Waiting

    My time is coming.  I don't know when the killing blow will come, or how it will be delivered.  Will I be lowered into the Tullianum to be strangled, starved, or beheaded?  Will a legionary be sent to run me through or force me to commit suicide? Maybe my end will be at the Flavian amphitheater, killed by gladiators or exotic beasts?  Or maybe the Emperor has something else in mind: put adrift on a collapsing boat, being drowned in honey, or put into a bronze bull with a fire burning underneath?  My only consolation is that she hasn't had me thrown into the Carcer, I get to spend my last hours in my villa on the Palatine Hill.  Maybe as a nod to our former friendship.

     All I can do is wait for the axe to fall.  Wait, and remember better times.  Like the day we decided to overthrow the Emperor.  We were in camp near the Parthian border, waiting for orders.  An orderly had come into her tent and saluted. Julia returned the salute.  "Do you bring orders?" she asked.

     The orderly shook his head.  "No Legatus.  The Emperor did not deign to receive me.  Chaos reigns in Roma.  A new round of persecutions has begun."

     Julia slammed her fist into the table, knocking over a jug of wine.  A slave rushed to clean it up, but a glare from Julia caused him to turn away.

     "Damn him," she cried.  "The Parthians conduct raid after raid into Romania and that, that paranoid old fool does nothing but convene another set of treason trials.  What are we to do Marcus?"

    I looked at her and saw the fire in her eyes.  She was a woman of action and sitting cooped up in camp was frustrating.  Emperor Soscius spent more time persecuting enemies both real and imagined to devote attention to matters of state.  The bureaucracy was paralyzed with fear that any misstep would bring his wrath upon them.

     "You know as well as I do what must happen," I said, sipping my wine.  "Soscius must be removed."

     And with that, I had started a rebellion.

     A sound from outside broke my reverie.  I thought I heard the sound of hobnailed boots coming up the road towards the villa.  Fear coursed through me as I strained my ears to identify the sound.  Julia liked to torment her victims, letting them spend their last hours in dread.  I'd seen it many times after she took the throne and the sycophants got their hooks into her.  I remember when it started: a foggy night in Gaul.  Julia was touring the provinces and had brought me along.  We were having dinner in her villa.

     "I think Josephus should be transferred to Britannia," she said, contemplating the fire.  

     "Why," I asked.  "He has served you faithfully, has he not?"

     "I don't like the way he looks at me of late.  I think he might be thinking of taking the throne."

     I laughed.  "Josephus?  The man hasn't got an ambitious bone in his body.  You're being ridiculous."

     A dark look passed over her face.  I barely registered it before it was gone, replaced by a smile.  "You may be right, but I think I shall remove him from temptation.  I want you to write up the orders tonight."

     And so began her purge.  She cast her net over anyone who had helped her gain the throne.  For those on the outer edges of her circle were reassignments to remote parts of the empire.  As a person's place drew closer to her, the method of their disposal became harsher.  Gaius Tiberius Nero was exiled to Thrace.  Agrippina Cornelia Scipio was exiled to a small island in the Mediterranean, where she later died under mysterious circumstances.  Three senators were ordered to open their veins, and seven others were brought up on charges of making treasonous statements and killed in the arena.  Soon all who were left were Seneca, Lucius, and myself: the three ringleaders of the plot to put Julia on the throne.

     They came to me one night in August.  "She's picking us off one by one Marcus," Seneca cried, his face distorted with fear.  

     "Did you hear what happened to Livia Gemellus," asked Lucius, wiping the sweat from his eyes with a cloth held in trembling hands.  "She was beaten to death in her command tent on the Rhine, along with her orderly and two tribunes."

     "Tribunes," Seneca cried.  "But their persons are inviolate!  How could she? Why is she doing this to us?  We've been loyal!"

     I looked each of them in the eye.  "She's removing us because we helped her gain the throne.  Those sycophants don't want us around, so they pour poison into her ears and turn her against us."

      Seneca stood up.  "Well, I'm not letting her have me thrown down the Gemonian Stairs!  I'm leaving tonight, under cover of darkness.  If you were wise, Marcus Tullius and Lucius Verus, you'd leave as well."

     With that, he left my villa.  I heard he made it as far as Neapolis before the Praetorian Guard caught up to him.  He was beheaded in a field outside of the city and left to rot, his estates confiscated and his family exiled.

     Lucius somehow managed to get out of Romania.  Rumor has it he made it to the Hudosaunee on the Western Continent.  I pray to the gods that she cannot touch him there.

     I knew that I was next.  I made hasty preparations to leave but was intercepted at the port in Ostia and brought back to my villa.  Her announcement came the next day.  I was convicted in absentia of treasonous intentions toward the Emperor and sentenced to death, the time and method to be determined by her.  

     And now I wait, my imagination spinning various fantasies of how Julia will end my life.

     There's a knock at my door.  After a few moments, my doorman comes to my study, a stone-faced Praetorian in tow.  He beckons to me.

     "Marcus Tullius, your time has come."