The room was scented with cedar, from the wood of the bookcases and the oil rubbed into the papyrus rolls. Progress was slow. The air was warm and heavy, sunshine streamed in from the east-facing windows. Gordian was soporific. As a younger man, his father had been a prolific poet: an epic Antoniniad in thirty books, a translation of Aratus from the Greek, other works on various subjects, a Marius, Alcyonae, Uxorius, and Nilus. The life of Marcus was unfinished after six years. His father cited the rigour of his research, and the demands of exact prose. Gordian knew it was advancing age.
His father missed Serenus Sammonicus, that was obvious. They had grown old together. Morning after morning closeted over their books. A lifetime of quiet, studious companionship. Now Serenus had crossed the Styx before him. It was a pity neither Philostratus nor one of the other famous Sophists with whom his father was close was present in Carthage. Gordian suspected that he was a less than wholly adequate replacement. What literary talents he had possessed mainly had been squandered in his youth. Still, one or two slave secretaries aside, it gave them a chance to be alone.
Last night, Father, I did not mean to offend you when I spoke of the prodigy.
You know I do not share your Epicurean views, but nothing you could say could ever offend me. His father ran a hand over his eyes, and looked very careworn.
Father, the gods are far away. They have no interest in us. They are perfect in their happiness. If they cared for the vices and follies of humanity, it would disturb their equanimity, mar their perfection. The soothsayers and astrologers that have troubled you are charlatans.
Many are frauds, his father agreed. But I have never understood how a god, or any sentient being, could be happy, if it had never experienced misery. The gods are different from us only in their power and immortality.
Now we are Emperors, Gordian said, many will worship us as gods.
At least for a time.
It was clear his father wanted to say something else. Gordian unrolled a manuscript and waited.
It may be that such warnings only come true to those who believe. Perhaps those who do not are unaffected.
Gordian put down the papyrus and remained silent.
Although I do not want us to be apart, you should travel ahead alone.
Gordian leant across, took his fathers hand. There is no reason to hurry. Now we have the 3rd Legion, Africa is secure. Let Menophilus settle Rome, and we will travel there together.
I did not mean to Rome, his father said. You should go to the East.
Gordian felt the hand, thin and dry in his. Our ancestral estates stretch across Cappadocia. You were governor in Syria, Father. The natives love you. The East will come over.
His father took back his hand, sat up straight, spoke with an almost youthful vigour. Now Rome has declared for us, Maximinus must march into Italy. Unless he abandons the frontiers, and that would mean undoing all his own labours, he will have to leave the majority of the northern armies on the Rhine and Danube. When he has gone, they may declare for us, or they may remain loyal to him. In a sense, it might matter little. Whoever wins this civil war in Italy Maximinus or us the army in the East could overthrow the victor. The eastern forces have been drained for Maximinus northern wars, but, if united, they remain strong. Governors like Priscus of Mesopotamia may decide who sits on the throne.
Gordian considered the unwelcome argument for a time.
I would not go without you. We should not be parted.
No. I am too old.
And an astrologer predicted you would die by drowning.
And the stars held the same fate for my son. You could travel overland by Cyrene and Egypt.
Gordian picked up another papyrus roll, turned it in his hands, put it down again. Egnatius Lollianus in Bithynia is a loyal friend. When he declares for us, Priscus and the others will follow.
His father was not finished. Maximinus is wrong. What matters is not the North, but the East. When all this is over, whoever remains to wear the purple will have to face the Persians.
Nothing could suit me more, Gordian said. To march in the footsteps of Alexander the Great. You know I am more myself on campaign than in the Senate House.
His father looked if anything yet more concerned. When Alexander went East, he left no heir in Macedonia. Before you leave, you must marry, father a son.
Gordian felt a surge of impatience the pusillanimous nature of the old but smiled. There are more than enough home-bred slaves in the Villa Praenestina with my features. There is all the time in the world.
As he watched the resolution drain from his father, his irritation was replaced with guilt. You are right. When we reach Rome, I will marry. As long as my sister is not involved in choosing my wife.
Now his father reached over and took his hand.
They sat in silence for some moments.
Shall we return to the virtues of the Divine Marcus?
I am tired, his father said. Perhaps tomorrow. Now I think I will have a rest before lunch.
Chapter 23
Rome
The Villa Publica,
The Ides of March, AD238
Hangover cures were all nonsense. Garlanding yourself with violets, being rubbed with aromatic oils, wearing an amethyst next to your skin, eating owls eggs what sort of dedicated voluptuary had such foresight or went to such lengths? none did any good. Only time would heal. Despite his scepticism, Menophilus had ordered fried cabbage to go with the mountain of eggs and bacon the two barbarian hostages were consuming.
Zeno had counselled that the good man will not get drunk. The Stoic master had considered that an inebriated man will reveal secrets. As far as he could remember, Menophilus had let slip nothing of any importance last night. Of course he could not be sure; by the end, unable to walk straight, the whole room had been spinning as if in a cyclone.
Drunkenness inflamed and laid bare every vice, removing the reserve that acts as a check on impulses to wrong behaviour, as Seneca had written. The girl had still been there this morning. Menophilus knew he had a weakness for sex and drink. The vices were not habitual, but they were recurrent. She had been a slave girl, waiting on table, so no harm had been done. Better her than a free virgin or a respectable matron. Adultery was nothing but theft. Not that it had felt like that in Carthage with Lycaenion. At least he had been discrete, not flaunted it in the face of her husband. He wondered if he would ever see her again.
Unable to face the eggs, Menophilus tried to chew a small piece of bacon. His head throbbed, and he felt slightly sick. He was sweating, and it was difficult to swallow. Cniva the Goth and Abanchus the Sarmatian showed few ill effects of the debauch. The barbarians were shovelling in the food. Bits kept getting stuck in the Sarmatians luxuriant moustache. It made Menophilus feel worse.
Menophilus forced himself to eat some cabbage. It would give him energy. Even without the drinking, he would have been tired. Yesterday had been a long day. But both tasks had been accomplished.
In the morning, in yet another fractious meeting, at long, long last the Twenty had apportioned out the posts among their number for the coming campaign against Maximinus. Days of wrangling had produced, at best, an imperfect strategy. Only six or seven of them could be considered military men. Factional interests had precluded their straightforward appointment to the necessary stations. In the name of Republican collegiality, amid many invocations of the mos maiorum, all commands were to be shared by two men. How this was to function had not been explored. The ancestral way, where two Consuls alternated days of command, had been rejected, thus laying bare the unspoken imperative that each was there as much to watch his colleague, prevent him gaining too much glory, as to fight the enemy.
At least Menophilus himself would be accompanied by Crispinus in the defence of Aquileia. He knew something of Pupienus friend. A novus homo, Crispinus had entered the Senate after a long succession of equestrian military commands. As governor of Syria Phoenice, he had led troops with distinction in Alexanders Persian campaign. Things elsewhere were less satisfactory. In the Apennines, Lucius Virius was saddled with the indolent patrician Caesonius Rufinianus. Organizing the defence of Rome, Pupienus would have to contend with the philosophical ineptitude of Maecenas. The task of preventing reinforcements reaching Maximinus across the western Alps, given to Cethegillus, would not be aided by the presence of the unmilitary nobilis Valerius Priscillianus.
The hand of that fat fool Balbinus was in everything. His vexation at the betrothal of the plain daughter of Praetextatus his former ally to one of Pupienus sons would have been comical, if it had not led to still further contention, when unity was a necessity.
Yet Balbinus could not be blamed for what was possibly the worst aspect of the arrangement, the holding of the front line at the eastern Alpine Passes. The two descendants of the Divine Marcus Aurelius, Claudius Aurelius and Claudius Severus, had demanded the honour of being the first to meet the barbarian tyrant on the battlefield. It had been impossible to deny their prestige and high birth, even though it had been precisely these qualities that previously had ensured no reigning Emperor had entrusted them with any military high command. Maximinus and his veteran army might be expected to make short work of two elderly aristocrats and whatever makeshift forces had been scrapped together. Menophilus had got the Twenty to agree to Timesitheus going with them. Officially the equestrian would merely provide technical advice, while levying troops and gathering supplies in the foothills and across the plain of the river Po.
The selection of ambassadors from the remainder of the Twenty to venture abroad and win over the provinces had not been easy. The luxuries of the eternal city, and its place as the ultimate residence of legitimate power, in the minds of most, seemed to outweigh the dubious honour and the discomforts of travel. To be fair, there was also the evident danger. It was near certain that any governor who did not join the revolt would have the envoys loaded with chains, bundled into a closed carriage, and conveyed post-haste to Maximinus. What the Thracian would do to them when they arrived did not bear thinking about. After some prevarication, two of the faction of the Gordiani agreed. The aged Appius Claudius Julianus would go to Gallia Narbonensis, and, if the gods were kind, the northern provinces beyond. Egnatius Marinianus a waste of one of the rare military talents would cross first the Adriatic to Dalmatia and the Balkan provinces, then the Hellespont to Bithynia-Pontus and Asia Minor. The independent Senator Latronianus volunteered to sail for Syria and the East. He was one of the few in the Twenty who had emerged with an enhanced reputation from the endless discussions.