Nero gazed down at him and nodded knowingly. “And when this is done, Pinarius – when the smoke clears and the embers die down – we shall retrieve that amulet of yours from your brother’s ashes, and you must wear it every day. Yes, every hour of every day, so that you may never forget this moment.”
AD 68
“You are a man now, my son. You are the heir of the Pinarii. Sometimes the passing of the fascinum has taken place at the death of its wearer, sometimes while the wearer is still alive. It is my decision to pass it to you now. From this moment, the fascinum of our ancestors belongs to you.”
Titus Pinarius was repeating a ceremony that had been enacted by countless generations of the Pinarii since a time before history. He lifted the necklace with the fascinum over his head and placed it around the neck of his son. Titus was fifty. Lucius was twenty-one.
But the mood in the household was not jubilant. Chrysanthe averted her eyes. Their three daughters wept. Hilarion lowered his face, and the other slaves followed his example. Even the wax masks of the ancestors, brought into the garden to witness the ceremony, seemed melancholy.
The garden itself was full of colour and fragrance, surrounding them with roses and flowering vines. Like every other part of their splendid new home on the Palatine, the garden was remarkably spacious and exquisitely maintained, a place of beauty and elegance, especially on a warm day in the month of Junius.
As one of the emperor’s most loyal subjects, always ready to take the auspices, to give him trusted advice, and to encourage his endeavours, Titus had prospered greatly in the last few years. Thanks to Nero’s generosity, he had acquired a considerable fortune and owned properties all over Italy. The old house on the Aventine had begun to seem cramped and antiquated. It was a proud day when the Pinarii moved into a newly built mansion only a few steps away from the Palatine wing of Nero’s Golden House.
Titus made ready to leave the house. He wore his trabea – the same one he had worn long ago when he first joined the college at the invitation of his cousin Claudius – but the lituus he selected was his second-best. The ancient ivory lituus he had inherited from his father he decided to leave behind.
“Are you sure I can’t come with you, father?” said Lucius. There were tears in his eyes.
“No, son. I want you to stay here. Your mother and sisters will need you.”
Lucius nodded. “I understand. Goodbye, father.”
“Goodbye, son.” They embraced, then Titus embraced and said farewell to each of his three daughters. The youngest was ten, the eldest sixteen. How like their mother they all looked!
Chrysanthe and Hilarion followed him to the vestibule. Hilarion opened the door for him. Chrysanthe took his hand.
Her voice was choked with emotion. “Is there no chance-?”
Titus shook his head. “Who can say? Who knows where the gods will lead me this day?”
He kissed her, then drew back and took a deep breath. Quickly, not daring to hesitate, he strode out of the house and into the street.
The last member of his household he saw was Hilarion, who looked after him from the doorway. Titus paused and turned back.
“You’ve served me well, Hilarion.”
“Thank you, Master.”
“How old are you, Hilarion?”
“I’ve never been entirely certain, Master.”
Titus shook his head and smiled. “However old you are, you still look like a boy to me. Still, I suppose, if you were a freedman, this would be the time for you to think of starting your own family. You know that I’ve left instructions to Lucius that you should be manumitted, in the event…”
Hilarion nodded. “Yes, Master, I know. Thank you, Master.”
“Of course, I would expect you to continue to serve Lucius. He’ll need a slave – a freedman – he can trust. Someone loyal, like you, with intelligence and good judgement.”
“I’ll always be loyal to the Pinarii, Master.”
“Good.” Titus cleared his throat. “Well, then…”
“Shall I close the door now, Master?”
“Yes, Hilarion. Close the door and bar it.”
The door closed. Titus heard the heavy bar drop into place. He turned and walked quickly up the street.
He passed no one. The street was deserted. Perhaps that was a good sign.
He reached the nearest entrance to the Golden House, the one he was accustomed to using almost every day, but found it blocked by a massive bronze door. Titus had never seen the door closed before; invariably, at any hour, he had found the entrance open and guarded by Praetorians. Today there were no guards in sight.
He raised the heavy bronze knocker on the door and let it drop. The sound reverberated up and down the street. There was no response.
He used the knocker several times, self-conscious about the noise he was making. No one answered.
He would have to try another entrance. Probably the closest was the original entrance to the old imperial house, the one built by Augustus, which was now essentially the back entrance, the farthest from the grand vestibule of the Golden House at the south end of the Forum. Titus had not used that entrance in a long time.
Not all of the rebuilt Palatine was taken up by the Golden House or by private residences. His route took him through an area of shops and taverns that normally catered to a very exclusive clientele. The shops were all closed and shuttered, but one of the taverns was open and seemed to be doing a good business, especially for so early in the day. Passing by, Titus heard the drunken patrons inside singing a song:
Mother-killer,
Wife-kicker,
Who’s sicker than Nero?
Burned his city,
Killed his baby.
Crazy maybe? Nero!
Suddenly a group of men rushed by. They looked panic-stricken. One of them Titus recognized as a fellow senator, a staunch supporter of the emperor, like himself, but the man was wearing a common tunic instead of his senatorial toga. The man recognized Titus and grabbed his arm.
“What in Hades are you doing in the street, Pinarius? You should be home with your family. Or better yet, get out of town. Don’t you have a country estate to go to?”
The man hurried on without another word.
Titus saw more people coming up the street. They were brandishing clubs and chanting a slogan. Titus did not stay to hear what they were saying. He quickly headed in the opposite direction.
He passed through empty streets and came to a small square with a public fountain. A marble statute of the emperor stood nearby. Titus groaned. Someone had put a crude stage wig on the head, tilting it askew, and tied a sack and a sign around the neck. The sign read: THIS ACTOR HAS EARNED THE SACK!
Titus shuddered. The sack was the sort into which a convicted parricide was sewn up before being thrown into the Tiber to drown.
It had come to this. When had it all gone wrong?
Was it when Nero, tired of Seneca’s advice, dismissed his old tutor and replaced him with the cold-blooded, insanely suspicious prefect of the Praetorian Guards, Tigellinus? Things had certainly taken a turn for the worse after that.
Or was it when the senatorial conspiracy against Nero came to light? The bloodshed that followed tore the city apart, but what choice did Nero have but to ruthlessly suppress the plotters? To be sure, Nero might have flung his net too wide. The senator Piso and a handful of others were certainly guilty, but what about Seneca, Petronius, Lucan, and so many others who had made the court of Nero such a vibrant place? All were gone now, either executed or forced to commit suicide. Their deaths had been as memorable as their lives, and were already the stuff of legend.
Petronius held a lavish banquet, then cut his wrists and bound them up so that he could slowly bleed to death while he conversed with his closest friends. He was said to be as witty and outspoken as ever that night, thumbing his nose at Nero by dictating a letter in which he listed all the emperor’s sexual partners and the intimate details of their couplings. His final act as the arbiter of elegance was to seal the letter and send it to Nero.