“… yes, repeat it all now that I take delight in the pleasure of these bodies, do me this favor, Theodorus, allow me to think of that as I see this, think of sorrow as I see pleasure, my pleasure will be redoubled and I shall be ever grateful to you, look, look, Theodorus, my sex swells merely thinking of it, a miracle, a miracle, do not stint, Persius, Fabianus, my little fish, Lesbia, tell me what I did to Agrippina, the wife of my son Germanicus, when she dared suspect me … Cynthia, Gaius, continue…”
“You exiled her to the island of Pandateria, Caesar, and as she persisted in telling that you murdered the valiant Germanicus, you ordered a centurion to beat her until she lost one eye, and then, half blinded, the woman ceased to eat, so that she might die of hunger, then you ordered your soldiers to pry open her mouth and force food upon her…”
“… go on, speak, counselor, tell me of unjust punishments, excite me…”
“You condemned to death, and burned the books of, a poet who called Brutus and Cassius the last Romans…”
“… I am the last Roman, Theodorus, I alone; Rome is the unity of all history, what the world has always desired, from the beginning of the most desolate tribes and primitive villages, unity, Rome has acquired it, Rome has acquired something more than lands, seas, cities, towns, booty, it has acquired unity: a single law, a single Emperor, there cannot, there must not be anything but dispersion following the Rome that is Tiberius and the Tiberius that is Rome; let a resurrected Agrippa return to the throne, and see the combined power and enormity of Rome trickle through his hands like the sands of the moon; I desire, believe me, I desire as much as I desire to kiss Cynthia’s sweet buttocks, for that to happen after I am dead…”
“It is happening in your time, Caesar; hear the complaints: you have not filled the vacant posts in the Decurions, nor have you changed the soldiers’ tribunes, or the prefects and governors in the provinces: a great uneasiness responds to your negligence…”
“Quickly, all of you, each give the one closest to him the black kiss, the excremental kiss, quickly…”
“For years you have left Spain and Syria without consular governors, you have allowed Armenia to be enslaved by the Parthians, Moesia by the Dacians, and the Gallic provinces by the Germans. The people say that in all this there is danger and dishonor for the Empire, and they blame you.”
“… do not speak of obligations, Theodorus, speak of pleasures…”
“You ordered a man killed who beat a slave beside your statue, and a man who changed his clothing beside another of your statues…”
“… have you drunk sufficiently? then urinate, urinate in each other’s mouths, quickly…”
“… you ordered a man killed who entered a public urinal wearing a ring that bore your effigy, and still another who entered a brothel wearing a similar ring.”
“… and now, all the men, on your feet, Fabianus and Persius and Gaius, fornicate, each of you with the one before him, while the women kneel and kiss your testicles, each of you thinking how at the hour of death you will think upon your bodies as ridiculous wrinkled wineskins, and of your acts as indecent buffoonery that condemned you to death; tell, tell, counselor; ally my pleasures…”
“You killed a patrician who allowed himself to be honored in his natal village, only because on a different occasion, but on the same date and in the same place, you had been honored; and the time of every village, Caesar, begins upon the day you visit it…”
“Minutiae, minutiae, I visit nothing today, I am ensconced in my villa in Capri, content, imagining, imagining the sublime: how to make my death coincide with the death of my Empire. I cannot bear the thought that someone might succeed me, it would be as if our beautiful Cynthia, instead of offering me her buttocks white as animated marble, had begun in this instant to feel the pangs of childbirth, and had lain upon my sigma to give birth, imagine such horror; the same horror I feel when I imagine that anyone could succeed me, lie down in my places, touch Lesbia’s breast, pluck a pubic hair from Fabianus, no, no, they must all die first, I die only with my Empire; Theodorus, there must be alerts, executions at the least pretext, let no one remain, I want to die but I want to die the last death, execute, Theodorus, execute, ejaculate, execute and let the corpses be thrown down the mournful steps of the Forum and dragged on gaff hooks to the Tiber…”
“It has been done, Caesar…”
“… and as it is our impious custom to strangle virgins, first let the executioners rape them, and then hang them…”
“It has been done, Caesar…”
“… let no one commit suicide without my consent…”
“Carmulus has just committed suicide, Caesar, that malcontent Carmulus.”
“… then he escaped me! you see, counselor, such imprudence, what lack of attention to scruples…”
“Agrippina, too, conquered in her exile, she died of hunger, as she desired…”
“… let none other escape me, each of you must be vigilant!”
“No one, Caesar? not even those who wish to die?”
“Not even they…”
“How, then, will you condemn them?”
“By forcing them to live…”
“Whom shall we call on, Caesar? Italy is peopled with spies, with informers, with resentful and offended men. It is an enormously cunning mechanism, even those injured by you believe there is no reason their case should be unique and they betray a friend or an enemy, or the relatives of friends and enemies, to other friends and enemies, and thus all Italy is founded upon the revenge of vengeance, and we do not know where it will end; and there are cases of those who have no one in their families whom you have had killed, they feel neglected and swiftly contrive an intrigue that will make them worthy of such an honor; and all the informers listen to them, their only desires are to provide deaths for you; whom shall we call on now…?”
“Listen to the dwarfs, Theodorus, they smell out traitors, they have a great nose for treachery, the gods have granted them that gift in exchange for their misshapen bodies. If a dwarf asks you why it is permitted that this one or that one live, being a traitor to my person, immediately execute the informers, even if they be Fabianus or Cynthia, my lovers; now, tell me from whom I descend, recall my cruel line to me, Theodorus…”
“From the Lucians, Caesar, but you changed the surname when those of the family so named were condemned for looting and murder. From the Claudias, Caesar. From the first Claudia, who, to demonstrate that her chastity could not be questioned, threw a rope over her shoulders and dragged from the muddy banks of the Tiber a mired boat laden with sacred objects…”
“… what women, Theodorus, what females!”
“From the second Claudia, condemned as a traitor by the Senate because one day, when the mob in the streets blocked the passage of her litter, she descended and asked publicly that her brother Pulcher be resurrected, and as he had done in life, lose another fleet to the enemy, and thus there would be fewer crowds in Rome and the patricians could pass through the streets without mishap.”
“… yes, yes, what women, they have always despised the mob.”
“And the second Claudia would not even dress in mourning to ask clemency as she was judged. Clemency was for slaves and castrati, she said, not for a woman who hoped to encounter all her friends and admirers in Hades, on the other side of the lazy black waters of the River Styx…”
“… yes, yes, Theodorus, that line culminates in me; look, search in your archives and your recollections, search for the most obscure, the least known, the most forgotten testimony of a rebellion against me; an individual rebellion, originating in the crowd, but one that means revolt against us who although we are unique represent a collective ethic incarnate in marble temples and marble laws that I, and only I, can convert into dust and ridicule, not the mob, not the multitudes, not the ants that devoured my serpent: our Roman law, Theodorus, the same for all, sustained in a vast and unified Empire: unique Rome, you can belong to no one but a unique Tiberius; die with me, Rome; and you, son of a rhetorician, search, go forth in your palm sandals, find what I seek and allow me to take pleasure from my children and ephebes and nymphs, what? have you tired so soon? quickly, consult Elephantis, a new posture, quickly, my pleasure will not tolerate half measures, and you are here for my pleasure, not your own, quickly, Elephantis to our aid…”