Dominus

by Steven Saylor

  “And they answered, ‘We see all this, of course—and we envy the dying, for they are blessed to go ahead of us.’

  “‘You envy them?’ I said, not trusting my ears.

  “‘Yes. Envy is a sin, to be sure, and for this sin we pray to be forgiven. No mortal should rush to martyrdom, but if martyrdom comes, we must recognize it for what it is, not the horror the world deems it, but a blessing from our eternal and loving father, who would have us know the full frailty of our mortal frames before we shake them off, for how can we truly appreciate the ceasing of pain unless we have experienced pain, the more agonizing the better?’

  “And then they invited me to join them—I think they saw how desperately I wanted to—and so I did, caring for the sick, and listening to the carers tell stories of Jesus and his followers, and little by little my heart was opened—”

  “Like a flower to the sun!” cried Pinaria. “Yes, Mother, we have heard it all before!”

  “If only you would hear and understand,” said Clodia, reaching out. Her eyes showed her dismay, but she never stopped smiling. Pinaria snatched her arm away.

  “I think I might understand,” said Titus quietly. “I think … I may see a way…”

  “Yes, husband?” Clodia’s face grew bright.

  “You must take me to one of these houses, where the sick are cared for by your fellow Christians.”

  Pinaria was aghast. “Now, Papa? In the middle of the night? With barbarians about to murder us all? This is what you want? To follow Mother into a madhouse?”

  “Yes. The quicker the better.”

  * * *

  The next morning, the makeshift army of Romans that had gathered along the Flaminian Way made ready to march toward the Milvian Bridge, to meet the barbarians if they dared to cross.

  “The muster went on all night,” Gnaeus told his father, whom he had just found amid the crowd. “We rousted every available able-bodied man—and a good number from taverns! We separated the novices from army veterans, collected and issued arms. What a haphazard, ramshackle mess! What must the gods think, looking down at us? They test us at every turn. The gods strike discord in every corner of the empire, they send Germans and Persians across our frontiers, they even allow our emperor to be captured and made a slave—and now this. A horde of barbarians is massed outside the city, and this is the best we can do? Surely when Gallienus returns, if he ever does, he’ll find Rome a mass of smoking rubble. Or worse, the barbarians will still be here, living as conquerors, taking their time as they go about beheading senators and raping our women—”

  “Son! Stop this talk!” Titus grabbed him by the shoulders. “There is still hope. The muster has produced a great number of armed men, many more than I expected.”

  In truth, looking at all the rusty swords and ill-fitting armor, the wide-eyed boys and gray-haired men, Titus was reminded of a famous episode from history—the annihilation by Cicero of the pitiful insurgent army of Catilina, which was armed with fence posts and helmeted with gourds. This army, if one dared call it that, was not quite as pitiful as that, but it was pitiful nonetheless.

  The makeshift army marched up the Flaminian Way and then spread out along the bank of the Tiber, hoping to make their numbers look as great as possible. A thick mist hovered above the river, obscuring the opposite bank. Perhaps that was a good thing, thought Titus. The untrained Romans might break ranks and run at the sight of a terrifying opponent. But sounds, muffled by the fog, came from the opposite riverbank—shouting in some barbaric tongue, horns blowing, horses neighing. Was this the noise of the barbarian army preparing to cross the bridge? Might they be floating across the water on rafts? The heavy mist seemed to make anything possible. Many of the Romans began to quail from fright.

  But as the sun rose and the mist very slowly dispersed, Titus saw an astonishing sight. The barbarian horde was in the very last stages of retreating. They must have broken camp and begun their departure before first light. Only a few stragglers still remained. Some looked over their shoulders and made obscene gestures, and shouted what Titus took to be insults across the water. Then they were gone.

  “Ha! What a bunch of sniveling cowards!” shouted someone nearby. Titus recognized the irritating voice. He turned to see Messius Extricatus, who was practically dancing with elation. “Do you all see what’s happened? Do you understand? The very sight of us made them turn tail and scamper off! Just as it should be, whenever a worthless barbarian sees a Roman!”

  “Nonsense,” said a man nearby, another senator. “Look around you! We’re hardly a fearsome sight. Besides, the mist was too thick for them to see us. It was not us but the gods who did this. The gods heard our prayers, and they filled the enemy’s hearts with fear. Praise the gods!”

  “Is that what happened? Was it a miracle, Father?” asked Gnaeus. “Maybe the gods confounded them somehow, made them see an illusion across the water, a real Roman army ready to meet them. One hears of such things happening—like the Rain Miracle that saved the army of Marcus Aurelius, when the gigantic rain god peered down from the sky and terrified the barbarians, then blew them down with his mighty breath and drowned them with a flood.”

  Titus smiled. “If only mighty Jupiter would do just that—appear from the sky like a god at the end of a play and annihilate those barbarians. And perhaps … in some future version of today’s events … that is just what will occur. Historians of the future will have to come up with some explanation, since no one will know … the real story.”

  “Papa, what are you talking about? Does this have to do with your ‘secret mission’ last night?”

  “If you’re brave enough to cross the Milvian Bridge with me, I’ll show you.”

  “How much bravery does it take to enter an empty camp? But why are you so grim, Papa? We should be rejoicing.”

  “Not yet. Not quite yet…”

  * * *

  A few scouts on horseback, all gray-haired veterans, crossed to the other bank to make sure the barbarians had really left. On foot, Titus and Gnaeus followed them across the Milvian Bridge.

  They saw around them the detritus of a vast camp hastily abandoned. A few slaves and Roman captives had been left behind, but there was not a warrior to be seen. The mounted scouts rode off to track the army’s retreat. Titus and Gnaeus remained amid the rubbish and the smoldering campfires.

  Titus seemed to be looking for something or someone. He suddenly let out a gasp. Gnaeus followed him and saw a group of corpses, twenty or more, men and women dressed in humble tunics and all of them pierced with arrows. Some lay on the ground while others lay on hand carts of the sort a single man could push down the road. As they drew closer to the bodies, Titus became increasingly agitated, trembling and wringing his hands. Gaius approached the nearest cart and looked at the arrow-pierced corpse upon it, then jumped back and let out a cry.

  “Plague! Papa, these are plague victims. All of them!”

  “Only the poor wretches in the carts, son. Someone had to push these carts across the bridge, long before sunrise. That task required a healthy man. Or woman. A very brave man or woman, I should add. Brave enough to tend to such sick people, and brave enough to confront the barbarians face to face. Dead, every one of them! I feared it would end like this, but still I hoped…”

  “That I would live?” Clodia emerged from beneath one of the carts.

  Gnaeus was astonished to see his mother.

  Titus wept with relief and ran to embrace her. “You brave woman! You very foolish, very brave, wonderful woman!”

  “Not brave enough,” she said, also weeping. “I intended to die with the others—to become a martyr alongside them. But at the last moment, when the archers appeared, I lost my courage. I hid myself! I heard the screams when the arrows struck, and the moans of suffering as they died. But not me. I stayed where I was, trembling like a leaf. I was a coward—”

  “No, wife! Not one woman in a thousand, in a hundred thousand, would have dared to do what you did. You
and your friends have saved the city!”

  Another figure emerged from hiding, an old man who looked slightly dazed and wore a crooked grin. “I did exactly as you instructed, Senator. And like your wife, I managed to escape the arrows. I only hope that I haven’t caught the plague.”

  Gnaeus looked at his mother and father and shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “This man is Quintus Horatius,” says Titus. “The bravest man in Rome, I daresay! And our savior on this blessed day. He’s not a Christian, like all these others, but a retired military courier with many years of experience. He speaks several barbarian languages, including that of the Scythians.”

  The old man beamed. “I must say, Senator Pinarius, today I outdid myself. Over the years I’ve met with many barbarians in many dangerous situations, and I’ve learned to show a brave face no matter what, but today I put on the best performance of my life! Just as you said to do, I told them that Rome was full of plague, and for proof we brought with us a few of the sick and dying. This band of Scythians came from so far away, and traveled here so quickly, they had only heard rumors of the plague and had not yet seen it. When they saw what it does, and when I told them how easily it spreads—by sight alone—their leaders held a hasty meeting. They issued orders to retreat.” His smile faded. “I thought—I hoped—that would be the end of it. But the barbarian wanted to make sure that none of the sick would follow. I heard them call for archers. I cried out in Latin to the Christians, telling them to flee. But they stood where they were, beside the carts. I realized that running would only draw attention to myself, so I hid, as best I could.”

  “We saw the archers coming,” said Clodia, fighting back tears. “We knew what was about to happen. Instead of running, we joined hands and prayed, and then sang, as the brave Christians did when Nero slaughtered them. But I … I lost my courage … I pulled my hands free … I slipped behind the others, and then I ducked beneath a cart…”

  “Now I understand, Papa,” said Gnaeus. “You used the plague to drive them off. No amount of talking about it would have frightened them. They had to see for themselves what it does to people. And who but the Christians would be suicidal enough to take on such a mission?” He frowned. “But what did you mean, last night, about getting the idea from Messius Extricatus?”

  “Yesterday in the Senate he mocked my call to arms by suggesting I enlist plague victims to fight for the city. A thought struck me: Who better to frighten the barbarians? But how could the invaders be made to see the sick with their own eyes? Even if the sick volunteered for such a task, they were unable to walk. Healthy volunteers would have to lift them onto carts and wheel them across the bridge and into the barbarian camp. And who would willingly perform such a dangerous task? Only Christians! Only people like your mother could be so foolhardy, or so brave. They fear neither plague nor barbarians. Death holds no fear for them. As for Horatius here, he is certainly no Christian, but he did as I asked, thanks to his great patriotism—and only partly, I’m sure, for the very large reward I promised him. And now the plague victims and the Christians have saved the city!”

  “That fool Extricatus thought it was the sight of our ragtag army that did it,” said Gnaeus, laughing scornfully.

  “In that he’s not entirely wrong,” said Horatius. “While I hid, the barbarians carried out their retreat, until only a few remained. The fog must have lifted just enough to offer a hazy view of the Romans across the river. I heard one of the barbarians say, ‘If they’re all so sick from this plague, how can they muster so many men to face us?’ My heart sank. If they suspected a ruse, they might halt the retreat. But then another said, ‘But look at them! Have you ever seen a sorrier lot! If that’s the best army the greatest city on earth can scrape together, if the plague is that terrible, we can’t leave quickly enough. There must be other cities in Italy, not as big or as rich, but maybe free from the plague. Leave quickly, and don’t look back!’”

  Clodia pulled free of her husband’s embrace. “The city is saved. The sick died quickly and no longer suffer. And my friends—they’re in paradise right now, jubilant martyrs one and all. You call me brave, husband, but I failed to die a martyr this day, as I thought I would. Was it because I deliberately sought martyrdom? I was not worthy. I’m too vain, too cowardly. Perhaps another day…”

  Gnaeus looked at his father. “When you sent Mother on this mission with the others, did you think she would die?”

  “I did everything I could to protect her. I prayed at the Altar of Victory that the plan would work—and it did, for this is a victory, even if there was no battle. I burned incense to Antinous and to Apollonius of Tyana, asking them to watch over your mother. I trained my thoughts upon the fascinum that hangs from your neck, son, which has looked over the fortunes of this family for so many generations. I knew in my heart that your mother would survive.”

  Clodia shook her head. “Your false gods had nothing to do with it, husband. I still live for only one reason: because it does not yet please Jesus Christ to take me.”

  “We both invoke religion, wife, yet we disagree. Well, you know the old Etruscan saying: gods move in mysterious ways. That adage certainly applies to your god. How peculiar he is, how jealous of the other gods, that he permits you to worship no others, only him. But I begin to think he might possess considerable power. Without all these dead Christians—martyrs, as you call them—many more Romans would have died today. The whole city might have been destroyed. When I give thanks to the gods at the Altar of Victory, I shall include your crucified man-god, whether he likes being named among the other gods or not. And when the emperor returns to Rome, I’ll tell him what happened here today and I’ll try to persuade him to rescind his father’s decrees against the Christians. He may actually welcome the idea. Gallienus has never been as hostile to the Christians as was Valerian. His disposition is milder, more like that of Philip.”

  Instead of being cheered by this promise, Clodia pushed out her chin and looked thoroughly vexed. “But if Gallienus ends the persecution—how am I ever to become a martyr?”

  Titus and Gnaeus looked at each other for a long moment, then roared with laughter. All the tensions of the preceding two days were released in gales of tearful mirth. Gnaeus embraced Clodia and lifted her off the ground. “Oh, Mother, what a strange creature you are! And how glad I am, that you are still among the living!”

  IV

  THE WALLED CITY

  (A.D. 274)

  A.D. 274

  “When I was a little girl,” said Zenobia, “long ago and far away, in Palmyra, my tutors taught me that the city of Rome had no walls. I could not imagine that. Why then did Palmyra have walls? They told me: sitting at the intersection of so many trade routes, and possessing so much wealth, how else could the city of Palmyra be safe? But Rome was so vast, they told me, that no wall could encircle it, and so powerful, so terrifying to the entire world, it needed no walls. No one would ever dare to attack it. No one would even think of such a thing. But all these years later, now that I am here, in Rome, I see there are walls, encircling the whole city. New walls, very tall and very thick.”

  Zenobia stood on the roof terrace atop the House of the Beaks. She leaned on the parapet and gazed at the skyline of the vast city around her. She was of a dark complexion. Her eyes were almost black, yet they seemed to glitter more brightly than the eyes of other mortals. So white was her smile that some said she had pearls in place of teeth.

  Here in the privacy of her home, she wore not a Roman matron’s stola, but her colorful native dress. Her neck and her bare arms were adorned with shimmering gold and sparkling jewels. So striking was she, so naturally regal, that a crown or diadem would not look at all out of place on her head, thought Gnaeus. But Zenobia was no longer queen of Palmyra. She was lucky to be alive; lucky that she had been allowed to keep any of her jewelry; luckier still not to be a conquered slave, but the wife of a Roman senator, and not a doddering old gray-beard but a man in the prime of
life.

  Gnaeus Pinarius smiled as he often did at his wife’s exotic accent. He couldn’t help thinking that she sounded just a bit dim when she spoke Latin. But dim-witted Zenobia most certainly was not. Her Greek was impeccable and quite elevated, far better than his. But she wished to perfect her Latin, so that was the language in which husband and wife conversed.

  She was trying to trace the course of the wall with her eyes, but lost sight of it in the midst of so many hills and rooftops. “Is that the wall I see over there?” She pointed.

  “No,” said Gnaeus, “that’s a bit of the ancient Servian Walls. Those were built hundreds of years ago, after Brennus the Gaul sacked the city, to keep the Gauls from ever doing it again. But no Gaul ever even tried, and nor did any other barbarian, not for hundreds of years. Even Hannibal quailed at the prospect. The only commanders who ever took Rome by force were Roman generals waging civil war. After Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, and put an end to that threat for good, he marched on Rome, but the Servian Walls meant nothing, since all the opposition fled. Meanwhile, the city grew far beyond the old Servian Walls. Some stretches of the walls were incorporated into buildings. Other parts were neglected and left to crumble. Weeds sprouted all over them. In some places the Servian Walls look like a huge, overgrown flower bed. And people thought nothing of it. As you say, the idea that anyone would ever dare to attack Rome was simply … unthinkable. Those days are gone.”

  Gnaeus let out a long sigh, partly from sadness at the faded invincibility of his beloved city, and partly because, if Zenobia were any other woman, he would now be walking up and embracing her from behind. She was his wife, after all. But there were strict limits to their intimacy, dictated by Zenobia. He’d agreed to them before they married, and he was a man of his word.

  “No, the new walls built by Aurelian are much farther out,” he said. “In that direction, I don’t think you can see them from here at all. You’d have to go up on the Capitoline Hill, or climb to the top tiers of the Flavian Amphitheater to see them in all directions.” He drew close to her, as if to share in the view, but really so that he could feel the warmth of her naked shoulders, smell her scent, hear her breathing.