The Magic Circle Katherine Neville (top 100 novels of all time TXT) 📖

It was in fact mere chance that found Agrippa in Rome on this fateful day.

Two years ago Herod Antipas and his wife, Agrippa’s sister Herodias, had been banished by Caligula to Lugdunum in southern Gaul for demanding too many favors. Now his uncle Antipas was dead and Herodias with him, and Agrippa found himself in control of a domain that, though far from united, approached the size of that his grandfather Herod the Great had once possessed. And with it, he’d inherited most of the headaches. Not least among these was trying to manage the many conflicts between his Roman patrons and his subjects, the zealously religious Jews.

The most recent stir, the one that brought Agrippa here to Rome only this week, was the emperor Caligula’s recent decision to “teach the Jews a lesson” for all the disturbances they’d caused their Roman overlords. Caligula planned to do this by setting up a colossal stone statue of himself as Gaius the God—within the very grounds of the Jerusalem temple!

The statue was rumored to be already en route by ship to the port of Joppa. Agrippa would have full-blown riots on his hands the moment such an effigy disembarked on Jewish soil, and so he hastened here to Rome at once to see whether he might change the course of events already set in motion.

After all, had Agrippa not grown up alongside Caligula’s uncle Claudius, within the very bosom of the imperial family? And he’d also remained close enough to Caligula all these years to have reaped the reward of gold chains and jewels, not to mention a kingdom of his own. He therefore had cause to hope that, together with Claudius, he might convince the young emperor to see reason in the matter. But upon his arrival at Rome, Agrippa had been hardly prepared for the man he was to meet in the person of the emperor.

The very first night he was fast asleep in the palace when, well past midnight, he was aroused by the palace guard. They’d forced him to dress and then marched him double-step to the palace auditorium. There he found a group of prominent senators and statesmen, as well as the emperor’s uncle Claudius, who’d likewise been brought from the safety of their homes in the dead of night.

They were trembling in fear as soldiers lit the wicks of oil lamps on the stage up front. Claudius was about to speak when, with great fanfare of flutes and cymbals, the emperor leapt onstage dressed as Venus in a short silk toga and a wig of long blond hair. He sang a lovely song of his own composition, performed a dance, and vanished!

“It’s been like this ever since his sister Drusilla’s death,” Claudius told Agrippa when they’d quitted the chamber. “He sleeps barely three hours a night, roaming the palace and howling at the sky, inviting the moon goddess into his bed to take his sister’s place in his arms. Drusilla died, you’ll recall, on the tenth of June not three years ago. He was inconsolable, sleeping next to her corpse for days on end; he wouldn’t be removed from her side. Then he raced off alone by chariot through the Campania, took ship to Syracuse, and vanished for a month. He didn’t shave or cut his hair; upon his return he looked and behaved like a wild man. Things only went downhill from there.”

“Good grief,” said Agrippa. “What could be worse than what you’ve just told?”

“Plenty,” said Claudius. “During Drusilla’s official mourning period he made it a capital offense to laugh, bathe, or dine with one’s family, and then required all state oaths to be sworn to her divinity. He accused both of his other sisters of treason, exiled them to the Pontian Islands, then sold off their houses and jewelry and slaves to raise cash. Then he built a stable of ivory tusks and jewels for his racehorse Incitatus. He often throws lavish dinner parties where Incitatus, dining on golden barley, is guest of honor. He has seized and liquidated people’s property on the merest pretext, and has opened a brothel in the west wing of the imperial palace. I myself have often seen him run barefoot, or even roll about on the floor, in those piles of gold coins he hoards.

“A year ago, he mounted a military expedition through Gaul and Germania, with the express intent of conquering Britannia. But after a long, hard winter and a six-month march, when the legions reached the Channel at last, Gaius only had them collect thousands of seashells; then they headed back to Rome!”

“But Caligula had planned that mission ever since Tiberius died and he first became emperor!” cried Agrippa. “Why did he abandon it—and in such bizarre fashion? Has he gone mad?”

“Doomed, rather—and he knows it,” Claudius replied gravely. “Of late, the omens have not been good. On the ides of March the capitol at Capua was struck by lightning; then when Gaius was sacrificing a flamingo, he was splashed by its blood. Sulla, the astrologer, cast his horoscope this past August for his birthday and said he must prepare to die soon. That same evening, Mnester danced the tragedy that was performed on the very night Alexander’s father, Philip of Macedon, was assassinated.”

“You can’t believe such things really carry weight?” asked Agrippa, at the same time recalling from his youth just how obsessed the imperial family had always been—like most Romans—by omens read in the entrails of birds and beasts, and with all forms of prophecy. Did they not keep the ancient books of the Sibylline Oracles encased in gold?

“What does it matter what I believe?” Claudius replied. “You don’t understand. If my nephew dies just now, with all we’ve learned, I may have to invade Britannia myself!”

Syrian Antioch: Passover, A.D. 42

EPISTLES FROM THE APOSTLES

To: Maryam Mark

at Jerusalem, Roman Judea

From: John Mark

at Antioch, Syria

Revered and beloved Mother,

What shall I