The play was coming to an end. For all his tricks and disguises and evasions, Tillorobus had been captured. The big actor playing him stood weighted down with chains.
The play was coming to an end. For all his tricks and disguises and evasions, Tillorobus had been captured. The big actor playing him stood weighted down with chains.
Emperor, may I have a word?
Maximinus inclined his head. Flavius Vopiscus seemed to be getting no more enjoyment from the mime than his Emperor.
May I urge again that you grant Catius Clemens military command over all the eastern provinces?
Maximinus pondered his answer. It was never his habit to answer questions of state lightly. I do not consider it necessary. As governor of Cappadocia, he has two legions as well as auxiliary infantry and cavalry. Catius Clemens is well placed to watch over the loyalty of the other governors. We receive regular reports from Mesopotamia. Volo assured me the man he has suborned in the household of Priscus is reliable, and will inform us of any attempts at sedition.
Vopiscus fingered the amulet he wore concealed in his breast. Revolt is not our only concern in the East.
Maximinus scowled. Even a man as experienced as Vopiscus failed to see things in their true light. He placed a massive hand on the thigh of the Senator, a gesture intended to reassure. You forget, I served in the East. The Persians are no more of a threat than the Parthians were before them. Had Alexander not been such a weakling, the Persians would have been conquered. The true danger to Rome lies not with painted, effeminate orientals, but here in the North. If we do not crush the hordes of the northern barbarians, they will destroy everything we love.
Vopiscus was not ready to let the subject drop. The Persians claim all our territories as far as Greece and the Aegean. Our eastern armies have been drained by detachments for the northern wars.
Maximinus mastered his irritation. Apsines often advised him that a good ruler did not speak or act in exasperation. The true danger to Rome lies here in the North.
There was a stir in the theatre. Many of the audience were regarding Maximinus, sly, knowing looks on their faces. An actor was holding forth.
And he who can not be slain by one, is slain by many.
The elephant is huge, and he is slain;
The lion is brave, and he is slain;
The tiger is brave, and he is slain;
Beware of many together, if you fear not one alone.
Maximinus tightened his grip on Vopiscus leg. What is the meaning of this?
Nothing, nothing at all. The surprise and alarm in the Senators voice belied his words. Some old verses written against violent men.
Maximinus looked across at his son. The youth had shaken back his toga, the better to applaud. There was an arch expression on his girlish face. Unlike Vopiscus, the lines had not taken him unaware. Did he have it in mind to play Geta? Surely Maximus did not have it in him to bid for the throne over the body of his father?
Chapter 18
Africa
Carthage,
The Day before the Ides of March, AD238
A scholar gets up one night and jumps into bed with his own grandmother. His father finds him at it, and starts giving him a beating. Hey, shouts the scholar. All this time you have been screwing my mother without a word from me, and now you get angry when you catch me just once on top of yours?
The buffoon bowed as the dinner guests laughed. Gordian joined in, gingerly. He had had worse hangovers, but seldom. Yesterday afternoon at the gladiatorial games, he and Sabinianus and Vocula, the new Praetorian Prefect, were already drinking when the messenger arrived in the imperial box. When the news was announced, the crowd had cheered wildly, and Gordian had spared all those out on the sand. After that he had called for unwatered wine. The rest of the day was a blur. Isolated incidents came back to him with absolute clarity a retarius tangled in his own net, an ostrich running a complete circuit after an arrow had taken off its head, being supported back to the Palace, more drinking with just Sabinianus, the girls sliding out of their clothes, Chione and Parthenope busy together on a couch, then servicing both men at once, improbable arrangements of limbs and bodies. There was no narrative to it, only disconnected moments, like scattered scraps of papyri saved from a fire. Still, any man could be forgiven a bacchanalian celebration when he had been told that Sabinus was dead, and all the troops in Rome had declared him Emperor. He hoped he had rewarded the messenger. The man had braved the terrible storm to reach Carthage.
A scholars father orders him to put out the child he is having by a slave girl to die of exposure. The scholar says, Bury your own child, before you tell me to get rid of mine.
Gordian was sweating. This morning the household had been purified with fire and water, ready for this ninth-day feast. On the way out to the villa of Sextus, they had poured libations at the grave of Serenus. Neither the rituals nor the walk had done much good. He felt hollow, light-headed, his thoughts incoherent.
The son of a rich scholar dies. Seeing so many people turn up at the funeral, the father laments that he has only one small boy to bury in front of such a large crowd.
Gordian did not have a son. He had never married. Epicurus had said a man should take a wife, and sire children, only if the circumstances were right. They never had been. Epicurus had accepted some men would always be diverted. Gordian had provided for all the offspring he had got on servant girls and concubines. Girls as well as boys, none had been exposed. The villa of the Gordiani on the Via Praenestina outside Rome was thronged with slaves with his features.
He had always been compassionate to a fault. As a child, when other boys were beaten by their pedagogue, he had been unable to restrain his tears. Only today he had rejected a petition from the Carthaginians to restore the rites of the Mamuralia to their original form. If the gods existed, and noticed mankind at all, he could not imagine what pleasure they would derive from the spectacle of an elderly derelict or criminal dressed in skins being beaten savagely through the whole city. Let the superstitious citizenry thrash the empty hide of an animal.
A scholar heard that only the judgements in Hades are just. Since his hearing was in court, he hanged himself.
The buffoon was more suited to a barbershop. He was losing his audience. Gordian looked around at his fellow diners: his father and Sabinianus, the locals appointed to high command, Mauricius, Phillyrio and Vocula, the commanders of the two regular units, Suillius and Alfenus, and Thascius Cyprianus. The latter had been invited out of politeness, as he had conducted the sacrifice at Serenus funeral. None appeared over impressed by the entertainment.
Sabinianus lobbed a snail at the buffoon as he left. The jokes had been old, but at least they had diverted Thascius and his father from an earnest Stoic discussion of the moral dangers of the theatre. The former had been expounding how people learn to commit adultery, incest and murder by watching it, and other nonsense.
The food had been good so far. Snails cooked in a wine and parsley sauce, eggs stuffed with minced crayfish, a salad of rocket, chervil and lettuce. Often in this state he was ravenously hungry. After his exertions last night, Gordian had concentrated on the snails and picked the lettuce out of the salad. That and quite a few of the hairs of the dog that had bitten him. He required all the help he could get, if he was to perform again later. Parthenope and Chione would expect no less. The next course was to be a wrasse. No fish was keener on copulation. More arse-chasing than a wrasse, as the saying went.
The hangings were pulled back. Instead of a pomp of servants bearing salvers of rainbow fish, an officer entered. It was Pedius, looking tired and travel-stained from hard riding. He was one of the two tribunes who had gone to Lambaesis with Arrian. All the gods, let Arrian be safe, let his friend be alive.
Pedius leant over, and spoke quietly in the ear of the elder Emperor. Everyone waited.
His face impassive, Gordians father stood, poured a libation. The red wine splashed on the marble floor.
Capelianus is under house arrest. The 3rd Augustan Legion is ours, and with it the Province of Numidia.
They were all on their feet, clasping hands, slapping each other on the back, tipping wine for the gods. Sabinianus dropped his goblet, staining his toga.
Father, Gordian shouted above the noise, so much for the soothsayers and their so-called prodigy. Now nothing can stop us reaching Rome.
The commotion died away. In the embarrassed silence, some of the guests averted the ill-omened words, thumb between fingers.
Even a follower of Epicurus should not mock the gods. His fathers face was grave. And there are the words of the astrologer. The stars predict we will not see Rome again, but meet our deaths by drowning.
Chapter 19
The West
The Province of Hispania Tarraconensis, the Southern Slopes of the Pyrenees,
The Day before the Ides of March, AD238
In the morning there was fog. A perfect stillness to the shrouded trees. Close up, a drop of water hung on every leaf and branch. Somewhere, out of sight, a songbird sang.
Decius lay on his stomach behind a pine tree, raised on his elbows. The brigands would come soon. He had seen their campfires down the trail last night before the fog descended. They would take their plunder through this pass up to the mountains.
He had nothing but contempt for the mountain tribes. Two centuries since submitting to Rome, they could still barely talk Latin. No better than barbarians, they were the antithesis of Romanitas. Armed, violent and unbiddable, they thought their inaccessibility and their wanderings put them beyond the law. They only came down from the heights to drive their sheep to winter pasture or to raid. Shepherds or brigands, they were one and the same.
Even now the kinsmen of these robbers were grazing their flocks in the meadows of the Iberus and the Sicoris, down around Ilerda and Caesaraugusta. Without these spies, traitors to the imperium posing as innocent drovers, the raiders would not know where to strike. But there was no honour among thieves. A shepherd had been arrested for murder. Brought before Decius in the governors court, the man had not denied the killing, but had sought to save his life by betraying his own. Decius looked at him now, trussed up close at hand. His fate was still uncertain. Promises made to his sort were not binding. Decius might execute him yet.