messalina on the forehead and gently, dotingly touched her just above the navel.
Kaeso scowled and furrowed his brow. Titus pulled him aside and whispered in his ear, “What’s wrong with you, brother? You’ve been in a foul mood all day.”
“That girl is young enough to be his granddaughter!”
“That’s not our business. Try not to show your disapproval so openly.”
“Back in Alexandria-”
“We’re in Roma now. Things are different here.” Titus sighed. Back in Alexandria, his brother had taken up with some strange people and acquired some very intolerant ideas. It was their father’s fault, for having given his sons too much freedom when they were young. Both Titus and Kaeso had received traditional instruction at the academy near the Temple of Serapis, and had pursued the usual curriculum of philosophy, rhetoric, and athletics. But when the school day was done, Kaeso had spent his free time in the Jewish Quarter, drawn there by a fascination with mysticism, and the so-called scholars in the Jewish Quarter had filled his head with all sorts of bizarre ideas that were neither Greek nor Roman. Their father, too busy with business, had never sought to divert Kaeso from these dubious influences. That role would have suited a grandfather, thought Titus, an older, wiser man with patience and time to spare, but Fate had robbed them of their grandfather. They had grown up knowing no grandparents at all, a most unRoman circumstance for young patricians.