Domitian's Black Room

by Brett Rutherford

Do you know who I am?
Do you know what this place is?
Bribe-takers, slave rapers, virgin-
abductors, temple defilers, daughter
seducers, wine adulterers, slum-
owning generators of a thousand
vices, some yet to be named!

I am Domitian, your Emperor!
Kneel and abase yourselves.
Your God! (I see that all
but three are on their knees.

Look how they grovel!) A hug,
Martius, and Gemellus, and Titus.
You smile and stand, you get
the joke. What is this place?

In the rest come now,
two by two through the black
corridor to greet me,
now that my “temple oracle”
voice has died away.

Marus, I see you have soiled your toga!
Go off to the side there and get another.
What, Senator, no mirthful greeting?
(Just watch as all the old men’s
remaining teeth light up
as they invent forced grins, watch next
as their hands lift up the folds of robes
to ease the coming bows and curtseys.)

Down to your knees, I see,
as if to beg pardon, no doubt for all
that I have agreed to know, yet overlook.
Up! Up! Was the way well-lit?
Did torches fail to reflect
the black hues of jet and onyx?
Did you perspire to near fainting
as you passed the grates
through which you viewed
my room of sharpened axes?

Ha! I heard some count aloud
how many steps they descended
as you came down to reach me.

Your protests were noted
when your own guards
were replaced by my Praetorians.
Spotting a soldier he knew,
our friend Vitruvius offered
his tender bottom if only they’d let
him go back to his villa
afterwards. He’ll join us soon,
once ten Praetorians
have had their way with him.

Whatever bribes you gave
from your purses, those rings
and armlets, I’ll pile them up
and find some better use
than the adornment of reprobates.

Not in your life have any of you
been this far below the ground.
There are things down here
that even the Etruscans dread.

Did you hear the hard rush
of the Tiber waters,
the groan of the Cloaca Maxima
as you passed below the rat-filled deep?

I heard one say the word “Avernus.”
Every word echoes down to me  —
everything! I heard one mumbled
Nazarene prayer, but not who uttered it.
Dream on of Hell and Hades:
I am down here awaiting you.
You are the first to come
to the Black Room of Domitian.
I will summon others after you!
There are lists! There are lists!

Stop that wailing and murmuring now!
Ring that gong over there!
Again! They hear us! They stir!
The iron doors groan open
(a nice effect, I must say,
and look at some of them, fainting!)

Eheu, what is this place? Look up,
you sniveling millionaires
and Senators. It is dinner!
Ha! Ha!    Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!