Free Nero's Heirs by Allan Massie Page B

to the Senate. I think his name was Pompeius Propinquus, but what his relation was to the great Pompey escapes me. He reported that the troops on the German frontier had refused to accept Galba as Emperor. He gave, prudently, no reason. Some said it was on account of Galba's age, some on account of his reputation for meanness. Most however thought it was simply because he was not their general; and that they had therefore little to hope from him. They had not yet elected an Emperor themselves, but instead required the Senate and the Roman People to name one agreeable to all.
    That's the official line,' Domitian said, tugging my sleeve, 'but I know better. I have it on good authority that while they have sworn an oath of loyalty to the Senate and the Roman People, they have other plans.'
    'Well, they must have,' I said. 'Everyone knows that the way things are such an oath is perfectly meaningless. Do they intend that the Guards should choose the Emperor?'
    'That is not my uncle's opinion. He says they do not know what they want, only that they don't want Galba.'
    'Who is there else?'
    Domitian laughed: 'I thought you would be sure to know. You always pride yourself on being a couple of steps ahead of the game. This time you are well behind me.'
    And he went off preening himself.
    The truth was, it seemed to me, young and confessedly ignorant, that my question was good. The new commander of the legions in Germany was Aulus Vitellius, and it was to me impossible that soldiers could suppose that he was capable of Empire. It was true that I had never encountered Vitellius, but I had often heard my revered mother speak of him, and always with contempt. He had been, she remarked, the favourite in succession of Gaius Caligula, Claudius and Nero, 'which proves him to be a man of mean and despicable character'. He had often acted as procurer of virgins for the first and third of these Emperors, and it was his addiction to every form of vice which had secured him the continued favour of Nero, who could forgive anything except virtue. It was said that he had run through three fortunes, the last brought him by his most recent wife, and that he had had to pawn her jewels in order to finance his journey to his German command.
    Yet in the fevered atmosphere of the Forum nothing was impossible. In any case, men said, Vitellius will be a puppet, and his two legates, Fabius Valens and Alienus Caecina, are able men and popular with the troops.
    So rumours ran this way and that and everyone was calculating which way to jump.
    It was in these days of unreality and fear that Titus suddenly arrived in Rome, sent when his father yielded to his uncle's insistence that there was a real chance that Galba would take a fancy to the young man and name him as his heir. His arrival perplexed me, on account of his most recent letter.
    He had been in Rome two days before he came to see me in my mother's house, where I was confined with a heavy cold. My mother, having made him welcome and supplied us with wine, left us alone.
    For the first time distance stretched between us. In the thirty months since we had last met, Titus had grown fleshy, I had acquired a beard. It was impossible to feel what we had previously felt.
    By unspoken consent we did not dwell on what had gone before, though Titus thanked me for my letters which had, he said, been of more use to him than any other reports he had received.
    'My father thinks well of them, too,' he said.
    'Surely you didn't. . .' I paused, recollecting some of the passages in my early letters, before Domatilla had supplanted her brother in my affections.
    'Father cares nothing for any of that stuff,' he said and, stretching out, pinched the lobe of my ear between thumb and forefinger. 'I haven't been faithful to you,' he said carelessly. 'Greek boys, of whom there is an abundance in Antioch, are too fetching and willing also. Greek girls, too, if it comes to that. Lustrous curls and glistening skin. Delightful. You