‘A good Emperor should take advice from men of experience. The Board will remain.’ Pupienus paused, thinking. ‘With myself and Balbinus elevated to the throne, there are two vacancies. One already is promised to Catius Clemens. It is fitting to the spirit of freedom in our reign that the other be filled by an open election in the Senate.’
It is right, it is just, the councillors murmured.
‘Then, if that is all, we will detain you no longer.’
It was beneath the dignitas of Senators to scramble and push, but the pavilion emptied with rapidity. In moments Pupienus was alone with Fortunatianus, his secretary, and Sanctus, the Ab Admissionibus, at the door.
Where was Menophilus with the German Guard?
Pupienus went outside.
His brother-in-law, Sextius Cethegillus, was waiting.
‘I thought you might like the company.’
‘That is considerate, old friend.’ Considerate and brave.
The sunken garden was quiet. No noise penetrated from the rest of the Palace, let alone the city beyond.
The Emperor Alexander had kept his aviaries here. Was it twenty thousand doves? Pupienus had liked the gentle noise they made. It was typical of that ineffectual Emperor that he had issued proclamations boasting of the revenue from the sale of the eggs. And all the while his avaricious mother had stripped the treasury bare.
Where was Menophilus?
‘We should go and see Balbinus.’
The four of them climbed the steps.
The great entrance hall to the Palace was unnaturally empty as they passed. There were no more than a dozen petitioners. All were down at heel, a couple looked as if they were not in their right minds. Yet the Praetorians and imperial slaves were at their posts. The soldiers saluted smartly enough, and the members of the familia Caesaris bowed.
Pupienus wondered if he should order the doors bolted and barred. Yet that simple precaution might induce panic. Every act of an Emperor was symbolic.
Coming out into the Sicilia courtyard, Pupienus was dazzled by the sunlight flashing off the walls. The distinctive cadences of a Sophist declaiming issued from the open doors of the Aula Regia. Having no desire to listen to extempore oratory, Pupienus took the arm of Cethegillus. They walked under the porticos, the other two respectfully followed.
This place had seen the first act of the revolution in Rome. Pupienus remembered the corpse of Maximinus’ Praetorian Prefect lying abandoned by the fountain; the white toga in the pool of blood, the squalidness of violent death. Vitalianus had not been a bad man; nothing more than an equestrian functionary promoted above his capabilities. Yet to unseat the tyrant it had been necessary that Vitalianus die. Menophilus had acted with decision that morning. There was no reason to suppose that he would do less today.
The summoning of the Germans might be unnecessary. Praetextatus was an anxious fool. His report of unrest in the Praetorian camp might prove unfounded.
A ripple of applause from the audience chamber. The sound of Balbinus delivering his verdict. An effete voice, but strong. You would have thought it would have been weaker after a lifetime of excess.
Louder applause, its sycophantic nature clear even beyond the threshold.
It was time to enter.
The audience turned and acknowledged the entrance of Pupienus. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw young Gordian peeping around the inner door that led to the lararium and the stairs to the rooms up under the roof. The boy was no sooner glimpsed than gone. More likely he was hiding from his ghastly mother than worshipping the household gods.
‘Health and great joy.’ Balbinus was particularly pleased with himself.
‘Health and great joy.’
The result of the contest was evident. Apsines of Gadara was preening himself like a peacock. Periges the Lydian was thoroughly downcast. Perhaps, Pupienus thought, he could put his co-Augustus to work filling the imperial coffers by removing the tax exemptions from all the myriad Sophists and their like. The gods knew he was fit for nothing else.
Pupienus addressed the audience. ‘We will detain you no longer.’
As they began to file out, he spoke softly to Balbinus. ‘You heard from Valerius Priscillianus about the unrest in the Praetorian camp?’
‘Yes.’ Balbinus did not look at him, but gazed over his shoulder at the niches with the statues of the gods.
‘Menophilus is bringing the German Guard.’
Balbinus smiled, as if he knew some important secret. ‘Do you follow those philosophers who believe power is indivisible, or are you motivated solely by ambition?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I countermanded the order.’
‘Why?’
An expression of great cunning appeared on the face of Balbinus.
‘Why?’
Balbinus leant close. His breath reeked of stale wine, and other hard to define but unpleasant things. ‘Your sons will not inherit the throne.’
Balbinus had spoken too loudly. Those who had not left stopped.
‘Are you drunk?’
There was no sound in the lofty hall, only the hush of great fear.
Pupienus pitched his voice to carry. ‘Gordian has been proclaimed Caesar. He is our heir.’
‘Not if he is tragically killed, along with me, in an uprising by your barbarians.’
Through the open windows, from down towards the Forum, came a confused roaring, like the crowd in the arena.
Pupienus strode across the hall, and out onto the balcony.
Armed men – Praetorians – were emerging from under the arch, running up towards the Palace.
Pupienus rounded on Balbinus. The porcine face was white with terror. This was not Balbinus’ doing. He was incapable.
The Aula Regia was almost empty. Even Cethegillus was gone. Only Fortunatianus and Sanctus remained.
‘The tunnel to the Capitol.’ Balbinus blundered back across the room.
Pupienus would not let his dignitas desert him now. ‘Fortunatianus, slip away, save yourself. You too, Sanctus.’
Even in this extremis, Pupienus would not run.
When he reached the door, it was blocked by the bulk of Balbinus. Beyond he saw the first soldiers.
Pupienus stepped back into the centre of the hall. All was not lost, not while he maintained his self-control. They were common soldiers. He was an Emperor. Imperial majesty and eloquence could yet return them to their duty.
Balbinus was cowering behind a column.
Pupienus drew himself up straight.
The Praetorians stopped a few paces away, perhaps overawed by their surroundings, and the still figure facing them.
Pupienus bared his throat.
‘My death at your hands is of no great consequence. I am an old man, and have lived a long and distinguished life. Every man’s life must come to an end some time.’
A wall of hostile faces. The little Greek Timesitheus among them.
‘You are the guardians and protectors of the Emperors. For you of all people to become murderers, to stain your hands with the blood of a citizen, let alone an Emperor, is an act of sacrilege.’
One or two were looking unhappily at the floor.
‘You have taken the most sacred of oaths. I have kept faith with you. There is no way in which I have harmed you. I am yours, and you are mine. Return to your oath.’
Some went to sheath their swords.
‘If you are still upset at the death of Maximinus, that was none of my doing. If you demand justice for his murderers, they will be arrested and delivered to you in chains.’
Balbinus came out from behind the pillar. ‘There will be no recriminations. We will reward you if you hand over the ringleaders.’ He thrust a fat, bejewelled hand at Timesitheus.
The little Greek stepped forward. With the pommel of his sword, he hit Balbinus hard in the face.
Balbinus reeled back, blood seeping between his fingers.
The soldiers rushed at Pupienus. If he had
been wearing a toga, he would have pulled it over his head like Julius Caesar. A soldier punched him in the stomach. He doubled up.
‘You cruel, miserable old bastard.’ The soldier hit him in the ribs.
More blows from all directions. His legs were knocked out from under him. He was on the floor. They were kicking him. He covered his head with his arms. Boots thumping into his body, his arms, his head.
‘Not a beating, kill them.’ Timesitheus was shouting. ‘Finish them.’
‘Have some fun first, sir.’
Hands were tearing at Pupienus’ tunic, ripping off his under things.
He was hauled to his feet.
Across the hall, Balbinus likewise was naked. Great rolls of flesh juddering, as he stumbled this way and that, as they pricked him with the points of their swords. Red grazes and nicks blossoming on the white skin.
A soldier grabbed Pupienus by the beard. ‘You will not be needing this where you are going.’ He yanked out a handful of hair. The others laughed. More reached in to pluck clumps from his beard.
‘Off to the camp with them, boys. Teach them the meaning of suffering.’
Pupienus was manhandled through the corridors of the Palace. Nearby he could hear Balbinus pleading and sobbing. The fat fool deserved everything. This was his fault.
‘Kill them.’
‘All in good time,’ a soldier said to Timesitheus.
There were more soldiers outside. They too were determined to beat the fallen Emperors. Pupienus was sent sprawling. A ring of boots and legs. They spat on him as they kicked and stamped.
There were broken teeth in Pupienus’ mouth, the taste of blood. Self-control. He would not beg like Balbinus. His body was nothing. The sound of screaming, his own. Self-control.
Pupienus heard and felt a rib break under a hobnailed boot. He did not deserve this. He had done no wrong. All his life he had served the Res Publica. It had been no crime, no impiety to help his father out of this world.
‘The Germans are coming!’
Was it true?
The beating stopped.
Menophilus would save him. Then he would deal with these treacherous bastards. They would know the meaning of suffering.
Pupienus was rolled onto his back.
A bearded soldier looking down the length of his sword. The point at Pupienus’ throat.
‘So perish Emperors chosen by fools.’
The soldier put his weight into the thrust.
‘Wait!’
Already the Praetorians were leaving, heading back down the path to the Forum.
‘Wait!’ Timesitheus shouted again.
‘The Germans are coming,’ one of the soldiers said. ‘We need to get back to the camp.’
‘They can do nothing. The Emperors are dead. They will go home.’
The nearest Praetorians stopped and regarded him.
‘The thing is not finished. Search the Palace. Find Gordian. You must not let the boy get away.’
EPILOGUE
Rome
The Palace, Three Days after the Ides of June, AD238
The young Caesar threw his cavalry across the river. They were brightly painted, and wonderfully detailed. Having better toys was one of the advantages of being Caesar. There were not many.
Gordian, as Junius Balbus now had to call himself, hated living in the Palace. It was too big, full of hushed and sinister passageways. And there were always people watching you, even more than in the Domus Rostrata of the Gordiani, let alone the relative obscurity of his father’s house. At least he had found this secret place up under the roof with its views out over the city. What was it his tutor Gallicanus called it? A coign of vantage. Gallicanus was very stern, but he was full of funny expressions.
Sounds of raised voices echoed up from somewhere below. The Silentarii would deal with them. That was what they did. Gordian went back to his game. His mother did not approve. Now he was the head of the family, he must act like a man. He tried to keep out of his mother’s way. She did nothing but nag, or cry. Gordian was never sure which of the dead she was mourning: his dead father, or his grandfather or uncle.
The commotion increased. It was coming from directly outside. Gordian went and looked. A mob of Praetorians was pulling along two men. The men were old and naked. One was very fat. The Praetorians were beating and kicking them, pulling at their hair and beards. It took Gordian a moment to realize the victims were the Emperors Pupienus and Balbinus. There was an eddy in the crowd. Steel flashed in the sunshine. The soldiers were running; most down the hill, some out of sight back into the Palace. They left behind in the street the two naked, mutilated corpses.
Noises coming closer. The boy had nowhere to hide. Where was Gallicanus? Where was his mother? Hobnailed boots coming up the stairs. Gordian drew the child’s sword his uncle had given him. If he was going to die, it would be like uncle Gordian; blade in hand.
The Praetorians burst in. Gordian felt the piss run hot on his thighs. The soldiers laughed. They pulled him along with them. They smelled of leather and garlic. There was blood on their hands and arms.
‘Where are you taking me?’
The rough man holding his arm laughed. ‘To your birthright, lord – the throne of the Caesars.’
HISTORICAL AFTERWORD
Time and Distance
The Roman Empire was huge. From Rome to Samosata, the easternmost location in this novel, was some fifteen hundred miles as the crow flies. On land using the Cursus Publicus, the imperial posting service with its relays of remounts, a man might expect to travel at about fifty miles in a day, rising to some hundred and fifty if there was an emergency. But such figures are misleading. Most travel was far slower, and the weather, state of the roads, availability of food and fodder, and attitude of traveller and those encountered conspired to make all journey times unreliable. Travel by sea could be very quick – Sicily to Egypt in just seven days – but it was even less reliable than ashore: a message sent by Caligula from Rome to Syria took three months to get there.
All this, and much more, is set out with wonderful clarity in two books by Lionel Casson, Travel in the Ancient World (Baltimore, and London, 1974); Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (2nd ed., Baltimore, and London, 1995).
In this novel the reader will often know of events long before characters on the frontiers.
MAXIMINUS THRAX
A new biography, Maximinus Thrax: Strongman Emperor of Rome, will be published this year. The author, Paul Pearson, was kind enough to send me an advance copy. The book is an engaging popular account, although the attempt, in the face of over a century of scholarship, to revive the theory that the Augustan History (see Afterword to Blood & Steel) was the work of six men around AD300, not one author about a century later, might not convince.
MINOR SOURCES
Three Latin historians writing in the second half of the fourth century cover the years AD235–238. Aurelius Victor and Eutropius have been translated into English by H.W. Bird, both volumes published in the Translated Texts for Historians series (Liverpool, 1993; and 1994). The anonymous Epitome de Caesaribus is available on the internet in the translation of T.M. Banchich (www.roman-emperors.org/epitome.htm).
All three accounts are very short and very unreliable. Their numerous verbal similarities, and shared errors and idiosyncrasies, lead almost all scholars to consider that the texts drew the vast majority of their information from one, no longer extant, Latin history written some time earlier in the fourth century. The latter usually is called the Kaisergeschichte (’Imperial History’), the name given it by A. Enmann, the German scholar who in 1883 first argued for its existence.
The late Greek historians, although also brief and inaccurate, are independent of the Latin tradition. The fifth-century Zosimus is translated by R.T. Ridley (Canberra, 1982), and the twelfth-century Zonaras by T.M. Banchich and E.N. Lane (London, and New York, 2009).
Reading for Herodian was given in the Afterword to Iron & Rust, and for the August
an History in Blood & Steel.
The Twelfth Sibylline Oracle ends with the death of Alexander Severus and the Thirteenth begins with the reign of Gordian III, thus we are deprived of their extraordinary mix of popular history and invention masquerading as prophecy for the reign of Maximinus and the tumultuous year AD238.
SENATORIAL DEBATES
For the meeting places and procedure of the Senate, see R.J.A. Talbert, The Senate of Imperial Rome (Princeton, 1984).
ROME
Occasionally a book changes the way history is studied. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus by Paul Zanker (English translation Ann Arbor, 1988) put visual images and the built environment of the city at the centre of Roman political and intellectual history.
The best book to have to hand when thinking about the ancient city while walking the modern is Rome: An Oxford Archaeological Guide by Amanda Claridge (2nd edition, Oxford, 2010).
Invaluable in the library is A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome by L. Richardson (Baltimore, and London, 1992).
AQUILEIA
In Roman times a city with a population perhaps approaching a hundred thousand, Aquileia now is a quiet village of some three thousand souls. Most of the site is unexcavated, but it is easy enough on the ground to explore the Forum and docks, and walk the lines of the walls in the footsteps of Menophilus.
For this novel, the Temple of Belenus is placed where the Basilica now stands.
I have not discovered any useful studies in English. Those with Italian might start with A. Calderini, Aquileia romana (Milan, 1930).
STOICISM
The philosophy of Menophilus owes a lot to Marcus Aurelius’ The Meditations, as translated by M. Staniforth (Harmondsworth, 1964), and Seneca, as recreated by James Romm in Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero (New York, 2014).
More technical guidance was drawn from various essays in The Cambridge Companion to The Stoics, edited by B. Inwood (Cambridge, 2003).
Fire and Sword Page 31