Pupienus ran his gaze over where those openly committed to the Gordiani sat together. Valerian was supported by his brother-in-law Egnatius Marinianus, and a more distant relative by marriage, Egnatius Proculus, the Curator of the Roads and Prefect of the Poor Relief. With Menophilus were young Virius Lupus, a fellow Quaestor, and the latters elderly father Lucius Virius. One coeval each of the Elder and Younger Gordiani was seated with them, respectively Appius Claudius Julianus and Celsus Aelianus. That was the heart of the problem. Gordian the father was so old that all his closest allies were in retirement or dead. Gordian the son had spent so many years in the provinces most recently in Syria, Achaea and now Africa the only associates who remained in Rome were relics of his disreputable youth. Like him, the handful of his friends who had grown into some responsibility were serving the Res Publica abroad; Claudius Julianus governing Dalmatia, and Fidus had charge of Thrace. Pupienus had a good memory, and prided himself on knowing such things.
As a faction those backing the Gordiani in the Curia were lacking in numbers and authority a few greybeards, a couple of Quaestors and, the gods help them, the Curator of the Roads and Prefect of the Poor Relief. Yet they must be brave men, or perhaps merely foolhardy. Even the slowest or most senile of them must know that should the decision go against them today, the only way they would leave the Senate House alive would be while they were dragged the few paces to the Tullianum. Many enemies of Rome and innumerable victims of an Emperors animosity had been strangled by the executioners in that dank, repugnant subterranean gaol. Those prisoners who emerged blinking into the painful light only did so to be hurled to their deaths from the Tarpeian Rock.
Your choice is simple, Conscript Fathers, barbarian tyranny or Roman freedom. Continue to live in a besieged city, always in fear, or recall liberty to Rome.
Only the other seven diehard Gordiani shook back the folds of their togas and applauded Valerians conclusion. Everyone else sat very still.
His face as impassive as that of the gilded statue of Victory that loomed over the tribunal, Pupienus surreptitiously surveyed the House. There were next to no Senators here closely tied to the regime of Maximinus. His eye fell on Catius Celer. His elder brothers had helped put the Thracian on the throne, but Celers expression was as unreadable as Pupienus own.
Much depended on the absent Prefect of the City. Sabinus had not been summoned. Yet soon, if not already, someone would inform him that the Senate was meeting, and by now he might know that Maximinus still lived. What would he do? With the Praetorian Prefect Vitalianus dead, Sabinus stood alone as Maximinus chief adherent in Rome. Potens, the commander of the Watch was of far less import.
No one knew better than Pupienus the latent power of a Prefect of the City. The previous year he had been unceremoniously removed from that office insufficient zeal in his duties, the imperial letter of dismissal had read and Sabinus appointed in his place. At the time Pupienus had been grateful to be allowed to retire into private life, glad to be left alive, his estates unconfiscated, his family unharmed. Subsequently it had come to rankle. Insufficient zeal had amounted to not turning the swords of the soldiers under his command loose on his fellow citizens, of avoiding a massacre. It remained to be seen if Sabinus would exercise the same restraint now he led the six thousand men of the Urban Cohorts.
In the lengthening hush even the mob in the Forum had quietened all eyes turned to Fulvius Pius. The Consul licked his lips, cleared his throat. Following senatorial pro-cedure, I would call on the Consuls designate. But in their absence He looked around the assembly, as if searching for some improbable salvation. Most of the Conscript Fathers looked away, studying the patterned marble of walls or floor. I call on the Father of the House to give us his advice.
An audible sigh of relief came from the benches let old Cuspidius Celerinus speak, not them. The octogenarian levered himself to his feet with a walking stick.
A momentous day, and a heavy responsibility. His thin, reedy voice struggled to reach the back benches. Those behind him craned forward, turning their heads, cupping hands to ears. The next part of the exordium was drowned as the plebs outside burst into impromptu song: Fuck the Thracian up the arse, up the arse, up the arse!
Four Senators, led by the hirsute figure of the Cynic Gallicanus, took it on themselves to unbar the main door, and slip out. If any Senator could quiet the masses, Pupienus thought, it was the demagogic follower of Diogenes, and his like-minded coterie. Sure enough, a short time later the obscene chorus died, and they returned. Pupienus noted with a measure of alarm that they failed to secure the door.
Now quiet had returned, the Father of the House, who had continued inaudibly throughout, also fell silent. His head twisted on his scrawny neck, a display hideously reminiscent of a tortoise. Before continuing, he smiled, as if the new state of affairs were a product of his own oratory.
Only twice has this august house deposed a reigning Emperor. The first occasion was that disgusting actor Nero. Even I was not alive then. Cuspidius Celerinus laughed, a gasping, senile sound. But the other time I was here. Didius Julianus had bought the throne at auction. Gesturing with his fingers up at the Praetorians on the walls of their camp. A more disgraceful spectacle has never been seen in Rome. We stripped from him the purple he was unworthy to wear. Didius Julianus was a drunk and a fool, but he was not a barbarian.
The stillness inside the Curia was so profound the silence itself seemed to be listening.
Maximinus was born a barbarian, and he should die like a barbarian. Bloodthirsty, irrational, beyond all redemption, he will kill us all, if we do not kill him first.
His powers were failing, Pupienus thought. Three years before the Father of the House had made a far better oration, distinct and sensible, with apposite echoes of Virgil and Livy, when he had recommended the Senate grant Maximinus all the honours and powers of an Emperor. And now Still, when you were as near the underworld as Cuspidius Celerinus, there was little to hold you back from advocating fatal courses.
When it became evident that the Father of the House had no more to say, again all attention focused on the tribunal. Aware he was presiding over a meeting that was slipping towards open treason, Fulvius Pius scanned the room with an air close to panic. Senatorial procedure His gaze fell upon the group of patricians on the front bench opposite Pupienus. The Senator next in order of seniority should speak. I call on Decimus Caelius Calvinus Balbinus.
The man in question appeared to be asleep, or as comatose as made no difference. Most likely he had come to the session from drinking all night. Gods below, Pupienus loathed those indolent, arrogant patricians, detested their endless complacent talk of their ancestors, and hated their sneering contempt for those like himself they regarded as their inferiors. Rome is but your stepmother, they said to him. Tell us of your fathers achievements. He never replied. Everyone knew about his youth in Tibur, brought up by a lowly kinsman, the Emperors head gardener. But what happened before, his childhood in Voleterrae, not even his sons knew. As long as ingenuity, subterfuge and money served, he would keep it that way. Dear gods, it must remain that way, or he was ruined.
Balbinus neighbour, the grossly obese Valerius Priscillianus, touched his arm. Balbinus opened his porcine eyes, and blearily looked around. Valerius Priscillianus whispered to him. Balbinus did not respond. With a strange delicacy, Priscillianus pinched his recalcitrant friends ear. Balbinus slapped his hand away.
Now that was interesting, Pupienus thought. The superstitious thought the ear lobe the seat of memory. What did one corpulent patrician want the other to remember? Was it that Maximinus had killed both Valerius Priscillianus father and brother? Could familial feeling stir even the fathomless lethargy of these patricians?
Let him be slain, that he who best deserves alone may reign.
Having recited the line of Virgil, Balbinus folded his hands over his protruding stomach, and, with something like a smirk, closed his eyes.
You fool, Pupienus thought, equivocation will not save you. Whichever side carried this debate, and whichever rulers finally emerged in undisputed possession of the throne, would consider all those who had not supported them as their enemies. If the Gordiani were triumphant, the repercussions might be less swift and savage, but all Emperors bear a grudge, and, if their memory fails them, there are always others to remind them of any perceived injury or slight.
Gallicanus was given the floor. His constant companion Maecenas stepped forward from the small philosophical brotherhood, and took a place close behind him. The wool of Gallicanus toga was coarse and homespun, an ostentatious symbol of his often trumpeted devotion to old-fashioned frugality and morality. From under his rough cut mane of hair, he glared about, fierce censure personified. Given a wallet and a staff, and he could have been Diogenes himself, crawled from his barrel and ready to admonish Alexander the Great. Surely even he was not about to propose the ludicrous scheme he had once suggested to Pupienus of restoring the free Republic?
Maximinus has murdered our loved ones. No one has escaped. Gordian the Elder mourns his son-in-law, Gordian the Younger his brother-in-law, Valerius Priscillianus his father and brother, Pupienus his lifelong friend Serenianus.
Pupienus face remained as blank as the outer wall of a town house.
A tide of innocent blood, flowing across the empire: Memmia Sulpicia in Africa, Antigonus in Moesia, Ostorius in Cilicia. As the names rolled out, fired by his own rhetoric, Gallicanus swung his hairy arms, gesturing with angry, simian motions.
If any spark of ancestral virtue remains in our breasts, Gallicanus dropped to a murmur, any spark at all, we must free ourselves. Now he shouted. Declare Maximinus and his son enemies of the Senate and People of Rome!