THE LAST CAESAR 10
USUAL DISCLAIMER
"THE LAST CAESAR" is a gay story, with some parts containing graphic scenes of sex between males. So, if in your land, religion, family, opinion and so on this is not good for you, it will be better not to read this story. But if you really want, or because YOU don't care, or because you think you really want to read it, please be my welcomed guest.
THE LAST CAESAR
By Andrej Koymasky © 2020
Ended writing on December 2nd 2005
Translated by the Author
English text kindly reviewed by Talo Segura
CHAPTER 10
END OF A STORY AND THE BEGINNING OF HISTORY
Romulus, now nineteen years old,. was dictating a letter to his secretary, asking Odovacar to authorize him to have one more person living in his villa. He was more and more determined to have Helvius there with him, permanently. But he had not told him anything yet, because he was not sure permission would be given.
A courier was despatched to the court of the King of the Herulians and Imperial Vicar. On arrival, he was admitted and given an audience, where he presented the request from Romulus.
Odovacar looked distractedly at the letter: he had more important things to deal with. His relations with the court of the East were not good, and Julius Nepos, from Dalmatia, over which he actually reigned, continued to demand his return to the imperial throne of the West.
The West was now, if not by fact, by right, a province of the Eastern empire and was governed, rather than by an Augustus, by a lieutenant. The title King Odovacar had assumed did not concern Italy. Of this he considered himself only an imperial official, but he was king of his army and of the group of more or less Romanized barbarians who he had gathered to settle in Italy. The policy that Odovacar used with Constantinople had only one purpose: to shroud the usurpation of power with a cloak of legitimacy.
The Italic peoples had no reason to complain about Odovacar's government: the sole bone of contention was the allocation of a third of the Italic lands to his soldiers. That, however, he had promised them, in order to undermine Orestes, remove him from power and deport his son. This promise he made to his men he had to absolutely maintain, at risk of otherwise pushing them back to mutiny.
Moreover, this redistribution of land did little to damage the status quo in Italy. The barbarian army was not numerous nor scattered throughout the entire peninsula, but almost entirely located near Ravenna. Only a small faction occupied a few parts of the Trans-Padane province, therefore the provision affected only the owners of lands of those regions., And not even all the landowners, because only the larger estates were dispossessed of one third of their land. Those other smaller estates with only enough land from which to make a living were left untouched. Even the large estates, on the other hand, had their taxes reduced.
The situation in Italy overall did not change much under the rule of Odovacar: almost all the old institutions were maintained and the central and provincial administration did not undergo any modification. The army, it is true, was given a distinctly Germanic character and the barbarians were entrusted with the highest military commands, but the most important civil offices remained in the hands of the Romans.
"But yes, but yes, one more, one less. But he should not ask for a single solidus more than those that the treasury already pays for." he said annoyed. He turned to his notarius and gave him the order to write a letter of authorization, to affix his seal and to hand it over to the Romulus' correspondent.
As soon as Romulus obtained permission from Odovacar, he showed the letter to Helvius: "See, now there is no longer any obstacle to you coming to live here with me... if you want it too."
Helvius smiled: "I would be there right away... but your mother?"
"The head of the house, the «pater familias» is me, not my mother. She will have to adapt to my decisions, she cannot do anything else. On the other hand you already come here almost every day... and until now my mother has never done nothing against you... Even though she certainly does not love you... she can anyway put up with you."
"But what occupation would I have if I live here? I only know how to be a pimp and, once upon a time, I was a skilled thief..."
"Do you mind leaving your business in Neapolis? Your home, your... boys?"
"Now Cimon is twenty one years old and his Icenius is eighteen... I would gladly leave them the house, the management of the boys, which they already do. But I here... what would I be? The lover of the pater familias?"
"Of course... even if this certainly cannot be your official title, I understand that. You could perhaps be... the art curator responsible for the objects that are in this villa... You gave me some of them."
"You, are for me, as I have said often, the only true emperor... therefore I will obey your order... I will come to live here with you." Helvius told him with a smile.
"It is not an order, it is a prayer."
"Your every desire is an order, for me. You say that I stole your heart, but you made me your most faithful subject... in the name of love."
Thus Helvius returned to Neapolis, legally ceded his part of the «Domus Solis» to Cimon and Icenius and moved to the Castrum Lucullanum. Romulus ordered set up for him a room adjoining his, moving his private studium to one of the library's rooms.
The following year, Cimon who, alternating with Icenius, went from time to time to visit Helvius, brought news which had also reached the Castrum Lucullanum: Julius Nepos was dead. But Dalmatia did not pass under the control of Odovacar as he had hoped, but under that of the emperor of the East.
The years passed.
In 1241, when Romulus was now a strong and handsome young man of twenty-nine and Helvius a man of thirty-seven, the news reached them that the emperor Zeno had sent the King of the Ostrogoths, Theodoric, against Odovacar. After several battles in which the latter always came off worst, the two finally reached a compromise, enshrined in a treaty, and shared power in a kind of diarchy.
Theodoricus using the subterfuge of a sumptuous banquet in honour of the treaty they had concluded, invited Odovacar and all his principal generals and ministers. Then in an act of ultimate betrayal he had them all murdered. He declared himself, unlike the late Odovacar, King of Italy. Settling in Ravenna he built a new palace and became the sole sovereign.
The muffled echo of events reached the Castrum Lucullanum, but was of little interest to the two lovers. Romulus was in exile on the islet and safe because he had renounced his claim to the throne.
As the two lovers matured, their love became calmer, but even deeper. Although their rooms were adjacent, they never slept each in his room, but always together. Even when they did not make love, they enjoyed falling asleep and waking up next to their beloved. They had reached such a degree of intimacy that they could often communicate with only a glance, an imperceptible gesture.
When Romulus was twenty-nine, the superintendent of the villa and of all the property and personnel that lived in it, and who was second only to Romulus as to authority, died. Then Romulus decided to appoint Helvius in his place.
"But how can you do this?" joked Helvius. "Leave all your belongings in the hands of a thief?"
"I have already entrusted you with the most precious thing: my heart. Nothing else matters."
Since it was the hour when the thermae were reserved for the males who lived in the villa, they went there.
As they relaxed in the tepidarium, Romulus admired his lover's strong and virile body: "Do you know that you are always my sun, always beautiful, always radiant?" he whispered.
Helvius smiled: "Even now that I'm getting close to four decades?"
"More and more, I would say. The sun can never lose its radiance."
"But it can be covered by clouds... and at night it disappears..."
"Ready to reappear brighter than before..."
"I am always amazed..."
"About what?"
"Thirteen years have passed since we met... yet we are still together, always in love, always happy to belong to each other."
"Yes... thirteen... in three it will be half my life, the best half, no doubt. Life has been generous to me, blessed me with your love, allowed me to pass unscathed in the midst of fearful storms..."
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There are no documents about the rest of Flavius Romulus's life, the last trace dating back to the year 1264 from the foundation of Rome (511 of C.E.): it is the donation of the Castrum Lucullanum by King Theodoricus to Romulus, and the decision to remove the soldiers who guarded the island. It is known, however, that Romulus remained living there.
We also know that Romulus ceded the villa to the Basilian monks who, after his death in a year unknown to us, transformed it into a monastery.
Later, the Norman King Roger II who had conquered Naples, in the year 1115 of the Christian era built a fortress in the place of the monastery, which then became his royal palace when he obtained from the pope the authority to reign over Naples and the south of Italy.
The Angevins, who expelled the Normans in the thirteenth century, used the fortress to house the Royal Treasury and the Financial Court that levied taxes. Then the crown of Aragon, the new rulers who defeated the Angevins, used it as a military stronghold.
In 1485 of the Christian era, Charles VII bombarded the fortress during his «descent into Italy». In 1503 the castle was occupied by Louis XII of France, but the same year passed, with Naples and its territory, under Spanish rule. The castle, very ruined by the previous wars and bombings, was completely rebuilt by the new rulers, preserving and incorporating only some parts of it, and has remained since then, practically as we see it today, and is known today by the name of «Castel dell'Ovo». Then in about 1700 it fell into the hands of the Austrians.
In 1733 it was besieged and bombed by the Bourbons who drove the Austrians out of the south of Italy, thus constituting the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. In 1799, following the French revolution, it was conquered by the Jacobins, but then re-conquered by Cardinal Ruffo di Calabria who led the troops of the Bourbons.
>From the unification of Italy, in 1861, until 1963, Castel dell'Ovo was the seat of the military authority of Naples, until, restored, it became a historical-museum site as it is today.
Nothing therefore remains of the last years of our Romulus Augustulus, the last emperor of the West, and of Helvius, his last subject and faithful lover.
THE END
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