Allan Massie - Nero_s Heirs

He made me ashamed. I remembered Sporus and how he had spoken of Nero.

Martialis said, 'Take your hand off my officer, you bugger. Shall I run him through the guts, sir? The earth would be a cleaner place.'

'No,' I said, 'there'll be enough killing today. No need to start so early in the morning – with a non-combatant too.' I lifted Asiaticus' flabby paw from my sleeve. ‘It'd be a kindness to everyone,' I said to him, 'if you could persuade your master to die as a Roman should.' When we reported the failure of our mission, Flavius Sabinus thanked us gravely for the attempt we had made and the dangers we had run. His manner was perfect. No one could have guessed the depth of his disappointment. Then he gave orders that the defences were to be looked to, offered up a prayer to the gods, and drew me aside.

'Have a care for my nephew,' he said, 'and prevent him from exposing himself rashly.'

Vitellius has no wish for battle,' I said. 'He would have been happy to keep the agreement he made with you. I felt sorry for him.'

'Be that as it may, Vitellius counts for nothing. He's like a cork bobbing on a sea of blood.' For a little we waited. The snow had stopped falling, and a thin sun was breaking through the clouds. Obedient to the command I had been given, I looked for Domitian. That is why I was not at first aware that battle was now upon us. It was only when I heard cries coming from the flank of the hill on the side overlooking the Forum that I knew it. Meanwhile I could not find Domitian. This distracted me. I knew that Flavius Sabinus was anxious to secure his nephew's safety, not on account of any affection he had for him – though this was not indeed lacking – but principally because it was necessary for his own self-esteem, his sense of his own virtue, that no harm should come to his brother's son. But Domitian, at the first intimation of the attack, had concealed himself in the house of a servant of the Temple of Jupiter. There he assumed the linen vestment of an acolyte, a serviceable disguise. All this I learned later. Meanwhile, searching ever more desperately for him, I did not arrive at the scene of the encounter till the Capitol was ablaze.

The Vitellianists were now swarming up the hill, while our men were distracted by the flames. The fire has been caused by the assailants who had hurled burning brands on to the roof of a colonnade and had then, when the defenders were driven back choking in the smoke, burst through the gate that was now undefended. Meanwhile others had rushed the hill to the west of the Tarpeian Rock, from which side our men had been drawn by the first attack. In short, all was confusion; and this was caused by the inadequacy of our troops, who were too few to guard every possible route by which the hill might be mounted. Despairing of finding Domitian, I drew my sword and ran towards the Tarpeian flank. Here there was fierce hand-to-hand fighting. We had the advantage of the ground, but they had the advantage of numbers. The fire in our rear also alarmed our men, some of whom even before battle was fully joined, were more eager to find a means of escape than of resistance. I found myself at the side of Cornelius Martialis, already wounded in the shoulder by the thrust of a javelin. Blood ran down his sword-arm as he tried to parry the attacks of three German auxiliaries. I thrust at one under his shield, and he fell. But even as he did so another ran up against me, swinging his long sword. Without a shield, for I had had no time to arm myself properly, I could not parry the blow, and so ducked under it. My foot slipped on the bloody stone and I tumbled over the body of the man I had just killed. It may be that my fall saved my life, for, thanks to the steep declivity of the hill, I found myself rolling over and over, till I came to rest in the middle of an oleander bush some twenty feet or more below. For a moment I lay there, catching what I might have thought to have been my last breath. I say 'might have thought' for, in truth, I remember no thought. When I screwed my head round, expecting to see my assailant bearing down upon me, it was instead to discover that he had turned his attention on the centurion, who was again faced with three of the enemy. As I struggled to free myself from the bush, I heard that most terrible of battle-cries, 'It's every man for himself, run, lads, run.' I looked up and saw Cornelius Martialis fall. Then, shaking myself like a dog emerging from water, I took to my heels, down the hill, out of the battle. I have no pride in this, no pride either in the slashing blows I delivered at two soldiers who tried to bar my way. One of them fell, his face laid open by my sword, the other stumbled and, like me, a moment earlier, slipped, and lay unharmed but panting. I had no time to deal with him, but careered down the hill. When I reached level ground and looked back, all the buildings of the Capitol were ablaze. An old woman looked at me. 'If I was you, sir,' she said, 'I'd get rid of that bloody sword.' Perhaps her advice was good. I did not take it.

Instead I remained, gazing in horror at burning Jupiter Supremely Good and Great, founded by our earliest fathers as the seat of Empire. The Capitol, unviolated even by the Gauls centuries before in the days of the Republic, was now destroyed by the madness of the struggle for Empire in a battle fought on behalf of a creature who had had the purple forced on him by the legions, and who had given only one proof of sound judgement in his life: his understanding that he was not fit for the office he was not permitted to relinquish. I sheathed my sword and, assuming such an air of unconcern as was possible, made my way by a route which took me past the temple that Augustus had raised in memory of his beloved nephew Marcellus towards the river, and across it to my mother's house. I was surprised to find, half a mile from the scene of battle, citizens going about their lives as if it was a time of peace.

No harm had come to my mother or to Domatilla. I advised them to keep the house, notwithstanding the lack of tumult in the streets that side of the river.

'It may be,' I said, 'that Domitian will come here himself. I don't know where he is now.' 'But he's alive, he's all right?' Domatilla said.

'I've no reason to think otherwise. I'm going in search of him now. If he comes here, don't let him leave. He might be as safe here as anywhere. It'll only be a matter of days before your father's army is in the city. But these days will be dangerous.' 'And my uncle?'

'I don't know. I don't know whether he escaped, whether he was killed, whether he was taken captive. Everything over there is in indescribable confusion.'

"We could see the flames,' my mother said. 'To burn the Capitol. It's worse than Nero. It's a judgement.' 'Perhaps,' I said.

When I left, my mother refrained from any expression of anxiety. She did not tell me to avoid danger, for she knew that in Rome that day danger and duty were joined as in marriage. But before I departed, she took my sword and cleaned it of the dried blood. I was surprised to discover it was not yet noon.

Tacitus will know, without my telling him, how Flavius Sabinus and the Consul elect Atticus surrendered and were led in chains before Vitellius. He may deem their surrender inglorious, believing that a soldier should die sword in hand. That is often the view of men who have studied war at a distance and have little experience of battle themselves. In any case I believe that Flavius Sabinus yielded when he saw that the few troops that remained with him were sentenced to death if he did not do so. It is said that Vitellius would have spared his life, if he had been brave enough to do so. But the mob, composed partly of legionaries, partly of auxiliaries, partly of citizens – Senators among them – and partly of the most degraded rabble, howled for more blood; and Vitellius dared not deny them. So died a man for whom I had great respect, a man who had served Rome in more than thirty campaigns, and who throughout this terrible year had alone among men of distinction sought peace, preferring diplomacy and negotiation to war. Had he succeeded, Rome would not have suffered the disgrace of seeing the Capitol in flames, and the lives of many men, some worthy, would have been spared.