Dominus
Page 49
Martijn Icks’s book published in England as Images of Elagabalus was given a more sensational title in the United States—The Crimes of Elagabalus: The Life and Legacy of Rome’s Decadent Boy Emperor. Much of the book is devoted to what historians call the Nachleben, or cultural afterlife, of the emperor. The Nachleben of Elagabalus is extraordinarily rich and vastly outsized in proportion to the length of his reign. A particular manifestation of that Nachleben was my first introduction to Elagabalus, the novel Child of the Sun, by Kyle Onstott and Lance Horner. Published in paperback in 1972, the year I turned sixteen, it was the sort of “trashy novel” a teenager back then would hide from his mother. The novel made a huge impression on me. Now Dominus, too, becomes part of the Nachleben of Elagabalus, and part of the Nachleben of Child of the Sun, as well.
Emesa, the home city of Julia Domna and her family, once the center of Elagabalus-worship, is now known as Homs, the site of so much carnage in the Syrian civil war.
About the emperors who follow the Severans, our sources are especially bleak. But among the secondary material I was delighted to find a paper by an old college prof of mine, David Armstrong, “Gallienus in Athens” (Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 70, 1987). It was a delight to hear his voice in my head again so many years after the lectures that inspired me as an undergraduate. Someday a good novel will be written about Gallienus, but in this book he is essentially a ghost, offstage.
It is a curious thing that the Nachleben of Cleopatra is so rich but that of Zenobia is so meager. The sources are partly to blame; as usual with this period, they are scattered and conflicting. I chose to deal with the final chapter of her life, an epilogue really, which is shrouded in mystery. In the twenty-first century, Zenobia’s capital of Palmyra was made world famous even as, indeed because, its ancient ruins were obliterated by ISIS. The Temple of Bel, which Zenobia must have visited many times, is now rubble. It is painful to contemplate the archaeological storehouses of knowledge that have recently been lost across the region, not by decay but by deliberate human action.
Speaking of monotheist religious fanaticism: before the battle outside Rome, what did Constantine see in the sky, and when did he see it—or more to the point, when and how and why did he remember seeing it? To borrow a phrase from Tolkien, “this tale grew in the telling.” Raymond Van Dam’s essential study of the emperor and his vision, Constantine at the Milvian Bridge, lays out the timeline, sorts the evidence, and compellingly reflects on the tortuous relationship between history, memory, and reality. History shapes events. But memory reshapes history.
The evolution of the chi-rho symbol curiously parallels that of the swastika, an emblem that was already ancient when it was used in America in the 1910s to decorate pillows, brooches, and stationery of the Girls’ Club of Ladies’ Home Journal. Then the Nazis took it over. As the swastika predated Hitler, so the chi-rho predated Constantine. In Money in Ptolemaic Egypt, Sitta von Reden notes that “the chi-rho series of Euergetes’ reign” (246 to 222 B.C.) became “the most extensive series of bronze coins ever minted.” Thus the image of the chi-rho was widespread on coins hundreds of years before Constantine. In Studies in Constantinian Numismatics, Patrick Bruun cites the use of chi-rho to mark special passages in papyri. Then the Christians took it over.
In like fashion, the words “demon” and “pagan” were subverted and perverted. Adherents of the old religion never called themselves pagans, yet that is the insulting word invariably applied to them even by conscientious historians.
Did Constantine really call Marcus Aurelius “a buffoon”? When I first encountered this detail (unfootnoted) in a book by one of our greatest living historians, now a professor emeritus, I contacted him by email, asking the source. I received a quick reply: “Dear Colleague, I understand your curiosity, it is an odd little fact (if it was a fact), but I’m sorry to say I can’t help you. My notes were thrown out, I don’t know how many years ago.” As a researcher I was disappointed, but as an author I was rather impressed by the nimble elegance of this boilerplate response, to which I may have recourse myself in my retirement. To my rescue, in response to a posting at Facebook, came my fellow novelist Ian Ross, who led me to an obscure source, Peter the Patrician. The original Greek word is καταγέλαστον, which does indeed translate as “ludicrous” or “laughingstock.” The insults Constantine aimed at other predecessors come from the same source. No longer as obscure as it once was, The Lost History of Peter the Patrician has been published in a translation by Thomas M. Banchich.
(Several years ago, when I thought I should very soon be needing information about the deaths of Crispus and Fausta, Professor Banchich kindly shared with me an advance look at his translation The History of Zonaras: From Alexander Severus to the Death of Theodosius the Great. As it turned out, that book was published long before this one.)
The curious case of the cameo of Constantine and the satirical verses (by Flavius Ablabius) that compare him to Nero is recounted by Ruurd B. Halbertsma in his paper “Nulli tam laeti triumphi—Constantine’s Victory on a Reworked Cameo in Leiden,” published in BABESCH 90 (2015).
What are we to make of the early Christians? Robert Knapp’s insightful The Rise of Christianity: People and Gods in a Time of Magic and Miracles provides much-needed context for the competitive thought-world in which Christianity found a niche, doggedly persisted, and eventually flourished. The new religion aggressively subsumed or obliterated all of its rivals, and in the process became both more and less than it was in the beginning. Once the imminent end-days expected by the first Christians repeatedly failed to materialize (as they still do), the whole raison d’être of the religion had to be retooled, and not for the better. Would Jesus and the first Christian caterpillars have recognized the gaudy but venomous butterflies that emerged in the form of Constantine and his successors? The political rise of Christianity has been explored by Ramsay MacMullen in several excellent books, including the harrowing Christianizing the Roman Empire.
Movies and novels have occasionally dipped into this era, with mixed results. Gladiator revived cinematic interest in the ancient world, but the movie’s portrayal of Commodus struck me as wildly and willfully wrong, hewing to a Hollywood formula that pits a red-blooded hero against an effete emperor. An earlier movie, The Fall of the Roman Empire, followed the same formula (with Stephen Boyd as the hero and Christopher Plummer as Commodus). Herodian, an eyewitness and no friend of the emperor, tells us that Commodus “was the handsomest man of his time, both in beauty of features and in physical development … inferior to no man in skill and in marksmanship.” Commodus was a man’s man, into sports, hunting, and hot rods. Imagine if Ridley Scott had subverted the formula and dared to cast Russell Crowe as Commodus, instead of Joaquin Phoenix.
Another Hollywood formula is to avoid novelty and remake whatever worked before. (Some see Gladiator as a remake of The Fall of the Roman Empire.) So we see Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Nero, and a handful of others trotted out over and over, but never a cinematic Zenobia, or Elagabalus, or Julia Domna. Perhaps that’s for the best.
Novelists have been more adventurous, but not necessarily more accurate. Ramsay MacMullen notes in Christianizing the Roman Empire, “The empire had never had on the throne a man given to such bloodthirsty violence as Constantine.” That’s a startling statement when you consider the homicidal reputations of Nero, Domitian, and several other predecessors of Constantine. At the other end of the spectrum is the Constantine who wouldn’t hurt a fly, the fictional character one encounters in works by Dorothy L. Sayers (The Emperor Constantine, a play that resembles a Christmas pageant), Frank Slaughter (the novel Constantine: The Miracle of the Flaming Cross), and Evelyn Waugh (the novel Helena). They are wretched whitewashes; hagiography makes for lousy fiction. At least Waugh’s novel is occasionally funny.
What became of the Roman Empire after the end of Dominus? Gibbon was the first historian boldly to attempt a survey of the later empire, all the way to th
e annihilation of its last stronghold by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. With Latin and Greek at his command, Gibbon picked his way through sources that become ever more devious and convoluted—Byzantine, in every sense of the word. Many of those primary texts, long inaccessible to general readers, have in recent years been translated and annotated by historians, so that the curious may examine for themselves the material that so exasperated Gibbon.
In medieval times, the Romans forgot the people they once had been, and the things they once had built fell into ruin and lost their meaning. Bronze statues were particularly vulnerable; the vast majority were melted down so the metal could be reused, often as weapons. But the bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius survived, in part because the Romans had forgotten Marcus. They thought the statue represented Constantine the Great. (Imagine Constantine with a beard!) It is there no longer, but in medieval times there was still a diminutive, downtrodden figure groveling beneath the horse’s raised hoof. Local legend explained that the statue showed the mounted Constantine trampling a dwarf whom the faithless Fausta had received as a lover. This odd little fact (if it is a fact) we learn from Ferdinand Gregorovius’s History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages, and from a footnote in the Nichols translation of Mirabilia Urbis Romae, “Marvels of the City of Rome,” a sort of Baedeker Guide to the city from circa A.D. 1140.
As Marcus himself wrote, “everything fades away and quickly becomes a myth; and soon complete oblivion covers them over.”
Before oblivion arrives, let me quickly thank, as always, my husband, Rick, at my side through thick and thin since college days; my longtime editor, Keith Kahla, who knows my work better than I do myself; and my agent since forever, Alan Nevins, without whom I might never have realized the one and only possible title for this book.
ROMAN EMPERORS FROM MARCUS AURELIUS TO CONSTANTINE
A.D. 161–180
Marcus Aurelius, jointly with Lucius Verus until Verus’s death in 169
180–192
Commodus
193
Pertinax
193
Marcus Didius Julianus
193–211
Septimius Severus
211–217
Caracalla, jointly with his brother Geta until Geta’s death in 212
217–218
Macrinus
218–222
Varius Avitus Bassianus (called Antoninus or Elagabalus)
222–235
Severus Alexander
235–238
Maximinus Thrax
238
Gordian I, jointly with his son, Gordian II
238
Balbinus and Pupienus, jointly
238–244
Gordian III
244–249
Philip
249–251
Decius
251–253
Trebonianus Gallus
253
Aemilian
253–268
Gallienus, jointly with his father, Valerian, until Valerian’s capture in 260
268–270
Claudius II
270
Quintillus
270–275
Aurelian
275–276
Marcus Claudius Tacitus
276
Florianus
276–282
Probus
282–283
Carus
283–284
Carinus, first jointly with his father, Carus, then jointly with his brother, Numerian
284–305
Diocletian, jointly with Maximian from 286; both retire in 305; Maximian later attempts to come out of retirement
305–311
Galerius, jointly with Constantius until Constantius’s death in 306
306–312
Maxentius emperor in Rome; joint rulers and rivals during his reign include his father, Maximian, and Constantine, Licinius, Severus, and Maximinus Daia
312–324
Constantine and Licinius, jointly, until Licinius’s death in 324
324–337
Constantine sole ruler
ALSO BY STEVEN SAYLOR
Roma: The Novel of Ancient Rome
Empire: The Novel of Imperial Rome
A Twist at the End: A Novel of O. Henry
Have You Seen Dawn?
ROMA SUB ROSA®
IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER:
The Seven Wonders
Raiders of the Nile
Wrath of the Furies
Roman Blood
The House of the Vestals
A Gladiator Dies Only Once
Arms of Nemesis
Catilina’s Riddle
The Venus Throw
A Murder on the Appian Way
Rubicon
Last Seen in Massilia
A Mist of Prophecies
The Judgment of Caesar
The Triumph of Caesar
The Throne of Caesar
About the Author
STEVEY SAYLOR is the internationally bestselling author of the novels Roma and Empire as well as the Roma Sub Rosa series of historical mystery novels featuring Gordianus the Finder. He has appeared on the History Channel as an expert on Roman politics and life. He divides his time between Berkeley, California, and Austin, Texas.
Visit the author on his website, at www.stevensaylor.com, or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/StevenSaylorAuthor, or sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Map of the Roman Empire
The Pinarii of Rome in the Imperial Period
I. The Blood of a Gladiator (A.D. 165–192)
A.D. 165
A.D. 168
A.D. 169
A.D. 173
A.D. 180
A.D. 192
II. The Women of Emesa (A.D. 194–223)
A.D. 194
A.D. 204
A.D. 217
A.D. 219
A.D. 221
A.D. 222
A.D. 223
III. Millennium (A.D. 248–260)
A.D. 248
A.D. 260
IV. The Walled City (A.D. 274)
A.D. 274
V. The Scepter of Maxentius (A.D. 312–326)
A.D. 312
A.D. 315
A.D. 326
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Roman Emperors from Marcus Aurelius to Constantine
Also by Steven Saylor
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
First published in the United States by St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group
DOMINUS. Copyright © 2021 by Steven Saylor. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Nikolaas Eickelbeck
Cover art: The Martyrdom of St. Agnes in the Roman Forum © Peter Horree / Alamy; sky from Private Collection Photo © Christie’s Images / Bridgeman Images; type texture © altanaka/Shutterstock.com; texture © jessicahyde/Shutterstock.com (flap)
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-08781-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-08787-4 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250087874
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First Edition: 2021