‘Know anything about this bint?’ growled Vinius, when he made contact just before the troops left Rome. ‘Is she a good businesswoman? I want solvency.’
‘Naturally I ran checks.’ Melissus had merely asked his wife. ‘She only accepts select clients. Noblewomen flock to her, wanting to be beautified like princesses. She will not default.’
‘I don’t want upsets on my premises. Is there a man in tow?’
Must be. They all have one. ‘No follower is obvious. And I have guaranteed that you won’t cause offence, by the way. This woman seems very respectable, hard-working, honest — just don’t jeopardise everything by trying to grope her.’
‘Not interested,’ scoffed Gaius Vinius. ‘I’m in enough trouble. I’m on my third damned wife!’
Pollia had kicked him out after only six weeks. She said she found Vinius unbearable; she claimed he was mean with money, always absent, humourless, unkind to her mother and fell asleep while making love. (He denied the last point.) Insultingly, she went back to the husband she had previously left, a violent swine by all accounts. She took her son. Vinius regretted losing contact with the child.
To help him forget, Felix and Fortunatus swiftly fixed him up with Verania. A priest was booked to take auguries at the wedding before Vinius knew anything about it, and his brothers did later sheepishly confess that the new bride could have been better vetted. Within a week Vinius discovered Verania had schmoozed his banker and was stealing from him. Convinced he had funds salted away (as he did), she was to be a tenacious wife.
‘So what’s her name, this investor I’m roped up with?’
‘Flavia Lucilla.’
After years in the vigiles, listening to unlikely stories of coincidence, Vinius remained expressionless.
Their coming together here was not entirely chance. The Cretticus house stood in a position that suited both of them. Lucilla wanted to be near to the Flavians’ private homes; Vinius was looking at property en route to the Praetorian Camp. She could easily access her ladies; he could check on his investment when passing. The time was right; they both had savings. Since Domitian started a massive building programme, all Rome was full of dust and marble carts. Builders were flourishing and Vinius’ brother Fortunatus had just set up on his own account, renovating apartments. As an entrepreneur, to further his own sticky operation, he was quick to nudge unlikely investors into partnership. He assumed Vinius would eventually buy out the freedwoman and make double profits by subletting her rooms too.
She hoped to earn enough to purchase his lease and rid herself of him.
On the Kalends of July, first day of the month, Lucilla moved in. The promised dividing partition had yet to appear and since it would destroy the proportions of the frescoed corridor, she did not remind the agent. She had first choice of rooms, assigning herself the two that overlooked the interior courtyard, while leaving the absent Praetorian, or his tenants, to suffer the noises from the street. Although shutters cut down some of the clamour, whoever lived there would have to endure night-time delivery carts, tedious street-cries, and the buzz from a small market. She would be shielded, and more importantly for her work, one of her rooms had access to a balcony, with doors that could be opened to flood the place with light.
The apartment had once been a suite of family bedrooms with interior access. Blocked off from the main house, it was now reached through double doors off a private little landing at the top of its own new stairs from the street. Inside, the proportions were still grand. It had wooden floors and ceilings throughout. The central corridor was painted in muted shades of green and turquoise, relieved with flashes of chalk white. The four main rooms were decorated in dark red, with coloured tendrils and flowers, executed finely as dados and cornices. At the far end, informal curtains hid the domestic facilities, a scullery and lavatory; these were basic, though their very existence was a rarity.
Lucilla’s previous building had been a purpose-built lodging house with forty tenants crammed in on many floors. Her single room there was dilapidated and draughty, containing only a low bed, a lopsided cupboard and a few secondhand pots; she did little more than sleep in it. Now she had this new apartment, she could invite private clients and have leisure herself. Some women wanted her to visit their homes, but others welcomed a chance to go out; these civilised surroundings, with a discreet entrance and elegant decor, were ideal. She seated them in the room with the balcony to have their hair styled; she could wash their locks and make them drinks, while she heated hot curling irons. Once her clients all left, she could relax in the styling room, with its comfortable wicker armchairs. Lucilla slept in the second room and kept her own things there.
Carefully, for she was terrified of poverty and hardly dared spend money, she had begun to buy furniture. She spent more readily on the tools of her work: combs, scissors, mirrors, cosmetics, footstools and side-tables.
As Melissus promised the Praetorian, she was solvent. She had cashed in most of her mother’s jewellery; she still had some money from the arena lottery; then, as well as the earnings she and her sister Lara made, Lucilla had a discreet source of income from her own commission making hairpieces for her anonymous male client at the palace. She had set a high price for that.
Life in the new apartment had, for her, as much luxury as she could ever need. She welcomed periods of solitude. She loved the privacy and peace. She badly hoped the Praetorian would continue to ignore the place. For almost a year she was thoroughly spoiled, having sole possession while the Emperor and his soldiers were away.
Domitian had gone to Gaul, on the excuse of overseeing a census; then he suddenly swerved across Germany where he built roads to take troops over the River Rhine. His trip to the north had been planned in advance, with a military purpose from the start. There was detailed pre-consultation at Alba with the Emperor’s council. Enormous forces had been gathered for the expedition, with detachments from all four legions in Britain, for instance, even though the governor there, Agricola, was conducting troop-hungry military expansion. A new legion was created, the I Flavia Minervia, named for Domitian’s patron deity. He was desperate to achieve military glory to set him alongside his father and brother: Vespasian the conqueror of Britain, Titus the victor of Judaea.
He entered the territory of a tribe called the Chatti on the unconquered east bank of the Rhine; he established a presence and subdued the Chatti, who had a warlike reputation. Although on Domitian’s return the joke ran that the Chatti were ‘more triumphed over than conquered’, he did surprise them and pen them into their fortresses. Rome now straddled the southern Rhine, with a new frontier thirty miles beyond the river and control over main roads used by various tribes to pass north and south. Domitian had annexed a strategic bight of Germany and put himself in a good position to tackle the dangerous gap between the Rhine and the Danube, which served as a funnel for aggressive tribes who were seeking to move west.
Hostile commentators would portray this campaign as whimsy on Domitian’s part, but it was a continuing move to strengthen the frontier in Europe, a process begun by his respected father.
The following summer Domitian arrived back in Rome, styling himself a conqueror. The Senate was prompted to award him a formal Triumph.
Domitian assumed the honorary name of ‘Germanicus’ as if he had won a tremendous victory. His critics made much of it. The previous Germanicus had been a much-respected soldier and commander, elder brother to the Emperor Claudius, who went into a hostile district to recover the bodies from three legions slaughtered in a disaster, thereby restoring the national psyche. Chipping into the lands of the Chatti was modest by comparison, and spoilsports whispered that neither Domitian’s father nor brother had claimed equivalent titles for their genuine military exploits… Deeply sensitive, Domitian took note of who was whispering.