György Spiró - Captivity

“Let’s go,” Fortunatus muttered.

Uri followed him.

Bodyguards peeled themselves off the wall and hurried after the emperor. He raced along the corridor and turned left. The room was crowded with elaborately dressed children, some fighting with wooden swords, others rolling on the ground. Upon seeing the emperor, their leader, a gangly young man, commanded them to pay their respects, at which the children lined up. Caligula inspected them, casting a fond eye over their ranks.

“The anthem!” shouted the gangly figure.

He hummed the starting note, and on a count of his raised hands the children launched into the song.

Standing among the bodyguards at the back, Uri noticed that they included the buskin-wearing officer and the other.

It all happened in a flash of a second: the figure in buskins smashed a fist into the back of the emperor’s neck and yelled “To it!” The other sprang in front of the dazed emperor and slipped a dagger into his belly. Caligula slumped to the ground; the figure in buskins kicked him in the jaw.

“I’m still alive!” the emperor yelled.

Screaming, the children scattered in all directions. The gangly figure yelled “Back!”

At this point the mass of the bodyguards joined in the killing, roaring:

“One more! One more!”

Guardsmen of the Germanic corps and litter bearers, poles in hand, rushed in and clashed with the Latin bodyguards. Squads of them were cut down. Some senators also attacked from the rear, and several of them too were cut down. The majority of the Germanic guardsmen ran into the theater without spotting the corpse of the slain emperor.

“Follow him before he’s burned!” Fortunatus bellowed and raced away.

Uri was rooted to the spot; he did not understand.

He then stepped back, his heart pounding. A woman ran in with a child in her arms but a centurion stabbed her; another grabbed the infant from her and dashed its head against a wall until it had become mere tatters of flesh. Blood spattered over the wall. So much blood from such a tiny child.

Uri was transfixed, standing stock-still, not knowing what he was supposed to do. Who was he supposed to be following? Who was going to be burned? He came to the realization that Fortunatus could only have meant Caligula’s dead body. Once that was burned then the emperor would be dead for sure. Obviously that was what he had to report to Agrippa.

The three corpses lay there. Many people came to stare. The assassins had vanished. Spectators jostled in the corridor, some running one way, others in the opposite direction. Then they too dwindled. Four or five bodyguards were left by the bodies, standing there, not one knowing what to do, waiting for orders.

A soldier appeared at the other end of the room, at the foot of a staircase, dragging someone down after him.

“I don’t want it! I don’t want it!” Claudius wailed.

Uri stepped forward before coming to a stop. What would he be able to do, one solitary figure without a weapon?

Some guardsmen were aiding the soldier.

“He was hiding on a terrace of the Hermaeum!” the soldier shouted. “I’ve found him! I noticed his feet sticking out from the curtains hanging before the door!”

“Let’s take him! Carry him!”

Claudius was grabbed by arms and legs, but the old man was heavy and they were unable to lift him.

“I don’t want it!” screeched Claudius.

“Imperator! We’re swearing an oath of loyalty to you, don’t you see that?” the soldier yelled. The others stopped.

“Are we taking an oath of loyalty?”

“Claudius is emperor!” yelled the soldier.

“Claudius is emperor! Claudius is emperor!”

They hoisted the flailing Claudius onto their shoulders.

“I don’t want it! I’ve already said so: I don’t want it!” he squealed.

“To the camp with him!”

“To the camp!”

Five of them carried the protesting Claudius.

The dead bodies were also picked up and carried out, with Uri hurrying behind. They got to an internal courtyard where a small pyre had already been built, with more branches of wood still being added. Caligula’s body was dropped on this, with his wig now slipping off. The pyre was now lit with a torch, and flames were soon licking the corpse.

They watched in silence, respectfully, as it burned before a centurion snapped:

“There’s not much wood. We’ll burn him later on, outside!”

The half-charred corpse was tossed onto a cart, his wife and the remaining tatters of the five-month-old daughter on top, and then hauled out of the yard.

Uri got to Agrippa’s house without mishap.

Everyone was there but Claudius, whom they had learned had been taken to the guards’ barracks beyond the Porta Nomentana.

“He’s in a good place there,” Agrippa asserted.

Sabinus, the corpulent, ruddy-faced prattler, declared that the consuls, Sentius and Secundus, had occupied and closed the Forum and the Capitol. Titus had it on good authority that immediately before doing so they had transferred the funds from the treasuries to the Capitol. Fortunatus reported that all of Caligula’s images and statues throughout the city had been torn down and smashed. Valerius Asiaticus, an ex-consul, was quoted as exclaiming: “I only wish I had killed him!” They also recalled one of Caligula’s notorious sayings: “How I wish all you Romans had only one neck to throttle!” in retorting “He had but one neck, but many hands throttled him!”

The Senate had convoked by then.

The Germanic guards were apparently still in the theater, having closed all exits, believing that the emperor was still there somewhere, and would let no one out.

Agrippa nodded.

“We’ll have to wait a few days,” he said. “It’s likely that before the day is out the Republic will be reinstated and the killers will be rewarded, but by tomorrow they will be in such great conflict that as far as they are concerned anyone at all will do as emperor!”

Uri was amazed at this pudgy, soft man. A widely experienced politician, Agrippa was smiling mockingly.

“They might even elect Vicinianus,” said a strong, serious man. “He is well-respected.”

“That’s precisely the problem, prefect,” said Agrippa. “They don’t want a strong emperor over them if the Republic does not work. Vicinianus is too powerful a personality.”

The serious man (undoubtedly Sanguinius Maximus, the consular prefect who had also been privy to Caligula’s assassination) shook his head.

“Enough, gentlemen!” Agrippa exclaimed. “Everybody considers Claudius a halfwit! He’s the only man in Rome whom no one fears! We just have to wait and see.”

Sabinus proposed that a delegation be sent to the Senate.

“Let’s at least spy and see how the land lies!”

Agrippa shook his head.

“There’s no need.”

Sabinus was agitated and fearful.

“We still need a few more of the Praetorian Guard,” he said. “We haven’t got everyone on our side yet!”

Agrippa waved that aside.

“I told Claudius to offer all the guardsmen fifteen thousand sesterces. Provided Claudius doesn’t forget, that’ll win them over, but he’s so scared that he won’t forget!”

“Where is Claudius going to get hold of that much money?” Marcus queried in amazement.

Agrippa grinned broadly:

“From you.”

Cassius Chaerea was the buskined officer with the high-pitched voice who had been the first to lay hands on Caligula, and Cornelius Sabinus was the first to stab him. The Senate acknowledged their imperishable merits and enshrined these in law. There was furious argument in the Senate over who had been the author of the tyrannicide, with yesterday’s cowards all competing. Others, such as Aemilius Regulus and Annius Minucianus, had also had the idea of slaying Caligula but Chaerea had beaten them to the punch. Papinius and Clemens alleged that Chaerea had initiated them too in the plan, while Chaerea said that Callistus, Caligula’s freed slave, had also assisted, whereupon the Senate decided that Callistus could retain the fortune he had raked together, with the rumor going around that Chaerea would be getting at least a half of Callistus’s wealth.