by Gore Vidal
Arbetio welcomed me in the name of the senate, though he was not its chief officer.
"We are here to do as the Augustus wills." The proud loud voice belied the words. "In everything."
"… and to prepare for his entering the city as our Lord!" I turned when I heard those words and there, approaching me from a crowd of senators, was Julian, my uncle. He was trembling with excitement (and infirmity, for he suffered from a recurrent fever, souvenir of his days as governor of Egypt). I embraced him warmly. We had not seen each other for seven years, though we had corresponded as regularly as we dared. My uncle had aged alarmingly; his face was haggard, the yellow skin loose, eyes deepset, but even so, this day he was transfigured with delight. I kept my arm through his as I addressed the crowd.
"I am moved at your gesture, since it is not usual for the senate to leave their city to meet the first citizen. Rather it is the first citizen who must come to you, to his peers, who share with him the task of governing, and I shall be with you shortly in your own house to do you the homage you deserve. Meanwhile, I make only one announcement: I shall accept no coronation money from the provinces, imitating in this Hadrian and Antoninus Plus. The Empire is too poor at present to make me a gift." There was applause. Then after a few more ungraceful remarks, I pleaded fatigue, and excused myself. The town prefect bowed me into the building, stammering, stumbling, getting in my way, until at last I shouted, "In Hermes's name, where do you piss?" Thus graciously did the new Emperor of Rome come to the East.
The prefect's house had a small private bath and while I soaked in the hot pool, taking deep breaths of steam, my uncle Julian discussed the political situation.
"When Constantius died, Eusebius sounded out several members of the Consistory to see if they would accept Arbetio as emperor, or Procopius… or me." My uncle smiled shyly at this. He wanted me to hear this from his own lips rather than from an informer.
"Naturally," I said, watching the dust from my beard float like a grey cloud into the centre of the pool where a Negro slave stood, ready to scrub me with towels and sponges, unaware that I never let bath attendants touch me.
"What did the Consistory say to all this?"
"That you were the Emperor, by blood and by choice."
"As well as being only a few hundred miles away."
"Exactly."
"Where is Eusebius?"
"At the palace, preparing for your arrival. He is still Grand Chamberlain." My uncle smiled.
I submerged for a moment, eyes tight shut, soaking my head. When I came to the surface, Oribasius was sitting on the bench beside my uncle.
"That is no way to approach the sacred presence." And I splashed Oribasius very satisfactorily. He laughed. My uncle Julian laughed, too, for I had soaked him as well. Then I was alarmed. In just this way are monsters born. First, the tyrant plays harmless games: splashes senators in the bath, serves wooden food to dinner guests, plays practical jokes; and no matter what he says and does, everyone laughs and flatters him, finds witty his most inane remarks. Then the small jokes begin to pall. One day he finds it amusing to rape another man's wife, as the husband watches, or the husband as the wife looks on, or to torture them both, or to kill them. When the killing begins, the emperor is no longer a man but a beast, and we have had too many beasts already on the throne of the world. Vehemently,! apologized for splashing my uncle. I even apologized for splashing Oribasius, though he is like my own brother. Neither guessed the significance of this guilty outburst. Oribasius told me that the Consistory wanted to know whom I intended to appoint as consuls for the coming year."Uncle, what about you?"
"I can't afford the consulship." It was a sign of my uncle's wealth that he always complained of poverty. Actually, the consulship is not so expensive as it used to be. Nowadays, the two consuls pool their resources for the games they must sponsor, while the emperor usually helps them from the Privy Purse.
"I don't think you'd like it, Oribasius."
"No, Augustus, I would not."
"Mamertinus," I said, swimming to the far side of the pool. Both my uncle and Oribasius approved. "He's a distinguished rhetorician," said my uncle. "Of good family, a popular choice…"
"And Nevitta!" I dived under the water as I said this. When 1 came up for air, I could see that Oribasius was amused and my uncle horrified.
"But he is… he is…"
I nodded. "A Frank. A barbarian."
I got out of the bath. The slave wrapped me in a large towel. I broke away from him before he could start pummelling me. "He is also one of our best generals. He will be a continual reminder to the East that my power rests securely in the West."
"No one will ever accuse you of consistency." Oribasius grinned. Only the month before at Nish, I had denounced Constantius for appointing barbarians to prefectures. Now I was making one consul. There is nothing harder politically than to have to reverse yourself publicly. But where Constantius would rather die than ever admit to a mistake, I was quite willing to look a bit foolish, and do the right thing."
"We shall deny," I said with much grandeur, "that I ever criticized the appointment of barbarians to high office."
"Your letter to the Spartan senate was a forgery?"
"In every detail."
Oribasius and I laughed but my uncle looked pained. "At least," he said, "name only Mamertinus today. Besides, it's the custom to name one consul at a time, so name him for the East. Later you can announce the… the other man for the West."
"So be it, Uncle!" And together we went into the dressing-room where I put on the purple.
The Consistory was almost at full strength, some forty officers of state, who received me ceremoniously at the town hall. Arbetio escorted me to my ivory chair. To my left and right were the empty consular chairs. One for Florentius, who had-hasvanished from the face of the earth; the other for Taurus, who fled to Antioch when I first came into Illyricum.
I greeted the Consistory politely. I noted the absence of the consuls, remarking that as a new year was about to begin, there would soon be two new consuls. One would be Mamertinus. This was received with every appearance of satisfaction. I then made a number of additions to the Consistory. When I had finished, Arbetio begged to address me..Heart sinking, I granted him leave.
Slowly, solemnly, as though he were the Augustus, Arbetio moved to the centre of the room, just in front of my chair. He cleared his throat. "Lord, there are those who have plotted against you." A sharp intake of breath was heard all round the room. After all, there was hardly a man present who had not conspired against me. It had been their duty. "Those men are still at large. Some in high places. Lord, there are also those who conspired against your most noble brother, the Caesar Gallus. They, too, are at large. Some in high places."
I looked about the room and saw several men "in high places" look most uneasy. There was the stout Palladius, chief marshal of Constantius's court. He had brought charges against Gallus. Next to him stood Evagrius, Count of the Privy Purse; he had helped prepare the case against Gallus. And Saturninus, Steward of the Household… A dozen conspirators looked back at Arbetio and me. The question in every face was: Will this reign begin in blood?
It was Ursulus, Count of the Sacred Largesse, who spoke up boldly. "Augustus, are those of us who served the emperor you served so well, to suffer for having done our duty?"
"No!" I was firm.
But Arbetio turned his bleak, pale gaze upon Ursulus. "Yet, Augustus, those who have by deed hurt you and your brother, by word and by deed, must be condemned."
There was an uneasy murmur in the room. Yet Ursulus stood his ground. He was a handsome fleshy man with a quick wit and quicker tongue. "The Consistory are relieved, Lord, that only those who are truly guilty will be charged."
"They shall be charged," said Arbetio, speaking for me, which I did not like, "if it be our Lord's will."
"It is our will." I said the traditional phrase in Latin.
"Who shall compose this court, Lord? and whe
re shall it sit?" Now I should have stopped Arbetio at that moment. But I was tired from the long journey and languorous from a hot bath (never try to do any business immediately after bathing). I was unprepared for a strong will with a plan, and Arbetio had a plan, alas. Meanwhile, Ursulus proposed: "Since the Emperor Hadrian, the Consistory has been our highest court. So let the guilty be judged here, by us who are responsible for the business of the state."
"But, Count," and Arbetio's voice was cold in its correctness, "the Consistory is still that of the late emperor, not of our new lord. I am sure the Augustus will want his own tribunal, as he will in time want his own Consistory." This was undeniable.
I motioned to one of the secretaries to pay close attention as I spoke. "The court will be headed by Salutius Secundus." This went over very well. As praetorian prefect of the East he is known for his sense of justice. I then named Mamertinus, Agilo, Nevitta, Jovinus, and Arbetio to the court. It was, in short, a military tribunal. I then ordered them to meet at Chalcedon, across the Bosphorus from Constantinople. Thus began the treason trials. I shall—sadly—refer to them later.
• • •
On 11 December 361 I entered Constantinople as Roman Emperor. Snow fell at slow intervals and the great flakes turned like feathers in air so still that the day was almost warm. The sky was low and the colour of tarnished silver. There was no colour that day in nature, only in man, but what colour! It was a day of splendour.
In front of the Golden Gate, close to the sea of Marmora, the Scholarians in full-dress uniform stood at attention. On each of the brick towers at either side of the gate, the dragons were unfurled. The green bronze gates were shut. As custom demanded, I dismounted a few yards from the wall. The commander of the Scholarians gave me a silver hammer. With it I struck the bronze gate three times. From within, came the voice of the city's prefect.
"Who goes there?"
"Julian Augustus," I replied in a loud voice. "A citizen of the city."
"Enter Julian Augustus."
The bronze gates swung open noiselessly and there before me in the inner .courtyard stood the prefect of the city—and some two thousand men of senatorial rank. The Sacred Consistory was also there, having preceded me into the capital the night before. Quite alone, I passed through the gate and took possession of the City of Constantine.
Trumpets sounded. The people cheered. I was particularly struck by the brightness of the clothes they wore. I don't know whether it was the white setting which made the reds and greens, the yellows and blues almost unbearably vivid, or the fact that I had been away too long in northern countries where all colours are as muted and as dim as the forests in which the people live. But this was not the misty north. This was Constantinople, and despite the legend that we are the New Rome (and like that republican city, austere, stern, virtuous), we are not Rome at all. We are Asia. I thought of this as I was helped into the gold chariot of Constantine, recalling with amusement Eutherius's constant complaint, "You are hopelessly Asiatic!" Well, I am Asiatic! And I was home at last. As flakes of snow settled in my hair and beard, I rode down Middle Street. Everywhere I looked I saw changes. The city had altered completely in the few years I had been away. For one thing, it has outgrown the wall of Constantine. What were once open fields are now crowded suburbs, and one day I shall have to go to the expense of building a new wall to contain these suburbs, which, incidentally, are not carefully laid out in the way the city was but simply created helter-skelter by contractors interested only in a quick profit.
Colonnades line Middle Street from one end to the other. The arcades were crowded with people who cheered me ecstatically. Why? Because they loved me? No. Because I was a novelty. The people tire of the same ruler, no matter how excellent. They had got bored with Constantius and they wanted a change of programme and I was it.
Suddenly I heard what sounded like thunder at my back. For a moment I took it as an omen that Zeus had approved me. Then I realized it was not thunder but my army singing the marching song of Julius Caesar's troops: "Ecce Caesar nunc triumphat, Qui subettit Gallias!" It is the sound of war itself, and of all earthly glory. The prefect of the city walked beside my chariot and tried to point out the new buildings, but I could not hear him for the noise of the mob. Even so, it was exhilarating to see so much activity, in contrast to old cities like Athens and Milan where a new building is a rarity. When an old house collapses in Athens, the occupants simply move into another one, for there are far more houses than people. But everything in Constantinople is brandnew, including the population, which is now—the prefect shouted to me just as we entered the Forum of Constantine—close to a million people, counting slaves and foreigners.
The colossal statue of Constantine at the centre of the oval forum always gives me a shock. I can never get used to it. On a tall column of porphyry, my uncle set up a statue of Apollo, stolen I believe from Delos. He then knocked the head off this masterpiece and substituted his own likeness, an inferior piece of work by any standard and so badly joined that there is a dark ring where head and neck meet. The people refer to this monument as "old dirty neck". On the head there is a monstrous halo of seven bronze rays, perfect blasphemy, not only to the true gods but to the Galilean as well. Constantine saw himself as both Galilean and as incarnation of the sun god. He was most ambitious. I am told he doted on this particular statue and used to look at it every chance he got: he even pretended that the Apollonian body was his own!
We then entered that section of Middle Street which is called Imperial Way and leads into the Augusteum, a large porticoed square which was the centre of the city when it was called Byzantium. In the middle of the Augusteum, Constantine set up a large statue of his mother Helena. She is seated on a throne and looks quite severe; in one hand she holds a piece of wood said to have been a part of the cross to which the Galilean was nailed. My great-aunt had a passion for relics; she was also infinitely gullible. There is not a charnel house in the city to which she did not give some sliver of wood, shred of cloth, bit of bone said to have been associated in one way or another with that unfortunate rabbi and his family.
To my astonishment, the entire north side of the square was taken up by the basilica of a charnel house so new that the scaffolding had not yet been removed from the front. The prefect beamed cheerfully at me, thinking I would be pleased.
"Augustus may recall the old church that was here? the small one the Great Constantine dedicated to Holy Wisdom? Well, the Emperor Constantius has had it enlarged. In fact, only last summer he rededicated it."
I said nothing but immediately vowed to turn their Saint Sophia into a temple to Athena. It would never do to have a Galilean monument right at my front door (the main entrance to the palace is on the south side of the square, just opposite the charnel house). To the east is the senate house to which the senators were now repairing. The senate's usual quorum is fifty, but today all two thousand were present, elbowing one another as they hurried up the slippery steps.
The square was now jammed with people, and no one knew what to do next. The prefect was used to being given his orders by the palace chamberlains, who were, if nothing else, masters of pageantry. But today the chamberlains were in hiding and neither the prefect nor I knew what to do. I'm afraid between us we made rather a botch of things.
My chariot had stopped at the Milion, a covered monument from which all distances in the empire are measured. Yes, we counterfeit Rome in this, too; in everything, even to the seven hills.
"The senate waits for you, Lord," said the prefect nervously.
"Waits for me? They're still trying to get inside the senate house!"
"Perhaps the Augustus would prefer to receive them in the palace?"
I shook my head, vowing that never again would I enter a city without preparation. No one knew where to go or what to do. I saw several of my commanders arguing with the Scholarians, who did not know them, while ancient senators slipped and fell in the slush. It was a mess, and a bad omen. Already I wa
s handling matters less well than Constantius.
I pulled myself together. "Prefect, while the senate meets, I shall make sacrifice."
The prefect indicated Saint Sophia. "The bishop should be inside, Augustus. If he's not, I can send for him."
"Sacrifice to the true gods," I said firmly.
"But… where?" The poor man was bewildered, with good reason. After all, Constantinople is a new city, dedicated to Jesus, and there are no temples except for three small ones on the old Byzantine acropolis. They would have to do. I motioned to those members of my entourage who had got through the guards and together we made a small ragged procession to the low hill where stood the shabby and deserted temples of Apollo, Artemis and Aphrodite.
In the dank filthy temple of Apollo, I gave thanks to Helios and to all the gods, while the townspeople crowded round outside, amused by this first show of imperial eccentricity. As I sacrificed, I swore to Apollo that I would rebuild his temple.
Libanius: A few weeks ago the Emperor Theodosius gave the temple of Apollo to his praetorian prefect, as a coach house!
Julian Augustus
I then sent Mamertinus, as consul-designate, to tell the senate that I should not address them until the first of January, out of deference to my predecessor, whose body was already on its way to the city for interment. Through a now gusty blizzard, I made my way to the palace, entering through the Chalké Gate, whose vestibule is covered with a bronze roof. Just over the gate, I noticed a new painting of Constantine. He is shown with his three sons. At their feet, a dragon, javelin in its side, sinks into the pit: the true gods slain. Above the emperor's head is a cross. A nice coat of whitewash should do the trick.