“Caesar; your stepfather, the Emperor Augustus, told you once that it does not matter that others speak evil of us; it is sufficient that we prevent their doing evil; I, Caesar, if I speak evil, I do you good; in what other way would you hear the complaints, rumors, ire, and sorrow of your Empire?”
“I do not care to know what is said; rather, I wish to act against the complainers, the rumor-mongers, the wrathful and sorrowful; make that distinction; and do you never fear, Theodorus, that one day my fury will turn against you, will attribute to you the crimes you inform me of, the opinions you transmit to me?”
The counselor bowed slightly, and Tiberius caught the silvery gleam of his shaved head in the darkness. “Caesar, I run that risk … Shall I order the torches to be lighted?”
“I can see at night. Furthermore, I prefer to hear you and not see you. I shall close my eyes. It will be as if I were speaking to myself. I have forgotten how to do that, and that is why I have need of you. But I cannot speak to, or touch, or hear that phantom that visits me every afternoon. It appears at the foot of the triclinium where I have lunched, and later napped, and smiles at me, merely smiles at me…”
The counselor looks around the bedchamber. He does not know whether the masks that adorn it are smiling: they are Tiberius’s ancestors.
“Since you wish to hear the truth in order that your spirit be calmed, I shall tell you, Caesar, that the first act of your reign was the murder of that poor youth who now appears to you in dreams. Agrippa Postumus, the legitimate grandson of Augustus, his blood heir…”
When he speaks, Tiberius always nervously drums his fingers.
“While I am but the son of Augustus’s wife, is that not what you mean? But Augustus chose me; dying, he called me to his bedside and told me, you will be Emperor, you, not that idiotic, gross, physically strong but mentally weak, handsome but imbecilic youth, it will be you, it will not be he … You will be Caesar, Tiberius.”
“The people believe otherwise.”
“What do they believe? Tell me, do not be afraid.”
“That you took care not to reveal the death of Augustus until you had murdered his true heir, Agrippa Postumus; that the corpse of Augustus was closeted away, hidden, rotting, while you ordered Agrippa to be murdered.”
“Augustus Caesar left a letter…”
“The people say that Livia, your mother, wrote in the name of Augustus, her husband, to clear the way for you, the stepson, condemning the young Agrippa, the grandson, to exile…”
“The youth was murdered by the Tribune of the soldiers.”
“The Tribune said that you gave the order.”
“But I denied it and ordered the Tribune killed for slandering me … for slandering the new Caesar, accepted by the Senate and by the Legions … Are these legitimizations not sufficient?”
“In any case, the Agrippa Postumus who died, murdered in his exile on the island of Planasia, and who appears to you every afternoon in your dreams, is merely a specter. Although I believe, Caesar, that no one, not even a phantom, could reach this place; you have chosen your refuge well; the island is a natural fortress.”
Then Caesar screams, raises one arm, points a trembling finger, and Theodorus, the son of a rhetoric master, attempts with narrowed eyes to penetrate the darkness that is so familiar to his master; the phantom! it has returned, this time by night, there! it entered by that balcony, behind that curtain, light the torch, Theodorus! shouts Tiberius, a coarse, trembling man with enormous eyes and a neck like a bulclass="underline" as the counselor lights the oakum torch he hears the murmur of a humble and frightened voice: “Caesar … the most modest man of this island begs you to accept our hospitality…”
The torchlight reveals a mature man, head bowed, a sparse beard, uncombed hair, and dirty fingernails, wearing only a loincloth; his feet are bleeding, his chest and arms gleaming with sweat; the fish he had clamped against his breast, he now holds out in offering to the Emperor.
“Who are you? How did you reach here?”
“I am a fisherman; I offer you the best of my humble hospitality; the fruit of the sea, this beautiful mullet, Caesar, see how large it is, how gray its side, how silver its belly, and how beautiful its fins…”
“Then anyone at all could come here…”
“Since I was a boy, Caesar, I…”
“And you could lead anyone here…”
“I do not understand; my fathers taught me that it is proper that the humble offer hospitality to the powerful, and that they, without in any way diminishing their greatness, accept it…”
“Innocent; you have shown the way to phantoms.”
At Caesar’s screams a great number of servants burst into the room; they carry torches, lamps, wax tapers, candles; only after the servants have entered, the guards rush in and take the fisherman prisoner — both the guard and the fisherman are trembling; Caesar, also trembling, is muttering that anyone at all can come here, even a miserable fisherman, even a phantom, the phantom that pursues him every afternoon and now sends messengers by night with poisoned fish; no, Caesar, I swear to you, I caught this fish this very afternoon, it is the largest mullet that has ever been taken from these waters, it seemed to me that I would sin through pride if I kept it for myself and my poor family, it is my homage, Caesar, it is the custom of hospitality; the other fishermen say that Agrippa is not dead, that he has been seen on other islands, on Planasia and on Closa, and that soon he will land here with his army of slaves to reclaim the inheritance of his grandfather, Caesar Augustus, they say he is young and blond, and he appears only at night and never twice in the same place: Agrippa Postumus; I argued with my companions, Caesar, I told them you were the Emperor and that with my fish I would offer to you the hospitality of Capri so that your dreams would be tranquil, and mine also; we wish peace, Caesar, my father died in the civil wars fighting against Cassius and Brutus, I wish only to fish in peace, and honor Caesar…”
“Imbecile,” says Tiberius, “you have but doubled my nightmares. Guards, smear the mullet in this brute’s face, rub its snout and teeth in his face; and now what do you say, imbecile? will you again dare scale those cliffs behind my palace and make me believe that anyone, even the phantom of Agrippa, can do what you have done? what do you say?”
“I say, Caesar, that all is well and that I give thanks for having caught a soft-fleshed mullet instead of bringing you a crab…”
And Tiberius laughs; he orders a man of his guard to bring a crab from the kitchen, and orders a servant to fetch the relief guard resting at this hour in the barracks, and orders them to scrub the face of the miserable fisherman with the crab until the man weeps, and bleeding and fearing to lose his sight is ejected from the palace.
“And from now on, believe in a usurping phantom,” Tiberius yells to the air, to the fisherman, to Theodorus, and to himself; and then he orders a relief guard to take the men of the night watch who had not been able to prevent the passage of a wretched fisherman and who, also, had reached the imperial bedchamber after his own servants had arrived; surely they deceived him, they who comprised that watch were not true soldiers, but slaves freed in their master’s wills, orcivi liberated by the grace of Orcus, god of death; such grace would be of short duration; let these cowards of the night watch be rewarded, give each man much to drink, and then bind his genitals so he cannot urinate, and so pass the night with his water strangulated and kidneys swollen, and only in the morning when he, Tiberius Caesar, can attend the spectacle, let each and every man of them be thrown into the sea from the heights of the cliff; and have a crew of sailors waiting below on the sea to break with gaffs and oars the bones of those who did not drown, and yes, even these; and let the relief guard look upon my justice.