This historical fiction is based on the writings of Tacitus, Suetonius, Cassius Dio, Josephus and Philo.
The events surrounding the crucifixion of Yeshua are, to say the least, opaque. To my mind motivations and timelines seem to be very confused; no doubt due to ancient writers trying to construct a story piecemeal to suit the agenda of the newly conceived Pauline Christianity. My version of the story is set down with no claims to scholarship; it is purely constructed to have Sabinus witness the birth of a man-made religion that will become an important strand of the story as the series progresses.
I am grateful to A. N. Wilson in his Paul: The Mind of the Apostle for his suggestion of Paulus’ full name and for his intriguing idea that he may have been the Temple guard who had his ear chopped off by Peter and also that he may well have witnessed the crucifixion itself.
There is no evidence that Paulus went to Creta and Cyrenaica in his persecution of Yeshua’s followers. Vespasian was quaestor there in AD 34 or soon after if we follow the dating in Barbara Levick’s excellent biography Vespasian. I chose AD 34 because that was the year, according to Tacitus, that the Phoenix was again reborn – Cassius Dio puts it in AD 36. Tacitus clearly believes in the Phoenix and spends more than half a page describing it.
Silphium was dying out at this time and that would have put quite a strain on the Cyrenaican economy. Nero was said to have been presented with the last plant in existence twenty years later.
I have probably done the Marmaridae a disservice by portraying them as ruthless slavers, for which I apologise.
The Oracle of Amun was in Siwa and Alexander did travel there and was spoken to; he never revealed what he had been told.
Caligula did have a long affair with Macro’s wife, Ennia, and did swear to make her his empress and Macro prefect of Egypt before ordering their suicide for adultery and pandering. Vespasian’s part in the suicide is, of course, fiction.
Poppaeus died a natural death in AD 35 and Tacitus wrote of him that he was up to the task and no more. There is nothing to suggest that he had anything to do with Pomponius’ suicide the year before; that seems to have been Tiberius’ doing.
The Parthian mission did come to Rome at this time and Tiberius backed the claim of Phraates, sparking off two years of Roman intervention in the East under the generalship of Lucius Vitellius, the Governor of Syria. It is my fiction to have Herod Agrippa involved in it, as indeed it was having him in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion and also conspiring with Macro and Poppaeus to grab the eastern provinces.
Sabinus being the aedile in charge of grain is also my invention but he would have achieved that rank at about this time. Tiberius did give a lot of money towards rebuilding the Aventine after a fire in the last months of his reign. Tacitus records that Macro did smother him and Cassius Dio says that Caligula had the Senate overturn his will on the grounds of insanity, which was self-evident because he had named a mere boy as his co-heir.
We get a pleasing clue as to how Vespasian survived Caligula’s reign from Suetonius: he records that Vespasian stood up in the Senate and made a speech thanking the Emperor for inviting him to dinner the previous evening, showing us that he was considered a friend by Caligula and also he realised that abject sycophancy was, indeed, a life-saving fault.
As to Caligula’s excesses: they were many and varied if we are to believe the historians and I have no reason not to, although I am happy to accept that they may have exaggerated. All of the acts that he commits in the book are reported or alluded to by either Suetonius or Cassius Dio – Tacitus’ account being unfortunately lost. I have only exaggerated two points: firstly the extent of his public sex with Drusilla; I can find no record of his building a theatre for these shows, but it has been suggested by some of the more imaginative modern writers on the subject and I liked the idea so I borrowed it. If someone could show me where it is historically documented, I would be only too pleased to learn that it was true! Secondly: Caligula forcing his two other sisters to have sex with the urban poor in the palace is also from similar sources; I included this because it seemed like a good way to combine both his turning the palace into a brothel and also his prostituting his sisters to his friends, both of which are in Suetonius.
Caligula’s illness is mysterious and there have been several theories as to what it was. What is for certain is that he was never the same after. I have shamelessly borrowed Robert Graves’ idea that he thought himself metamorphosed into a god after his recovery, because it was such fun. My thanks to the shade of one of the greatest writers of historical fiction.
Vespasian was the aedile responsible for Rome’s streets during Caligula’s reign. Suetonius makes much out of Caligula, disgusted at the state of the streets, ordering filth to be piled into Vespasian’s toga fold; he claims that it was a sign that Rome would one day fall into Vespasian’s lap. Personally I think that it was a sign that Vespasian did not really care for the job.
Valerius Catullus claimed to have worn himself out buggering Caligula, not Clemens; but it was a nice detail that I wanted to get in.
Antonia was driven to suicide by Caligula’s behaviour and more than likely freed Caenis in her will, as she would have been thirty by then.
Vespasian’s part in fetching Alexander’s breastplate from Alexandria is again my fiction; however, someone had to go and get it, so why not our man? It also puts him in Alexandria for the Jewish riots of AD 38. The riots and Herod Agrippa’s humiliation I based on Josephus’ and Philo’s accounts as well as the excellent Alexandrian Riots of 38 CE and the Persecution of the Jews by Sandra Gambetti. Paulus being there at the time is my fiction, but if he did live for three years in the desert after his Damascene conversion, he would have been reappearing in about AD 38, though probably not in Alexandria.
My favourite comment on the riots comes from Philo, brother of the Alabarch, Alexander, whose main cause for outrage was not so much the killing but the fact that high-status Jews were whipped like common Egyptian peasants in the fields, rather than given the rod as befitted their rank; and then, to compound it all, those whipping them were Greeks of the very lowest class. Disgraceful!
Vespasian must have met Flavia Domitilla during the time span of the book. She was the mistress of Statilius Capella from Sabratha and the daughter of Flavius Liberalis, a quaestor’s clerk who became an equestrian.
Caligula’s bridge over the Bay of Naples must have been a wonderful sight; it did, however, cause a massive food shortage in Italy. The events described are all taken from historical sources; I have only changed it in that it all happens on one day rather than two. Corbulo probably had nothing to do with the building of the road across it, but he did complain about the state of the roads in the Senate and was made road-czar by Caligula for his trouble – perhaps as a joke?
Caligula’s rape of Clementina at the end is fictional but very much in character.
My thanks again to my agent, Ian Drury at Sheil Land Associates, and also to Gaia Banks and Virginia Ascione for their hard work on my behalf in the foreign rights department.
Thanks to Sara O’Keefe and Toby Mundy at Corvus/Atlantic for believing in the Vespasian series and continuing to publish it.
Once again it has been a pleasure to work with my editor, Richenda Todd, who has, as always, made the book much better than I could have done by myself.
And finally, thank you, Anja, for listening to my day’s work every evening.
Vespasian’s story continues in Germania and Britannia in Rome’s Fallen Eagle.