Since he would enter Rome in the spring, when the Augusta wished him to behave like a young Roman, his lessons were long. Eutychianus taught him high politics, with special emphasis on the distribution of the army and the relative strength of the different provincial forces; he also tried to teach him finance. The Emperor was intelligent, and his good memory retained what he had learned; soon he could repeat the battle order of the Western legions, and the precedence of the provincial governors. Concerning finance he learned little, for there is little to be learned. Citizens look rich; the army always needs more money, and usually gets it; yet there is never enough to go round, and both citizens and soldiers perpetually complain of poverty. I think that is all that the wisest man can say about the finance of the Empire.
Eutychianus found the Emperor an apt pupil, because he was teaching him real things, things which would help him to hold the Purple. Gannys had a harder task, for what he taught was ultimately nonsense. At bottom, it is impossible to believe that a Consul is greater than a praetor, since neither of them wields the slightest power. The Senate is called the Emperor’s colleague in government; but the Emperor can have any Senator killed without trial. Jupiter on the Capitol may be the supreme ruler and protector of the Roman People; but no one truly expects any help from him.… Nevertheless, the Augusta had commanded Gannys to teach the Emperor everything a Roman noble ought to know, and the long hours in the classroom bored the poor boy dreadfully.
His lessons in drill and swordplay gradually ceased as the cold weather made it unpleasant to hang about out of doors. He had learned how to call a parade to attention, how to pick out a fault or two while inspecting a guard of honour, and how to order the men to march off when the function was over. I could not teach him how to lead the Roman army to victory, and there seemed to be no point in teaching him the tactical handling of a cohort in the presence of the enemy. If the worst came to the worst he knew how to wave his sword and charge in front, because he had done exactly that at Immae. The late Macrinus held the Purple for a year without knowing even so much.
Though the Emperor no longer practised his drill I saw more of him than ever. He had chosen me as his companion in the arduous task of learning all about chariot-racing. In that we started more or less level, and I did my best to keep up with his quick brain. We were both good horsemen; neither of us knew how much a horse should eat or how you keep him fit; neither of us had the slightest idea of how to control a chariot.
The trouble is that, though everyone watches the races, the actual job of driving a racing chariot is one of those stigmatized by our ancestors as ignoble. A man who drives a racing chariot is debarred from public office, unworthy of commissioned rank in the army, and in general considered disgraceful. Therefore the only people who learn to drive chariots are slaves; though by the time they are successful some admirer has usually bought their freedom.
Since the Emperor was set on learning how to drive a chariot the Augusta arranged that he should learn in private. In the morning he did his amusing lessons with Eutychianus, or his dull lessons with Gannys; in the afternoon he went out to a high-walled private park, where his servants had laid out a full racecourse of a furlong each way, with proper turning posts. There the freedmen employed by the circus factions of Nicomedia taught him how to guide four horses, attached to a flimsy car that will fall to pieces if you overturn it.
The Emperor graciously allowed me to watch, because the experts said I was too old and heavy to make a good driver. So I did not risk my life daily as he did. It is physically impossible to control a four-horse chariot, though a clever driver can persuade the horses to comply with his wishes. If you are riding and your horse bolts you can tug at the bit until you break his jaw or turn him over. When a chariot is going at speed the horses will pull you as readily by the reins as by the traces; they stop only because the driver dominates their stupid minds.
Some of the little slave-boys of Nicomedia could make a team of four fresh horses obey them instantly. I don’t know how they did it, and they themselves could not explain; the horses knew what was wanted from them and were eager to please their drivers. I thought at first that it might be because slaves are not afraid of breaking their necks; but then the Emperor picked up the knack, and he had more to lose by sudden death than anyone else in the world. I suppose it is a combination of courage and dexterity and being able to think as a horse thinks. Whatever it is, the Emperor possessed it.
He was enthralled by his new amusement. When sunset drove us from the racecourse he would potter about the stables by lantern-light, fussing over the horses he had driven. Chariot-driving may be an ignoble calling; but it is difficult and dangerous, and the Emperor had mastered it.
I admired his courage and skill, and he liked me the more for my admiration. That crowded household was full of people who loved him, who loved him with the fierce, stifling devotion of a Syrian lady for her helpless infant; but none of the assorted relatives who helped him to govern the Empire admired him as a man. In their eyes he was still little Bassianus, who was doing very well in a job really too difficult for him.
He liked me for another reason; I never asked him for anything. I did not seek power or promotion; surrounded as I was by all that money can buy, I had no need to ask even for money. My centurion’s pay went straight into my savings, invested in the British branch of a banking syndicate; I kept quiet about it, and no one would look in Britain for the fortune I was rumoured to be accumulating. I spent nothing on clothes; whenever I wanted to look smart I could draw another gorgeous cuirass from the quartermaster. I spent nothing on food or drink; I had only to clap my hands for a slave to bring me roast pheasant or Chian wine. When suitors pressed bribes on me which I could not refuse without offence, I at once passed on the money to a sensible slave, for preference one who was saving to buy his freedom. Even the palace servants did not hate me, as they hate most low-born favourites of the great.
The ladies trusted me as an informal bodyguard, and disregarded me as a man. They were very busy, and they had no time to eliminate friends of the Emperor who were not their rivals as rulers.
There was a great deal of ruling to be done from Nicomedia, and most of it was done by the ladies. Official correspondence went first to the Augusta, but a petitioner with a grievance might get hold of any member of the family. There were few important decisions of policy; the aim of the new government was peace abroad and retrenchment at home. The Germans were still afraid of us and the Parthians in trouble with their own subjects; we could have peace unless we wished to attack. The army was content with its lavish pay. Only the Senate in Rome was a little offended with the Emperor, or so our spies informed us; and for a very absurd reason.
When the Senate received the Emperor’s generous pardon for their letter in support of Macrinus they of course voted statues in gratitude for his clemency. But nobody in Rome knew what he looked like. At their request the Emperor sent them a portrait; and by some silly slip he sent off, without consulting any of his elders, the picture of himself that he liked best. Eutychianus or Gannys, or even I myself if I had heard of it in time, would have prevented the mistake. The picture showed him in his robes as high priest of his sky-stone, with his face painted and his hair curled and his neck hidden by splendid but unmanly jewellery. Someone who saw it started a rumour that the Emperor was a eunuch, and every stuffy Senator agreed that he could not be a true son of Romulus.
It was after this episode that the Augusta insisted on opening all letters. The lady Soaemias was willing to leave everything to her mother, so long as she might find salaries for the handsome young men who consoled her widowhood. Only the lady Mamea stood on her right to be consulted. She had been the first to see that the Emperor was unlikely to beget a son, which would make her Alexianus his natural heir. But it would be silly to set up Alexianus as a rival in the same field; a gay, beautiful boy will not win the love of soldiers who already serve a gay, beautiful young Emperor. The lady Mamea began to cultiva
te, at long range, the respectable opinion of Rome. As tutors for her son she sought worthy, frowsy, Latin-speaking sages who knew the Twelve Tables by heart.
The Augusta made every decision of importance; in this she had no rival, for no one else at court wanted to take on the laborious task of governing the civilized world. But all the others, even Gannys, thought they were entitled to get special treatment for their friends. Sometimes there was trouble, when different men received the same appointment from different patrons; then the Augusta, as head of the family, would straighten things out. But she took care never to overrule the Emperor. In name the Emperor must be supreme, for the Roman People will never consent to be governed by a woman.
The Emperor very seldom wanted a job for a friend; the reward he preferred to give was money. He got that in handfuls from the military chest, which was controlled by the Praetorian Praefect. There was always enough in this chest for the Emperor’s personal needs, and for the soldiers’ pay. No government money was spent on anything else.
The Emperor had made a number of new friends, though so far they were not greedy. Practically everyone who worked in the racing stables, slave or free, got a gold piece from him whenever he went down to look at the horses. Of course they praised the Emperor’s driving, and allowed him to take out their most valuable teams. But there was no flattery in this; for the Emperor was rapidly becoming the best chariot-driver in Nicomedia.
He took up particularly with one driver, a freedman named Gordius. This fellow was at the peak of his career, I suppose in his late twenties; for by thirty most drivers are too old for the racecourse. At any rate, he was completely an adult, which made him seem much older than the boyish Emperor. By birth he was some kind of eastern barbarian, though he spoke Greek like any Bithynian. He was chief driver for the Greens, and had been given his freedom some years before. But the most important thing about him was that he was strikingly handsome.
The Emperor quite genuinely fell in love with him. What was even more strange, Gordius quite genuinely loved the Emperor. There was nothing unequal about their relationship, nothing of the abasement that you normally find in an affair between ruler and subject. At first this puzzled me, as I watched them strolling hand-in-hand beside the race-course. Then I understood. Gordius was the leading charioteer in Nicomedia; he already had the admiration and devotion of everyone interested in racing. At the stables he was the Emperor’s equal. He had embarked on a friendship with a rich and splendid boy certainly, but one who could offer him nothing he lacked.
As usual, the Emperor did as he pleased without worrying about public opinion. Before the New Year he had fetched Gordius to the palace and installed him in the imperial bed-chamber; so that no one at court could pretend ignorance of their relationship. There was one consolation; Gordius was not added to the family council which was trying to rule the civilized world. He would not resign the duties which made him the most popular figure in Nicomedia; for most of the day he was busy at the stables.
The Augusta was worried by this addition to the family circle. One morning as I passed through the garden I found her strolling with Eutychianus and Gannys, and she called to me to join them. There had been a time, not long ago, when I would have felt abashed in the presence of the Praetorian Praefect; but Eutychianus, once he saw that I was not trying to displace him, took pains to put me at my ease. Of course no true soldier can be abashed by a female, even if the female happens to be Augusta and the grandmother of the Emperor. When Maesa asked my opinion I answered without embarrassment.
‘We have been discussing the Emperor’s new concubine.’ she began, with a frankness that came oddly from such a venerable figure. ‘What do you think of him, Duratius? More important, what do you suppose they will think of him in Rome?’
‘Why should they think anything, one way or another?’ said Eutychianus quickly. ‘ There’s nothing strange in an Emperor having a boy-friend. In Egypt they still worship Antinous. Does anyone regard the cult as a slight on the memory of the Divine Hadrianus? No one will object to Gordius, so long as he is not too greedy.’
‘But this is quite different,’ said Gannys angrily, and I understood that I had been called in to arbitrate on a quarrel among the great. ‘Hadrianus was a famous ruler in middle age, and Antinous a dancing-boy with no ambition. Gordius is ten years older than his lover. Everyone will see him as the dominant partner. Will the Romans submit quietly to the rule of an Asiatic charioteer?’
‘Well, will they, Duratius?’ said the Augusta quietly. ‘That’s what we are arguing about, because we are none of us true Romans. Your family have been citizens for centuries, and you come from the Romanized west. Tell us how you think the citizens will regard this affair.’
‘What will happen to Gordius if you decide against him?’ I asked, trying not to commit myself in this quarrel.
‘Some fatal accident – at least, it will look like an accident,’ Eutychianus answered grimly.
‘Then the Emperor will find another to take his place,’ I said, glad to find a way of escape, ‘and the successor may not be so easy to manage. Gordius the famous charioteer does not need money, and if he were eager for power he would have shown it already. Augusta, you ought to know your own grandson. He is indifferent to women, but he is not a eunuch. There will always be a boy-friend in the palace. The Romans will put up with it, as they have put up with worse behaviour from past Emperors. Let the Emperor have his way in this little matter, and then he will not bother you by interfering in the government of the Republic.’
‘Nobody minds boy-friends,’ Gannys muttered angrily. ‘A man-friend ten years older than his lover is a different matter. I still think we ought to get rid of him. But if you insist I shall drop the idea. Instead I shall give my pupil a good talking-to.’
At that moment the Emperor himself came into the garden. Such encounters happened constantly in that crowded palace where no one enforced the rules of etiquette. He was arm-in-arm with Gordius; which did not make the meeting any more cheerful.
‘Hallo,’ he called with a grin. ‘Do I interrupt a council of state? No, it can’t be that. You have Duratius with you, and he’s too sensible to waste time on politics. The man I am looking for is Eutychianus. I have a job for the Praetorians, and after all my lessons I know that I must give orders to the troops through the usual channels. If the Praetorians must undertake a mission, then their Praefect must organize it. That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Tut tut, my lord, have you begun a war without informing your council? But whoever you want us to fight the Praetorians will destroy them,’ Eutychianus answered, also grinning.
‘Oh, I don’t want to fight anybody. This is a different kind of job. I’ve been talking to Gordius, and he mentioned that he has never tasted fresh mullet. It seems that no one else in Nicomedia has ever eaten them either. Just think of it! One of the nicest fish, and my unfortunate subjects in these parts don’t even know what they look like! So I decided to give everyone down at the stable a real feast of mullet.’
‘Why not? But where do my Praetorians come in?’ asked Eutychianus.
‘They will fetch the mullet. I consulted the fishmongers, and they explained that there are no mullet to be caught within a hundred miles of Nicomedia, and it’s too expensive to bring them to market from the coast before they go bad. But if the Praetorians bring them we can give away the fish. The transport will cost nothing. Praetorians get paid every day, whether they do anything useful or not.’
Gannys frowned. ‘It’s out of the question, my lord. It’s the kind of silly freak that makes an Emperor unpopular, and the soldiers will be hurt in their dignity at having to carry fish for civilians.’
‘On the contrary, the troops will think it great fun, if we explain the plan to them properly. We’ll offer a prize for the first wagon to reach Nicomedia, and let the cohorts compete for it,’ said Eutychianus jovially. ‘ You must come with us, my lord, and we’ll show you how Praetorians can move when they hurry. For that m
atter, we might carry watercasks on the wagons, and see if we can get your fish here alive.’
‘Splendid. I’ll come with you, on the warhorse I rode at Immae. Gordius can drive his chariot at the back, to pick up anyone who falls out. The town council of Nicomedia will pay for the fish. The army transports it free of charge. We have enough wine in the palace to give free drinks with the feast. A very fine party, which they won’t forget in a hurry, and it will cost the treasury nothing at all.’
‘It’s a silly idea, and the palace will be drunk dry. Augusta, will you forbid this prank?’ snapped Gannys.
‘The Emperor has commanded. How can I forbid?’ said the Augusta quickly. She frowned at the tactless tutor. We all knew that the Emperor might never be openly overruled; the Augusta governed only because he found governing a bore. If he saw himself as subordinate to his grandmother he would soon displace her.
The mullet-feast was a great success. The Praetorians were proud to show their speed; by spacing out their transport they moved several casks of fish more than eighty miles in twelve hours. The Emperor galloped up and down the road, waving his sword and distributing gold pieces. The local peasants stood by to cheer, impressed by the might of the Roman army. Gordius picked up an elderly veteran whose foot had been crushed by a wagon-wheel, and brought him into the camp hospital at full gallop; the old boy had never ridden in a chariot before, and played up by pretending, before a large audience, to have fallen madly in love with the handsome driver. The poor of Nicomedia filled their bellies with free food, and if mullet was not what they would have chosen they were all the same grateful for the imperial largess. By midnight half the town was drunk, but in a good-tempered way, without quarrels. Everyone in the palace came to cheer, with the exception of Gannys.
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