Robert Fabbri: Rome's executioner

Regulus looked to the sky and pointed at a skein of honking geese flying in a V formation, northwest, over the Temple of Concordia at the foot of the Capitoline Hill. ‘I declare that to be a sign from the gods,’ he shouted.

‘You can’t refuse a meeting because of a flight of birds,’ Trio responded angrily.

‘I could quite easily, there are many precedents for me to do so, but I take it as a positive sign: the saviours of Rome, who, whilst the dogs stayed sleeping, woke the defenders of the Capitoline Hill when the Gauls were scaling it at night, have shown us that the Senate should meet in the Temple of Concordia, the goddess of Harmony. Summon the Senate; there, in Concordia’s sacred precinct, we shall resolve this matter.’

The crowd roared their approval of this patriotic reading of bird flight and parted to make way for the twenty-four lictors, who preceded the two Consuls to the Temple of Concordia.

Vespasian caught up with Gaius halfway across the Forum.

‘What did you tell Regulus, Uncle?’

‘When I went back to Antonia’s house a message arrived for her from Plautius saying that he agreed to her demand and that over thirty of Sejanus’ supporters, who were currently meeting at his house, would support it too, on condition that Antonia would intercede on their behalf with the Emperor. So she sent messages out to all the senators that didn’t turn up to this morning’s meeting, because they hadn’t wanted to be a part of Sejanus’ supposed victory, telling them to attend the Senate when the summons came. She asked me to come here as quickly as possible to ensure that Regulus didn’t find an excuse to refuse a further meeting.’

‘Like, for example, an ill-omened flight of birds?’

Gaius chuckled. ‘Exactly. He could just as easily have declared the geese to be a sign that Rome’s luck was leaving the city and no more business should be attempted today; we’ve all seen it done before.’

They reached the Temple of Concordia, set in front of the beautiful, arched facade of the Tabularium, where all Rome’s records were kept. Gaius went in, leaving Vespasian by the doors.

For half an hour Vespasian watched as senators, many of whom had not been present at the morning meeting, appeared from every direction in answer to the Consuls’ summons, each now believing that their faction would win the debate. Amongst the last to arrive were Corbulo and his father, who looked remarkably like his son. They both appeared very unsure of the situation.

‘Vespasian, what’s going on?’ Corbulo asked nervously as his father went into the temple.

‘Well, if you’d been at the debate this morning you would know.’ Vespasian was going to enjoy toying with him.

‘We were ill,’ Corbulo replied huffily, ‘we had some bad prawns last night.’

‘You really must give up prawns: they obviously don’t agree with you.’

‘Yes, well,’ Corbulo spluttered, remembering that he had used that excuse once before in Vespasian’s presence. ‘Tell me what’s happening.’

‘If you go in and vote for the motion you’ll be fine,’ Vespasian replied enigmatically.

Realising that he was demeaning himself by asking someone who was not a senator about senatorial business, Corbulo snorted and went inside.

‘Conscript Fathers,’ Regulus’ voice carried out of the door, ‘come to order.’

The chatter inside the temple immediately died down. The doors remained opened; Vespasian stood in the doorway to watch the proceedings.

‘Although the day has already been declared auspicious,’ Regulus began, ‘we are now under the guidance of a different goddess and should therefore sacrifice to her.’

There were mutterings of assent and dissent from the opposing factions of senators; Trio instantly got to his feet but Regulus continued before he could take the floor.

‘To ensure that there are no allegations of foul play in reading the omens I invite the Junior Consul to make the sacrifice.’

Trio accepted the offer gladly; he pulled a fold of his toga over his head and stepped up to the altar. Because a flight of geese had led them to the Temple of Concordia a goose had been chosen as the most propitious sacrifice. Trio hastily despatched the bird, saying the prayers over it in a most perfunctory manner, then slit it open to examine the liver, which he quickly declared to be perfect and a sign that the good goddess of harmony favoured their endeavour.

‘Thank you for your diligence, Consul,’ Regulus said, without a trace of irony, as he took the floor again. ‘Senator Plautius has asked for this meeting, I therefore call upon him to speak first.’

Regulus sat back down on his Consul’s curule chair as Plautius stood to speak.

‘Conscript Fathers.’ He held out his right arm and, in a dramatic gesture, swept it around the room to include all the seated senators. ‘I have asked for us to meet again today because I, like many of you, feel that we haven’t rightly interpreted our Emperor’s wishes and in not doing so we have created a very combustible situation.’

There was a general murmur of agreement; neither faction could dispute that.

‘I therefore propose to examine more carefully what he meant. He asked us to vote on “whether or not he should be imprisoned”; we all took that to mean that the Emperor wanted Sejanus imprisoned, did we not?’

Again both factions found themselves agreeing.

‘Yet imprisonment of a citizen has never been a punishment recognised by the State, so was the Emperor really asking us to mete out a punishment that doesn’t exist?’

Frowns and puzzled looks passed over the faces of his fellows.

‘Let us look again at the words “whether or not”. In using that form of words Tiberius was deferring to the Senate; he was leaving the decision as to what to do with this man to us. However, Conscript Fathers, we took him too literally; it wasn’t just a choice between imprisoning Sejanus or not. No, the Emperor is sometimes too subtle for even his loyal Senate to follow.’

Another chorus of unanimous agreement rose from the senators. Vespasian smiled to himself; he could see that that sycophantic line had been put in with the Emperor’s reading of the meeting’s transcript in mind.

‘The choice our beloved Emperor was giving us wasn’t nearly so narrow; he in his wisdom knows that to have Sejanus locked up here in Rome could only lead to ill feeling, riots or even civil war. It was not just imprisonment or freedom that he was giving us the choice of, it was also imprisonment or loss of all honours previously voted him; imprisonment or confinement to his house, either here in Rome or one of his many country estates; imprisonment or denial of fire and water within three hundred miles of Rome; imprisonment or banishment to an island or a faraway town.’ He paused as the truth of what he was suggesting began to sink in to his audience and senators started to call out for their preferred punishment or for clemency. Plautius raised his strong voice and drowned them out. ‘Or, Conscript Fathers,’ he declaimed, ‘ imprisonment or death. And I call for death — but not the death of a Roman citizen that he has denied to so many of his victims. No, let it be the death of an enemy of Rome: strangulation.’

There was uproar, but Plautius stood his ground, raised his arms in the air and waited for the commotion to die down.

‘But let it not be just I who expresses his view,’ he carried on once the noise had abated enough for him to be heard again, ‘let us do this properly, unlike this morning, so that there can be no doubt as to the will of the Senate. Every senator should speak and give his opinion, and then the motion should be put to a full vote. If you agree, Senior Consul, I would have you call my colleague, Silius Nervus, to speak next as is his right as an ex-Consul.’