“And you would know that because you are one of them?” Domitian suddenly offered, catching his cousin off guard.
“What?” asked Clemens. “No!”
“Everybody knows that your wife Domitilla — my niece — is one. Some even believe that you are this ‘Theophilus’ to whom the apostle Luke addressed his account of the life of Jesus.”
“Caesar knows much,” Clemens said, neither confirming nor denying the rumors. “But the Christians here in Rome consider themselves successors not of the apostle Paul but of the apostle Peter. They are not infiltrators. They seek no influence over the affairs of state. They seek only to live quiet, peaceful lives. To render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
“Caesar is God,” Domitian insisted. “On this matter there can be no confusion.”
“You know they pay their taxes and pray for you and all in authority, Your Highness,” Clemens insisted. “They publicly denounce the Dei and all violence.”
“Violence!” Domitian erupted. “And what is this Book of Revelation they all heed if not violence of the most extreme kind to Caesar, Rome and the empire? The end of this world! A New Jerusalem! And heaven and earth! You don’t think this superstition inspires animals like the Dei to take up the sword in the name of Jesus? Or embolden my enemies in the Senate? Perhaps even members of my own family?” He glared at Clemens. “My family!”
“Surely you don’t suspect Domitia?” Clemens replied, diverting attention to Domitian’s wife.
A startled Domitian glanced at Ludlumus and Secundus, both looking quite impressed by the feeble Clemens’ unusually clever recovery.
“Nonsense,” Domitian said. “After all I’ve done for her? I can’t imagine why she would want me dead.”
Domitian had pursued his second wife Domitia from the beginning years ago. She was married at the time, so he forced her husband to divorce her so he could marry her. Later on, she ran off with the actor Paris, and he had to have the thespian killed. Still, after some time, she came back to him of her own accord.
Clemens said nothing and could only genuflect before his Caesar. But was he bowing before his Lord and God as well? Domitian wasn’t sure anymore.
“Clemens,” he barked. “I want you to find this mysterious mastermind of all that troubles the empire. I want you to find Chiron.”
“Find Chiron?” Clemens gasped. “How am I supposed to do that? Nobody knows who he is!”
“Surely one of your devious little Jewish and Christian friends will know his true identity.” Domitian could see the pain in his cousin’s face. “Yes, Clemens. You will give Secundus names, and my Praetorian Guards will beat these fanatics and kill them one by one until they give up the most dangerous man in the world.”
They had arrived at the palace, entering the lower level in back. Here the offices of Caesar were filled with hundreds of slaves and magistrates who kept Rome’s trade routes clear — the roads clean of dung for its armies and seas clear of pirates for its navies. As Domitian passed by, the business of Rome suddenly seemed to pick up, with much scurrying and paper shuffling, until Caesar and his amici went up a short flight of stairs to the private residence.
Domitian stopped outside his bedchamber and glared at his amici.
“Clemens, you will find Chiron for me. And you, Secundus, will bring him to me. Those are my orders. Now carry them out.”
The consul and prefect glanced at each other, said nothing, and went their separate ways, leaving Caesar alone with his Master of the Games.
Ludlumus said, “You know the consul is never going to find Chiron, Your Highness. Even if he did, he would never willingly give him up.”
“Somebody has to die for this. Somebody big,” Domitian insisted. “We must have retribution. And it must be public, as a warning to others. Once we produce Chiron, his execution must be public, humiliating and painful.”
“I’ll conjure up something nice for 80,000 spectators.”
“See that you do, Ludlumus. And find out how Epaphroditus allowed that finger to ever reach me that my eyes should see it.”
Ludlumus paused. “Your Highness had his primary secretary executed last year. Something about his assisting Nero’s suicide 28 years ago.”
“Exactly. That’s what I meant. Epaphroditus would never have allowed this misfortune to disturb me. Now leave us.”
By “us” Domitian meant himself, of course, and Ludlumus left and closed the door behind him, leaving Domitian to himself.
Domitian, Rome’s Lord and God, removed his short-cropped wig and looked in the mirror of polished brass. He was painfully self-conscious about his baldness and had hoped the publication of his popular book on the subject of hair care would make him less so. But it hadn’t. The fleshy face and protruding stomach didn’t boost his spirits either these days. They made him feel weak.
Domitian looked around his bedchamber, dominated by his bed, couch and statue of his favorite goddess Minerva with her sacred owl. His chamberlain Parthenius had laid out a lavish spread of sweets for him on the table by the couch. But Domitian wasn’t hungry, the vision of Caelus’s finger filling his head. Who knew what his enemies would do to him?
And who were his enemies?
Everyone.
He knew he paled in comparison to his beloved father, Vespasian, the first Flavian to be Caesar. His brother, Titus, was also beloved by Rome’s aristocrats, thanks to his military success in the Judean War. Titus’s untimely death two years into his reign as Caesar only swelled public affection for Domitian’s brother — and cast suspicion that he, Domitian, was behind it. True enough, perhaps, but not enough to explain the pure hatred he endured from the noble class.
No, Domitian concluded, the noble class of Rome hated him because he refused to promote lazy and entitled family, friends and political supporters to run the offices of government simply because they were his family, friends or political supporters. His administration was a meritocracy, and it was effective only because he installed the best people into the best positions to build up the empire with great public works, like the new Circus Maximus under construction down the hill, and the network of new highways being laid in the empire’s eastern half of Asia Minor.
For this he was hated, because these useless aristocrats were worthless and had nothing to contribute to the world other than their money, which is why he was so often forced to relieve them of it along with their lives. Now they drooled over his prophesied demise and were attempting to sway those closest to him in his personal staff, and even his family: Domitian’s second wife, Domitia, was in a league of her own concerning suspicion, closer to him than anybody else.
He walked to his bed and lifted his pillow to make sure the knife he kept was still there. It was.
Good.
He moved to the couch on which he liked to take his rest during the day, and removed from beneath it a two-leaved tablet of linden-wood. On the wood he had scratched his list of those he suspected were conspiring against him.
Domitia’s name was at the top, followed by his two Praetorian prefects: Petronius Secundus and his colleague Norbanus. An emperor could never trust his own Praetorian Guards, who as Caesar’s “protectors” had a long history of deciding in advance who should become emperor and then, once in office, how long that emperor should live.
Then there was his cousin Flavius Clemens, of course, and his wife, Domitilla, who was Domitian’s own niece. Domitian had already proclaimed their two sons his successors since he and Domitia had none of their own. So clearly they were the most obvious beneficiaries of his demise, although Domitilla was the strong one in that marriage. Clemens was too weak and ineffectual to be any kind of threat. Only his able administration of the countless papers the government required to handle the Jews kept him employed, so long as he made sure the Jews paid their extra taxes for being, well, Jews.