Chapter 32: The Old Guard
The public humiliation at the temple was only the first shot in Lucilla's new campaign. The whispers about the "hollow emperor" grew louder in the city, fueled by the eyewitness accounts of his religious stumble. Having successfully attacked his spiritual legitimacy, Lucilla now moved to dismantle his personal history, brick by brick. She began a subtle, brilliant parade of ghosts from his past, each one a walking, talking memory test designed to expose the stranger she knew was wearing her brother's face.
Her methods were cunningly indirect. She would orchestrate a series of "chance" encounters, always in a semi-public setting within the palace, where it would be impossible for Alex to refuse an audience without appearing paranoid or rude.
The first ghost was a stooped, elderly man with sharp, intelligent eyes named Aulus Cornelius Fronto, a famous orator who had been one of Commodus's childhood tutors in rhetoric. Fronto had, according to Perennis's briefing, despised the real Commodus, viewing him as a brutish, intellectually lazy pupil who cared more for oiled muscles than for elegant prose.
Lucilla brought the old man to the palace library, where Alex was reviewing trade reports. "Brother," she said, her voice filled with false sweetness. "Look who has come to pay his respects. Dear Fronto. He was so pleased to hear of your newfound dedication to your studies."
The old tutor bowed stiffly. "Caesar. It is a delight to see you have finally found an appreciation for the written word." His greeting was a backhanded compliment, a test from the very first sentence.
He then launched into a complex philosophical debate on the nature of civic duty as described by Cicero versus the stoic ideals of Seneca. It was a subject Alex was passably familiar with from his own 21st-century education, and he managed to hold his own, arguing his points with a clarity and logic that clearly surprised the old man. But he knew he was playing a part, offering reasoned arguments where the real Commodus would have offered a bored grunt or a brutish retort.
When the conversation ended, Fronto left looking deeply perplexed. Alex later heard from one of Perennis's spies what the old tutor had said to Lucilla in the hallway. "His mind is as sharp as a trained philosopher's, Augusta. He has a grasp of logic I never thought possible. But his spirit... it feels like a stranger's. The passionate, angry boy I knew is gone, replaced by... a thinking machine."
Lucilla's smile at the report, the spy noted, was triumphant.
The next ghost was of a completely different sort. A few days later, Lucilla arranged for an old military comrade of Commodus's to be granted a private audience. His name was Gaius Lentulus, a boorish but fiercely loyal centurion who had been one of the young emperor's favorite drinking and gambling partners before he left for the Danube.
Lentulus lumbered into the study, his face split by a huge, gap-toothed grin, expecting to be greeted with the rough camaraderie of old. "Lucius, you old dog!" he boomed, forgoing all formal titles. "By the gods, it's good to see you! Do you remember that night in Ostia, after the chariot races? The one with the twin sisters from Syria and the stolen senator's wig? I haven't laughed so hard in my life!"