The Philosopher Prince

by Paul Waters

  ‘You see how it is, Drusus? He distrusts even my victories. Those, at least, I thought would please him.’

  ‘Well, the court is the court,’ said Eutherius, ‘and the emperor is the emperor. But listen to this: at every town on my journey, you were on the people’s lips; they have not tired of your victories, and Constantius knows it. Do you understand now why he is irked?’

  ‘He claims my successes as his own. Is that not enough?’

  ‘A man may lie to others; but he cannot lie to himself. Constantius needs a victory of his own. He does not care to have the moon outshine the sun.’

  He sat back and sipped at his spiced wine. ‘At court, I took the chance to speak to some old friends. It seems there is a new faction, led by the chamberlain. Whatever Constantius’s view might be – and who can tell? – we can be sure the chamberlain knows the truth of your success, which is far more dangerous to us.’

  ‘Have I not done as I was asked?’

  ‘You never were a politician, my dear. The chamberlain sent you here not to succeed, but to fail. And now he sees his plans undone. He sees instead that you become popular, a hero in the people’s eyes, while Constantius languishes in his palace, achieving nothing.’

  Oribasius, from his stool beside the bookcase, said, ‘What else can we do? Allow ourselves to be defeated, merely to please the chamberlain?’

  Eutherius gestured, spreading his open palm at him. ‘And there,’ he said, ‘is the paradox: the chamberlain thought he was sending a naive student to Gaul to meet his death. Now, instead, he finds a victorious warrior. He must be spitting blood. And as for Constantius, well, everyone knows the emperor hates heroes.’

  FOUR

  EARLY THE FOLLOWING SPRING, a new official appeared at the palace. His name was Gaudentius, and it was put out – it was never clear by whom – that he was attached to the office of Florentius. But no one ever saw him do any work at the prefect’s offices, and he had a habit of lurking about in places where normal business would not take him.

  Before long, everyone assumed he was a spy of Florentius’s, but even so it was hard to take him with much seriousness. He came from Dacia or Thrace; and had a Thracian’s ruddy hair, which stood up straight on his forehead in an unwieldy brush. This, together with his protuberant pale eyes, his thick lips and his habit of breathing through his open mouth, made him look like a comedy mask in the theatre. Apart from the jokes, I daresay I should not have taken much heed of him, except that he started following Marcellus, waylaying him in the corridors and courts, finding excuses to converse with him as if they were long-lost friends.

  Marcellus, never quick to recognize guile in others, supposed he had picked up an admirer. I smiled at his innocence, and reminded him not to say anything in Gaudentius’s hearing which he did not want to get back to the prefect.

  I think, at first, he thought this over-cautious of me. But then one day, when we were walking together to the stables, he asked, ‘Has Gaudentius said anything to you lately?’

  ‘No, nothing.’ And I added with a laugh, for it had become something of a joke between us, ‘He has eyes only for you.’

  He gave me a shove. ‘Drusus, I’m serious.’

  ‘Then no. He has sense enough to tell I don’t like him and keeps away from me. But why? What has happened?’

  ‘He’s been asking questions about Julian again. It’s not the first time.’

  I asked what he had said.

  Marcellus furrowed his brow. ‘Oh, he doesn’t come out with it directly, it’s all hints and unfinished sentences, nothing you can nail down. This morning, for instance, he came to see my new mare, or so he claimed. He pretended to be interested for a while – though you can tell he knows nothing about horses. Then, suddenly, in the middle of his chatter, he made a ridiculous show of glancing over the stable-pens to make sure no one was listening, then lowering his voice asked if I had heard any of the tribunes complaining about Julian. He even asked if you had said anything.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘I told him to go and ask the tribunes himself.’

  He frowned up at the sky with its fast-moving clouds coming in from the west. Irritably he pushed his hand through his hair. He hated subterfuge.

  ‘It will rain later,’ he said absently. And then, ‘I suppose I was quite sharp with him. Anyway, afterwards he grew angry, saying he had only been trying to do me a favour. He said that Julian was heading for a fall, and I had better keep my distance if I knew what was good for me.’

  ‘I told you before, he is Florentius’s crony. And no one needs a spy to know what he thinks of Julian.’

  ‘Yes, well you were right about him. In any case, I expect he’ll leave me alone now.’

  We said no more on the matter, for just then young Rufus the squadron trumpeter appeared under the arch of the stable yard, leading a sleek chestnut mare. He waved and came over, and after that all the talk was of horses.

  In the time since we returned from the Meuse, Marcellus had been working hard to get the cavalry recruits into shape. He had taken them out to the open country around Paris, where they could practise jumping ditches, clearing walls and leaping banks; where horse could bond with rider, and riders with one another. Marcellus was well liked, and Rufus had attached himself to him like a trusting dog. He was a good-natured, fine-looking youth of eighteen, with black hair, a fresh face, and striking bright eyes. His father was a horse-dealer in Marseilles, and Rufus had grown up with horses. He looked young for his age, and was teased about it. But he was a natural horseman.

  ‘Well, what do you think of her, Drusus?’ he asked smiling.

  I smiled back, complimented him on the creature, and listened while he told me how he had spent the morning helping the groom. It was impossible to dislike the boy, and there was something moving in his tender love of horses, a kind of innocence that most men would try to conceal. I could understand why Marcellus had taken him under his wing.

  But Gaudentius and his clumsy spying stayed on my mind, and when next I saw Eutherius I mentioned what had happened.

  I made light of it, half-expecting him to laugh it off, for he was used to intrigue of all sorts, and regarded Florentius as something of an amateur. But instead he looked sharply and asked me to describe Gaudentius, whom he had not seen.

  When I had finished he nodded and said, ‘Yes, I know him. He is one of Constantius’s agents.’

  ‘So he is not working for Florentius after all?’

  ‘The emperor’s agents do not leave their employment, especially not for a demotion such as that.’ He lifted a fig from a bowl of dried fruits and squinted at it. ‘He will be reporting back to someone at court; the chamberlain, I expect.’

  ‘He seems harmless enough – a bit of a fool, really.’ ‘Oh he is an incompetent buffoon,’ said Eutherius, ‘and clearly it was intended that he should be noticed. Never-theless, men have died because of him. You should not underestimate his capacity for mischief.’

  All through winter, Julian had worked on his strategy, consulting with the commanders and scouts, poring over maps of the frontier regions, studying each pass and plain and river crossing. In his first campaigns, when barbarians were ranging all over Gaul, he had done no more than drive them back wherever he found them, like a man stopping up leaks in a cistern. But now his plans had firmed: he wanted to bring about a lasting peace.

  There had been a time, he said, when the frontier was a defensible line extending from where the Rhine flowed into the northern sea, all the way eastwards past Strasburg to the great barrier mountains of Raetia in the south. But in our weakness we had permitted Alamans and Franks and other itinerant German tribes to settle on Roman land; and now they had occupied it for so long they considered it their own.

  At first, like beggars grateful for what they are given, these settlers had promised to respect Roman laws and live in peace. But German barbarians are naturally proud, and have not learned to temper their pride with reason. When they learn
ed they could attack their undefended neighbours with impunity, they abandoned farming and turned to banditry instead. They stole crops; they burned settlements; they seized the helpless citizens and used them as their slaves. Such behaviour, since it had been so long tolerated, the barbarians had come to regard as their due. ‘Yet why do we permit it?’ Julian asked. ‘Do we fear them? Or is it that we have lost faith in ourselves?’

  He returned his attention to the great parchment map on the table. ‘We must restore the frontiers,’ he said. ‘We must drive them back across the Rhine from east to west; or, one day, when our attention is elsewhere, they will sweep down through the passes into the plains of Gaul; and after Gaul then Spain, and Italy, and Rome itself.’

  At this, the quaestors and tribunes around the table looked sideways at one another and exchanged private glances. The Caesar liked to exaggerate such things. But to say that Rome itself might fall, well that was taking credulity too far.

  But Julian was still intent on the map. He did not see their knowing smiles. ‘We must not allow it,’ he declared. His finger stabbed at the curving line of the Rhine. ‘It is here,’ he said, ‘that we must hold them!’

  He waited impatiently for the long northern winter to pass. When the first blossom showed on the plum trees in the courtyard, and the yellow crocuses appeared on the riverbank, he ordered the army to make ready. Only then did Florentius come to him and say the supplies had not yet arrived from Aquitaine.

  ‘Then where are they?’ demanded Julian. ‘You knew of my plans; you have had all winter to prepare.’

  Florentius gave one of his astringent smiles and explained as if he were speaking to a fool that the progress of imperial convoys was hard to predict, especially in winter; furthermore there had been sickness in the requisitions office, causing unavoidable delays; orders had to be approved and reviewed and then passed up for higher consideration; surely a man in the Caesar’s position understood such matters? He talked on, outlining in detail each difficulty, his voice monotonous and complacent.

  Julian stared at him, the line of his mouth hardening. ‘Then when,’ he said, finally interrupting, ‘will I have my supplies?’

  ‘Perhaps in a month; possibly longer. I cannot say for sure, as I have just explained.’

  ‘The convoy will be somewhere, will it not?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then dispatch one of your people to find it. Will that be possible, Prefect? Or must I go myself?’

  ‘That will not be necessary,’ began Florentius smoothly; but Julian broke in with, ‘Good; then I await your answer. And now, it seems, we both have work to do.’

  And with that he turned and left the room, not trusting himself, I believe, to remain.

  But I was still there, and now the prefect turned to me and glared. The Caesar needed to understand, he said coldly, that there were procedures which had to be followed; and in all truth he should have considered these matters the previous year, or even the year before. If he now found himself in difficulties he had only his own reckless temperament to blame.

  If Florentius thought he was addressing an ally, he was mistaken. I heard him out, then said, ‘Our enemies, sir, have not yet learned to wait on the convenience of administrators and bureaucrats.’ And then I too excused myself and left him.

  Time passed. Days became weeks, and still the supply train did not arrive.

  Julian complained he was losing all the advantage of surprise. Each day of delay would cost Roman lives. He waited a month; then, one early morning, he said, ‘Come up to the camp with me, Drusus. I want to inspect the granaries.’

  We rode up to the fort, and with the quartermaster standing beside us we peered into the dark timber-floored chambers at the remains of the winter barley ration.

  Julian picked up a handful and sifted it through his fingers. ‘It will do for twenty days,’ he said. He ordered the quartermaster to have it baked into biscuit. Then, turning to me, he said with the hint of a smile, ‘I wonder how long it will be before the prefect comes to see me.’

  We did not have long to wait. Before the day was out, Florentius came bursting into Julian’s study, attended by a train of pinch-faced officials. He ignored Oribasius and me, and cried, ‘The Caesar jokes! You cannot propose to march with only twenty days’ ration.’

  Julian raised a quizzical brow. ‘I do not joke, Prefect.’ ‘I cannot assure the supplies you need.’

  ‘As you have said. But there is a task to be done. I shall not wait any longer for your department to catch up. Twenty days ought to suffice for you to deliver what is needed. If not, the army will go hungry, and we can both explain it to the emperor.’

  Florentius was not lacking in intelligence; no man who is wholly foolish can rise so high. But perhaps comfort, and prosperity, and the habit of being obeyed without question, had formed on his character a husk of insensitivity, like the crust on the surface of rich, unstirred cream. Whatever the cause, four days later, when Julian was touring the camp, making final preparations to march, we strode into the main courtyard and saw in the middle a pair of part-loaded wagons and a group of Florentius’s liveried officials clustered about them.

  ‘What is this?’ asked Julian, turning to the nearest trooper.

  ‘It is the prefect’s luggage, sir.’

  Just then, from the other side of the wagon, Florentius’s

  chief steward appeared. He was a crass, self-important

  man who had learned his officiousness from his master. ‘Can I help you?’ he enquired in a loud, cold voice. ‘Tell me,’ asked Julian, ‘is the prefect going somewhere?’ ‘Why, he is accompanying the army, of course.’

  ‘Is he now?’ Julian nodded slowly, then glanced round to where a detachment of men was passing. He beckoned to the captain. ‘Offload all this,’ he ordered.

  ‘But sir—!’ protested the steward.

  ‘You may tell the prefect,’ said Julian, raising his voice to silence him, ‘that he shall remain here; and perhaps, if we are fortunate, he will manage to locate our supplies. Then, if he wishes, he may join us, bringing the supplies with him. But until that time, we have no need of him.’

  He turned and strode away, leaving the astonished servant staring, while the troops, grinning to one another, heaved down Florentius’s bronze-bound chests and ornate boxes, and flung them into a pile in the middle of the fortress yard.

  *

  We marched next day, in bright, cool spring weather. Where we encountered pockets of barbarians, we engaged them. But mostly they just slipped off at our approach, like grass-snakes at the sound of footfalls.

  Then, near Tongres, envoys arrived from the Franks, demanding to see the Caesar.

  ‘Very well,’ said Julian. ‘Let us hear what they have to say.’

  We arranged to meet in the stone barn of a ruined farmstead. Eventually, after a long wait, the Frankish ambassador came swaggering in. He was tall, like all Germans, clad in heavy furs clustered with brooches inlaid with precious stones. His long yellow hair was tied back in intricate knots, a labour as fine as any Keltic bronzework.

  He paused at the line of officers, inspecting us – Marcellus and me; then Severus, Arintheus, Victor, Valentinian and others – all of us dressed in our best uniforms with our plumed helmets and polished breastplates and scarlet cloaks. He cast his eyes disdainfully over us as if we were the dregs of cattle, gave a scornful bark, and then, at his own desultory pace, like a fat man taking a summer stroll in his pleasure garden, he advanced to the dais where Julian stood waiting. Our display of might, as old Severus commented later, would once have impressed the barbarians into respect. But no longer. They had learned that the mailed glove concealed nothing but a trembling hand.

  At the makeshift dais he halted and made a show of looking about him, as if the young lean soldier before him could not possibly be the Caesar. But he knew well enough who Julian was. Then at last he spoke, in rough accented Latin. What was the meaning, he wished to know, of bringing our army so cl
ose to Frankish lands? Our closeness was a threat, a provocation. He demanded that we withdraw.

  All this took some time, for it was more of a harangue than an ordered speech, and every so often he broke off to make comments in his Frankish tongue to the fur-clad lieutenants who stood beside him. But when at length he was finished, and was standing with his broad hands on his hips, Julian replied pleasantly that he had received reports of brigands in the area, marauding upon Roman land; he was sure the ambassador’s own people had nothing to do with these criminals, and so they had nothing to fear.

  The ambassador laughed. His lieutenants, taking his lead, laughed too. Then, as suddenly as a sword-blade slicing through rope, he broke off. Jutting his great blond-bearded chin at Julian he cried, ‘We know nothing of these brigands you speak of. Romans have not disturbed us for many years. Do you wish for war?’

  ‘We wish for peace,’ said Julian. He paused, took a step forward, and fixed the ambassador with his eye. ‘We wish for peace, and we shall make sure that we have it. You may go and tell that to your chief.’

  He sent the envoys off, and we continued north, pausing to restore abandoned forts wherever we found them. Still there was no word from Paris. Mindful of our rations, Julian sent out troops of men to hunt for boar and deer. The forts had to be garrisoned, and the garrisons fed.

  Julian supplied them by dividing the men’s biscuit rations. The men grumbled; but there was no other way. And here Julian made a mistake, for he promised to make up what they lacked by requisitioning crops along the way, and that the supplies from Aquitaine should soon arrive – a dangerous promise, since it was not his to deliver. The men believed him, because he had never failed them. But after he had finished his address and they were dispersing, I saw long faces in the crowd. I shrugged it off as nothing. I too was taken up in the dream he had woven.

  And meanwhile we continued to advance.

  Sometimes we fought minor skirmishes; but mostly the enemy declined to fight. Though they are fearsome when they gather into a horde, barbarians quickly fall to squabbling among themselves, lacking the discipline and order to forge themselves into a great army. So each small tribe, looking to itself, made its own peace with us, swearing solemn promises of submission and loyalty.