Helped on by Agrippina, rumours of the Bacchanalian orgy, with particular emphasis on Messalina’s conduct, spread amongst the guards. Outraged tribunes demanded an audience with the Emperor, insisting that the illicit celebrations be stopped and the participants ruthlessly punished. Claudius, hectored by Agrippina, quietly agreed. Soldiers were despatched into the palace grounds, bringing the revelry to an abrupt end as both Satyrs and Maenads fled for their lives.
The guards hunted the revellers through the trees and into the streets. Some were executed immediately, others were loaded with chains and taken off to prison. As the wine and opiates wore off, Messalina panicked and fled to the house of the Chief Vestal Virgin, begging her to plead with the Emperor. The priestess refused. The Empress of Rome, the beautiful Messalina, still dressed as a Maenad with fading garlands round her neck, was reduced to running from one end of the city to the other, vainly imploring former friends for help. No sympathy was shown and she tried to leave Rome in a cart used for removing garden rocks.
At the Praetorian camp Claudius was wavering. Agrippina whispered hoarsely to me that if the Emperor changed his mind we would all have to flee from Messalina’s undoubted fury. She conferred quickly with Narcissus and Pallas but was openly alarmed when a guards officer announced that the Empress had appeared at the camp gates, an arm round each of her children, Britannicus and Octavia. The guards let her in and Messalina threw herself on the Emperor’s mercy. I lurked in a corner of the imperial pavilion and saw that Messalina was using all her beauty, charm and eloquence to gain a hearing.
The Chief Vestal Virgin arrived, pricked by conscience, to argue that a wife should not be executed unheard. Narcissus and Pallas intervened, rudely telling the Vestal to return to her religious duties. The old woman, frightened, mumbled an apology and withdrew. Narcissus now attacked Messalina, saying she was unfit to be a mother and ordering Britannicus and Octavia to be taken away from her. He crouched and whispered in the Emperor’s ear that Messalina had effectively divorced him by her impious marriage to Silius. Then, his voice rising, he started on a long list of Messalina’s former lovers. Claudius could do nothing but cry, shake his head and moan loudly.
Messalina shouted at Narcissus to produce proof. The Emperor glanced expectantly at the freedman who was unable to answer until Agrippina decisively intervened. She hastily wrote a short note and passed it to me. I read it quickly then handed it to Narcissus. His podgy face, red with embarrassment, eased into a smile, and he bent down again and whispered in the Emperor’s ear. Agrippina had given him all the proof he would need.
‘We will go to Silius’s house,’ Claudius declared, lurching to his feet. ‘And seek the necessary evidence.’
Once we’d arrived at Silius’s house, Narcissus, prompted by Agrippina’s note, pointed out all the items from the imperial palace, gifts from the Empress to her lover, that were crammed into every available corner. Claudius was a greedy, acquisitive man, and when he saw the statuettes, vases, precious cloths and other items brought out and laid at his feet, he issued orders for the arrest of Silius and all his companions and returned to the camp. Once there a hasty platform was erected and the captives brought in. Unluckily for Messalina, they did not challenge the accusations but simply asked for a speedy death. One by one they were hustled from the platform to be decapitated by guards. They all died bravely except the actor Mnester, who begged for his life.
‘Others,’ he whined, ‘have sinned for money or ambition; I was simply compelled to.’
‘Are we to stand here and listen to this rubbish?’ Narcissus barked. He pointed to the execution grounds now strewn with bleeding, decapitated corpses. ‘Others have died, why spare an actor?’
And Mnester went under the sword.
Once the executions were finished, Claudius insisted on being taken back to the palace, where he ate and drank and grew maudlin over Messalina.
‘I’ll see her tomorrow,’ he declared tearfully. ‘I’ll listen to her explanation.’ He became more and more befuddled, his anger cooling, his lust for Messalina resurfacing.
Pallas reported to Agrippina that Claudius had started to refer to Messalina as ‘that poor woman’.
‘She cannot live till morning,’ Agrippina declared. ‘Where is she now?’
‘She has fled to the gardens of Lucullus.’
‘Then let her die there. Parmenon,’ Agrippina ordered. ‘Go and see her. Tell her the Emperor’s heart has not changed. Pallas, she must be dead by nightfall.’
Reluctantly I left. No, that’s a lie, I wasn’t reluctant: if Messalina survived, she’d claw her way back into Claudius’s affections and both my head and that of my mistress would roll. Whether I liked it or not I was in the amphitheatre facing a fight to the death. Our opponent was down and I could almost hear the roar of the crowd, ‘Hoc Habet! Hoc Habet! Let her have it!’
Messalina was sheltering in an olive grove, prostrate on the ground, with her mother kneeling beside her. The former Empress glanced up hopefully, but when she saw me her lip curled.
‘So, Agrippina’s shadow has arrived,’ she mocked.
I knelt down beside her. Even at this moment, Messalina was incredibly beautifuclass="underline" the gorgeous ringlets framing her exquisitely shaped face, those strange eyes that seemed to shift in colour, lips like a full red rose and skin as white as the purest milk. She was still dressed in her Bacchanalian costume, her body coated with the most expensive perfume, her face streaked black where the tears had spread the kohl.
‘What have you come for?’ she whispered, sitting up.
‘You know why he’s here!’ her mother snapped.
This tall, grey-haired, severe woman had little love for her daughter, but at least she had the courage to attend her during her last hours.
‘What’s your name?’ Messalina smiled through her tears. ‘Parmenon, isn’t it? Tell me one thing, Parmenon, is Domina Agrippina in the palace?’
‘She is!’
‘My mistake,’ she sighed. ‘I should have taken her head years ago. It’s finished, isn’t it, Parmenon?’
‘It is,’ I replied. ‘All that remains is an honourable death.’
‘Not here,’ Messalina declared.
She grasped my hand, got to her feet and pointed to a small garden pavilion deep in the trees. Gripping my arm she hurried across, her mother following. Inside, the pavilion smelt of damp wood and leaves, but she must have been there before as a lamp was burning, cushions and blankets were strewn on the floor, and a roll of parchment and a tray of pens and ink lay on a table. Messalina ordered her mother to close the door and pull the bolts across; even as she did so, we heard the tramp of feet followed by a pounding on the door. Messalina crouched on the floor, drawing the blankets around her, whimpering like a puppy. I felt sorry for her at that moment but I had no hope to offer her. The door was forced, and a Praetorian officer with one of Pallas’s henchmen, Evodus, stepped into the darkened room.
‘So, there you are, you bitch!’ Evodus bawled. ‘You haven’t even the guts to take your own life!’
The officer peered through the gloom, recognised me and nodded. Evodus was now indulging in a litany of abuse, as the officer stood staring down at the Empress. Messalina lifted a dagger, and pressed the tip against her throat, then against her breast, but couldn’t drive it in. The officer took a step forward. Messalina’s head went down and she sobbed.