The Caspian Gates

by Harry Sidebottom

  Three further embassies had been seen. Two, one from Achaea, the other from North Africa, had both been granted their petitions for tax relief: five years each. Neither community was particularly large or prosperous, so imperial munificence could be advertised loudly, while the fiscus lost little.

  The final deputation had been more diverting. The people of an isolated village high in the Rhodope mountains had found a satyr sleeping in their fields. They had stoned the creature to death. As was always the way with the wondrous, they had brought the remains to the emperor. It was a pity the skin had not been better preserved. But the emperor and his comites had studied it closely. Although it resembled a man, the tail and hooves were still to be distinguished. Gallienus thanked the peasants graciously: it would form a fitting addition to the miraculous menagerie – the dead tritons and centaurs, the skeletons of heroes, the feathers of the phoenix, and the living dwarfs and giants, human and animal – exhibited at Rome in the palace and stored in its cellars. The rustics left rewarded with more coins than they had ever seen in their lives. Roman government had to be personal, and it had to be bountiful.

  Now it was late morning and, the negotium of political audiences over, the stately schedule of the imperial day moved to otium and the pursuit of culture. Rather than reading, Gallienus had felt moved to philosophic discourse. As a Studiis, Zeno had been dispatched to find a philosopher. Even in a town such as Bergoule, in the middle of nowhere, it should not prove too difficult. As someone had said, these days it was easier to fall over in a boat without landing on a plank than look around without seeing a philosopher. The question was: would Zeno find one of any worth?

  Philosophers did not travel, at least not at the behest of authority. Longinus could not be persuaded to leave Athens, nor Plotinus Rome. In fact, when Gallienus was in Rome with his wife Salonina, it was the imperial couple who had traversed the eternal city, not the lover of wisdom. Freedom of speech and self-sufficiency were keystones of the soul of a philosopher of any sect. Parresia and autarkeia, as well as a suitable contempt for the moral irrelevancies of wealth and fame, were well demonstrated by a philosopher declining an imperial summons. In a sense, if a philosopher did come running when an emperor called, it might be thought to demonstrate that he was not a philosopher at all. It remained to be seen what sort of creature Zeno would unearth.

  The garden was pleasant. Gallienus inspected the budding fruit trees. Zeno had not brought up again the matter of Ballista. Gallienus had made inquiries with Rufinus. The head of the frumentarii did not think Zeno and Ballista had ever met. The former had been governor of Cilicia at the time of the revolt of the Macriani. But he had left the province before Ballista arrived. If the men had never met, it was unlikely there was personal animosity between them. In which case Zeno most likely had taken a bribe to raise the issue of Ballista.

  Despite that, Zeno was right: something must be decided. A man who had worn the purple attracted conspirators like rotten fruit did wasps. If a man had once been thought capable of ruling the empire, he might well be considered so again: once capax imperii, always capax imperii, as Tacitus might have said.

  Gallienus was unsure. Ballista was an old friend. Gallienus freely admitted, in the silence of his heart, that he owed much to the big northerner. Yet Ballista, at the very least, had to be watched. The emperor’s thoughts were running towards exile. He would have liked to impose the lesser form: relegatio from Italy and native province, with property untouched. But that did not answer. Ballista did not have a native province in the imperium, he already had a house in Sicily and, free to roam, he would be hard to monitor. No, it would have to be the more draconian form: deportation to a designated place – a small island where frumentarii could keep a close eye on him and his connections. Usually, deportation involved the confiscation of property. But Ballista was an old friend. Let him hold on to his worldly goods; let his family live with him. Ballista, like Gallienus, was known to love his family. Ballista had often said he hankered for a quiet, retiring life. Gallienus would choose a comfortable, out-of-the-way island for him to live out the time the fates granted him.

  Hermianus, the ab Admissionibus, ushered into the garden Zeno and another man. The latter looked the part: staff and wallet, cloak and no tunic. Judging by his beard and hair, roughly chopped short, he was of the Stoic persuasion.

  ‘Dominus, this is Nicomachus the Stoic.’

  The philosopher bowed and blew a kiss from his fingertips, the more restrained form of adoration.

  Gallienus turned the full light of the imperial gaze on the philosopher. Nicomachus neither flinched nor looked ostentatiously disrespectful; maybe he would do.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ Gallienus asked in Greek.

  ‘Thank you, Kyrios, watered wine.’

  Not one to parade asceticism, thought Gallienus. That was good, and the man appeared clean. Gallienus signed that Zeno and Hermianus could retire. The drink would arrive presently.

  The emperor sat on a stone bench next to a portrait bust of Diogenes. He asked if the philosopher would like to sit.

  ‘No, thank you, Kyrios.’ Nicomachus leant on his staff, one leg crossed, like a figure from an antique vase. As they waited without talking, Gallienus wondered if the philosopher had been searched.

  A slave of the imperial household emerged, served the drinks, and departed.

  ‘Tell me your views on exile,’ said the emperor.

  Nicomachus remained silent for a time while he collected his thoughts. He was very still, and frowned a deep frown of philosophic concentration. A creditable performance so far, judged Gallienus. If the words matched the gestures, this could be enlightening.

  ‘The majority of mankind thinks of exile with nothing but horror and fear. You are torn from your home, family and friends. Everything you love, everything you know is taken away. You are thrust out to wander, dusty-footed in abject poverty, among uncaring or hostile strangers: misery and loneliness leading to an unmarked grave.

  ‘If it was only the ignorant hoi polloi who saw exile as an unmitigated evil, it need not detain us. Only demagogues and fools care what the masses think. But other men, the most revered of men, have expressed similar views. Did not the divine Homer portray the pain of Odysseus: clinging to the shattered raft; sitting alone, weeping by the shore? Ten years of unhappiness, of dashed hopes and unfulfilled dreams.

  ‘Think of the lines Euripides wrote on exile. Electra asks her brother, “Where does the wretched exile spend his wretched exile?” He replies, “In no one settled region does he waste away.” He might have bread, “but strengthless, exile’s fare.”

  ‘Yet others have seen it differently. Many philosophers, and those ones the most distinguished, have considered exile as neither bad nor good. It is nothing but an irrelevance. The good man is good no matter where he is, in no matter what circumstances he finds himself. Like wealth or poverty, like sickness or health, it cannot touch the inner man or his moral purpose.

  ‘Then again, some philosophers – highly thought of, if misguided – argue that exile is the inescapable lot of all men; cast out, as they say, from our own dear country, by which they mean from the divine. I will not trouble you, Basileus, with such recondite theories. These philosophers hold that a king must always be a philosopher. They are wrong. The philosopher is one thing, the king is another. It is enough that the ruler listens to philosophers. The basileus ever has weighty practical matters on hand; no time for arcane speculation.’

  Gallienus allowed himself to smile. His fondness for the Platonist Plotinus was well known. Nicomachus had made a neat swipe at the followers of Plato, combined with an elegant, understated appeal for his own imperial favour. Zeno had done well to discover him; the Stoic Nicomachus would go far.

  The philosopher’s face lightened. ‘Finally, we should examine how exile may actually work to a man’s advantage, may be a positive good, if not an absolute blessing. Musonius, himself exiled by Nero, rightly saw that, all too often, men of
position are addicted to high living. An exile is in straitened circumstances. He must live more simply. Musonius pointed to Spartiacus the Lacedaemonian. He suffered from a weak chest. In exile, he had to renounce luxury, and he ceased to be ill. Exile cleanses, toughens the body.

  ‘And exile can be morally good, an education in virtue. Condemned by Domitian, Dio Chrysostom wondered if exile was good or bad. He sought the advice of the Delphic Oracle. Apollo told him to carry on doing what he was doing. At first, Dio did not understand that his relegatio had forced him to think about the most important question of all: how should a man live? Clad in humble attire, Dio wandered and, as he tells us, some men mistook him for a philosopher. They came up to him and asked him to tell them about good and evil. To answer, Dio had to think deeply about these profoundest of things, and in doing so he actually became a philosopher.

  ‘Let us end by returning to Odysseus. We have seen his wandering, but what were its effects? He had fought at Troy – he was no weakling – but there he was more known for his cunning than his skill at arms. Ten years of suffering refined and toughened him in body and soul. When the gods granted him to return to Ithaka, he was a different man. Virtually alone, Odysseus had both the physical and moral strength to slaughter the many enemies who had invaded his home.’

  Nicomachus finished. He leant on his staff, imperturbable.

  Gallienus asked the philosopher no questions. There was little point in an emperor attempting Socratic dialogue. On one side, the autocrat whose will was law; on the other, one of his subjects, whose life hung by a thread. Neither free speech nor the truth was likely to be attained. The words of the eunuch philosopher Favorinus still rang true: ‘You give me bad advice, my friends, when you do not allow me to think the man who commands thirty legions to be right about anything he chooses.’ Gallienus would mull it all over by himself.

  The emperor graciously thanked the philosopher. Was there any benefit he could grant?

  ‘Just that you think on my words and, if possible, the further pleasure of your company.’ It was well said; for a philosopher to ask for material benefits undermined his very claim to philosophic status.

  From wherever, out of sight, he had been listening, Hermianus emerged. The philosopher accepted the honour of kissing the imperial seal on the proffered ring. Relinquishing Gallienus’s hand, he blew the kiss of proskynesis. Hermianus escorted him out.

  Alone in the garden, Gallienus sat and thought. Exile might not break a man; it could change him. Odysseus had returned and killed without mercy those who had done him wrong. More recent history furnished examples of men returning in arms to take revenge on those who had exiled them: Dio of Syracuse driving out the tyrant Dionysius; Marius bathing the streets of Rome in blood. Ballista had never shown either the ruthless ambition of the latter, or the driving principles of the former. But he was an excellent general, a fine leader of men. Three times he had defeated the Persians; once, the King of Kings in person. Ballista had killed the tyrant Quietus. He had been hailed emperor: Marcus Clodius Ballista Augustus. Embittered by exile, he would appeal to the disaffected, would make an excellent figurehead for a revolution: once capax imperii, always capax imperii. Rome had always welcomed men of violence who fought her cause and espoused her values. Already Gallienus could hear the insidious sophistries of the courtiers of the new regime: Ballista, the new Aeneas, come from abroad, sword in hand, to sweep away the soft and the decadent from the seven hills, come to return Rome to her antique, martial virtue.

  Exile alone would not contain Ballista. The Romanized barbarian would remain a threat to Gallienus himself. Mutilation might be the solution. No man who was deformed could sit on the throne of the Caesars. Cut off his ears and nose. But Ballista had been a friend. Just the nose then.

  Gallienus shook his head, took a drink. What was he thinking? He remembered the story of an eastern prince in Tacitus. The young man had been raised as a hostage in Rome. Politics had dictated that the time had come for him to be sent back to his native land, to rule as a client king in Parthia. His subjects had not cared for his foreign, western ways. But they had not killed him; instead they had cut off his ears and nose. Such, Tacitus had written, was Parthian clementia. Gallienus knew himself an autocrat, but he still appreciated irony.

  Mutilation was not the answer. Such behaviour was the ‘clemency’ of a cruel oriental despot, not the emperor of the Romans, a basileus of the Greeks. Death – that was the answer.

  VII

  The escape from Ephesus was easy. Ballista and the others had walked up to the civic agora, crossed it, and taken the street which led past the East Gymnasium. The crowds at the Magnesian Gate had caused delay but no danger. Outside, the familia had headed south. Even with the women and children, in under half an hour they had reached the villa of Corvus.

  That was how it had gone: completely uneventful. But it was not how Hippothous remembered it. He remembered the slow trudge up the claustrophobic street from the Memmius monument; the uneven, deceitful pavement; the echoing tumult of nearby chaos; the reek of burning. He recalled trying not to look too often over his shoulder; the milling crush at the town gate; beyond the walls, willing the familia to move faster; the ever-present fear; the terrible anxiety that every sound at his back was the coming of the Goths.

  Hippothous knew he was no coward. But a long career in banditry had taught him that running away should be done with all speed. He had no number to the times he had been chased. But never had he moved as slowly. In all those times in Cilicia, Cappadocia, Syria, Egypt, even Aethiopia, if the women and children had slowed him up, he had left them by the path or killed them. Hostages for ransom, his own followers: it made no difference. A life among the latrones did not encourage sentimentality.

  Alongside Hippothous at the rear of the small knot of refugees, Ballista had walked steadily. Hippothous could not help but admire the big barbarian’s self-control. At the villa, Ballista had been all cool capability. The domestic staff were gathered, the animals led out. As the latter were harnessed, Ballista made much of the grey gelding he had stabled at the villa. The old, infirm and very young were helped into the saddle. Ballista insisted Julia ride his horse; he would walk. Two burly male slaves were left to prevent casual looting – they were to take to their heels if the Goths came. The rest of the staff, about a dozen, were added to the column, and they set out again.

  From then, Hippothous’s mind had been more restful. There was no real likelihood of the Goths venturing so far inland, not when there was so much still to pillage in Ephesus. He knew nothing of Goths but a great deal of men plundering.

  Ballista had led them south on the main road. When it turned to the east, inland towards Magnesia ad Maeandrum, they had taken to the hills; the path climbing and leading south-west. They had spent the night in the sacred site of Ortygia, their sleep disturbed by the fervent prayers of the priests and the panicked locals. Zeus, Apollo, Athena, all you Olympians, protect us from the fury of the Scythians. The next day, they had skirted the foothills of Mount Thorax, come to the flat lands and billeted themselves in a decayed village called Maiandros. A final morning’s march, less than ten miles, easy going on a flat road, and they had reached Priene. It was the ides of March.

  Hippothous was hot and irritable, his patience wearing thin. They had not outrun the news of the Goths. They had been told that the north-east gate of Priene would remain closed until the chief magistrate, the stephanephoros Marcus Aurelius Tatianus, came and made a decision. That had been nearly an hour earlier – more than long enough for Hippothous to take the measure of the place.

  The passageway of the gate was narrow. Even if open, a couple of determined men could hold it. It was flanked by towers. The walls were old, the stones pockmarked with age, weeds growing in the cracks and joins. They had seen no work for generations. But it was a tribute to the original builders that the great, close-fitted ashlar slabs still stood. While a nimble individual could probably climb them – say, scale them at n
ight when no one was looking – if defended, they would still pose a formidable obstacle. To Hippothous’s left, the wall dog-legged out, providing further enfilading against any attacker ascending the ramp to the gate. Beyond the dog-leg, the wall curved away, following the foothills above the plain. To the right, they zigzagged wildly up the steep slope. They stopped when they came to the mountain cliff. No need for walls there. An outcrop of Mount Mycale reared up three hundred feet or more: pale-grey rock, too sheer for vegetation. At the top was the acropolis. Corvus had been right: Priene was a hard place to take.

  Although Hippothous had not been in Ionia before, he knew the outline of the story of Priene. Once one of the leading towns of the Ionian Greeks, Priene had been betrayed by the Maeander. The silt brought down by the many-channelled river had created a wide plain, driving back the sea. Left landlocked, Priene and its port of Naulochos over the years had sunk into provincial obscurity. Hippothous hoped that very obscurity, and the distance from the Aegean, would keep it safe now.

  There was a stir at the gate. A voice boomed out from the battlements. ‘I am Marcus Aurelius Tatianus, son of Tatianus, stephanephoros of the polis of Priene. Who are you?’

  ‘Marcus Clodius Ballista and his familia, with the familia of Marcus Aurelius Corvus. My friend Corvus told me to come to you, his guest-friend, to find shelter from the fury of the Scythians.’

  The gates were opened, and Tatianus walked out. Greetings and introductions were given and taken. Hippothous regarded Tatianus – regarded him very carefully. The stephanephoros was a tall man, dressed in a Greek himation and tunic. His walk and movements were those of a eupatrid: slow, considered, exhibiting the self-possession of the elite. When not in motion, he stood still, hands clasped in front of his body, for all the world an image of a statue of Demosthenes.