‘Some other time, brother, some other time. Hail Divine Caesar! Hail Divine Caesar!’
Caligula waved his right hand with regal dignity, reclining within the sumptuous cushionage of his litter. With his high forehead, thinning hair and deeply sunken eyes underlined with insomniac’s dark smudges, Caligula would have looked inconsequential, had it not been for his golden Mercurial costume that did little to hide a magnificent erection with which he toyed with his left hand.
‘Hail Divine Caesar! Hail our star, our rising sun! Hail Divine Gaius!’ the crowd called out with unfeigned enthusiasm, praising the giver of largesse and holder of games so spectacular that none could recall their like or imagine them being bettered.
Caligula raised himself as the shouts grew with more and more people coming to line the street, genuinely happy that their Emperor had returned to Rome and hoping that he would celebrate the fact with impromptu chariot racing at the Circus Maximus whose soaring, arched bulk overshadowed the Capena Gate. With a sudden movement he thrust his right hand into a bulging purse and then threw dozens of golden coins into the air to shower down on his adoring subjects. The cheering turned into screeches as everyone tried to get a gold aureus, the equivalent of almost six months’ wages for a legionary. Another expansive gesture released more of the golden rain as Caligula began to work his erection with increased urgency. ‘There, my sheep, there’s your fodder. Feed, my flock, feed,’ Caligula called as he dispensed his largesse. ‘Take your blessings from your god, my sheep, and live under my hands.’ He smiled with benign calmness as he surveyed the chaos caused by the contents of his purse; and then his expression clouded and his head twitched. ‘Stop!’ he screamed, causing his bearers to halt immediately. The crowd froze in whatever position they were in and looked to their Emperor; Caligula pointed a shaking finger at a couple of beggars, with filthy, wound headdresses, scrabbling on the floor and evidently unaware of the change of atmosphere. ‘Pick them up,’ he ordered the nearest of his Germanic bodyguards.
The German pushed his way through the crowd to the two beggars and hauled them up by the grimed collars of their tattered robes. As they realised their predicament, the beggars ceased groping for coinage and stared with wide eyes at the Emperor, terrified by the wrath on his face.
‘Bring them here,’ Caligula hissed.
The German hauled the two men forward and then threw them to their knees before the litter. They mumbled entreaties for mercy into their long, ill-kempt beards, in heavily accented Latin.
Caligula surveyed them for a few moments and then addressed the crowd: ‘Look at their noses, look at their headdresses. They take the money I dispense and yet they refuse to recognise me for what I am.’ He looked down at the beggars and sneered in disgust. ‘What are you?’
‘B-b-beggars, Princeps,’ one replied, not raising his eyes.
‘I know that! But what sort of people are you, what religion?’
‘We, we are Jews, Princeps.’
‘Jews! I knew it. Call me by my title.’
‘I have, Princeps.’
Caligula smiled a smile that would have frozen Medusa herself. ‘Vespasian,’ he called, not taking his eyes from the two visibly shaking beggars now grovelling piteously.
A stocky man in a senatorial toga stepped forward from the entourage of senators and Praetorian officers following the litter. ‘Yes, Divine Gaius.’
‘They seem to think that I don’t notice their lack of respect for my godhead.’
‘Indeed, Divine Gaius; they must be amongst the most stupid of your sheep.’
Caligula frowned as he considered this statement. ‘Yes, they must be. Remove any coinage they might have gathered and have them thrown out of the city. I’ll not have unbelievers amongst my flock. It’s time to get a proper understanding of these people’s way of thinking. Have the Alexandrian embassy brought before me after I have received the welcome of the Senate.’
As Vespasian obeyed his god and Emperor’s orders, Magnus caught his eye. ‘Philo and his mates are being kept out of trouble, sir.’
‘Thank you, Magnus. Meet me at the Senate House in a couple of hours.’
‘Put it down there, Marius, and don’t get too close,’ Servius advised as Marius put down an earthenware bowl in the middle of the floor of the backroom in which Magnus transacted the brotherhood’s business. ‘You’ll notice, Magnus, that there is nothing in this bowl but wet rags.’ Servius pulled out a dripping bundle just to emphasise the point. ‘Not the sort of thing that you would normally expect to burn.’
‘That’s a fair point, brother,’ Magnus said, leaning back on his chair and folding his arms. ‘But, no doubt, you’re going to surprise me.’
‘How did you know?’
‘Because you wouldn’t be making such a fuss about damp rags not burning otherwise.’
Magnus’ counsellor’s lined face took on a disappointed aspect as he opened the jar taken from the intruders’ sack. ‘I was hoping to astound you, not just surprise you.’ He took a single wet rag and dipped it into the jar; it came out smeared with a dark, viscous substance that seemed to be halfway between solid and liquid. He dropped it into the bowl and then took a dry rag and dangled it over the flame of an oil lamp. As it caught fire, Servius threw it after the impregnated rag. There was an immediate puff of flame and within an instant the damp contents of the bowl were burning as if they were tinder-dry.
‘I am astounded,’ Magnus affirmed. ‘What is it?’
‘It comes from the East but it’s very rare here in the Empire and therefore very expensive. The contents of this jar, if it were full, would have cost as much, if not more, as what we were prepared to pay for the Scorpion.’
‘That is impressive. What’s it called?’
‘I’ve heard it called the River-god’s fire but what its real name is I don’t know. However …’ Servius looked at his patronus and raised an eyebrow.
‘Ah!’ Magnus exclaimed, understanding.
‘We know someone who does,’ they said in unison.
Magnus stood, as was every citizen’s right, at the open doors of the Senate House watching, with wry amusement, senators struggling to outdo one another in outrageous flattery as they welcomed their Emperor back to Rome. The fact that he had only been absent for ten days did not seem to dampen their enthusiasm for their reunification with their divine ruler.
‘Senator Titus Flavius Vespasianus has the floor,’ Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, the presiding Consul, announced, looking down his long nose that dominated an equinesque face.
‘My thanks, Suffect Junior Consul,’ Vespasian said, rising to his feet and bringing a smile to Magnus by stressing the full title of Corbulo’s rank. Corbulo bristled in his curule chair, adding to Magnus’ amusement for he considered him to be even more pompous than Philo. ‘I would also like to make my joy at the Emperor’s safe return to Rome a matter of record. Although I have had the good fortune to be escorting him on his journey and, therefore, never far from his radiance, it is still a relief for me to know he is back at the heart of the Empire in his rightful place, guiding our lives. And I hope that he will spare us as much of his precious time as he can before he sets off on his divine conquest of Germania.’ Vespasian turned to Caligula ensconced on his litter, which had been placed in the centre of the chamber. ‘On a personal note, I would like to thank the Emperor for the splendid dinner he invited me to only last night. The food was exquisite, the music sublime, the conversation riveting and the entertainment highly amusing.’
Caligula shrieked a high-pitched laugh at the memory. ‘Yes, it was fun; we should do it again this evening. Cancel the Alexandrian embassy later – I’ll see them in the morning at the fifth hour – and have a dozen condemned prisoners brought up to the palace.’
‘Indeed, Divine Gaius.’
Magnus could see Vespasian straining to keep a delighted expression on his face.