CHAPTER 62

For two weeks, Flavia and I met secretly every night and planned our conspiracy. We studied the failed attempts to take Caligula’s life and learned from them. Other would-be assassins had enlisted too many conspirators. They didn’t have a plan to get past the Praetorian Guard. They had underestimated Caligula’s cunning and paranoia.

I told Flavia about the poison I now carried with me at all times, but we both agreed that Caligula wouldn’t die that way. He never ate or drank anything that hadn’t been tested by others. Plus, although Flavia never explicitly said it, I sensed that she thought poison would be too humane.

There were three major complications. The first was finding somebody close to Caligula to help pull this off. He had surrounded himself with trusted members of the Praetorian Guard and elite soldiers formerly from the Germanic tribes his father had fought against. Many of these men didn’t even speak Latin, and all were fiercely loyal to Caligula.

Our second problem was the Senate. Flavia, who at one time had defended imperial rule, now agreed that the imperial system would be the death of Rome. We didn’t just want to avenge Mansuetus; our goals were loftier. We would reestablish the Republic. But this would require decisive action by the Senate, and who could be trusted in that backstabbing body?

Even if we found a senator we could trust, we had to make sure he wouldn’t be implicated in the plot. Caligula still had enough popularity among the freedmen and the military that the Senate would never be able to take back power if the people believed that a senator had been complicit in the assassination.

Our final challenge was the emperor’s family. If all we did was kill Caligula, the Praetorian Guard would appoint another member of his family as emperor. We would have to arrest Caligula’s family members as well, including his incompetent uncle Claudius —the butt of Caligula’s jokes but still the most likely successor to the throne.

Yet none of these challenges would matter if we couldn’t find a way to get Caesar alone.

After two weeks of planning, the idea for doing so came from an unexpected source.

The conversation took place at the conclusion of a lavish banquet hosted by a distinguished senator. I generally despised such affairs, but my station in life demanded I show up for this one. Seneca was there as well, reclining on the other side of the large banquet hall. We hadn’t spoken to each other since our falling-out after Flavia’s trial.

To my shock, he asked me to go for a walk with him in the gardens. At first the conversation was forced. But when he was certain that no one else was around, he opened up.

“Timidius has accused Senator Pomponius of conspiracy against Caesar,” Seneca said. “Pomponius knows of our past friendship and asked me to intercede with you to take his case.”

I was taken aback by the reference to our past friendship. And though I was flattered that Pomponius would turn to me, I was still inclined to say no. The very last thing Flavia and I needed right now, in the midst of our conspiracy to kill the emperor, was the attention of a maiestas trial.

“I want to say yes, Seneca, as a favor to you. But I can’t.”

I could sense his disappointment. He didn’t immediately respond, and I knew he was too proud to beg.

His mood weighed heavy on me, and so I took a risk. If I couldn’t trust Seneca, a friend and mentor who detested Caligula nearly as much as I, whom could I trust?

“You once told me that bold times require bold actions,” I said, checking his reaction in my peripheral vision. “I’m tired of defending good men from maiestas charges. I’m tired of emperors who condemn valiant Romans to die just to amuse the people. I’m tired of senators who kneel down to kiss the foot of a man like Caligula, vote to bestow him with great honors, and then complain about the emperor behind his back.”

We took a few steps in silence. I hesitated to get any more specific unless Seneca gave me a sign that he was sympathetic to our cause.

“You’ve always been an idealist,” he said. “Idealists become teachers. Pragmatists become emperors.”

It was typical Seneca. Vague and tantalizing. Not a word that could ever be used against him.

“I’m going to kill Caesar,” I said bluntly. “I need your help to restore the Republic.”

Instinctively, Seneca checked behind us. He frowned, making no effort to hide his concern. “I assume you have a plan to get him alone?”

“Not yet.”

“I assume you are keeping your inner circle of trusted advisers small?”

“Yes.”

“And who might they be?”

Again, I deliberated how much to say. “I’m not at liberty to tell.”

“I see.” He let out a big sigh, the same symbol of exasperation he had used years earlier when I had disappointed him. “So let me get this straight. You have decided to kill the emperor, but you have no plan. And for this reason you are rejecting my request to represent my friend Pomponius in his treason trial?”

“I am open to suggestions,” I said.

Seneca smiled. “I suggest that this time you leave my name out of it.”

I promised I would, and I apologized again for listing him as a witness in Flavia’s trial. I then told him about the funeral I had arranged after the death of Mansuetus. I told him about the vow that Flavia and I had made. I tried to paint a compelling picture of Flavia and her overwhelming grief.

We were almost done with our walk, and Seneca lowered his voice. “I would never be part of a conspiracy against the emperor; I must make that clear. Yet I do worry about how long he will survive. I have heard that he has an insatiable lust for women, especially ones who are off-limits. He is never seen in public with his wife, Caesonia, anymore. If a beautiful woman lured him into a private place, I fear that the good emperor could be too easily disposed of. And if that happened, the Senate might even rise up and restore the Republic. There is nothing like the humiliation that’s been imposed by Caligula to help senators understand the shortfalls of an imperial system.”

Seneca stopped and looked up at the expansive estate in front of us. “That would be a shame, would it not? If the emperor got lured into a private meeting with a woman like that?”

“A real shame,” I agreed.

“Then given the nature of our conversation, I don’t think we should speak again for a good while,” Seneca said. “But as your former teacher, I’ll leave you with a reminder from history. On the Ides of March when Julius Caesar was assassinated, the Liberators thought that all of Rome would join them in exultation over his death. They marched through the Forum and called out to the masses, ‘People of Rome, we are once again free!’ But they were met with silence.”

He put his arm around my shoulders, and it seemed for a moment like my old mentor was back. “You know what my point is, Theophilus?”

I waited.

“It is easier to kill a tyrant than to end a tyranny,” he said.

Despite my mentor’s dire warning, I was in too deep to turn back. Ironically, the missing piece fell into place shortly after the maiestas trial of Senator Pomponius. His accusers, including Caepio Crispinus as their advocate, had counted on the testimony of Pomponius’s alleged lover, a beautiful actress named Quintilia, as their primary source of proof. To elicit incriminating testimony, she was tortured by the Praetorian commander Cassius Chaerea so badly that her face was permanently disfigured. Still, she refused to testify against Pomponius.

When Quintilia was dragged before Caligula and accused of conspiring with Pomponius, the emperor took great pity on her appearance and released both Quintilia and Pomponius. He gave the actress a present of eight hundred thousand sestertii for her steadfastness in the face of torture. He also berated the guard Chaerea in front of the entire Senate, mocking him for his effeminate ways and his pudginess and chastising him for torturing the helpless Quintilia.

That night Flavia and I decided that we should ask the humiliated Chaerea to join our cause.

Flavia began finding ways to bend his ear. A conversation here. A sympathetic look there. A request that the two of them meet in private. It took her ten days to woo him over.

We were both nervous about bringing him in, I more than Flavia, primarily because I hadn’t had the opportunity to evaluate him face-to-face. But Flavia asked me to trust her, and besides, what choice did we really have? If we wanted to get close to Caesar, we would have to deal with one of the members of his despicable inner circle.

After Flavia brought Chaerea into the conspiracy, my job was to put Apronius, my former client, on notice. I spent three separate evenings at his countryside estate, discussing philosophy and our mutual love for the Republic. Finally, when the time was right, I hinted at what might be coming. “If anything happened to Caligula, the public mood would be ripe for restoring power to the Senate,” I suggested.

We were sipping wine, and he eyed me suspiciously.

“It would take senators with great courage and conviction to make it happen,” I continued. “The Praetorian Guard would have to be neutralized, and there could be no suspicions that the senators themselves had been part of the conspiracy to kill Caesar.”

I watched as Apronius slowly nodded his agreement. “All of what you say is true,” he said. “But I do have a question.”

“I’m listening.”

“Is Flavia involved?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then tell her I will do my part,” Apronius promised.

Two months after the funeral of Mansuetus, Caligula decided to move his palace to Alexandria. Chaerea secretly told us that the emperor was motivated in part by his increasing paranoia about possible conspiracies against him and in part by his dreams of exotic Egyptian women. He planned to leave on January 25. Just prior to his departure, he had scheduled three days of theatrical performances.

Our plan was to strike on the last day possible.