The counselor Theodorus believes that parricides suffer a worse fate; beat with canes, they are stitched inside a leather bag with a dog, a cock, a monkey, and a serpent, and thrown into the sea.
“Theodorus: I had among my animals a serpent. One day I discovered it, devoured by ants. The augur warned me against the power of the multitudes.”
“You do well to show caution, Caesar; you have already seen, you were opposed to attending the contest of the gladiators at Fidanae; the amphitheater collapsed and twenty thousand spectators died; you might have been one of them. Stay away from crowds, Caesar. Remember your ancestor, the second Claudia, whose wax mask hangs there beside the balcony.”
“I shall do so. And you try to remember why you have not informed me of that legend now circulating…”
“Caesar; you ask so many things of me.”
Tiberius claps his hands loudly; fetch my servants, disrobe me; lead me to the bath, bring my little fishes, prepare a feast, and merriment, girls, ephebes, let us forget fishermen and phantoms, let the fishermen return to the sea and phantoms to their ashes; farewell, fisherman, come, little fish…”
“Caesar, the rumor is widespread; this apparition is not, of course, the phantom of Agrippa, but the very real person of his slave Clemens, who has taken advantage of a rare physical resemblance, being of the same height and stature as his master, to spread the news that the heir is not dead. This notice is murmured secretly, in the manner of all forbidden stories, in the solitude of the night or under cloak of the similar protection of the multitudes at spectacles, for neither the night nor the mob possesses a discernible face; every fool with a ready ear listens to it; every subversive malcontent; Clemens shows himself only by night and never twice in the same place; who sees him or hears him once will not see him or hear him again, for the man is as swift and intangible as the rumor he disseminates. Publicity, joined to immobility, reveals truth too clearly, Caesar; imposture requires mystery and swift movement from one place to another. All Italy believes that Agrippa lives…”
“Agrippa is nothing but ashes; let Italy recognize them…”
“The slave Clemens stole them, Caesar.”
“Why did you wait so long to tell me this? How do you wish me to be informed, if not by you? Must I wait for some idiot fisherman to climb up here to tell me?”
“Caesar: I have not wished to add fear to fears; of what import is an impersonation condemned to die out, whether by force of ridicule or the force of arms that can mercilessly crush that rabble of slaves? Let the rumor spend itself; no miracle lasts more than nine months; it tires; new marvels will out … Furthermore, Agrippa is not the first murdered heir. So too was Caesarion, the son of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra.”
Enough; warm water, lustral water; how it soothes me, how it renews me; quickly, my little fish, my tender, docile children. Into the water, I seated and you swimming, swiftly, tenderly, between my legs, little fish, you bronzed and I pale, you slim and I soft, between my legs, little fish, until you find your golden fishhook, my weak flame, my aged, tired penis, my withered testicles, come, little fish; how fruitless, but how delicious, little fish, do not hold back, do not be impatient, it matters not, lick, suck, caress; enough. Theodorus, I am leaving the water, dry me, clothe me, the toga, the laurel, my cothurnus, let everything be prepared at the lunar sigma, my crescent couch, mullets and crabs and warm water to mix with the wine and the amphoras well sealed with plaster; have them bear me there, place me there, have my young nymphs come before me, my perverted youths; eat, drink, read the book of the poetess Elephantis wherein are described more than three hundred postures, one for each night of the year; you, Cynthia, and you, Gaius, and you, Lesbia, place your little tongue into Cynthia’s beautiful shaved sex, and you, Cynthia, place between your lips the delicious, dripping penis of our Gaius, and you, Persius, mount Gaius, spread the taut wrinkles of his asshole, loosen with your saliva-moistened fingers the rectum of our ephebe and introduce your long, hard African prick, and you, Gaius, suck the shimmering nipples of our Cynthia, and my children, my little fish, approach, caress with your bronzed hands anything that is unengaged, Lesbia’s buttocks, Persius’s testicles, Gaius’s armpits, and Cynthia’s navel; and you, Fabianus, you masturbate, let your hand slide powerfully from the base of your penis to the scarlet head, so, so, let your weighty peaches feel the gentle energy of your hand, let us see the supple, pellucid skin stretched taut and glistening, bursting with blood and semen, I have always asked myself why we do not ejaculate blood, that would be a glorious sight, red blood and white toga, let your veins swell like pig’s tripe, so, so, oh, now, shower them, bathe them in silvery milk, all of them, children and men and women, now separate yourselves, all of you, break the chain, drink the semen of our Fabianus, smear it between your breasts, between your legs, scoop it up on your fingers and drink that heavy wine through your anuses, let your bodies be covered with a crust of burning snow from our he-goat, our strong and hairy and handsome stud, so blond he is almost white, covered with red scars in the pit of his buttocks and on the tip of his cock and on his red, red, lips, beautiful red-tipped Fabianus, now, change position, do not come yet, weave a new garland, each of you, seek a different mouth, a different pubis, vagina, penis, testicles, anus, breasts, armpits, feet, navel, feast yourselves, naked, on Venus, struggle face to face, attack without fear and wound to the death, give no quarter, do not fear, there will be no offspring, there will be no fruit, the women are extirpated, the seed of the men is dead, your bodies are pure, washed, shaved, clean, lustral, full … enviable Priam Theodoras, who survived all his kin and left no offspring; he was the culmination of his breed, Tiberius wishes also to be the last, he can … he must …
“You have made much progress toward that end, Caesar: you poisoned your adoptive son, Germanicus; and permitted your daughter-in-law to poison your other son, but then you condemned her to eternal voyaging, bound in chains within a closed litter, her sons imprisoned with her: so far as the world is concerned, they do not exist; you ordered your grandsons murdered: Nero on the island of Pontia, Drusus in the dungeon of your palace; both died of hunger; Drusus tried to eat the stuffing of his mattress; you ordered the youth’s remains to be cast to the winds. Caesar: you have no successors, you can be as happy as Priam. Only a phantom threatens you, and that phantom, you know now, is but a slave, he has a name and a body, he can be found, and crucified; you can punish him as you have punished so many. Just punishment, Caesar, worthy of your magnificence and equanimity; the patrician sold as a slave for cutting off his sons’ thumbs to render them unfit for war, the legions you decimated because of their cowardice in combat, all the men tortured and imprisoned and deprived of their citizenship…”