It was from Chrysanthe, of all people, that Titus heard the rumour that explained why Messalina had lost interest in him. “You won’t believe what I heard from the neighbor’s wife this morning,” she said one day when Titus returned home from performing an augury at a temple on the Quirinal Hill.
“Try me.”
“It’s about the emperor’s wife.”
“Oh?” Titus attempted to look only mildly curious.
“Everyone knows she’s a wanton woman.”
“Really? I’ve always heard that Messalina is a steadfast wife and mother.”
Chrysanthe made a rude sound. “That would describe the emperor’s niece, Agrippina, but hardly his wife. You are clearly in the dark about that woman, husband, as is your friend the emperor. Of course it’s no surprise that Messalina should have taken an occasional lover. Claudius is so much older, and based on the behaviour of previous members of the ruling family, starting with the Divine Augustus’s daughter, it seems these imperial women are incapable of behaving decently. But now Messalina may have gone too far. They say she’s settled on a single lover, the senator Gaius Silius. That was how Silius got himself appointed consul this year, through Messalina’s influence.”
Titus had met the man. He was young for a consul, broad shouldered, undeniably handsome, vain, and ambitious – just the sort of man Messalina might take for a lover. “Go on.”
“The shocking thing is, she calls Silius ‘husband.’ Can you imagine? As if Claudius didn’t exist. Or soon might not exist.”
“How could the neighbour’s wife possibly know such a thing?”
“Slaves talk,” Chrysanthe said. This was her standard explanation for the otherwise inexplicable transmission of certain rumours. She raised her eyebrows. “They say Claudius is so addled, he truly knows nothing about it.”
Titus was briefly struck by the irony that Chrysanthe, who was young and had all her faculties, had never suspected Titus’s infidelity. The omniscient slaves had stayed quiet about that, at least!
Titus frowned. Chrysanthe’s news, if it was true, posed a dilemma. Could Messalina seriously be thinking of doing away with Claudius? Had she carried her play-acting as Lycisca to a stage beyond harmless dalliance, to the point that she was considering murder and a palace revolt? If so, surely Titus had an obligation to warn his old friend and mentor about Messalina’s seditious behaviour, but how could he do so without compromising himself?
He would have to sleep on the matter.
Titus lost no sleep that night over the question of Messalina and her new “husband.” He simply pushed the matter to the back of his mind. Why had he thought that some action was called for on his part? If even the neighbour’s wife knew such a rumour, then everyone knew it, so it hardly fell to Titus to run to Claudius to warn him that his unfaithful wife might or might not be plotting against him.
The next morning, Titus received a summons to the imperial residence, in the form of a message from the emperor himself. The courier handed him a little wax tablet bound in elaborately decorated bronze plates and tied with a purple ribbon. Inside was written, in a crabbed hand that must have been that of Claudius himself, “Come, my young friend, quick as asparagus! I require a very private augury.”
The reference to asparagus meant nothing to Titus, but he quickly put on his trabea and fetched his lituus.
It had been some time since Titus had been inside the imperial residence. As the courier led him through various rooms and corridors, he noticed changes in the decor – new mosaics on the floors, freshly painted images of flowers and peacocks on the walls, gleaming new statues of marble and bronze. Since Claudius cared little about decoration, Titus assumed it was the hand of Messalina that he saw at work.
He and the courier were made to wait in a room where two statues faced each other across a green marble floor. The marble statue of Messalina presented a familiar image. There were several statues of her around the city, all depicting her as a dutiful mother. Her body was wrapped in a voluminous stola with one fold draped over her head like a mantle. With a serene expression she gazed upon the naked baby Britannicus cradled in her arms.
Across from the Messalina was a bronze statue that Titus had never seen before, depicting a nude, heroic figure. Gold covered the naked flesh, while the Greek helmet cradled in the left arm, the upraised sword in the right hand, and the nipples on the muscular chest were chased with silver. The precious metals shone with fiery brilliance in the slanting rays of morning sunlight. The shoulders were so broad and the hips so narrow that one might have thought the artist had taken liberties, but Titus could attest that the portrayal was accurate. The inscription on the pedestal said AJAX, but the model had clearly been Mnester.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said the courier.
“Stunning. It must have cost a fortune.”
The courier smiled. “There’s an interesting story about that. After Caligula was gotten rid of, the Senate voted to have every one of the coins that bore his likeness taken out of circulation and melted down. They never wanted to see his face again! The bullion sat for a long time, until the emperor gave instructions to use the silver and gold to decorate this statue. The emperor is certainly fond of Mnester, but they say it was his wife’s idea to make this statue.”
“Is that right?”
“She said it was proper to use Caligula’s coinage to honour Caligula’s favourite actor.”
“I see.” The two statues had been situated so that they faced each other across the room; the eyes of the two figures appeared to meet, as if exchanging knowing looks. It was cruel of Messalina, thought Titus, to flaunt her affair, even in this covert manner, in the very heart of the palace, under her husband’s nose and in front of his visitors.
At last Titus was called for.
A thorough inspection was required of anyone entering the emperor’s presence. Not even women or children were exempt from the indignity of being searched for weapons, and even the lowliest scribe was made to empty his stylus box. Titus had been through the process before and was ready to have his lituus examined and the folds of his trabea shaken. But on this day the examination was more thorough than ever. He was taken to a private room and politely asked by a hulking Praetorian to remove his trabea.
“Surely that’s not necessary.”
“It is,” said the Praetorian.
“And if I refuse?”
“You’re here at the emperor’s request. This is the prescribed procedure. You can’t refuse.” The guard crossed his arms. Titus saw that the man had positioned himself to block the door. He felt a tremor of uneasiness.
As he removed the trabea, he was reminded of his first visit to the imperial residence, long ago, and the audience with Caligula. He drove the memory from his mind with thoughts of how Caligula had met his end, bleeding from thirty stab wounds. That was the reason, after all, for this indignity: Claudius had never forgotten the violent manner of his predecessor’s death, and had no intention of meeting a similar fate.
Once upon a time, it had seemed that the emperor was invulnerable and untouchable, protected by the gods; the beloved Augustus and the detested Tiberius both lived to be old men and died in bed. But the violent end of Caligula changed all that. His murder proved that an emperor could be made to bleed and to die just like any other mortal. Caligula’s assassination rid the world of a monster but set a terrible precedent; that was why Claudius, instead of rewarding the tribune Cassius Chaerea, eventually had the assassin put to death. No man could be allowed to kill an emperor and get away with it, not even by the man who had benefited most by becoming the next emperor.