The Blood of Caesar, page 26
part #2 of Pliny the Younger Series
Even in the gloom of a cloudy evening I could see Tacitus redden. “Your library is this way, isn’t it?” I said in an effort to extricate him.
“May I see it?” Nelia asked.
“Why don’t we let the men do their business first,” Domitia suggested, “while we see the rest of the house?”
Tacitus’ library is much smaller than mine, housed in two rooms with a connecting door off his garden. As we crossed to it, slaves were lighting torches and fixing them in brackets under the shelter of the peristyle. The light made the garden glisten in the rain. His house is older than mine, his trees taller. Instead of a piscina he has a fountain, spurting futile drops back up at the rain.
When we entered the library Tacitus went straight to a strongbox, which he unlocked and opened. Drawing out two pieces of papyrus, he laid them on a table.
“These are precise copies of two letters I found in the archives this morning. I made them myself.”
“What’s in them?”
“In this one Agrippina recommends to Nero that he take Antistius Vetus as his colleague in the consulship. It would be a fitting reward, she says, for a man who was so kind to her when she was in exile, a man she could trust absolutely.”
“So absolutely, it seems, she trusted him to raise her daughter as his own.”
“And that leads to the second letter, in which she tells Nero she has arranged a marriage between his cousin, Rubellius Plautus, and Antistia, daughter of Antistius Vetus.”
I glanced over the second letter. “She’s not even asking Nero’s permission. She’s telling him what she’s done.”
“Josephus says that in Nero’s early years as princeps she virtually ran the empire. I don’t think she asked his permission for much of anything.”
I shook my head in admiration. “She hides her daughter in plain sight for all those years, then marries her to the man who has the best claim, after Nero, to be princeps.”
“Any sons Rubellius and Antistia might produce would have Caesar’s blood from both parents. No one could have a stronger claim. ...”
“A stronger claim to what?” Domitia asked as she and Nelia entered the library.
“Oh, a stronger claim ... to an inheritance,” I said, turning the letters over.
“Yes, in that case I have to try tomorrow,” Tacitus added.
Nelia looked at me, then down at the letters. When her eyes widened, I followed her gaze. Only then did I notice the writing on the backs of the papyri. It was the same Greek-looking script I had seen on Agrippina’s first letter. Tacitus had indeed made precise copies.
“Why is someone wanting someone else to die?” Nelia asked, pointing to the letters.
“What are you talking about?”
“That’s what that word says. ‘May you die,’ or perhaps ‘you will die’.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Because the optative form and the future tense are virtually the same.”
“But I’ve never seen that word in Greek.”
“It’s not Greek. It’s Etruscan. They borrowed the Greek alphabet and adapted it to their language, just as we Romans did.”
The wind picked up and rain began to blow into the library. As Tacitus stepped over to the door and closed it, I recalled what Nelia had told us when we were on Musonius’ estate, about how she had learned to read Etruscan through her study of some books by Claudius.
“Etruscan?” Domitia said. “They died out hundreds of years ago, didn’t they? Who would be writing in Etruscan now?”
“I don’t know,” Nelia said. “Will you let me see the documents, Gaius Pliny, or do we have to fight over them again?”
I handed her the letters, feeling like a schoolboy summoned to the front of the class by the master. “They’re letters written by Agrippina to her son, Nero, the princeps.”
“I can read Latin also,” Nelia said, turning the letters so Domitia could follow as she read.
“This Antistius Vetus,” Domitia said. “Is he Lucius Antistius Vetus?”
Tacitus and I nodded.
“We lived in Asia when Antistius was governor there. It was the year after Agricola’s quaestorship. We stayed on for a while because I was carrying a child and did not want to travel.”
“Did you know Antistius?” I asked.
“Quite well. His house was across the street from ours. His daughter, Antistia, and I both had babies that year. Both of us had daughters.”
“Julius Agricola told me,” Nelia said, “Julia was born eighteen years ago. So was I. That means the two of us are the same age as Antistia’s daughter.”
“Yes, that would be right,” Domitia said.
“What happened to Antistia?” I asked.
“It was tragic,” Domitia said. “Her husband, Rubellius Plautus, was in exile because Nero feared he was plotting to take power. Before Antistia’s daughter was born, Nero sent men to kill Rubellius and his son, who was only five or six. They butchered the poor man, cut off his head and sent it to Rome to reassure Nero. The servants said they looked for Antistia, to kill her as well, but she wasn’t in the house and no one knew where to find her. It turned out Rubellius’ friend, Musonius Rufus, had hidden her.”
I looked at Tacitus and knew he was remembering Musonius’ letter, just as I was. While my cousin Fulvia was staying at my house, word arrived that her husband and young son had been killed.
I dreaded asking the next question, but Nelia jumped in ahead of me. “Did they ever find Antistia?”
Domitia sat down, as though the weight of the tale was too much to bear. “Yes. Nero wouldn’t leave the family alone. Three years after Rubellius’ death, Antistia and her father committed suicide because Nero thought they were plotting against him and ordered their deaths.”
Logic dictated what the next question would be. I waited to see if Nelia would ask it, but she looked agitated, her breath coming in short gasps. “What happened to Antistia’s daughter?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” Domitia shook her head. “Agricola and I had left Asia by then. I only heard of Antistia’s death some months after it happened. I’ve never learned what became of the daughter. She would have been three when her mother died. Musonius was very close to the family. Perhaps he could tell you more.”
Nelia put a hand to her head, and I was afraid she might faint.
“Are you all right, dear?” Domitia asked. “Here, sit down.”
Nelia sat down heavily, looking at me with near panic in her eyes. “It can’t ... It can’t be, can it, Gaius Pliny?”
“The similarities are remarkable,” I said, “too great to be coincidence.”
Domitia looked from one of us to the other. “What are you talking about?”
“What you’ve just told us about Antistia and her family bears an uncanny resemblance to the history of Nelia’s family which Musonius Rufus told her.”
“But that would mean cousin Gaius has been lying to me all these years,” Nelia said. “Why would he do that?”
“If you are the daughter of Rubellius and Antistia, he would have good reason to keep you hidden because you are a direct descendant of Augustus and Julius Caesar. Your blood is a threat to any princeps. That puts you in grave danger.”
“By the gods!” Domitia gasped, clutching Nelia’s hand. “Is this true, child?”
Why did these revelations always occur when there were too many people in the room? I looked at Tacitus, asking with my eyes if I should say any more.
He nodded. “She can be trusted.”
“Trusted with what?” Domitia asked, suddenly looking afraid. Being associated with any hint of a conspiracy in Rome is perilous. She had not walked in here expecting to be exposed to such danger.
“There’s more to it, my lady,” I said, “and you may as well know the rest. We have other testimony suggesting that Antistia was actually the daughter of Agrippina, Nero’s mother. Rubellius was also a descendant of Augustus. So their daughter has Caesar’s blood from both of her parents.”
“No!” Nelia snapped, pulling her hand away from Domitia and standing up. “I won’t believe it. Not on the word of some garrulous slave who was just passing along gossip from her mother. For all you know, the Antistia who was Domitia’s friend could be another daughter of Antistius Vetus ... born after he left Pandateria.”
I could not dispute that possibility. All of a Roman man’s daughters would have the same name, the feminine form of his family name.
“But this was his only daughter,” Domitia said. “His only child, in fact. And he was very proud that Agrippina herself had arranged the marriage with Rubellius Plautus.”
I held up the letter Tacitus had copied from the imperial archives, in which Agrippina informed Nero of the marriage. Nelia shook her head repeatedly.
“I don’t see any other explanation,” I said. “Everything we know suggests you are the daughter of Rubellius Plautus and Antistia.”
Nelia shook her finger in my face. “My father’s name was Lucius Cornelius Catulus and my mother was Fulvia, the cousin of Musonius Rufus. Just because I was born in Asia and my father died before I was born and my mother died when I was three, that doesn’t prove anything. How many people have lost parents when they were children? Agricola’s father was killed when Agricola was just a baby. Does that make him the long-lost daughter of this Rubellius?”
“Ridiculing the facts doesn’t change them,” I said.
“What ‘facts,’ Gaius Pliny? You have yet to discover one solid fact that links me to those people. You’re putting together a web of speculation, like a spider lurking in its corner.”
“Perhaps there’s some physical resemblance,” Tacitus said. “Children usually resemble one of their parents.” He turned to his mother-in-law. “My lady, you knew Antistia and Rubellius. Does Nelia resemble either of them in any way?”
Domitia stood in front of Nelia and looked her over like someone contemplating the purchase of a slave. Nelia’s eyes burned at me as she allowed Domitia to take her chin and turn her head from side to side.
After a moment Domitia shook her head and stepped away from Nelia, patting her on the shoulder. “It’s been too many years since I saw Rubellius or Antistia. I don’t notice anything in this girl that brings back the memory of them.”
Nelia looked at Tacitus and me in disgust. “There. Are you satisfied?”
No, I was disappointed. Domitia had appeared, as unexpected as a gift from the gods, with eyewitness knowledge of Rubellius and Antistia. If she couldn’t see anything in Nelia that reminded her of them, perhaps I was on the wrong trail. Nelia made a strong case. People’s parents do die or get killed, all too frequently. The story that Musonius told about Cornelius Catulus and Fulvia might be true and just coincidentally—how I hate that word!—similar to the story of Rubellius and Antistia.
As Domitia sat down again she said, “There was one unusual thing about Antistia, though, something that embarrassed her a great deal.”
“What was that?” I asked.
“Her teeth. You see, she had several extra teeth—”
The door of the library flew open. “There you are!” Julia said. “Why are you looking at these moldy old books? My guests are arriving.”
* * * *
Tacitus and his family took the high couch and the other guests the low one, leaving Nelia and me to share the middle couch. I was glad to see that the servants were given stools to sit on instead of being expected to stand behind our couches. That is my practice, but some masters seem to delight in forcing their slaves and everyone else’s to stand for several hours.
Julia’s party proved a dismal failure. The food was excellent—Tacitus’ cook is almost as good as mine—but it was impossible to enjoy the meal, even the oysters, when I suspected I was reclining next to a descendant of Julius Caesar, a several-greats-granddaughter of Augustus. And she was carrying a child who, if male, could lay a strong claim to the title of princeps. All Domitian had asked me to do was find a diary. I had failed at that and instead had discovered someone who could plunge Rome into civil war.
Nelia would not look at me. She seemed to find nothing to laugh at, even to smile at, and she kept her head down all through the gustatio. Naomi and Chloe hovered over her, obviously aware of how unhappy she was.
As I pondered Nelia’s identity and the fate of Rome, Julia and her friends kept up their mindless chatter. The other two couples were there because the wives were friends of Julia’s. I had never met their husbands and Tacitus seemed only slightly acquainted with them. This was the longest time I had spent in Julia’s company, and it seemed even longer. As inane as Julia was, though, the other two girls could not have sparked an idea if we rubbed their heads together. Their conversation never got beyond make-up and clothes, until baths were mentioned. One of the young men, Septicius Clarus, said he and his wife frequented the Baths of Titus.
“That’s where all the clever people go,” he said. Then he launched into a description of the performance Martial and Spatale had given that afternoon. I was sorely tempted to tell him what Martial actually thought of all those ‘clever’ people like himself.
The servants had just brought in a pork dish with baked apples when Nelia sat up and said, “Gaius Pliny, may I have a word with you outside? Cornelius Tacitus, perhaps you will accompany us? And you too, lady Domitia, if you tear yourself away from such delightful company for a moment.”
As we headed for the door, with Naomi and Chloe trailing behind us, Julia looked supremely annoyed, her guests slightly puzzled.
Nelia stopped under a torch illuminating the garden and turned on us. “The three of you have been ogling me all through dinner. You aren’t going to be satisfied until you see them, are you?” She brought a hand up to the neck of her gown and took a deep breath. “Well, let’s get it over with.”
“My lady, no!” Naomi cried, grabbing her hand. “What are you doing? My master is a decent young man. He wouldn’t want you to do this.”
Nelia looked at her bosom and laughed. “It’s my teeth, woman. He wants to see my teeth.”
Pulling away from Naomi, Nelia grasped her upper lip between thumb and forefinger and lifted it. I saw three small teeth, like a child’s first teeth, protruding from her gums on the right side.
“Go ahead! Take a closer look. It’s the only one you’re ever going to get.”
Tacitus hung back, but Domitia and I leaned our heads closer to Nelia’s face.
“They’re just like Antistia’s,” Domitia said. “In the same place and not large enough to cause her lip to bulge, but they’re definitely teeth.”
Nelia let go of her lip. “They’re a damn nuisance. That’s what they are.”
There was the proof that Nelia was Antistia’s daughter. And Naomi’s story—combined with Domitia’s eyewitness testimony—left me no choice but to believe that Antistia was the daughter of Agrippina. The full significance of what I’d just seen was only beginning to sink in when Julia came stomping out of the house.
“Mother! Tacitus! You’re neglecting my guests. Father’s starting to tell his army stories. Everyone’s going to want to leave soon.” With each sentence the pitch of her whining rose.
“We were just clearing up something, dear,” her mother said. “Please go back inside. We’ll be there in a moment.” If my mother could have seen the look Julia gave us, she would have realized that my petulance is only a pale imitation of the original, the way Roman statues are poor copies of vivid Greek works of art. I could never make my lower lip quiver the way Julia’s did.
“Well, I just think you’re being so rude to my friends!” Turning in a huff, Julia started back into the house.
XVII
AS SOON AS WE rejoined the festivities Domitia took Agricola aside, to tell him what she had just learned, I assumed. Not long after that Nelia pleaded exhaustion and said she was ready to leave. I was surprised at how earnestly Julia prevailed upon her to stay longer. Tacitus excused himself to put the finishing touches on the speech he was to deliver in court the next morning. Agricola and Domitia saw us to the door and retired for the night, leaving the triclinium to a pouting Julia and her vapid friends.
As the litter left Tacitus’ house Nelia closed the curtains, shutting out all but the dimmest light from the torches my slaves were carrying. Drawing her knees up to her chest, she folded her arms over them, curling up like a child desperate to hide.
“I thought you wanted to see the city,” I said, hoping to lighten the mood.
“I’m frightened, Gaius Pliny.” In the near-dark her soft voice seemed to come from far away. “I’ve never been so frightened.”
I moved close enough to her that I could see her face. “That speaks well of your intelligence. You have good reason to be afraid.”
“Domitian will try to kill me, won’t he?” Her moist eyes begged me to tell her that wasn’t true.
Damn Domitian! He used me as his hound to sniff out the prey, just as Tacitus suspected. As soon as he knew where she was, he would move in for the kill.
“I don’t know how far he’ll go.” I was lying, of course. Domitian had already killed his brother to get to power and had killed Phineas’ uncle merely because the mason knew that someone with Julius Caesar’s blood existed. “His enemies would welcome a Julian heir. He will consider any descendant of Augustus a potential threat to his own power.”
“Is that why Cousin Gaius lied to me?”
“I’m sure Musonius’ only intention was to protect you.”
“Who’s going to protect me now?” She wiped a hand across her eyes.
