Caligula

Book 0: The Damned Emperors

by Simon Turney

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

Rome 37AD. The emperor is dying. No-one knows how long he has left. The power struggle has begun.

When the ailing Tiberius thrusts Caligula's family into the imperial succession in a bid to restore order, he will change the fate of the empire and create one of history's most infamous tyrants, Caligula.

But was Caligula really a monster?

Forget everything you think you know. Let Livilla, Caligula's youngest sister and confidante, tell you what really happened. How her quiet, caring brother became the most powerful man on earth.

And how, with lies, murder and betrayal, Rome was changed for ever . . .

Release date: March 8, 2018

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 480

Sample

 

 

 

 

 

 

It starts with flashes.

Blinding, eye-searing flashes of red and white, which gradually resolve into a canopy of crimson with the brilliant sunlight of a Roman summer slashing through like a blade. The world below that shelter is a dreadful scarlet, battered and stabbed by those sharp beams of light.

The roar of a crowd is still audible as a din in the background.

I am moving, walking casually, calmly.

I am filled with a strange ennui, though that itself is just a boat of emotion bobbing upon a sea of despair that has always been there, dark and immense, threatening to engulf me. But now that is changing. The untroubled nature of my mind is cut through with new emotions . . . stark, terrifying ones.

The unexpected. A shock. Horror, even. How can this be?

My hand goes out to ward off the unseen threat. No! I am surrounded only by the trusted. This cannot happen. Such threat is the province of enemies, not friends.

Gleaming metal – blue Noric steel shining with that sickly all-pervading red glow – lances towards me. I lurch away and the blade that seeks my heart instead cuts through flesh and grinds against bone.

Agony. Flashes of agony and panic. Disbelief and terror.

There is blood. My hand comes up and is oddly black within the red of my enclosed world. So much blood. I try to react, but I am prevented. I am stopped.

I am helpless, and it is trusted ones that seek my end. Why? What have I done to deserve this?

I shout, but that shout goes nowhere, gathered up by the limp crimson canopy and hurled back at me. The myriad voices far away cheer still, unaware that I am imperilled.

Panic is all, now. There is nothing I can do.

That blade, given an extra scarlet tint by my life’s blood, is pulling back, the face behind it feral, the teeth bared like a wolf defending a half-eaten kill from its pack mates.

I am still trying to react, to fight, but I am failing, restrained. The wound that daubed the blade before me is a searing conflagration in my flesh, sending tendrils of pain throughout my body. To see my own life coating a sword . . . I catch my face briefly reflected in the oily red sheen. I do not look panicked or agonised. Just sad.

But it is not that blade I should fear.

The blade that robs me of my world is the unseen one. It scythes through flesh and I can feel it cutting the threads within that bind life to this earthly shell. My heart stops – a steel point transfixing it.

My eyes are wide. The feral face comes closer. I am already dead, but still standing – I can still feel as that animal drives in his blade once more. Another comes from behind. And another from the side. Each blow is an insult now, nothing more, for death has been dealt. Each new blow is a statement from those I had loved and trusted.

Thirty blows in all. Thirty wounds that go deeper than mere flesh, that carve my very soul.

I am falling now, the scarlet canopy receding, the flashes of dagger-like sunlight unable to warm me. Nothing will ever warm me again.

I can see the most familiar of faces . . .

 

I wake sharply, my pallet drenched with the sweat of terror. Was it just a dream again? Or was it something more? I remember now. I remember who I am. And I remember how it began.

 

I

ASHES AND A HOLLOW HEART

My name is Julia Livilla, daughter of Germanicus and sister of the emperor Gaius, who they called Caligula. And if I am to start this story anywhere sensible then it must begin with my first memory of him.

My father, the great conquering general beloved of Rome – if not of his emperor – had spent a year in Syria as its governor before passing rather suddenly from the world through illness. Or by the emperor’s poison as some, such as my mother, would have you believe. I have no memory of that dusty land, of course. I was a mewling baby when my father died and my mother gathered her children and returned to Rome with her husband’s ashes and a hollow heart.

So I came to Rome with the others, nestled in the arms of my mother in the year of the consuls Silanus and Balbus – an entourage of death returning from distant lands to a mourning city with a wicked emperor. We landed at Ostia and transferred to Rome, where we moved through the city at a stately pace, a sombre family amid the wailing crowds that had turned out to see the beloved Germanicus come home for the last time. We were stony silent and dour, Drusilla and Agrippina, Gaius and myself, Mother and the numerous slaves and attendants. I was still a babe of course, yet to form true memories, and one image is all I can claim from that day: my brother gathering our weary sister Drusilla into his arms to save her tired young feet, and carrying her across the forum beneath a glorious rainbow that arced incongruously through a deep blue sky.

A single snatch of early life: a rainbow, noisy crowds, a burial and my brother at his glorious best.

 

Four years passed then, with us living in Rome as a large, peaceful – if not always harmonious – family. In addition to the wealthy town house we had on the Palatine where my father had grown up, my mother also kept a well-appointed villa with extensive gardens on the far side of the Tiber, within view of the great curve of the theatre of Pompey, and it was this semi-rural location that my mother favoured. I liked to think – probably in the naïve, childish way of a five year old – that this was because she wished to live out the rest of her life in a place that harboured only joyous memories of her husband. Agrippina and Caligula, both of whom were ever more subtle and intuitive than I, maintained that the real reason was that she persisted in the conviction that Tiberius had ordered the death of her husband, and would never countenance even the idea of living on the Palatine alongside him.

At five, I was just grateful for the extensive gardens and the relatively clear air on that side of the river, away from the summer stink of Rome’s huddled streets. As I had grown into a happy girl, playing with the family’s pet hounds that roamed the grounds, absorbed in an endless series of games that resulted in torn and muddied clothes, so too had my brothers and sisters grown. Nero and Drusus had both taken the toga virilis while we were in Rome, becoming men in the eyes of the city, and each roamed the villa’s corridors pensively, impatiently awaiting a posting to the legions as a tribune. Agrippina, now eight, was already exhibiting all the signs of a competitor in the game of power. She played off one slave or servant or former client of our father’s against another constantly, for her own amusement and always for an advantage. Drusilla, a year younger, was just happy to play with a small circle of friends, holding her own court as though she were an empress. The former consul’s son, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, who was often at the villa, had begun to moon around Drusilla as though the very ground upon which she walked might sprout roses. Even at such a tender age, I remember the first flowerings of jealousy over my placid sister. She had to do nothing to attract the attention of everyone, whereas I was often overlooked. Would that I had been closer to Drusilla then, and far more wary of Agrippina.

There was a tense time for a while when Caligula, now a rangy boy of eleven, began to prowl around Lepidus, contending with the handsome visitor for the attention of our sister. Agrippina and I held our breath at every visit, waiting for our youngest brother to launch an assault upon Lepidus in defence of his relationship with Drusilla. Caligula was ever quick-tempered, you see, though that was just part of his nature. He was as avid and forthright with every emotion: quick to anger but expansively loving, exuding sympathy yet tightly, even acerbically humorous. In the end our worries proved unfounded. One morning, as Lepidus entered the house, he brought Caligula a gift – a jewelled knife. It was a small thing, expensive and decorative, intended for use as a handy work blade for all its silvered hilt, but it was given as a gift of friendship and it sealed such with our brother, who was rarely without the blade thereafter. From that day on he shared Drusilla with our friend, and the matter was settled, even if it did little to diminish my occasional pangs of jealousy over the attention my pretty, delicate sister constantly received.

 

They were happy days, but things began to change in the year of the consuls Pollius and Vetus. While the older boys and our mother kept themselves occupied in the villa, the younger children and some of our friends were busy playing in the Courtyard of the Fountains when the heavy bronze knocker at the gate rapped loudly twice, sharply, announcing visitors. The bow-legged doorkeeper shambled out of his hut, the fingers of his left hand drumming on the stout ash-wood club at his waist, and crossed to the gate, opening it a crack. Moments later, and after a very short, terse exchange, he swung back the gate to admit the soldiers.

It was the first time I had encountered men of the Praetorian Guard – since I’d been old enough to understand, anyway. And they were so clearly soldiers, despite their civil garb. Each man wore his toga like armour, impenetrable and marble-white, his hand hovering near the tell-tale lump that betrayed a sword hilt. Each one had the grim face and square jaw of a hard man, and their feet crunched on the gravel with the sound of hobnailed soldier’s caligae boots. I knew that sound well. Soldiers did not visit a villa without cause, and soldiers of the Praetorian Guard, no less?

I felt panic thrill through me at the sight. Everything Mother had said about our father’s death suddenly seemed more plausible with the emperor’s own troops in our garden. Perhaps I shrieked, for Caligula reached out and grabbed me, pulling me close and holding me tight in a protective embrace, murmuring calming words with no substance beyond the sounds of his voice. He always had a slightly hypnotic tone – unless he was angry.

We watched, our games forgotten, as the soldiers entered the house, their rough boots clacking across the marble. They were in there for moments only. Mere heartbeats. The message they delivered must have been as forthright and brief as their manner, and no sooner had they exited the grounds to wait impatiently outside, than Mother hurried from the door with our major-domo at her heel, a gaggle of slaves following on. At the rear came Nero and Drusus, both in togas and wearing swords beneath them in a disturbing echo of the Praetorians.

‘Lepidus, Callavia and Tullius, I am afraid you will have to leave. Hipsicles here will see you back to your families.’ Mother turned to us, and her expression was steely. ‘Children, go into the house and change into your best clothes as fast as you can. We are summoned to the emperor.’ Her eyes played across us and settled on me, narrowing. ‘Livilla, how is it possible to acquire such filth in such a short time. Wash your face and comb your hair. And be quick about it, all of you. Emperors do not expect to be kept waiting.’

As we rushed past her into the house to make ourselves presentable as fast as possible, and Hipsicles, our major-domo, gathered up the friends to return to their own houses, Mother seemed to notice our oldest brothers for the first time.

‘What in the name of sacred Venus are you two doing?’

Their blank looks betrayed their puzzlement.

‘The swords?’

Nero frowned. ‘But the Praetorians are wearing swords.’

‘No citizen,’ Mother explained in a strained hiss, ‘bears a weapon of war in the city. It is ancient, inviolable law. The Praetorians are exempt by imperial order, for they must bear a blade to carry out their very duties, but you are just private citizens. Now take those swords off before you get yourselves arrested.’

As our older brothers struggled out of their togas, removed their blades and then rehung the draped garments with the help of the slaves, we hurried to prepare ourselves for the emperor. With surprising alacrity, we assembled out front once more, dressed finely, clean and tidy. Mother marched up and down in front of us like a general inspecting her troops. Was this what my father had been like, I wondered. Her eyebrow rose at the sight of that silvered knife sheathed at Caligula’s belt, but she let it pass without comment – it was not a weapon of war, after all.

We were escorted to the large carriage that had hastily been made ready and moments later we were bouncing off through the gate at a steady pace, escorted by the emperor’s Praetorians, into the city. As we moved onto the Pons Agrippae, the soldiers were obliged either to march ahead or drop behind by the press of the traffic, and the moment they were out of earshot Mother was jabbering at us in hushed tones.

‘Beware everything at the palace, children. The emperor is a dangerous old man and with the passing of his son last month, he is worse than ever. His court is a pit of vipers, each as bad as the next, presided over as much by the dangerous Praetorian officers as by the emperor himself. Say nothing unless you are addressed directly, and then be circumspect with your replies. Be polite but not fawning. Be truthful, but economical with it. Above all, be careful. Remember that this is the man who had your father poisoned.’

She clearly had more to say, but we had crossed the bridge and the soldiers were closing in, so she fell silent and locked her eyes on the distant rise of the Palatine. We travelled in strained silence and by the time the carriage pulled up outside Tiberius’ great palace we were all quite tense. The grand façade, with its false columns and marbled architraves, was interrupted at the centre by a high portico with a grand pediment that showed the emperor himself as a young general butchering Germans.

I have to admit to shaking with nerves as we passed up the steps and into the shade of that portico. The presence of armed and armoured soldiers who could have killed me before I managed a scream unnerved me as a five-year-old girl.

Caligula was there next to me, a soothing hand on my shoulder, trying to take away my fear. It worked, too. I began to calm down and, once the trembling subsided, he moved on and took Drusilla’s hand. I felt a thrill of jealousy again. The closeness the pair shared went beyond what we had, and I envied my sister that, for he was truly the golden boy of our household.

We entered a courtyard where white travertine paths cut across beds of chippings of golden African marble, carefully tended poplars at both ends in neat, orderly rows. Then we were across and inside, letting our eyes adjust to the dim interior. The main building of the extended palace complex, a rectangular domus at its heart, was exquisitely designed, lofty and spacious, sumptuous without descending to the gaudiness of eastern princelings. It was grander than anything I had ever seen and my eyes roved as though they had a life independent of mine.

At some point, unnoticed by me, we passed from the control of the Praetorians to the emperor’s German bodyguard. Though we still had an escort of four Praetorians, their comrades were no longer in evidence around the building. Instead, bristly northerners with red-blond hair and suspicious eyes occupied the various niches and doorways, watching us as though we were the foreigners, and not them. It struck me as darkly humorous that these barbarians guarded the very man who was shown on the building’s pediment cutting their fellow tribesmen to pieces. Caligula’s eyes narrowed as we passed so many armed men and his expression suggested we were walking willingly into the festering maw of a beast.

I was still contemplating the reason for a guard of such brutish barbarians, while our own elite Roman unit were so readily available, when we were ushered into a great room hung with banners of purple, white and gold. Braziers burned in the corners, giving the place a cosy atmosphere, if a little smoky towards the ceiling. At the centre of the room a fountain in the form of a statue of three unrealistically endowed Greek females – the Furies, possibly – poured wine into a catchment area below, whence slaves would periodically scoop a rich cup for the emperor or one of his guests, cutting it with water before handing it over. The extravagance was astounding, though the sheer wastefulness of it was beyond my tender years.

It took me a moment to locate the emperor. I did not know any of the people who were there with him, though I presume they were highly placed, given how freely he spoke in front of them.

Tiberius looked to me like a cadaver. If he had rotted and crumbled away before my eyes it would not have surprised me. And it was not simply his age, though he was far past youth, now – I have known men who were older than he was then. It was a combination of his age, his bitterness, his acidic temper and, I think, a number of chronic ailments that had begun to plague him by that time. He was drawn and grey, with that thin leathery look to his skin that I have always found distasteful. But for all the corpse-like nature of his body, when I caught his eyes, there was a fierce intelligence in them, and a sharp cruelty, too. Again, I began to tremble, and made sure to lose myself behind my taller brothers.

‘The lady Agrippina,’ the emperor said in flat tones, meaning my mother, and not my sister who shared her name.

‘Majesty,’ Mother acknowledged with a rigid politeness that was just a hair’s breadth from being brusque and a bow of the head that stopped short of respect by a fraction. The emperor saw it, and I noted his eyes harden.

‘You are late.’

‘Forgive me, Majesty. Your guards failed to mention a deadline. We came as fast as we could.’

That was the first time I really noticed Sejanus. The emperor, beaten in this verbal contest, flashed an irritated glance at the Praetorian prefect, who stood, armoured, close by, lurking in a shadow. I trembled at the sight of that man in the gloom.

‘You are forgiven,’ the emperor said with a magnanimous swoop of a hand and a smile that barely touched his mouth, let alone any other part of his face. ‘Have your brood relax. There are couches and cushions aplenty. And you, dear Agrippina, please do sit.’

Dear Agrippina? My eyes for some reason slid to my brother Caligula, and I noticed that his fingers were toying with the chape of his knife’s scabbard on his belt. I prayed that none of the German Guard noticed, for it would be very easy to see it as a threat.

We were seated, my sister ’Pina to my left, Caligula to my right, Drusilla beyond, all on one couch. Mother sat stiffly on another, not reclining as expected, and my two eldest brothers sat beside her.

‘You were not at my ceremony of mourning?’ the emperor threw out in an offhand manner, though the bile behind the words was unmistakable. Caligula’s eyes, I noticed, were darting around the room, taking in each expression. While our older brothers sat, respectfully riveted to the emperor’s presence, Caligula was more interested in the reactions of those around him, using them, I know now, to judge the emperor’s own true moods and motivations, without having to peel away the mask the bitter old man wore by nature.

‘Again, my apologies, Majesty,’ Mother said. ‘I was unwell and unfit to travel.’

‘Travel? To the forum? Just how unwell were you, dear lady?’

There was an awkward silence. Mother was not going to collapse under the pressure of the old man’s words. It was plain to all present why she had not been there, but no one dared say anything about it. The emperor sighed.

‘I mourn the loss of my son, Agrippina. I mourn darkly and I mourn hard. I do not sleep. I cry often.’

It was such a sudden change that it took us all by surprise, even my mother, whose shell of silence cracked.

‘No parent should have to bury a son, Majesty.’

There was another silence, a pause filled only by the gurgling of the wine fountain.

‘Agreed,’ he said finally. ‘Unfortunately, I am not to be given the luxury of grief. Rome demands. She always demands. She is ever hungry and I can never give her the peace that I would have from her. My advisors and those in the senate with the more insistent voices remind me constantly of the succession. I believe they fear that I am on the point of death, simply because I am no longer a young man. We have had half a century of internal peace in the empire since my illustrious forebear wrestled control of the empire from that dog Marcus Antonius and founded a dynasty.’

I caught the hardening of my brother’s jaw as his fingers rested on the hilt of his knife. Caesar’s great friend Antonius was, after all, another of our great-grandfathers, and the comment was almost an open insult.

‘And my dynastic progression died with my son,’ the emperor said in a cold, flat voice. ‘So the succession hangs in the balance and the blabbering old senators fear a new civil war if it cannot be put right.’

‘The senators are astute, Majesty,’ Mother said quietly. ‘The succession is of prime importance.’

‘I am not on the verge of death!’ snapped Tiberius with anger that seemed to turn into smoke and drift about the room. He sighed again and slumped. ‘I have made my decision, Agrippina. Despite the differences between you and I, your husband was my nephew and I loved my brother – his father – above all men. And since Germanicus’ tragic end I would not see your line fade. You are of the house of the divine Caesar, after all. I have already logged my intentions with the senate. Your eldest boys – Nero and Drusus – will be appointed as my heirs in my son’s place, and before you ask why, I will explain something to you, Agrippina. I know that you do not like me and do not trust me. And I mirror your dislike to some lesser extent. But you have ever made your views known to me, and despite our enmity you still treat me as your emperor and a distant family member. In four years in the city you have never plotted against me or involved yourself with my enemies, and neither have your children. I have those in my court –’ his sweeping arm took in the nameless lackeys in the room ‘– who profess to be my closest friends and greatest supporters and who have made moves against me that they do not think I am aware of.’

I was startled by a sudden gurgling noise and my gaze – along with that of all others – snapped in the direction of the sound. A young man in a rich toga was suddenly jerking and spasming as crimson began to soak the white folds of his attire. Above him, Sejanus, the Praetorian commander, withdrew his blade from the man’s neck, wiped it carefully on a rag and sheathed it as the body of the unfortunate courtier collapsed, slicking blood, to the floor.

I felt nauseated with the shock of it. The tang of the blood filled the air with its cloying scent even amid the stink of his voided bowel. But it was neither the smell nor the sight that sickened me as much as the realisation that a life had been snuffed out before my very eyes. Ended viciously and coldly. I think I threw up a little.

It was the first time I had ever seen someone die. It was to be far from the last.

Beside me, Caligula’s attention was, oddly, not on the blood-soaked body, but on the dark killer behind him. I felt certain my brother had committed to memory every tiny facet of the prefect’s being.

Then the emperor was talking again as though nothing had happened, and my mother instantly returned her attention to Tiberius.

‘So you see,’ the emperor said diffidently, ‘I would rather place my trust in a reliable enemy than an unreliable friend. Nero will be my heir apparent, with Drusus as his second.’

‘In case one dies,’ my mother said in a flat tone. Heirs died for many reasons, and I think Mother did not relish the idea of the increased danger in which such an appointment put her boys.

‘I have been caught unprepared once, Agrippina. Do not contest me over this. Think only of the honour I do your children. The deed is done, anyway. I am seeking neither your permission nor your approval. I am informing you of what has been decided.’

Nero and Drusus were staring wide-eyed at the emperor. Can you imagine what it must be like to be told that you have been plucked from among so many with equal or better claim and made heir to the whole world? All I could think, though, was how my youngest brother must feel.

As the emperor continued his conversation with Mother, I turned to Caligula, catching with distaste the sight of Sejanus clicking his fingers and slaves dragging away the body, leaving a gleaming trail of blood across the marble.

‘Why them and not you?’ I whispered.

My brother, his fingers no longer on his knife, turned a quizzical look on me. ‘Sorry?’

‘Why Nero and Drusus and not you? If it is safer for the emperor to have two heirs than one, would it not be even safer with three?’

Caligula frowned for a moment, and then fixed me with an easy smile. ‘Drusus and Nero are men, Livilla. Sixteen and seventeen years old. They are about to be made tribunes in the army. They are ready-made successors. I am but eleven, remember, and not yet a man in the eyes of state.’

I couldn’t see how he was so calmly accepting of it, though, and I drove on. ‘Doesn’t it annoy you?’

‘Far from it, little sister,’ he replied, lowering his tone to a barely audible level as we pulled away from any unwanted ear. ‘Do not fret, for I envy neither Nero or Drusus their unsought windfall. In fact, I would quite hate to be in their position. The court is a dangerous place, as you must by now have noticed. Nero and Drusus will have to be vigilant. Their every word and gesture will be the subject of scrutiny and they will have to navigate the tides and currents of the emperor’s court with great care.’

My eyes drifted first to Nero and Drusus who had hungrily involved themselves in conversation with the emperor – were they capable of the caution Caligula was advocating? – and then to the bloody streak across the floor, which was all that remained of a Roman nobleman. In the deep shadow beyond, the prefect Sejanus stood with his arms folded, surveying the room.

‘And watch that one,’ Caligula whispered at my side. ‘He will not stop advancing until he outranks Jove himself.’ I watched Sejanus for a moment longer, then flicked a quick glance at my brother, but he was already deep in conversation with Drusilla. I turned instead to ’Pina at my other side, but she was busy listening in to the conversation of state as though it might provide as useful information as her intelligence-gathering at the villa. I was effectively alone, and all I could do was look at the emperor, the ageing ruler who had just named my brothers as his heirs, and at Sejanus, who seemed so comfortable in the gloom that he might have been made of shadow.

And I started to shiver all over again.

 

The following seasons passed surprisingly swiftly, despite the ever-present, lurking fear of interference from the emperor or the Praetorian prefect. Once the old emperor had named my brothers as his heirs, Mother called in favours to secure Nero and Drusus their tribunates as quickly as possible. It would have been obvious even to those unversed in our family’s ways that she was attempting to keep her sons as far from the perils of court as possible. It had not escaped my notice, though, that if our father had been poisoned on the orders of the emperor, he had been serving in Syria at the time, and so clearly distance was no real protection. Tiberius had been distinctly unimpressed that, within a month of his announcement, his two new heirs had left the city for military posts, but he could hardly complain about a young Roman following the traditional steps on the cursus honorum.

And so Nero had taken up his posting as a tribune with the Third Augusta at Theveste, his brother Drusus accepting a place with the Third Cyrenaica in Aegyptus. The whole of Africa was in turmoil at the time with the rebellion of the barbarous King Tacfarinas, and Nero at least would become involved in the war, if not Drusus as well, yet Mother was not as worried as I expected. Not only were tribunes hardly expected to fight in battle, but also, in her opinion, a desert full of Berber tribesmen posed less of a threat to the family than one Praetorian with a knife.

I had watched my brothers pass through several stages of reaction to the emperor’s pronouncement. Disbelief merged quickly into a certain smug satisfaction, unintentionally aimed often at Caligula and Lepidus. Then, as the shine wore off and the reality of what the succession truly meant, and the dangers it would bring, sank in, they moved to a nervous, jumpy acceptance. By the time their tribunates were secured and they left Rome, I think both were pleased to go. Drusilla and I watched them leave with sadness, Caligula with a calculated understanding, and Agrippina with disappointment. I think she had been expecting that their rise in status would positively affect her somehow. It had not, and with their departure it seemed likely nothing would come of it at all.

Despite four of us remaining at the villa with Mother, the absence of our two older brothers left a sizeable hole in our lives, and things seemed unnaturally quiet. We went on as always, if with less enthusiasm, playing with friends and learning what would be required of us when we were older.

I suspect that Mother despaired of me in that regard. Agrippina was a good stude