The rebels were delighted to learn they had got their way without a revolution; for in most ways Elagabalus the son of Caracalla was just the kind of Emperor they liked. There was some hesitation over Hierocles, until an old optio spoke up for him. ‘ Why shouldn’t the Emperor keep his boy-friend?’ he shouted. ‘We have nothing against boy-friends in their proper place, which is bed. It’s different if they try to be Senators, or to run the corn supply. Hierocles does no harm, and so long as he’s the Emperor’s concubine the taxpayer won’t be rooked to support cohorts of imperial bastards.’
‘Then everything is settled, fellow-soldiers,’ said the Emperor. ‘ I am safe with you, and my guard may return to the palace. You understand, gentlemen, that all the amusements I have devised in these gardens must come to an end, now that I am parted from my dear stable boys? Would you care to join me in a final party, before the sun rises tomorrow to find all Rome virtuous?’
Cheering, the rebels set off in chase of the carriage-girls. The guard marched glumly away, seeing mutiny rewarded with a pleasant debauch while good soldiers stood to their posts. As I marched with them, I looked back at the Emperor; he was standing proudly, his stomach tucked in and his chest thrown out, the most beautiful youth in the world. I saw that he was actually proud of what he had done. In his own eyes he had quelled a dangerous revolt by a single speech to the troops, in the manner of the Divine Julius. He was not a coward, in spite of appearances; but he was very foolish.
During that night’s party the gardens were sacked. The pavilions were destroyed, the trees and bushes smashed, the exotic beasts killed or stolen; even the carriages were pulled to pieces by men eager to steal their ivory panels. Most of the carriage-girls were taken to the Camp, though a few preferred the brothels of the City. The stable boys fled to the palace, the next day fled further to Asia. No sensible man could disapprove, but all the same I was sorry. With those gardens something unique, a place beautiful and happy, had vanished from Rome.
As soon as I was free to leave the palace I went to a banker and transferred the rest of my savings to Britain, except for a hundred gold pieces which I carried in a belt under my corselet. For now I wore full armour and carried my shield wherever I went. An Emperor who has once given way to mutineers is on the way out. I was marked as his favourite, and unless I was very careful I would share his downfall.
The Emperor did not recognize his danger, and it seemed cruel to disillusion him. He still ruled the Roman world, so long as he did not interfere with the army and no Emperor has dared to interfere with the army since the days of the Divine Severus. In fact, very soon after the mutiny he displayed his absolute power in striking fashion; but then anyone can bully the unfortunate Senate.
When the Emperor sent me to the Camp he had sent another messenger to Gordius, who thereupon rose in the Senate to annouce that Alexianus had been deprived of all his honours. Of course the Senators have to ratify any imperial decree, even if, as in this case, it is introduced by a disreputable Senator. But the Fathers showed their feelings by receiving the announcement in silence, instead of with the usual cheers.
When the Emperor heard of this he was furious. That Senators should dare to show their disapproval seemed to him the ultimate insult. He proclaimed that meetings of the Senate were suspended until further notice, and, even more drastic, that all Senators must at once leave Rome.
Ten days later I was with the Emperor as he proceeded from the palace to the Camp. He had taken to visiting the Camp every day; I suppose he was looking out for handsome young men, now that he had been deprived of his stable boys. If there had been young recruits in the corps we might have had more trouble, but no one can be a Praetorian until he has done at least twelve years’ service. I was his only.
Now he grumbled that all this business of Consuls, and inauguration, and the auspices, was sheer nonsense; the Consuls were dummies, the flight of birds and the livers of sacrificial oxen meant nothing, Jupiter could neither help nor harm an Empire which was based on the swords of the legionaries. He was speaking the truth, of course. But then you might say that the Empire is sheer nonsense, and the Emperor too; neither makes very much sense, nor does anything useful in the world. But if the Empire is to continue Consuls must be inaugurated, and the omens read with appropriate ceremony; it is a most useful way of persuading the taxpayers to keep on trying.
He should have been at the Senate House soon after sunrise, for these antique rites begin early. Instead he sat in his bed-chamber, decked out in his Consul’s robes, muttering petulant blasphemies. The soldiers of his escort were waiting in the forecourt, uncomfortable in their ceremonial armour, and the horses of the triumphal chariot grew restive. At length the guard commander, Antiochianus again, sent me to find out the reason for the delay.
The Emperor sprawled in a comfortable arm-chair, with Hierocles crouched at his feet looking frightened. Eutychianus, the Augusta, and the lady Mamea were all arguing with him; but he would not budge. The Augusta had just tried reminding him that Alexianus Caesar was now waiting in the Senate House. How shaming if a thirteen-year-old could play his part worthily while the adult Emperor sulked at home! It might be worse than shaming if Alexianus were inauguarated Consul in the absence of his colleague. The Emperor answered with a flood of obscenities, picked up in the stable.
Eutychianus took me aside. ‘If this goes on we may have to carry him by force to the Senate. Otherwise Alexianus will steal a march on us. Meanwhile that appalling ass the Clarissima confirms him in his stubbornness, just because she has quarrelled with her sister; and the lady Mamea adds fuel to the fire while pretending to make him see reason. What shall we do?’ he asked with a despairing shrug.
‘Have you tried the Empress?’ I suggested.
‘What’s the use? He’s tired of her. That filthy little Hierocles shares his bed every night.’
All the same, they sent for the Empress; and my suggestion worked, though I had made it only because I could think of nothing better. Faustina knelt before him, in mourning garments and with her hair loose. At once he agreed to behave himself.
We should have guesssed it at the outset. The Emperor saw most of his advisers as ‘the grown-ups’, who had told him what he ought to do while he was still a child. Only with Faustina had he conducted himself as a man, only in her eyes did he wish to appear a sensible adult. When she asked something of him he had to give her a reasonable answer.
It was very late when we set off for the Senate House. During the ceremony young Alexianus behaved with perfect aplomb, while the Emperor sulked and grumbled like a baby. But worse was to follow. He flatly refused to go to the Capitol, and would not allow the Caesar to go alone. The sacrifice was offered by the urban praetor, as though there were no Consuls in Rome.
The winter was cold, after a bad harvest, and in Rome there was distress among the poor. Claudius the Barber used to provide abundant grain, at great cost to the treasury. The wholesalers knew he had the Emperor behind him, and things were so managed that everyone concerned with the corn supply made a very handsome profit indeed. But just after harvest the soldiers had sent Claudius back to Nicomedia. The respectable Senator who was now Praefect of the corn supply thought first of checking dishonesty; corn that should have come to Rome remained in the provinces.
It was a situation in which an energetic ruler might have regained all his popularity; if the Emperor has Rome behind him, and the Praetorians paid up to date, he can ignore suffering in the provinces. But our young Emperor refused to do anything useful. He had made up his mind that his advisers, and especially his family, had bullied him unkindly in the matter of the Consulship; in revenge he was going to make things difficult for them.
His gardens had been ravaged and his playmates dispersed; there was no money in the treasury and very little in the privy purse. He could no longer devise the magnificent orgies which had amused him when first he came to Rome. So now he gave ostensibly correct dinners, inviting the conventional number of eight guests
; and these guests were the kind of eminent public servants who ought to be invited to dine with the Emperor. But when the time came for them to leave the palace they were no longer friendly to the government.
The simplest, and yet perhaps the most subtle, of his tricks was to fill his table with respectable gentlemen who had something in common, but something they were ashamed of. At one party all the guests were bald, and the dancing-girls who entertained them with sober traditional dances had shaven heads. Another dinner was given for eight senior officers, who did not notice until they were assembled that each had lost an eye. They were entertained by a harpist blind from birth, for the kind-hearted Emperor would not mutilate a slave even to further a practical joke. The most difficult party to collect was a gathering of eight veterans on crutches, who were entertained by a famous one-legged tightrope dancer.
At these parties the Emperor repeated his old joke of the inedible food. At each course one guest would be served with a plate of the stuff; but the imitations were no longer painted wax. Apples were carved out of crystal, peas were made of gold, beans of amber, lentils of rubies. The guest who got this imitation was allowed to take it home, which the Emperor considered ample recompense for being made to look ridiculous in public. But the elderly noblemen he invited and mocked had plenty of money, and did not consider a handful of jewels a fair exchange for their lost dignity.
The Emperor was energetic and full of ideas. But at seventeen he was still in love with the pranks that had amused him when he was fourteen; children will repeat a favourite game over and over, long after a grown man has tired of it, and in some ways this vigorous Emperor was still a child. Of course I was never invited to these new-style parties, because of my lowly rank. But even I, hearing of them from the palace servants, wished that occasionally the Emperor would give an ordinary sensible dinner, or at least think of a joke that was both new and funny.
The Augusta and the Praetorian Praefect were both worried at the growing weakness of the government. The soldiers, now that they had chased away the stable boys, saw themselves masters of the state; they were beginning to despise the Emperor, though so long as they enjoyed their pay and privileges they were content to serve him. The Senate of course hated him, and the mob was beginning to think him a tedious bore. But the Emperor now avoided the Augusta, and though he never refused Eutychianus, if he made a concrete demand, he would not follow his advice in matters of daily life. A brisk war on the frontier would have given everyone a new interest; but the Emperor, liking the comfort of his palace, would not lead his army to the Rhine.
The anniversary of the foundation of Rome is celebrated annually in March. The keepers of the record told us that this would be the 975th birthday of the City, which seemed to call for something extra in the way of commemoration. The Emperor was already planning the Secular Games he would hold in twenty-five years, to mark the millenary. This year the Games also were very fine, but the Emperor never really enjoyed watching gladiators kill one another; his chief interest was in the interlude performed in the dinner hour. The bloodless interlude shown that year was the lewdest in the history of Rome. It was well known that the Emperor had designed it, and even I blushed as I watched it.
But the Emperor agreed with Eutychianus that the real celebration of the birthday of Rome, the festival of Mars in his own month of March, should be held in the Camp. The Emperor would offer the sacrifice, and afterwards distribute rewards among his faithful Praetorians, the most eminent servants of Mars. It would be a great ceremony, in the presence of the whole imperial family.
That meant in the presence of the Augusta, the Clarissima, the Empress and the lady Mamea. The trouble was that the Clarissima had not spoken to her sister since the military revolt last autumn. She believed (correctly) that Mamea had inspired the mutiny; and that the Empress had used what little influence she possessed to further the cause of her closest friend. At first she declared that there must be two ceremonies, if Alexianus Caesar need play any part at all. She, with the Emperor, would offer sacrifice and distribute a donative; after they had left the Camp the Caesar might do the same thing, though of course on a lesser scale.
Eutychianus would not agree. He pointed out that to leave Alexianus loose in the Camp without the Emperor would be asking for trouble; even if the boy behaved himself some of the soldiers might acclaim him. The Emperor must be beside him all the time, so that the soldiers could only cheer for the two Consuls, the joint heirs of the house of Antoninus Severus.
The ladies of the palace no longer confided in me, but servants told us in the guard-room all that passed in the private apartments (as I have already said, it was a court that did not seek secrecy). We heard that the Augusta had reasserted her authority. She had summoned her daughters and commanded them to make friends. They obeyed their mother; the Clarissima even spoke kindly to the Empress. The Emperor, as far as we could make out, remained unreconciled but indifferent. He was going to the Camp, because that was his duty and anyway he liked the company of soldiers; with him would come a great train, and if his cousin and his aunt chose to join it he had no serious objection.
On the day before the ceremony a clumsy ass of a soldier managed to tread on my foot as I was falling in for guard mounting. On parade I stood steady enough, for to any real veteran the ceremonial guard mounting in the palace forecourt is the most serious business of the day; but I suppose I limped a little during the Slow March. In the afternoon I was surprised to receive a summons from the Praetorian Praefect; when I reported at his little office in the palace he received me with a smile, and suggested that I should report sick.
‘Let’s look at that foot of yours,’ he said kindly. ‘Yes, I can see the mark of the hobnails. A military boot does a lot of damage. Now tomorrow we shall be standing at attention for hours and hours, while the Emperor sacrifices to Mars and makes a speech to his loyal troops. Even a sound man will be leg-weary by the end of it. Why don’t you put on a bandage and stay comfortably in the guard-room? I know you are the Emperor’s personal bodyguard, but after all he will be in the midst of his faithful Praetorians.’
‘It’s nothing, my lord,’ I assured him. ‘After twenty years’ service I can stand on parade for an hour or two. It’s going to be a trying day for the Emperor, with his cousin at his elbow all the time. The boy gets on his nerves. He will feel happier with me at his back; not that I am a better bodyguard than any other Praetorian, but he’s used to me. Anyway, I like to see big military functions. That’s one reason why I stayed on in the army.’
‘I was advising you for your own good,’ he answered, looking at me with an odd expression. ‘But if you think you can be useful to the Emperor I suppose you must obey the call of duty.’
I went away puzzled. The Praetorian Praefect does not usually invite a centurion to go sick with a sore toe.
The great day began with a rather troublesome march from the palace to the Camp. The Emperor went in a triumphal four-horse chariot, and his cousin the Caesar rode a warhorse; but the ladies must be carried in litters and of course the escort must march. I walked immediately behind the Emperor’s chariot, ahead of the cohort on escort duty; we all fretted lest we should arrive sweating and with dusty greaves, under the eyes of cool and immaculate Praetorians.
At the Camp there must have been more than 10,000 troops drawn up in close order, watchmen from the City as well as genuine Praetorians. The great parade ground was packed, until there was hardly room before the tribunal for the sacrificial oxen. The General Salute crashed out to greet the Emperor. Then there was an awkward pause while we waited for the ladies to alight from their litters and climb to the lofty platform. The etiquette on these occasion is that the Emperor shall be the last to mount the tribunal, so that the killing of the oxen can begin the moment he is in position.
The ceremony had been ill planned. I gathered from muttered comments that at the last minute the Augusta had altered the arrangements of the Praetorian Praefect. If there were to be ladies on the
tribunal, in itself an innovation, they should have been carried to the Camp earlier, to wait for the Emperor; but the Augusta had insisted that they should figure in the procession. The horses of the triumphal chariot grew restive at the delay, and I could see Emperor was itching to snatch the reins from the nervous military driver. But while he waited he made a very fine figure, in gilded armour and a great many necklaces and bracelets; he was bareheaded save for the laurel wreath, with his beautiful golden hair floating free. The soldiers cheered from their hearts the gallant young hero of Immae.
When all the ladies were in position the Caesar dismounted. There followed a regrettable muddle, if indeed it came about by chance. As the Emperor got down from his chariot the Caesar stood by the lowest step. First he moved aside as though to wait for his cousin and lord to precede him; then, remembering the protocol of the Camp, he changed his mind. The result was that he marched up the steps a pace before the Emperor. I myself was a pace behind my lord, because as his personal bodyguard I must be near him wherever he went. As the Caesar ascended the tribunal he appeared to lead a following of two, and one of them his sovereign.
The Emperor shrugged his shoulders, dismissing the slight as an unimportant accident; but the Clarissima lost her temper in public. Turning on the lady Mamea, she gave her a resounding slap on the cheek. Then she was screaming abuse at the top of her voice.
‘It’s just like you, Mamea, with your sly cozening ways. Making your silly little brat take precedence of the Emperor! But all the same he’s second, second, do you hear? My son is the heir of the Divine Caracalla, and yours is only important because he’s the Emperor’s cousin.’
‘My son is as much Caracalla’s heir as yours,’ Mamea answered with spirit. ‘ Caracalla didn’t father either of them, even though you boast of your imagined adultery. And my son is a noble Roman, not the bride of a charioteer.’
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