The story Lara told was that Flavia Lachne had been only thirteen when she was first made pregnant. As with Lucilla later, she had never said whether her elder daughter Lara was fathered by a fellow slave, someone outside the house, or one of the family. Any of these was possible in most households. It was a slave’s lot to be sexually exploited, though the lucky ones passed puberty first. Lucilla sometimes thought her sister had a Flavian air, though slaves often took on the mannerisms of the family they lived with. Her origins were best unexplored. Lara herself showed no curiosity and trying to associate herself closely with one of the imperial family would do her no good. Slaves and ex-slaves were used to not knowing their paternity.
As a slave’s child, Lara had had minimal contact with her birth mother. Eventually Lachne bore a second daughter, Lucilla, with about fifteen years between the two. Neither ever knew of Lachne having other children, though she could have done. Both daughters became free when Flavia Lachne was manumitted; she bought their freedom herself.
Lara married young, then she and Lucilla, who was still an infant, rarely met. Looking back, Lucilla remembered her mother had from time to time left the apartment, mentioning that she was off to visit Lara, though she was always reticent about it.
Lucilla liked Lara. Lara had a good opinion of everyone and always expected every event to turn out well; perhaps this challenging viewpoint explained why she married Junius.
Lara explained to Lucilla that, as the children of a freedwoman, they did have connections. They could claim the Flavians as patrons and extended family. The orphaned Lucilla could ask for their help. She would have a duty to them, but they had responsibilities to her and should ensure she did not starve.
Accompanying their mother, Lara had regularly groomed the Flavians. With Lachne gone, she went independently. She now took Lucilla to meet Flavia Domitilla, Vespasian’s granddaughter, who had freed Lachne. The sisters would work together, even after Lucilla found her own place to stay. Lara quickly trained Lucilla in all aspects of hairdressing, not just building towers of curls. Quietly and pleasantly, like her mother and sister, Lucilla made the Flavian ladies feel she turned them out like goddesses.
When Lara was caught up in domestic affairs, Lucilla visited the Flavian women on her own. They paid a small, rather unreliable retainer, but soon Lara’s other private clients were introducing her to their friends. She and Lara had also become known for attending at weddings: they adorned the brides, who traditionally had their hair arranged in a special style like that of the Vestal Virgins. This generally led to extra work on the brides’ female relatives. Tips on wedding days were good. Then when the amphitheatre opened, Lucilla set herself to work long hours to build up her savings.
The cash gift she collected at the Games allowed her to move out from Lara’s to a tiny one-room lodging. Her long-term dream was to rent a much better apartment where she could both live and work. It had to be pleasant, with space for customers and running water so she could wash clients’ hair. This would be expensive. Lucilla’s nest-egg slowly grew but for a long time the kind of place she wanted remained beyond her reach.
Times changed. After ruling for only two years, the Emperor Titus collapsed with a fever, just as his father had done. When Titus died, everyone immediately understood that Rome was entering a period which would have a very different flavour. Domitian Caesar snatched the throne, almost too impatient to wait for the Senate’s approval.
From the start there was consternation. While it was true that the beloved Titus had turned out well, nobody ever expected Domitian to flower like his brother. He was damned before he began — and he diligently lived up to people’s fears. The Senate was tense. Artists hoped for benefits, though imperial patronage was always uncertain. The armed forces had mixed expectations because to date Domitian had had no military career. Traders grumbled, even though most businessmen remained confident. Lucilla and her sister, whose clients included members of the imperial family, watched events with heightened curiosity and from close at hand.
Lucilla occasionally attended Domitia Longina, the Emperor’s wife, a woman she did not take to much, though it was not her place to refuse the work. She mainly continued to look after Flavia Domitilla, who was a mother of seven and much in need of pampering. Through her, Lucilla met Domitilla’s cousin Julia, Titus’ daughter, after being sent along to revive Julia’s spirits after her father died. Romans were supposed to have unkempt hair when mourning, but behind discreet veils most aristocratic women preferred to stay neat. One never knew (Lachne had always said) when a lover might manage to creep up the back stairs with a practical suggestion for consoling one’s grief.
Of course Flavia Julia, admired daughter of the beloved Titus and respected young wife of her cousin Flavius Sabinus, did not have lovers.
Well, not at that time.
And perhaps never.
Being single, Lucilla was more readily mobile than her sister. Whenever the court moved out to one of Domitian’s villas in the summer, it was Lucilla who went. His favourites were at the Alban lake, or his father’s birthplace in the Sabine Hills, but there were also imperial villas at Circeii on the Neapolis coast, at Tusculum, Antium, Gaeta, Anxur and Baiae, not to mention extensive property that the Emperor’s wife Domitia Longina had inherited from her father Corbulo. Lucilla loved to go, though she worked for other clients too, and resisted being a permanent member of the imperial entourage; she always kept a base in Rome.
Alba was special to her. She could see just why, on his father’s accession, the young Domitian Caesar had grabbed Pompey’s villa, which was part of the imperial portfolio; why he had chosen this fabulous setting for his seduction of Domitia Longina, who was at the time married to another man; and why after he became Emperor he made this his most frequent retreat, his summer court. Associated with that court, Lucilla herself acquired new confidence. Her duties often left her with free time. Before she was twenty, she had grown into her looks and shone with personality. As Gaius Vinius had once prophesied, she was becoming attractive. She began to make friends.
Plenty of people at Alba knew Flavia Lucilla. She made contacts, many of them very close to Domitian: she met and befriended his eunuchs and his dwarf, musicians, sculptors, architects and poets. She never associated with the upper classes, the senators who were part of his advisory circle — although their wives knew who to visit when they wanted a decent stylist for something a little ambitious. Lucilla was familiar with the imperial secretaries since many of them, like her, were freedmen either of the Flavians or their imperial predecessors; wives of several prominent bureaucrats were also among her customers. She knew by sight a few of the Praetorian Guards, though she tended to avoid soldiers. Likewise, she had little to do with the athletes who came for Domitian’s new Games, and she fastidiously shunned contact with his gladiators.
She had certain special dealings with the Emperor’s bedchamber barber. This fraught freedman was handling an obsessive ruler who was notoriously upset by his receding hairline. It had become well known that Flavia Lucilla had flying fingers and was utterly discreet; she was the best maker of undetectable wigs.
Given the sensitive nature of these consultations with the barber, she never talked about the subject.
5
Gaius Vinius Clodianus did not want to be his father. The late Marcus Rubella had passionately yearned to be a Praetorian, but his youngest son had no similar desire. His unnamed patron had badly misjudged the situation — or was cruelly indifferent to his feelings. His brothers, of course, called it ‘bloody brilliant’. They would be living through him. That was his first problem.