Calpurnius Julius had been a commander of the second Praetorian cohort for about a year. A Roman citizen by birth, he had fought in Gaul, Pannonia and the Alps before joining the Emperor’s chosen guards, to whom he was attached by a devotion that bordered on idolatry.
He knew he was very late for the appointment that the college of priests had given him at the temple of Jupiter but the last case of rebellion among the auxiliaries stationed at the port of Ostia had needed to be put down before the sun set. Preferably without excessive bloodshed and without the news reaching Octavian’s ears. Calpurnius Julius knew that his task was to watch over the sovereign’s safety and the solidity of his kingdom, and like all the Praetorians, for some time now he had begun to believe the stories. Those stories provincial actors made their living with and which got drunks kicked out of taverns. Stories that had become the favourite insults on prisoners’ tongues as the nails were hammered through their hands into the cross. Stories that informed the mockery of the prostitutes when the Praetorians passed by the brothels.
Calpurnius Julius could not believe that Augustus had betrayed the garrison of Rome after having done everything in his power to have it created. His symbol, his strength, the beating heart of his Empire – and to whom he seemed to prefer a slut whose only talent was that of being able to whisper in the ears of the gods.
Calpurnius Julius was convinced that they could no longer wait in the silence for those voices to corrode the bronze of their armour and stain the white of their tunics. Despite the fragmentary and incomplete testimonies, despite the reticence of soldiers returning from the front who seemed to have lost their memories on the battlefield, and despite the fact that nobody wished to pronounce the motto which had become legend. Vigiles in tenebris.
So Calpurnius Julius had quelled the Ostia uprising, had returned to Rome ahead of his men and, after donning his ceremonial uniform, had hurried down the street wrapped in a large woollen cloak to join those who had decided to act. Unfortunately he had reckoned without Jupiter’s tears, so when he reached the doors of the temple on the Capitoline hill, he looked more like a turkey that had climbed out of a barrel full of water than an officer of Augustus’s chosen guard. Angrily, he took off his helmet and hurled it from him, and for a few moments the clang of the bronze bouncing on the floor drowned out the litanies that he heard coming from within. He took off his cloak, which joined his helmet, and entered the temple of Jupiter clad in an anatomical cuirass studded with armillae, upon which stood the bas-relief of an eagle with spread wings.
Two rows of columns escorted him to the auguraculum, his calcei leaving wet footprints on the marble of the floor. He was about to enter the room from which he had heard the prayers coming when a figure wrapped in a hooded cloak bumped into him. The officer gave the man a distracted glance, and the other merely apologised and then continued on his way towards the exit of the temple. Their eyes met only for a moment – just long enough for Calpurnius Julius to notice a pair of thick white eyebrows.
The man hurried away and disappeared beyond the last columns that led to the main door just as the black-coated ram was being taken to the altar. The animal thrashed wildly while the four chains that tied its hooves were pulled by as many slaves towards the place of sacrifice. Powerful hands immobilised it and lifted it up, depositing it on the marble surface in front of which the rex sacrorum awaited, the whole operation accompanied by the harmonies of a ritual lament. A barefoot vestal, clad only in a silk robe, held out to the high priest a red velvet cushion upon which was a long, sharp knife with a mother-of-pearl hilt. The blade glittered fiercely as the priest took it in his fist.
The vestal left the auguraculum, making way for another female figure dressed in a cloak of fine white cloth which she let fall to the floor as she made her way through the first ring of priests. The translucent satin robe that barely concealed her nudity was so delicate that not even the movements of her body upset its folds. Her face was devoid of makeup and her raven hair was gathered at the nape of the neck with a gold fibula.
The regina sacrorum remained with head bowed until she was in front of the altar, then she knelt down and stretched out on the marble slab placed just below the altar upon which the ram kicked. Through the drain hole she could see the animal’s genitals.
The rex sacrorum went over to the ram. The animal’s eyes, wide with anger and a presage of death, were at the same level as his own. “Let the agonalia begin,” said the high priest, showing the tip of the sacrificial dagger to the ram, “so that the wrath of the gods will be quenched.” The chanting chorus accompanied those words, even following their changes in inflection. Like a wave that pushes the keel of a ship in the middle of a storm, or a cloak wrapped around a body shaken by chills. “The omens gathered in the last days and again this morning from the augurs and haruspices tell us that the gods are angry with the priests of Rome,” continued the high priest without taking his eyes off the ram, “and for this reason the rite we are going to perform will reaffirm our loyalty and our total detachment from those who believe they can change immutable balances.” The rex sacrorum raised the two-handed dagger. “Today I will appease your anger in the name of the res publica,” he said, raising his eyes towards the roof of the temple. “There will be concord.”
The high priest’s eyes closed and the blade slammed down towards the ram.
A sudden peal of thunder, though, startled the animal, which jerked imperceptibly to one side, and instead of sinking into its neck, the blade struck its left eye.
The cry of pain that followed cut through the veil of ritual chants like a razor. The ram staggered and its bladder gave way, pouring a cascade of urine onto the altar. Rivulets of urine flowed down the central hole of the altar, spattering on the body of the regina sacrorum. Instinctively, the woman tried to avoid the foulness, but the priest who was officiating the rite gave her a peremptory gesture to remain still.
The ram continued to stagger but with slower and slower movements, and the dagger, which was still sticking out from its eye, seemed an ornamental offshoot to suffering. The animal bent its front legs and seemed to almost kneel in front of the priest who had given it its death. It keeled over and fell heavily on its side. When its body touched the marble, the singing stopped. A trickle of blood, thin and of a purulent colour, came out from the injured eye and ran across the altar, dripping through the hole beneath which the drenched woman was waiting.
A few reddish drops fell slowly from top to bottom, carefully avoiding dirtying the regina sacrorum’s garment. They splashed onto the stone surface where they were swallowed by the porosity of the altar. The priestess’s robe remained intact.
The rex sacrorum pulled the dagger from the ram’s eye and the slaves hurriedly removed its carcass while the vault of the temple filled with voices and the shadows of hands being run through hair and across the drawn faces of the priests. They looked like dark flames which played hide and seek with mosaics while the eyes of the deities depicted impassively rejected their supplications.
The bad omen had upset the whole assembly. The blood of the sacrificial victim had not wet the robes of the chosen priestess: such a inauspicious sign had not been seen even in the days preceding the assassination of Caesar.
The rex sacrorum looked down his feet and then raised his head and his eyes met those of Calpurnius Julius. The officer had remained silent in the back row of the priests and had witnessed the execution of the rite with astonishment. He was a soldier, but he knew the signs well and understood when they became omens.
The rex sacrorum made to speak but then stopped, and the Praetorian nodded as though he had read the man’s mind. At that moment, a slave breathlessly entered the auguraculum hall. “The storm,” he said. “The lightning. It hit the roof. The statue of Jupiter,” he added in a whisper,” has caught fire.”
Calpurnius Julius narrowed his eyes and put his hand to the hilt of his sword. If he had ever needed a sign to tell him he was doing the right thing, that evening it had been placed unequivocally in front of him. The officer walked down to the centre of the room and the high priest took his hands. The rex sacrorum held them for several long moments, deliberately making a show of the gesture for the benefit of his colleagues.
“We have to hurry,” he said. “The signs are clear.”