NERO CLAVDIVS DRVSVS GERMANICVS
‘Drusus and Germanicus,’ he whispered.
‘The two guys you mentioned just now? The guy on the coin?’ Costas said. ‘Father and brother of Claudius?’
‘Seems an incredible coincidence,’ Maria said.
Jack’s mind was racing. He still had the coin in his hand, and he held it up so the portrait was framed by the two busts. The similarity was truly remarkable. Could it be? ‘There’s something about this coin,’ he murmured. ‘Something staring us in the face.’
‘But that one coin doesn’t necessarily mean much, surely,’ Maria said. ‘This villa was like an art gallery, a museum. The great villa owners of Italy in the Renaissance collected medallions, old coins. Why not Roman villa owners too?’
‘Possibly.’ Jack looked around the chamber pensively. ‘But I think we’re in the room of an old person, stripped to its essentials. This isn’t just Roman minimalism, it’s real austerity. Books, a writing table, a few revered portraits, wine. No wall paintings, no mosaics, nothing of the hedonism we associate with the Bay of Naples. The room of someone prepared for the next step, for the afterlife, already swept clean of the past. The twilight of a life.’
‘Seems pretty odd for a lavish villa,’ Costas said. ‘I mean, this room’s like a monk’s cell.’
Hiebermeyer had squatted down, and was peering closely at one of the scrolls on the floor. ‘This papyrus is fantastically well preserved,’ he murmured, carefully prising at it with his fingers. ‘It’s even pliable. I can read the Greek.’
‘Ah. Greek,’ Jack said, his voice neutral.
‘What’s wrong with that?’ Costas said.
‘Nothing,’ Jack said. ‘Nothing at all. We just want Latin.’
‘Bad news, Jack,’ Hiebermeyer said, peering closely at the script, then pushing up his glasses and looking at him. ‘I may have brought you here on a wild goose chase.’
‘Philodemus.’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘I thought Greek philosophers were highly esteemed,’ Costas said.
‘Not all of them,’ Jack said. ‘A lot of Romans, educated men like Claudius, like Pliny the Elder, thought many of these Greek philosophers around the Bay of Naples were quacks and charlatans, hangers-on in the villas of the wealthy. But there was a lot of this stuff around, and in a typical library here you were probably more likely to pick up a book by someone like Philodemus than one of the great names we revere today. Remember, the classical texts that have survived, that were saved and transcribed in the medieval period, represent the pinnacle of ancient achievement, and only a small part of that. It spoils us into thinking that all ancient thinkers were remarkable minds. Look at the academic world today. For every great scholar, there are dozens of mediocrities, more than a few charlatans. But they’re still all called professors. It was just bad luck for us that old Calpurnius Piso patronized one of the flaky ones.’
‘I hope to God we haven’t just stumbled into Philodemus’ study,’ Hiebermeyer muttered. ‘I hate to lead you on, Jack. Hardly worth calling you from your shipwreck.’
‘I wouldn’t miss being here for anything,’ Jack said fervently, ‘Philodemus or not. And we weren’t going anywhere with the wreck until all the equipment for a major excavation’s in place, a week at least.’
‘It’d be such a pity, though,’ Maria said, slumping slightly. ‘Some second-rate philosopher. It’s hard to believe someone was trying to save it all, when the eruption happened,’ she said, waving at the strewn scrolls all over the floor.
‘Maybe they weren’t,’ Costas said. ‘Maybe the clearance was already underway, and they were trying to get rid of it.’
‘Or searching for something. You said it before.’ Jack glanced back at the macabre form of the skeleton at the entrance, its hand seeming to grasp towards the scrolls inside the room. ‘But there’s something about this place. It doesn’t seem like the study of a Greek philosopher. Not at the end, anyway, not in AD 79. It’s just too Roman. It’s a very private room, a hidden sanctuary almost, a place where someone could live in their own world and forget about impressing others. And I just can’t imagine a Greek choosing to have two imperial Roman portrait busts as the only decoration in his study, the only things to look at from his desk.’
Hiebermeyer flipped on the extractor fan again, and it flashed red. ‘Let’s give it a few more minutes,’ he said. ‘I think we’re still okay to talk, with the noise. I don’t think they can hear us down there with that drill going.’
They backed up to the entrance again, clustering round it, and Jack held up the coin. He looked at the statues again, then back at the coin. He realized that the coin had been fingered a lot, in the same place on both sides. ‘Maybe this was the memento of an old soldier, an old man who lived here in AD 79,’ he murmured. ‘Perhaps one who had served under Claudius in the invasion of Britain, or even under Germanicus, sixty years before the eruption. An old man who revered his general, and that general’s brother and father.’ He paused, troubled. ‘But it’s still odd.’
‘Why?’ Costas said. ‘It’s a great find, but as Maria says, it’s just one coin.’
‘Well, it would still have been risking it,’ Jack said. ‘In the Roman period, you didn’t hang on to old coins, unless you were hoarding them. You just didn’t want to be seen with issues of a past emperor. Coins were hugely important propaganda tools. It was how a new emperor conveyed his image, asserted his power. And the coin reverse had commemorative images which celebrated the achievements of the emperor and his family.’
‘The Jewish triumph of Vespasian,’ Costas said. ‘ Judaea Capta. The menorah.’
Jack grinned. ‘A great example. How could we forget. That issue was less than two years after the eruption of Vesuvius. Another famous example is the Britannia issues of Claudius, celebrating his conquest of Britain in AD 43.’
‘But this coin commemorates Claudius’ father.’ Costas took the coin from Jack, and looked at it closely with his headlamp. ‘It seems a selfless thing for an emperor to do, a little touching. I think I like this guy.’
‘It’s not quite what it seems,’ Jack said. ‘This coin probably dates to the first year of Claudius’ reign, before he had anything to brag about. Harking back to a glorious ancestor was a way of giving your claim to the throne some authority, reminding people of the virtues of your ancestors. In AD 41, when Claudius was proclaimed emperor, Rome had just suffered four years of insanity under Caligula, Claudius’ nephew. What people desperately wanted was a return to the hallowed old days. Personal honour, integrity, family continuity, living up to your ancestors, that was all very much the Roman way. At least in theory.’
‘In Italy,’ Costas murmured. ‘The family. Sounds familiar.’
‘Claudius was Rome’s most reluctant emperor,’ Jack continued. ‘Dragged from behind a curtain by the Praetorian Guard when he was already in middle age, looking forward to his remaining years as a scholar and historian. But he revered the memory of his father, and all his life he wished he’d been fit enough to join the army like his brother Germanicus, whom he adored. Being emperor gave him the chance. And the acclamation of every new emperor, even Caligula and Claudius’ successor Nero, was always accompanied by pious assertions of a return to the ways of the past, the end of debauchery and corruption and a reminder of the virtues of their ancestors.’
‘Did Claudius live up to it?’ Costas asked.
‘He might have done, if he hadn’t been ruled by his wives,’ Hiebermeyer muttered.
‘Britain was a great triumph,’ Jack said. ‘Claudius was doomed never to cover himself in personal glory, riding out from the waves of the English Channel rather absurdly on a war elephant, arriving in time to see the corpses of the British vanquished but not to lead his legions in battle. But he was a good strategist, a visionary of sorts who had spent his life studying empire and conquest and could see beyond the individual campaign, the triumph. The world would be a very different place today if Claudius hadn’t conquered Britain. And remember, for the men in the legions nothing could be worse than Caligula a few years earlier forcing them to line up on the French side of the English Channel and attack the sea god Neptune. With Claudius they didn’t mind having a cripple for an emperor, as long as he was sane. And Claudius chose very able field commanders, generals like Vespasian, middle-ranking officers like Pliny the Elder, and they were loyal to him. And the legionaries revered the memory of Claudius’ father and his brother.’ Jack paused, and looked up again at the portrait bust. ‘Just like the occupant of this room.’