It would have been a comfort to believe they would meet again in some afterlife. But that could not happen. This world was just one among an infinite number created and destroyed without design or purpose, just unceasing atoms moving in the void. A soul was so fragile, composed of such minute particles, it dissolved with the last breath.
If death was just sleep, then it could not in itself be a bad thing. A true Epicurean believed that no death could come too soon or too late. Yet, if pleasure was the true aim of life, what of those who died before they had enjoyed all the pleasures they desired? At least Serenus had been old. Devoted to his books, to scholarship, in his quiet way Serenus had lived exactly as he wished: eight decades of reading and writing, eight decades of pleasure. Perhaps, when you lived to be very old, death lost its dread. Gordian found that hard to believe. Unless you were in agony, you would always plead for another year. All ways of dying are hateful to us poor mortals. Serenus had no children, but in a sense, a very attenuated sense, he would live on in his books, both those he had written and those he had gathered from all over the empire. It had been an unexpected, yet characteristic gesture of his old tutor to leave Gordian his library. An estimated sixty-two thousand volumes, too many to read in the longest lifetime.
Under the stern, marble eyes of the Capitoline triad high on their temple, the cortège set out across and out of the Forum. In the streets, warned by the sounding trumpets and wailing women, the citizens cleared the way. When the procession passed, they stopped what they were doing, put down their tools, and watched.
First came the torchbearers, their role symbolic in mid-morning, and then the musicians, flautists mingled with the trumpeters. In front of the bier, tearing their hair, scratching their cheeks, ripping their clothes, and beating and gashing their exposed breasts until the blood ran, the hired women acted as macabre midwives to the chthonic life to come. Serenus lay on a double mattress placed on a litter carried by eight strong men. The mourners followed. The locals aside, they were pitifully few in number: just Gordian himself, his father, and Sabinianus. Gordian remembered when the fellowship had been together, when the Gordiani had been gods. A summer evening, not two years before, in the villa of Sextus, outside the city walls, close to where they were going. He had worn the helm of Ares. His father had wielded the thunderbolt of Zeus, Valerian the trident of Poseidon. The winged hat of Hermes askew on Arrians head. Serenus as Pluto now the religious might take that as some omen Sabinianus as Hephaistos, Menophilus as Dionysus. Their women half-naked as goddesses, a wonderful dinner. They had been so drunk, so happy, so very united. And now they were scattered. And they were in danger. And it was all Gordians fault.
Slowly, they left the city, and in due course, reached the burial ground by the aqueduct, not far from the fish ponds on the Mappalian Way. A member of the city council, a gloomy looking rhetor called Thascius Cyprianus, oversaw the sacrifice, as if he had doubts about the whole procedure. The sow dead, and the grave consecrated, Gordians father stepped forward to speak the eulogy.
Gordian the Elder was unshaven, his hair unkempt and matted with dirt. It was excessive. Friends were like figs, so Menophilus often said, they did not last. Death was just sleep. Gordians father did not share his sons Epicurean philosophy, but he put much store in the mos maiorum. Gordian thought the way of the ancestors should have curbed this immoderate display of grief, should have held his parent to the restraint of antique Roman virtus.
Yet his father was old. Serenus had been his lifelong friend. Gordian knew his father needed his support as never before. Already he had done what he could to use this ceremony to gather popular support. A distribution of meat after the funeral had been announced, and a gladiatorial show would follow in a few days. The populace would appreciate both, the more so if the rituals went well. Gordian just hoped his father would not mention either the portent or the words of the astrologer.
Yet his father was old. Serenus had been his lifelong friend. Gordian knew his father needed his support as never before. Already he had done what he could to use this ceremony to gather popular support. A distribution of meat after the funeral had been announced, and a gladiatorial show would follow in a few days. The populace would appreciate both, the more so if the rituals went well. Gordian just hoped his father would not mention either the portent or the words of the astrologer.
Where shall I begin my lamentations? How shall I share my grief at what has happened? The wind plucked away the words, but the voice of Gordians father contained no more tremor than age should allow. Serenus was, as it were, a shining torch lit for our example, and Fate has put it out.
It was four days since Serenus death. Gordian the Elder had spoken of attending the ninth-day funeral feast. That would be unwise. Menophilus messenger had made port first thing this morning, his ship running before the wind. Vitalianus was dead. The Senate had declared for Gordian father and son, voted them all the customary powers of Emperors. Rome was theirs. And yet, Gordian knew, it had to be secured. Valerian was a loyal friend, but not a natural leader, and Menophilus was young. The plebs urbana were fickle, and Senators trimmed their sails to the prevailing breeze. Rome needed to see its new Emperors, and Italy had to be defended from Maximinus. And then there were the provinces. Arrian would secure Numidia, Sabinianus keep Africa safe. It was unthinkable that friends such as Claudius Julianus in Dalmatia, Fidus in Thrace, and Egnatius Lollianus in Bithynia-Pontus would fail to come out in their favour, but what of the others? Above all what of the East, with its great armies? Perhaps Gordian could travel ahead to Rome, leaving his father in Carthage? Or go and rouse the East, while his father went to Rome?
I feel convinced that he who has gone dwells in the Elysian Fields. Let us therefore praise him as a hero, or rather bless him as a god. Farewell, Senerus.
Gordians father had done well. The eulogy had been of moderate length, measured in tone, yet full of real sentiment. Now it remained for Gordian to play his part, try not to dwell on it too much, keep his thoughts on superficial actions.
The pyre was well made; the logs neatly layered, each at right angles to the one below. Only the faintest waft of corruption under the scents of cinnamon and cassia. Serenus lay with a scroll in his hands. Gordian took a coin from an attendant, and placed it in the cold mouth. The ferryman would be paid. One hand gripping the waxy, repellent skin of the face, with the other Gordian forced the dead eyelids up. At the last a man should have his eyes open to the heavens. Mastering his reluctance, Gordian leant down and kissed the cold, dead lips.
The papyrus caught easily. The fire spread to the kindling, and with a whoosh to the incense-soaked timber. Tongues of flame licked up at the corpse.
Gordian looked up at the sky, distancing his thoughts. The smoke was pulled away into the interior. Dark clouds scudded high up. A storm was coming down from the North, racing in across the sea. If the gods existed, it was as if they were mocking his plans to leave Africa.
Chapter 12
Rome
The Mint, near the Flavian Amphitheatre,
Seven Days before the Ides of March, AD238
The die-cutter turned off the Via Labicana and limped into the alley. A man came the other way, and both turned sideways, their backs brushing against the bricks. The door to the Mint was about halfway along, on the left. He went down the steps and out into the open courtyard. Blue sky showed between the grey clouds. It did not lift his mood. The die-cutter had much on his mind. Work would help, it always helped.
Unshuttering his cubicle, he dragged his bench and stool to the front. His leg hurt. The wound had been long, but not too deep. Castricius and Caenis had washed the cut, stitched it, and bandaged it with clean linen. God willing, it would heal well. Man was born to suffer; life a vale of tears.
Sighing, he sat, and picked up the two obverses he had made the day before. He held them close to his face. His myopia was an advantage for his work. Unlike many of his colleagues, he had no need of polished lenses or other optical devices. Near-to, things had a jewel-like precision. He did not think his long range vision had got worse recently, but it was best whenever possible to work in natural light.
The Gordiani, father and son, gazed off to his right. They had a strong family resemblance; the long nose, the unbroken curve of the jaw from earlobe to chin. The cheeks of the older man were slightly sunken, the hair of the younger more receding. They were good pieces; no sign of hurried or careless workmanship.
The young magistrates in charge of the Mint had been amazed when Menophilus had appeared the day before. All three of the Tresviri Capitales had fawned on the Quaestor, even though he was little older than them. Toxotius was not too bad, but Acilius Glabrio and Valerius Poplicola as ever were contemptible. Menophilus had addressed them with a weary politeness, but mainly talked to the die-cutter. The Quaestor had said what was wanted and produced portraits that he had brought from Africa.
It was very different from the accession of the last Emperor. Initially no one had had the faintest idea what Maximinus looked like. The die-cutter turned that reign over in his mind. He did not hate the Thracian as did most of the plebs. He had had no objection when Maximinus had curtailed the games and spectacles or taken treasures from the temples, no objection at all. Making reasonable money, he had not suffered when the grain dole was cut back. Most likely the condemnations of leading men had been justified. The Emperor fought the northern tribes for the safety of Rome. The obscenely rich Senators and equestrians should have volunteered their wealth. Certainly the die-cutter had felt keen pleasure at the news of the execution of Serenianus, the governor who had persecuted his brothers in Cappadocia. But that had been before Pontianus and Hippolytus had been taken and sent to the mines of Sardinia. Their arrest had left the Gathering leaderless. He had been afraid before, but in the last year the terrible cellars of the imperial palace had haunted his thoughts and dreams; the ghastly pincers and claws wielded with refined cruelty by men without compassion. Once they knew who you were, they treated you worse than a murderer.