Robert Paterson's Weblog

Vespasian - The Death of Sejanus and the sealing of the bond

The man in the gold breastplate is not Captain Kirk but Patrick Stewart, who is playing Sejanus in the classic BBC series, I Claudius. The officer, smirking behind Sejanus, is Macro, Prefect of the Vigiles. He is smirking because he has orders to kill Sejanus.

This crisis cements Vespasian in the familia of Antonia and the heart of Caenis.

The door to the dining room opens. It is Caenis.

"My lady, Macro's man, has arrived with this message for you."

Antonia read the tablet, handed it back to Caenis and nodded to Vespasian. 

"What's the matter, mother?" asked Livilla in a nervous voice. She had been bubbly and vivacious all evening. She had got away with her crimes. But Antonia's black look and Vespasian's new stern manner told her that there was a problem.

"You stupid girl," her mother said in an even voice, "You could have had it all with Drusus, but you wanted this peasant instead."

"Mummy?"

"Don't mummy me. You are no longer my daughter," Antonia looked at Vespasian and Caenis, "Take her away."

Vespasian - Herod Agrippa I - the start of the Jewish Connection

 

A coin of Herod Agrippa

Vespasian was late for dinner at Antonia's Reate villa. One of his best mares had a difficult birth that morning, and he had stayed with her until she and the mule-foal were safe.

As she ushered him into the dining room, Caenis gave him one of her "looks." But it was all fine. Antonia merely waved at him with a smile, so engaged was she with her guest of honour, the Jewish Prince, Marcus Julius Agrippa. No one could make her laugh like him.

Caenis could never understand how her austere mistress could be so lenient with such a rogue. She always forgave him. He was the son she always loved. She was the only mother he ever knew.

"She's lent him the money to pay off the Alexander loan," Caenis whispered to Vespasian.

"He'll never pay her back," he whispered back.

"She knows that," she smiled, "anyway, we just recycled the loan with the familia Alexander. Now Agrippa is officially debt-free, he can stay in Rome. The Emperor has invited him to join him in Capri, where he is to be young Gaius's Tutor. It's all good."

Vespasian laughed, "Some tutor, I suppose he will give courses in dissipation and getting into debt."

Vespasian - Great Expectations

The picture at the top of this post reflects the moment when a poor country boy, the orphan Pip, meets the lady, Miss Havisham, whom he believes, later in life, to have financed his "Great Expectations". In this scene, he has been brought to the big house for the first time to be the companion of a lonely girl, Estella. He is terrified and feels like a fish out of water. 

I think it must have been like this for Vespasian when he was summoned to the Lady Antonia's villa to be a companion for Claudius. How did this happen? I ask because, unlike Pip, the Lady Antonia and her secretary Caenis did make Vespasian's career. Vespasian's "Great Expectations" were fulfilled as a result of this first meeting.

She looked him up and down, as if she was buying a slave. He looked older than 16 and was wearing his adult toga. Officially he was a man but under her gaze, he felt like a child again.

"I think this might work," she said, "has your mother explained everything to you?"

He told her that she had. Caenis reached out and took his hand. She turned it over and looked at his calloused palm. She smiled. "Yes, you'll do."

She led him along the corridor to the east wing, towards Claudius's apartments. 

"Here's his study, he spends far too much time in here. Your job, young man, is to get him out into the real world."

She knocked on the door and, without waiting, opened it and ushered him in.

There, at a standing desk, looking at a book, stood the prince. He was a slender young man in his early thirties. Standing next to him was another red-head, a middle-aged man. It was Narcissus, Claudius's secretary. 

Years later, Caenis told him her side of the story of that day. Feeling like a prisoner in Reate, Claudius had been desperately lonely. Knowing that he could never ask his mother for anything, he  had come to Caenis for help. Her request to Antonia had nothing to do with Claudius' loneliness. Shrewdly, her observation was that Claudius was becoming too precious. What he needed, she told her mistress, was contact with a real Roman. Not an effete town Roman but the type of Roman who used to man Rome's Republican armies. In short, she meant a Sabine man. The type of man who knew what hard work was all about, who had a sense of humour, who was tough and direct. Claudius, she said, needed a Sabine tutor. Antonia bit immediately. All Caenis needed to do then was to find such a man.

Her steward provided the answer. He knew of a young man in a nearby household. He was the grandson of a Centurion. Even better, his mother's father had been a Camp Prefect, the highest post that a centurion could reach. (Equivalent to a Brigadier in a modern Army) He was going to stay at home and run a mule business while his older brother tried his hand in Rome. He seemed the perfect country model for the bookish prince.

A life of the Emperor Vespasian - Introduction

He had come home to Aqua Cutiliae to die. It was late June, and the sun was still high that afternoon. The dinner guests had gone, and Phyllis had settled him on a couch looking out over the lake that he loved so much. The navel of Italy they called it. From this highpoint, he could look west to Rieti towards Antonia's old villa and east up the Via Salaria that led north to his birthplace in Falacrina.

He had no regrets. Rome was back on its feet, Aged 40, Titus would have a long life ahead of him and so keep Domitian from power. No heir had been better prepared by war and office, and few had such a team of advisors to assist him. How Titus loved and trusted Pliny, who had been his first commander in Germany, and Nerva, who had done so much to protect the family in Nero's mad time, was like a grandfather to his son.

The Jews were here too. He would miss them. After it was all over, Tiberius Alexander would return to his home, Alexandria. Poor Josephus would have to stay forever in exile in Rome. It was a pity that they could not stand each other. But he loved them both, and they loved him. Berenice was one of the missing guests. Vespasian knew better than anyone, the pain of loving a woman that Rome could not accept.

Women were the making of his life. He hardly remembered his father, who had died when he was young. It was his mother and his granny who had brought him up. It was they who had convinced Antonia that he would make a suitable companion for her disappointing younger son.

Here, by a happy accident of fate and location, he had been taken into the summer household of Antonia Minor. There, he had befriended her awkward son, Claudius. There, he had become the ally of Narcissus. There, he had met the love of his life, Caenis. This valley was more than a home. It was the foundation of his life.

He took a sip of laudanum. It soothed the pain in his bowels but made him constipated. A glow settled upon him, and he began to remember those innocent early days.