Andivius Hedulio: Adventures of a Roman Nobleman in the Days of the Empire

by Edward Lucas White

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE MASSACRE

  Retrospectively, Cleander is talked of, if at all, chiefly as having beenbrutish, dull, stupid, venal, avaricious and cruel. Cruel and avaricioushe certainly became; venal and brutish he certainly seemed; but dull orstupid I cannot admit that he ever was. Indubitably, at the time of hisappointment to be Prefect of the Praetorium, he possessed some qualitiesfitting him, as he later was, to be entrusted by his self-indulgent masterwith the administration of the whole Empire. Certainly he was quick-thinking, prompt, ingenious, incredibly persuasive, resolute and ruthless,which qualities go far towards equipping a ruler. Without thesecharacteristics he could not have conceived or adopted the plan which hesuccessfully executed.

  Commodus caught Cleander's eye, nodded to him and sat down. Confident andsmiling, Oleander stepped forward to the platform's railing and addressedus.

  "As Prefect of the Praetorium, I am charged with the care of the personalsafety of our Prince in his Palace, in the City and wherever he may be.Among measures for his personal safety I rate high the maintenance ofdiscipline and loyalty among his frontier garrisons or theirreestablishment if impaired. By his command you are to return speedilywhence you came and tell your fellows of the complete success of yourmission. I must be sure that your report will satisfy them, that you setout on your return fully satisfied yourselves. Are you satisfied? I askyour senior sergeant to act as spokesman. After he has spoken I shall giveall who desire it the opportunity to speak."

  Sextius Baculus at once replied that they were not satisfied while thepost of Procurator of Illyricum was held by the eldest son of Perennis, orwhile he held any office, or, in fact, while he was alive.

  Cleander, in a loud, far-carrying voice, apprized the entire assemblage ofwhat Baculus had said, and replied to him:

  "From now on I am in charge of all matters pertaining to the personalsafety of Caesar, including the apprehension and execution of all traitorsand potential traitors. You may rely implicitly on me without suggestionsfrom anyone to take all measures which may be necessary in all such cases.In this case you may feel assured that I have already initiated measureswhich will infallibly lead to the traitor's return to Italy, without anyunsettlement of the loyalty of the Illyrian garrisons, to his beingquietly arrested and as quietly executed. Are you satisfied?"

  The answer was a roar of cheers, roar after roar. When the cheeringsubsided Cleander, three separate times, urged anyone who wished to speakup. No man spoke. Then he said:

  "I am commissioned by Caesar to repeat to you explicitly what he hashimself partly expressed to you twice today: his appreciation of yourfealty and good intentions, his thanks for your good order on your marchfrom Britain and for your having saved him from unsuspected peril, and hisgratitude. But please take note and remember that Caesar speciallycommissions me to say to you that no similar deputation from Britain orfrom anywhere else will ever be permitted to reach Rome, to enter Italy oreven to set out from the posts assigned to its members. Any attempt atsuch a deputation will be treated, not as well-meant effort to help ourSovereign, but as sacrilegious rebellion against him.

  "Also please note that, whereas he has accepted your advice and acted uponit, any further expression of advice from any of you or any future attemptof any legionaries to advise the Emperor will be regarded as an unbearableact of insolence and presumption and dealt with as such. Caesar commandsyou to be silent and obey.

  "Through me he notifies you that your stay at Rome is to be short, thatyou are, within a few days, under officers appointed by him, to set out onyour return march to your Gallic port, there to reembark for Britain,there to guard the frontier or keep order in the provinces. As apreparation, for your return march he bids you rest and feast; and, thatall may feast, he has lavishly provided food and wine, which you will findready at your quarters, and with that provision an ample force of cooksand servitors to prepare and distribute your banquet. Caesar now goes todine and bids you disperse to dine. I have spoken for Caesar. Obey!"

  Less heartily, perhaps, but universally, this haughty speech was respondedto by loud, tumultuous and long-lasting cheers. More cheers saluted theEmperor when he stood up and followed him till he had vanished with hisretinue, at full gallop. The men even continued to cheer until Cleander'swife and Marcia had entered their gilded carriages and been driven off inthe wake of the Imperial cortege.

  Our evening meal was truly, as Cleander had called it, a feast and abanquet. When we reached our quarters the food was ready and just readyand our repast began at once. It was calculated, in every particular, toinduce gluttonous gorging and guzzling. Before our hunger was reallysatisfied, before we had more than barely begun to drink the temptinglyexcellent wine, Agathemer whispered in Greek:

  "This banquet is an attempt to make all of us sleep far too soundly. Everyman of us will be surfeited with food and fuddled with wine. You and Imust be exceptions. Be sure to eat less than you want and to make a mereshow of drinking. We must keep awake."

  We did, and, in our tent, discussed in whispers our situation.

  "North of Nuceria," Agathemer said, "I judged that we should be safer byourselves than with these fools and rabble, but they kept such close watchon us that the risks of escape were too great. South of Narnia I havejudged us better off where we were than if wandering alone. Now whateverthe risks of an attempt to escape, whatever the perils we may encounter ifwe escape, try to escape we must. I have an intuition that this camp is,tonight, the most dangerous spot in all Italy."

  We peered out of the tent at intervals; without hindrance or danger, forour tent-mates were utterly asleep. The night was windless and warm. Amoon, more than half full, rose about midnight and, as it climbed the sky,shed a pearly light through a veil of mist which deepened and thickened.Near the ground the mist was so thick that it made escape easy, thoughblundering likely.

  We tried to judge our time so as to start a full hour before the firststreak of dawn. We traversed unhindered a camp sunk in sleep, where weheard no sound but crapulous snorings. Northward, towards the MulvianBridge, we sneaked out into the tomb-lined meadows. Through or above thedense fog we could spy the pinnacles of several vast and ambitiousmausoleums glittering in the moon-rays.

  We were not a hundred yards from the camp when I dimly perceived ahead ofus through the fog something like a wall or stockade about two yards high.A step or two further, at the same moment at which I made out that it wasa serried rank of helmetted men, a challenge rang out, sharp andperemptory.

  Instantaneously we dropped on our hands and knees and crawled back tocamp.

  "I told you I had a suspicion that this was a dangerous locality,"Agathemer whispered when we had stood up and gotten our breath. "Thosewere regular infantry of some sort. We can only hope that they are on thatside only. Let's try towards Rome."

  There, at about the same distance we were similarly challenged.

  In camp again Agathemer said:

  "Those were Praetorian infantrymen, and they were standing shoulder toshoulder. This looks bad. But I believe in taking every possible chance.Let's try towards the road."

  Eastwards also we encountered the like obstacle.

  Back we crawled unpursued. As we skurried through the snoring camp,unperceived by the sodden sleepers, Agathemer said, aloud:

  "This looks increasingly bad. The Praetorians are standing withinterlocked elbows; they look unpleasantly like samples of a completecordon round the camp. The mounted Praetorians are behind them not twohorse-lengths and less than that apart. I divined some sort of troopsmassed behind the cavalrymen. I feel frightened."

  Out we raced towards the broad Tiber, towards it we crept through fogacross the meadow. Again we were challenged. The cordon was, apparently,complete.

  As we regained the camp Agathemer said:

  "If we are to escape alive we need all our craft, and we must be quick."

  We sprinted, not to our quarters, but to those of the British veterans.Into each tent we peered.

&
nbsp; Every tent was empty!

  Agathemer, plainly, felt in a desperate hurry, yet he took time to glanceinto the most of the hundred and fifty tents, tearing along past the linesof them. He also took time, after our brief inspection was finished, topause, get his breath and say:

  "This looks worse than bad. I miss my guess if many of these slumbererswake alive. Strip!"

  We stripped of everything except our amulet bags.

  Then, at full run, stark naked, our unsheathed sheath-knives in our hands,we raced through the fog, now glimmering with the first forehint of comingdawn, along the inner edge of the veterans' tents, till we were oppositethe quarters of the tumultuary century formed from the outpourings of the_ergastulum_, at Nuceria.

  Into one of the veterans' tents we went.

  "Knife in teeth!" said Agathemer.

  The tents were lavishly provided with unsoldierly comforts, a doubleallowance of blankets and mattresses stuffed with dried reeds or sedge.Motioning me to help, Agathemer doubled a mattress and pressed on it tillit lay so. Then he doubled another and set it so that the two were about ayard apart, with their folds towards each other. Another pair he setsimilarly so that the interval between the folds was over two yards long.Then we roofed the interval, so to speak, with two mattresses laid flat,and laid two more on each of these. Not yet satisfied Agathemer led me outfour times to drag in, from the near-by tents, mattresses, two of which welaid lengthwise over the triple mattress-roof, the others we heaped overthe end of the roofed tunnel furthest from the opening of the tent.

  Then we went outside yet again and cut the ropes of the two adjacent tentsand of the one above the pile of mattresses. We threw our knives far awayand bunched up the collapsed canvas of that tent so that it formed a sortof continuation of the mattress-roofed tunnel. Then we crawled, feetfirst, into the tunnel, taking with us two full water-bottles whichAgathemer had found in one of the tents and a quarter loaf of bread, leftover from the banquet. It smelt appetizing.

  We wriggled into the tunnel side by side, until our heads were well underthe mattress-roof. We could see out under the huddled, crumpled canvas.Full in our limited view lay, in the middle of the camp street, a fatNucerian, the outline of his big chest and prominent paunch dimly visiblein the increasing light. His gurgling snores were plainly audible.

  Agathemer broke off two fragments of the bread and we munchedruminatively.

  We had hardly swallowed three mouthfuls when Agathemer exclaimed:

  "Just in time! I can hear the arrows already! Listen!"

  We listened. I could hear a sound as of hail on roofs. And, just above us,I could hear the arrows plunge into our protecting mound with a swishing,rending thud.

  "We ought to be safe," Agathemer whispered. "But we may get skewered evenas we are. Volleyed arrows drive deep."

  I heard many a volley and, after the first, since I was listening for it,I heard faintly before each volley the deep boom of thousands of powerfulbows, twanging all at the same instant.

  As the light increased I could see the drunken Nucerian with his hummockyoutline emphasized by five feathered arrows planted in his body. He musthave been killed by any of the five.

  When we saw living men pass across our outlook, their legs looked likethose of some sort of foreign auxiliaries. I made the conjecture, fromtheir movements, that they were killing the merely wounded. Certainly, oneof them drove his long sword through the prostrate, arrow-skeweredNucerian; and, sometime later, another, with quite a different type ofleg-coverings, did the like.

  After daylight we saw pass by the legs of many Praetorian infantrymen andof some cavalrymen. From the second hour we saw only legs of some novelsort of regular soldiery whose trappings neither of us could recognize.

  It grew hot in our hiding place. We talked in whispers; while talking weseemed more indifferent to the heat.

  Agathemer said:

  "All this must have been planned beforehand and carefully and veryskillfully carried out. It took ingenuity, minutely detailed arrangementsand great skill to arrange that banquet so as to get all the tumultuaryadditions to the deputation surfeited and dead drunk and yet keep theveteran legionaries near enough to being sober to be waked up, marshalledand marched out. And it took amazing eloquence to wheedle their centurionsinto abandoning their invited associates. The whole thing is a miracle. Ican't see through it."

  I may interpolate here, what I learned more than four years later, afterCleander's downfall and death and after my return from Africa, thatAgathemer's conjectures, as we talked the matter over in our nook, werecorrect. Perennis had formulated the plan and had prepared for it andgiven the preliminary orders. His was the policy of allowing the mutineersto march all the way to Rome unhindered. He, without consulting theEmperor and with every care to prevent him from suspecting what was afoot,imported a thousand archers from Crete, and as many mounted bowmen fromNumidia, from Mauretania and from Gaetulia. He planned the banquet-feast,he made arrangements for the cordon of Praetorians. The massacre was hisidea.

  Cleander must have known of all this; he could not, like Commodus, be keptin ignorance. Either before he came to our camp, or, perhaps, in hiselation at his rival's ruin and his own success, he adopted the readyplan. Most likely the separation from their fellows of the veteranmutineers was all his own idea; Perennis was not the man to carry out sobold a stroke nor so much as to conceive of it. Indubitably, after dark,the eighteen veteran sergeants were secretly called to a meeting withCleander. The fellow must have possessed superhuman powers of persuasion.Certainly he made a long speech in which he convinced the leaders of themutineers that their having associated with themselves tumultuary recruitsin Gaul and the liberated inmates of _ergastula_ in Italy was inconsistentwith their expressed loyalty to Caesar and the Commonwealth; that by suchaction, they had gravely imperilled the very existence of the Republic andthe safety of their Emperor. He won them over so completely that theyacceded, without hesitation, to his dictum that they ought to do all intheir power to repair the ill effects of their error of judgment; that theonly way was to abandon their associates, to leave them for him to dealwith and to march with all speed back to Britain to reassure their fellow-insurgents and reclaim Britain to effective loyalty.

  So completely were they under his spell that they returned to their camp,roused their men without waking any of their tumultuary associates, andmarched the whole body of veterans, in the night, across the MulvianBridge and on all day to a prepared camp near Careiae, where they spentthe night. From there they marched in two days the forty-six miles toCosa; whence they followed the Aurelian road to Marseilles, as we hadridden it, and from there marched across Gaul to Gessoriacum and shippedfor Britain, all in half the time in which they had come.

  Agathemer and I spent the whole day in our hiding place, sufferingterribly from the heat, for the day was hot, muggy and breezeless, so thatthe still sultry air was stifling. We spared our water-bottles and madetheir contents last. Our bread we munched relishingly after noon.

  Before sunset we were discovered and unearthed by some of the infantrywhose trappings were unknown to us. We found out later that they belongedto the newly-enlisted Viarii, cohorts created from picked young men judgedagile, alert, intelligent and loyal, to act as a special road-constabularyto deal with robbers and especially with the bands obeying the King of theHighwaymen and with him.

  Our captors did not treat us roughly, though they bound our hands behindus effectually. They laughed over our device for escaping the arrows andcommented on our cleverness. Our amulet-bags they ignored, being moreinterested in our brand-marks and scourge-scars. Their sergeant asked uswhere we were from.

  "Do you think it likely," Agathemer laughed, "that we would tell you;can't you read on our backs that, wherever we came from it is the lastplace on earth we want to go back to?"

  The sergeant laughed genially.

  "Mark 'em 'unidentified'," he ordered.

  They clothed us in tunics innocent of any blood-stains, but which, we feltsure
, had been taken from the corpses of our late associates.

  "Put 'em with the rest," the sergeant ordered.

  With the rest, some three hundred survivors out of more than threethousand tumultuaries, we were herded inside a convoy of constabulary andmarched in the dusk and dark to our former camp at Rubrae. There we wereliberally fed on what was, apparently, the leavings from the entertainmentafforded the mutineers there on their down-march.

  Next morning we were lined up and inspected by a superior officer with twoorderlies and two secretaries. As he passed down the rank in whichAgathemer and I stood he eyed us keenly. After a time he returned andsaid:

  "These two rascals are trying to keep together. Separate them!"

  Thereafter I saw no more of Agathemer for over four years.

  I do not wish to dwell on my wretchedness, after we were parted. Aloneamong riffraff, I was very miserable. I mourned for the faithful fellowand knew he mourned for me. I longed for him as keenly as if he had beenmy twin-brother.

  I and my fellows were marched on under close convoy, up the FlaminianHighway and the batch among which I was, was cast into the _ergastulum_ atNuceria.

  There I passed a miserable winter. Our prison was not unlike the_ergastulum_ at Placentia; ill-designed, damp, cold, filthy, swarming withvermin and crowded with wretches like myself. I was despondent in myloneliness and found harder to bear my shiverings, my fitful half-sleep inmy foul infested bunk, the horrible food, the grinding labor, the stripesand blows and insults of the guards and overseers and the jeers of myinhuman fellow-sufferers. This time I had no chance of becoming cook's-helper or of easing my circumstances in any other manner. I spent theentire winter haggard for sleep, underclad, underfed, overworked,shivering, beaten and abused.

  Conditions in that _ergastulum_ were more than amazing. It was so utterlymismanaged that, in fact, very little effective work was done, though theinmates were roused early, set to their tasks before they could reallysee, lashed all day, given but a very brief rest at noon and released onlyafter dusk. Half the prisoners judiciously directed could have groundtwice as much grain. As it was, the superintendent and overseers had farless real authority than a sort of dictator elected or selected ortolerated by the rabble. He had a sort of senate of the six most ruffianlyof the prisoners. These seven ruled the _ergastulum_ and their power waseffective for overworking and underfeeding, even more than the generality,those whom they disliked, and for diminishing the labors and increasingthe rations of their favorites. The existence of this secret governmentamong the rabble was in itself astonishing, its methods yet more so.

  Unlike the _ergastulum_ at Placentia the watch at the _ergastulum_ atNuceria was very lax and haphazard. It was effective at keeping us in;there were but three escapes all winter. But communication with theoutside world was fairly easy and was kept up unceasingly. Many of theinmates had friends among the slaves of Nuceria. The gate-guards were soremiss that, daily, one or more outsiders entered our prison and left whenthey pleased. The henchmen of the dictator even managed to slip out andspend an hour or more where they pleased in the city. This, however, waspossible only if they returned soon, for the superintendent was keen oncalling us over three times a day.

  Through the activities of those inmates who arranged to get out andreturn, and of their friends who entered and left, since the weighers ofthe grain and flour were careless and their inspectors negligent, thedictator and his friends drove a regular and profitable trade in stolenflour, which they exchanged for wine, oil, dainties, stolen clothing andsuch other articles as they desired; they even sold much of it for cash,and not only the dictator but each of the six senators had a hoard ofcoins, not merely coppers, but broad silver pieces.

  In this traffic and its advantages I had no share. In fact, of all hisfellows, I think the dictator hated me most; certainly he bullied me, mademy lot harder in countless petty ways, and abused and insulted meconstantly.

  After mid-winter I became aware of a traffic not only in dainties andwine, but in implements and weapons. Many daggers and knives were smuggledinto the _ergastulum_, not a few files. The senators had a small arsenalof old swords, regular infantry swords, rusty but dangerous. Gradually Iheard whispers of a plot. The conspirators were to file through the barsof more than one window, plastering up the filed places with filth andearth to conceal the filing, leaving a thread of metal to hold the filedbars in place. Then, when all was ready, they planned to murder theguards, overseers and superintendent, break out, sack the town-arsenal,loot shops and mansions, and then, well-clad and fully armed, take to themountains and join the bands of the King of the Highwaymen. Two of thesenators claimed to have been men of his before their incarceration andpromised to lead the rest to the haunts of his brigands.

  The date set for their attempt was the fourteenth day before the Kalendsof April, a few days before the Vernal Equinox. My gorge rose at the ideaof the burning and sacking of Nuceria, even at the slaughter of our cruelguards, overseers and superintendent. The more I thought the matter overthe less I liked the prospect. I had every reason to hate the dictator andsenators. I saw no likelihood of betterment for myself if I were carriedoff with these riffraff as one of a band of looters, murderers andoutlaws, loose in the forests.

  I contrived to disclose the plot to the prison authorities. As a resultthe _ergastulum_ was entered by the town guards, rigorously searched bythe aldermen and their apparitors, under the aldermen's eyes, all the sawnbars, files, knives, daggers and swords discovered, the suspected mentortured till the ring-leaders were identified, the dictator and hissenators flogged and manacled, and the management of the _ergastulum_renovated.

  I was conducted from the prison, given a bath, clothed in a clean, warmtunic and cloak, provided with good shoes, abundantly fed and put to sleepin a clean bed in the house of a freedman who watched closely that I didnot escape, but did everything to make me comfortable.

  The next day the chief alderman of Nuceria interrogated me at the townhall, praised me, declared that I had saved the town many horrors and muchdamage and loss, and asked me what reward I craved.

  I answered, boldly, that what I craved was what all slaves craved:freedom.

  He replied that, in his opinion, I had merited manumission; but that I wasnot the property of the municipality of Nuceria, but of the _fiscus_;[Footnote: See Note B.] I was, in short, part of the personal property ofthe Emperor and could be manumitted only by the Emperor, or by one of hislegal representatives. Such a manumission would be difficult to arrangeand its arrangement would take a long time. He would set to work to try toarrange for it. Meantime, could I not ask some reward within their powerto grant?

  I at once replied that I desired above all things never to be returned tothat _ergastulum_.

  This he promised immediately, saying that recommitment there would beequivalent to a sentence of torture and death, since my late associates,infuriated at my treachery, as they named it, would certainly inflict onme all the torments their malignity could suggest and keep on till I died.He added that he and the other aldermen had never meant to recommit me;deliverance from that _ergastulum_. they considered part of my reward andthat the least part of it. What else did I desire?

  "If," said I, "I must remain a slave and, remaining the property ofCaesar, must be employed as the administration of the _fiscus_ direct, atleast try to arrange that I be employed out of doors far from any town, ona slave farm, or at herding or wood-cutting or charcoal-burning. I haveheard that many of Caesar's slave-gangs are busy afield, on farms, orpasture-lands or in the forests."

  "That," said the alderman, "will be easy. Afield you shall go--even farafield. Do you like horses? Can you manage horses?"

  "I love all animals," I said, "and most particularly horses."

  "Then," said the alderman, "I have already in mind the very place for you,where none of your rancorous late associates can ever find you, on anImperial stock-farm or breeding-ranch in the uplands, among the forestedmountains. Would you consider it a reward, woul
d you consider it thefulfillment of your wish to be transferred from our town _ergastulum_,where you were as an Imperial slave rented out to our city, to such anImperial estate, where you will be directly under the employees of the_fiscus_?"

  "I certainly should feel rewarded," I said, "by such a transfer."

  "In addition," he concluded, "we shall present you with a new tunic andcloak and new shoes, also an extra tunic, and with a purse containing tensilver pieces."