Young Gordian’s supporters carried him on their shoulders and loudly demonstrated in the Forum, even as a rattled Senate debated what to do inside the Senate House. Aulus Pinarius was in attendance. Titus, then twenty-eight and not yet a senator, was allowed inside to watch, a technical breach of protocol that was overlooked in the uproar. Also overlooked was the law that no senator could bear arms in the chamber. The state of the city was so precarious that many senators were openly carrying daggers for their personal protection.
After an acrimonious debate, it was decided that Balbinus and Pupienus would both remain Pontifex Maximus and retain the title of Augustus, or senior emperor, while young Gordian would be named Caesar, or junior emperor and heir apparent. Surrounded by his supporters in the Senate, Gordian was admitted into the chamber. Seeing him, Titus thought how young and overwhelmed the boy looked.
Then a group of unarmed Praetorians, suspicious of the senators and fearing the boy would be hurt, forced their way into the Senate House. Two senators, already highly agitated by the debate, were outraged at seeing Praetorians in the chamber, rushed toward them and attacked them with knives, stabbing two of them in the heart. The two soldiers fell dead at the foot of the Altar of Victory. Young Gordian was standing nearby and looked horrified. Titus also witnessed the murders, and felt a cold dread, a presentiment that something truly disastrous had just occurred, a horror that would reach far beyond the death of two reckless soldiers at the hands of two reckless senators. He remembered quite clearly how he had clutched the fascinum, which had been given to him by his father when he put on his manly toga.
Now, ten years later, Titus clutched the amulet as he looked out at the moonlit city and remembered the disaster that followed the murders in the Senate House.
The rest of the unarmed Praetorians fled from the chamber. On the steps of the Senate House, the senators held up their bloody daggers and harangued the crowd, proclaiming that two enemies of the Roman state had just been killed. They accused the Praetorians of a plot to take over the city and massacre the citizens on behalf of the dreaded Maximinus Thrax. The volatile mob was swayed by the speeches, and headed in a fury for the Praetorian camp. The only substantial stores of available weapons were in gladiator barracks. While looting these arms, the mob also set free the gladiators, who joined the siege of the fortified Praetorian camp. When their water supply was cut off, the Praetorians finally emerged, well armed and desperate. There was a horrendous slaughter of citizens.
What followed was complete chaos—days of street fighting between the people of Rome and the vastly outnumbered but highly trained Praetorians. Criminals took advantage of the disorder to loot, rape, and murder with impunity. The emperor Balbinus was helpless. There was still no news of Pupienus’s attempt to fend off Thrax.
It seemed the fortunes of the city could reach no lower ebb, until the fire broke out.
Whether set accidentally, or deliberately (as some claimed) by soldiers, the fires spread rapidly out of control. A huge swath of the city was consumed, concentrated in the poorer residential areas where large wooden buildings were packed close together.
The fire consumed the home of the Pinarii, as well as their workshop, killing many of the slaves and artisans. Also killed in the fire were Titus’s father and mother. Spared were his wife and two small children, his son, named Gnaeus, and his daughter, Pinaria.
From where he stood on the balcony of the House of the Beaks, overlooking the pale moonlit city, large areas of destruction could still be seen as deep shadows, like gaping wounds in the cityscape. Titus felt a sudden despair. How could he possibly write of those horrible days? They were the worst of his life. They haunted his nightmares.
Given the brevity of each chapter within the thousand-year history, a few words would have to suffice, and the fewer the better. But was such deliberate brevity not an insult to the dead? Was their humanity and their suffering not dishonored by a superficial gloss that spoke of such immense catastrophe only in passing, leaving their names unrecorded, their fates unexamined, their individual destines forgotten?
Titus realized that he was unconsciously touching the fascinum at his breast. He had not been wearing it on the day the fire consumed their house. He had run inside to get it. It lay nestled with its chain amid other precious items at the shrine to Apollonius of Tyana. As flames and falling debris surrounded him, Titus managed to grab only the fascinum, leaving all the other sacred objects behind. The family shrines to Apollonius and Antinous, as well as the wax masks of the ancestors—all were lost in the fire, and so much more.
The disaster marked a cleavage not only in his own life—a demarcation of all things before and after the fire—but also in the history of the Pinarii. Gone were his father and mother, gone every family heirloom and sentimental treasure (except the fascinum), and gone too were almost all of their property and wealth, including the human wealth that resided in the highly trained artisans of the workshop. Gone with those slaves and their ability to create sculpture and art was the means of creating new wealth. All that remained was Titus himself and the ancient talisman that linked him to the ancestors …
“You still have me,” said a quiet voice. The slender arms of his wife embraced him from behind. “And your children.”
It was uncanny, the way Clodia was able to read his moods and even his thoughts. Yes, he still had his immediate family—precious but few, all that remained of the Pinarii of Rome after the fire. And to be sure, he still owned a few small country properties outside Rome with cattle and vineyards that provided income. In the city itself, since the fire, they had been living for ten years as renters. Houses had become outrageously expensive after so many were destroyed in the fire. There had been times when Titus had struggled to make ends meet.
But for the time being, all was well. At the emperor’s invitation, Titus and his family resided in the House of the Beaks. If only they could stay there permanently! Its beauty and opulence—the sculptures in the gardens, the dazzling mosaic floors, the paintings on the walls—were daily reminders of all the wealth and property the Pinarii no longer possessed.
“I saw Pompey’s ghost tonight,” said Clodia.
“Did you?” Titus had never encountered a ghost, but his wife did so regularly.
“He was in the small garden off our bedroom, conversing with Marc Antony and Fulvia, Antony’s wife. I recognized them from their statues.” In one of the larger courtyards of the house there were marble statues and busts of almost all the previous owners, from Pompey and Antony all the way to the young Gordian, who inherited it from his grandfather. The statues had been meticulously maintained and repainted as needed, so that in daylight they often looked as if they were alive and breathing. By night they were even more uncannily lifelike, so much so that Titus found the effect unnerving and avoided looking at them.
Clodia had encountered the ghosts of almost all the past owners.
“Do they speak, when you see them—the ghosts?”
“Not to me. They seemed unable to see me. They speak to each other, but I can never make out the words. I hear only a vague murmur.”
“The ghosts of those who lived in this house seem particularly restless.”
Clodia nodded thoughtfully. “Many of them died by violence, or by suicide—Pompey and Antony, and the Gordians in Africa, and so many in between. My mother always said that a violent death is more likely to leave behind a restless spirit to wander the earth. It makes sense that they would linger in this house, where they must have spent many happy hours. It’s such a beautiful house.”
“We mustn’t grow attached to it, my love. Once I’ve completed the history for the emperor, my reason for living here will be at an end.”
“Unless the emperor is so pleased with your work that he commissions more books from you. Surely there are more histories to write. Perhaps a history of Philip’s own family?”
“Not that! There’s nothing in the library here about them, I assure you. I would have t
o go to Philippopolis to do the research. I don’t think you would like living in a dry gulch with Damascus for the nearest city.”
“It sounds terribly dusty.”
“Let’s not find out. But you’re right. After The Millennium, if he likes it, perhaps I can interest Philip in some other project that would justify my continued residence here. But first I have to finish this book.”
“Is it difficult?”
Titus gazed at the bone-white city under moonlight and sighed. “To write about long-dead people is one thing. To write about one’s own lifetime is different. And of course I must take care to avoid writing anything that gives offense to the emperor. Yes, I’m finding it difficult. But never fear, I shall finish it, and Philip will be impressed.”
He left unspoken his dearest wish—that Philip, as a reward for his service, would see fit to admit him into the Senate, as Alexander had elevated his father. He came from ancient patrician stock, with many senators among his ancestors, but his relative poverty would count against him. Of course, Philip could reward him financially as well, granting him both greater wealth and senatorial status at a single stroke. This was all only a dream, and Titus felt he must not get his hopes up. But how pleased his late father would be, to see Titus regain some of the family’s wealth and become a senator!
“Tell me, wife, do you ever see the ghost … of my father?”
Clodia was quiet for a long moment, then slowly nodded. “I see him now. He’s standing right there.” She pointed to a nearby spot on the terrace. Titus followed her gaze, but saw only empty air. Even so, he felt a shiver, and choked back a sudden sob in his throat.
* * *
Much of the terrace was filled with long shadows—the month was February—but the day was not too chilly and Titus had found a sunny spot where he could sit with a scribe on either side, one to take his dictation and the other to scroll through various books and documents and read aloud passages pertinent to Titus’s research. A low brazier nearby offered a bit of heat. More scribes waited at the doorway into the house, ready to shuttle back and forth to the library to fetch or return scrolls. They were all idle at the moment. A document Titus wished to consult seemed not to be in its pigeonhole, and the head librarian himself was searching for it. If it had been misplaced among so many scrolls and scraps of parchment, Titus feared it might never be found.
He gazed across the way at the top of the Flavian Amphitheater, where a vast team of workers was installing new canvas awnings to provide shade for the audience that would fill the seats for Philip’s Millennial Games. Other workers were tending to the huge statues that occupied the multitude of arched openings all around the structure, cleaning them and retouching the vivid paint that made their features discernable even at this distance. Titus recalled his father’s pride in creating and installing many of those statues, after the fire in the reign of Macrinus and the reconstruction of the amphitheater by the two young cousins from Emesa, or more precisely, by their mothers and grandmother.
As the Millennium approached, the whole city had become a beehive of activity. Not only the amphitheater, but also the Circus Maximus, the Forum, and various other public areas of the city were being refurbished. The games and chariot races and plays and feasts must all be as splendid as possible. The Millennium was the Arab’s chance to make an unforgettable impression on the people of Rome.
It was also Titus’s chance to make an impression on Philip, to win the favor of the emperor with his history. Philostratus had been of great assistance. His experience as a writer navigating court politics had helped Titus shape his narrative in various ways that would both enlighten his readers and please Philip. Philostratus had told him, “You must think of this not as history but as an exercise in rhetoric, my boy. You need not tell falsehoods to flatter Philip, only find facts that flatter him, bring those facts to the fore, and state them with eloquence.”
Today Titus was reflecting on the aftermath of the great fire. His own memory of the period was confused and hazy; the death of his parents and the loss of his home had left him dazed. Tens of thousands of people in Rome must have felt the same way. Once the fires were finally extinguished and the immediate threat receded, people only gradually came to their senses. What had all the rioting and bloodshed been about? No one seemed quite able to remember, and a sort of numb paralysis seized the city, an uneasy calm to follow the firestorm.
And then, at a stroke, the mood of the city changed. The head of Maximinus Thrax arrived, carried into the city on the end of a spear by a horseman in advance of the returning Pupienus. The barbarian was dead. The threat from the north was over. The city burst into celebration. Mourning was replaced by jubilation.
The whole Senate, the Vestal virgins, and a huge crowd of citizens went out to greet the arrival of Pupienus and his troops. They were hailed as heroes and saviors of the city—never mind that not one of them had shot an arrow or raised a sword against Thrax, as it turned out. His destruction had been accomplished even before Pupienus arrived at the frontier. Crossing the Alps, Thrax had paused to lay siege to the city of Aquileia, but without success. As the stalemate wore on, Thrax’s troops ran out of winter provisions. The people of Aquileia taunted them by feasting on the ramparts. Facing starvation, the soldiers turned on Thrax and murdered him.
When Pupienus arrived at Aquileia shortly thereafter, he declared amnesty for everyone, and welcomed the troops of Thrax into his ranks. The Roman state and the Roman legions were reunited.
In Rome, too, a general amnesty was declared. Neither the people nor the Praetorians (nor the Senate, for that matter) would be held accountable for the rioting and destruction. This was to be a time of reconciliation and celebration. The barbarian was dead and the two best men in Rome now presided over the empire, with the young Gordian as their heir. The joint reign of Pupienus and Balbinus could commence in earnest. Rome could at last return to the reason and prudence of the days when the Divine Marcus reigned, with the best senators running the state, and the army in its rightful role, fighting barbarians at the borders instead of choosing emperors.
How did that dream come to such an abrupt halt? Why did the two venerable emperors suffer a fate such as only the most depraved criminal could deserve? Titus had never fully understood what happened at the time. He had been too distant from the palace, too distraught over his personal tragedies, too overwhelmed by his family’s daily struggle for survival in the aftermath of the fire. So it was with some chagrin that he discovered through his research that, to some extent, his kinsman Pupienus had brought about his own destruction and that of Balbinus—or more precisely, the distrust between the two men had done so.
Popular opinion held that the joint emperors were in perfect harmony, but in fact, with the threat of Thrax gone and the furor in the city spent, the emperors began to eye each other a bit warily, and behind the public show of concord there was private discord and petty sniping. Balbinus asked: What great military feat had Pupienus accomplished, marching against Thrax and sending back his head, but without engaging in even a skirmish? Pupienus asked: What sort of civic leader was Balbinus, who had allowed the whole city to descend into chaos? The mood of the populace began to sour, as well. Despite the celebrations, much of the city lay in smoldering ruins.
Did each emperor actively plot against the other? Certainly, each came to suspect the other of doing so.
Pupienus had brought back from the frontier a troop of German soldiers to act as his personal bodyguard. This especially alerted the suspicion of Balbinus.
One day in June, while the whole city was in the midst of festivities for the Capitoline Games, a group of drunken Praetorians—still seething with anger and resentment despite the amnesty—broke into the palace. The emperors were conferring at the time. When a courtier ran in, warning them about the Praetorians, Pupienus at once dispatched a messenger to bring his German bodyguard. But Balbinus became suspicious, thinking it was an ambush, that no Praetorians were on the way and Pupienus
was manufacturing an excuse to summon his German guards to murder his rival. Balbinus called back the messenger. The poor courtier stood there as the two emperors argued, one shouting at him to fetch the German guards at once, the other shouting at him to do no such thing, both threatening him with dire punishments. While they squabbled, the drunken Praetorians arrived, slaughtered the few courtiers who dared to resist them, and laid hold of both emperors.
What followed was a nauseating orgy of violence, as the two old men were stripped and beaten, then driven naked out of the palace. Using spears, the soldiers goaded the two men through the streets. A mob gathered and followed along. Men who had previously sung the praises of Pupienus and Balbinus were suddenly quite joyful at seeing the two naked emperors abused. The humiliation of powerful men delighted the mob.
In the Praetorian camp, the soldiers split into two groups and competed at torturing the two emperors—jabbing them with spears, slashing at them with swords, pulling out their beards, chopping off their fingers, slicing away their lips and noses, delighting in the screams and pleas for mercy and prolonging the agony as long as possible. Eventually, whether from loss of blood or because their hearts burst from terror, the two men died.
Pupienus and Balbinus, who many hoped would bring about a new golden age, had reigned for only ninety-nine days …
With a shiver—for he was deep in thought—Titus realized that Philostratus had joined him on the terrace.
“Thus does the mob delight in the humiliation of powerful men,” Titus whispered. The scribe cocked his head, not quite catching the words. “Yes, write that down,” said Titus. He repeated the phrase, thinking it rather good.
“Well, I think I can guess where your thoughts have taken you,” said Philostratus. “Pupienus and Balbinus.”
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