Odovacar was impressed by Romulus, he saw him as a handsome and proud boy... who was also harmless. This last aspect about the boy did not come so much from the fact that he had destroyed any opposing threat when he had killed his father and uncle. That he had no one else on his side. But he read it in the eyes of the deposed emperor, Romulus had been candid and free-spoken.
He smiled to himself: there were now three ex-emperors, Glycerius who had been made bishop of Salona, Julius Nepos, commander of a small nucleus of legionaries, who administered Dalmatia. Still reputing to be the only, legitimate emperor, and finally this young boy. What was he to do with him?
Before rebelling against Orestes, Odovacar, despite being an Aryan, had made friends with a cultured Catholic priest from Ravenna, who officiated in the church of San Giovanni Evangelista, built by Galla Placidia. Clemens presbiter was also a prized historian and connoisseur of the pomp of the empire. So the new king went to see him.
After a few pleasantries, Odovacar told him: "I decided to spare Flavius Romulus's life..."
"I am delighted. Too much blood has been shed."
"That boy struck me, Clemens presbiter... he is proud, as well as handsome, but now I wonder what to do with him..."
"After all he is a Roman patrician... be generous with him, send him into exile, with honour."
"And where?"
"Where the emperors sent their relatives into exile, to Campania, in front of the city of Neapolis, on the islet of Megaride, in the so-called Castrum Lucullanum. A luxury prison, during these last centuries. The villa was built by Caius Marius, it then belonged to Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, who sold it to Licius Licinius Lucullus, who furnished it with exquisite taste. After his death it became the property of Emperor Tiberius. Send him there, with his mother, servants, slaves and dignitaries loyal to him. Order only that he never leaves the island."
"An islet... very well, easy to control, while leaving him a certain freedom."
"Give him an appanage to keep the villa and those who will accompany him, who will work for him. You will go down in history as a wise and generous king."
"Yes... a luxury prison. Why not? And how much should I assign him as a provision, in your opinion?"
"On this I cannot advise you, but certainly the master of the palace will tell you, based on the number of dignitaries, servants and slaves necessary to keep the villa open with decorum, as much as is necessary. It will certainly not be a problem for the state treasury to guarantee him a calculated sum, neither with too much generosity nor with too much avarice."
Odovacar summoned the palace master and ordered him to calculate what was necessary to give the deposed emperor sufficient funds. The man inquired as to how big the villa was, calculated the number of servants and slaves needed, the entourage of the Romulus family, and a small court, and said that 6,000 gold solids (27 kilograms of pure gold) each year would be enough.
Then Odovacar went to Romulus and asked him to write a letter declaring his renunciation of the throne, which he would send to Constantinople, to the emperor of the East. Thus he would invite Zeno to become the only emperor, ruling both parts of what remained of the ancient empire. And so the year 1229 «ab Urbe condita» marked the end of the Western Empire. He also asked Zeno to nominate him as a Roman patrician and to recognize his status as King of the Germans and his vicar (=administrator in the name of the Emperor) for Italy.
He sent a commission of Senators to Constantinople who brought Zeno the letter signed by Romulus, Odovacar's request for recognition as king and the gifts symbolising his authority.
Julius Nepos was informed by his spies in Ravenna of Odovacar's move, and he also sent messengers with a letter to Zeno. In it he congratulated him on the «restoration of legality» after his throne had been usurped and which Zeno had taken back. At the same time he asked him to allocate a sum, to send him part of his army and to do anything in his power to cooperate in the restoration of his authority over the Western empire.
Zeno answered both the messengers from Nepos and the Senators in the same way.
«The Romans of the West received two men from the East to sit on the imperial throne, but they ousted one of them, Julius Nepos, and murdered the other, Anthemius. Now,» the emperor wrote, «they should know what I expect them to do. While their legitimate emperor, Julius Nepos, is still alive, they need no other thought than to welcome him, if and when he returns.»
For the Senators he also included another letter to Odovacar, in which he wrote:
«It would be right for you to receive the rank of Roman patrician from the hands of the Emperor Julius Nepos, but anyway I will give it to you if Nepos were to refuse or make conflicting or evasive decisions, or avoid doing so. I can recommend you, since you showed me your will to restore order and justice, as the Romans deserve, and for this reason you deserve my trust. If you want to act according to justice, then hurry up and receive the emperor Julius Nepos with every honour and give him back what belongs to him.»
He joined another letter for Odovacar, in which he elevated him to the rank of Roman patrician, but did not yet appoint him as his vicar as he hoped that Julius Nepos could regain his throne. But Nepos did not trust Odovacar and never left Dalmatia, never tried to recover the throne in Ravenna or in Rome. So finally Odovacar also received the title of imperial vicar. It was the official end of the Western Empire.
Odovacar had the convoy prepared that would take Romulus to his place of exile accompanied by his family and the few dignitaries and servants who declared they wanted to follow him. He assigned them a large number of slaves and the long procession of carts, horses and those on foot, escorted by Roman-barbarian legionaries, took the long road to Neapolis, but avoided passing through Rome, out of prudence.
Helvius, as soon as he learned this news from the servant whom Romulus succeeded in sending to him, rejoiced at the generosity of the new sovereign and decided that he too should follow his Romulus into exile: now, he told himself, it will be easier to be with him.
When he communicated his decision to Cimon, telling him that he wanted to leave him his activities, Cimon refused.
"No, Helvius, if you want to leave everything, dismiss the boys, shut down this house, and Icenius and I will come with you to Neapolis."
"And why?" Helvius asked, surprised.
"Because we cannot trust you on your own, as crazy as you are! And because neither I nor Icenius would ever have amounted to anything, we would never have been together, without you. We will not abandon you."
"Listen, Cimon, I'm twenty-five, I'm not a child anymore!"
"You were born twenty-five years ago, yes, but since you fell in love, you're more of a child than your Romulus!" Cimon told him, laughing.
"Anyway... I thank you for wanting to stay by my side ... maybe in Neapolis we can open another house like this one in Ravenna. Perhaps you and I can also make some profit from the homes of our customers..."
"Before leaving, however, I would like to do something, if you agree..."
"What?"
"I would like to make you, Icenius, a freeman."
"It is not necessary... as long as I am with you, I..." the boy from Gaul started to say, a sweet smile on his face, but Helvius interrupted him.
"No, Icenius, if something should happen to Cimon, you could be sold to another master. As a freeman, nobody can do that. If you continue to love each other, you will remain together as you have done until today. And do you know what? In Neapolis, the three of us will put ourselves in society, on a par."
So the three youths, announced to their boys that they had to find another job, they sold everything they had, including the house, obtained the documents that made Icenius a freeman, and set off for Neapolis.
Meanwhile the convoy accompanying Romulus into exile reached Neapolis and from there using barges and boats landed on the tufaceous islet of Megaride. The villa, the Castrum Lucullanum, was sumptuous, very large, surrounded by meadows sloping slightly towards the sea, with thickets of wild roses. The guardians had kept a minimum of maintenance, but now it all needed a good cleaning. It was furnished with beautiful furniture, the garden and the vegetable garden were uncultivated, but the mosaics of the floors, turned out to be intact and beautiful. The red-tiled roofs were in good condition.
The vestibule gave access to the internal atrium with the impluvium surrounded by tall marble columns, whose basin had a beautiful white marble statue in the centre representing the death of Actaeon. From the atrium you entered the kitchen and from there to the pantry, then there was the door to the tablinum then from there to the triclinium.
On the opposite side the villa was built on two floors and on the ground floor there was the library, the scriptorium, the tesaurum, a room without windows and with reinforced door where money and valuables were kept, a large room where Greek and Roman works of art had been collected from previous tenants.
Then there were rooms for warehouses and housing for slaves with their kitchen and cubicula in which they slept. On the upper floors there were the cubicula with the beds for the owners, then the lodgings for the servants.
The walls of the most important rooms had beautiful, well-preserved frescoes, the door and window frames were in precious marble.
An elegant hallway led to a small but beautiful thermae covered with polychrome marble, with a circular plan and a dome, from which one could access the tepidarium, the calidarium and the frigidarium. To the side there were the common toilets, housed in a low semicircular building with a marble seat with twelve holes. On the opposite side there was a nice ninphaeum.
A passage between the triclinium and the storerooms lay in the peristyle garden, also with beautiful marble columns, in the centre of which there was a fountain and an elliptical water mirror with fish. All around, on one floor, there were the lodgings for the ex-emperor's little court. Finally, from the peristyle it was possible to access the large hortum with the well. The whole building complex was surrounded by a high wall.
Romulus, finally free from the protection of his father and the weight of the imperial purple, decided to take over the small community of his place of exile. He gently told his mother to rest and firmly assumed the management of the villa, giving orders and assigning tasks and work. His mother tried to protest, but Romulus, always politely but firmly, ordered her to let him take charge.
While he was occupied with the villa, he recalled the message his servant had brought to him from Helvius: «I will come to live in Neapolis, we will be together». He smiled, pleased: now finally, they could meet without problems. He wanted to have his man live with him, but one of the clauses was that he could not increase the number of servants, slaves and collaborators by a single man! But he could receive visits, and therefore also his Helvius.
The small garrison that guarded the island was divided into two buildings: one controlled the only landing place and made the round trip back on the banks, without ever entering the villa. The other was ashore, opposite, outside the city walls of Neapolis, and controlled the suppliers' and visitors' boats.
While Romulus was cleaning up and reorganizing his final residence, the three friends continued along the Via Flaminia towards Rome. Here they took advantage of their voyage to visit the ancient city which, except for Icenius, they did not know. They were amazed by its grandeur, even though the signs of decadence were already visible. They also saw the magnificent Lateranus basilica and the neighbouring palace where Simplicius lived, the bishop of Rome who succeeded Hilarius, who in turn succeeded Leo, the bishop who had stopped Attila.
But Helvius was in a hurry to get to Neapolis, to see his Romulus. So they took to the road along the Via Appia that connected Rome with Capua.
When they finally reached Neapolis, they split up and made an appointment at the crossing of the decumanus maximus with the cardus. While Cimon and Icenius visited the city and looked for places to stay, Helvius inquired how he could reach the Castrum Lucullanum.
Once out of the city walls, he found the garrison on dry land and asked to be transported to the island.
"Who are you and why do you want to go to the island? Are you expected?" the officer on duty asked him.
He had already prepared a pretext: "I'm Helvius the goldsmith from Ravenna, a supplier of Flavius Romulus. I'm not expected. But before he was sent here, I had received a sum from the palace master to make him a fibula and other ornaments. Now I want to know if his order is still valid or if I have to give back the amount he had deposited."
"What a rare honesty!" the soldier exclaimed with a certain irony. "And you came here from Ravenna... instead of keeping the money and forgetting the order ?"
"A good goldsmith cannot do business if he is not more than honest. Amongst patricians and wealthy merchants the word is spread easily about whom to trust or who must be avoided. When it becomes known what I have done, I will get even richer customers and more numerous than before... Do you think I do not know how to do my business?"
"Bah... it might be as you say..." said the officer shrugging. Then he asked him several other questions.
After searching him, he finally called two soldiers to prepare a boat and transport him to the other side. He disembarked on the small island and climbed the gently sloping path that led to the villa's door and knocked. A slave went to open.
"I must see your master, Flavius Romulus."
"Who are you and what do you want?"
"Tell him I'm Helvius, the goldsmith from Ravenna."
"Wait here. I'll see if he can receive you."
Romulus soon arrived in person, and greeted him with a wide smile: "Oh, finally, my favourite goldsmith came as he promised me!"
Helvius would have liked to take him right away in his arms, but there were servants and slaves bustling about, often passing before the vestibule, so he restrained himself and exchanged with his boyfriend only the classic Roman greeting, grabbing each other's fore-arm.
"I arrived in Neapolis just a short while ago, with two friends who are now looking for accommodation. How are you, my flower? How was your journey here?"
"Tiring, but you certainly know that better than me. Come, now, let's go to a quieter place..." he told him and led him to the first floor, where his room had already been cleaned and prepared.
As soon as they entered, they barred the door and finally they were once more in each other's arms. "My beloved, my sun, finally!"
"Now nobody and nothing can divide us any more, right?" Helvius asked him and kissed him.
They both felt the other's strong erection and shuddered.
"Will you come here... every day?" the boy asked him with luminous eyes, coming down with one hand to test the firm consistency of his lover's rod.
"Of course. Especially if you give orders to let me pass without making difficulties. The officer never stopped asking me questions. I used the goldsmith's excuse... but maybe I'll have to find another one, or they'll be amazed that I come here so often without ever bringing you one gold object..."
"We'll think about it... but now... undress me my beloved... my whole body quivers, waiting to welcome you."
>From the open window came a gentle sea breeze that made the curtains of linen sway and caressed their bodies. When they were naked, Helvius cupped his hands on the sweet buttocks of his beloved and drew him to himself. He felt him shudder and that slight tremor gradually ran through his whole body. Then he put one arm beneath his armpits, the other under his knees, lifted him up bodily and carried him to the bed, laying him down.
Romulus wrapped his arms around his neck and pulled him down to himself, until their mouths met again. Continuing to kiss him, Helvius climbed onto the bed, over the body of his boyfriend, caressing his hips, rubbing his body lightly over him. Romulus moaned slightly and spread his legs, girdled his waist and, turning his pelvis up, blindly sought contact with the strong, hard, member of Helvius.
The young man moved so as to give him, without needing to speak, that which he sought. Finally the throbbing spear touched that spot and recognized it, settled on it, pressed... and began the beautiful and slow descent, intimately combining its firm flesh with that soft and warm of his beloved. He raised his torso to give more energy to his pushes, until he was completely buried inside.
"Here, you are again at home, finally!" Romulus murmured, his eyes feverish with pleasure.
"Yes, my emperor!" Helvius whispered.
"I'm not anymore..." the boy smiled.
"For me you will always be, Flavius Romulus Augustus, the true and only emperor." Helvius murmured, starting to thrust into him in order to give him the maximum pleasure.