Gallienus will leave the amphitheatre at the last hour. Once he is in the passageway, out of the imperial box, present your petition. While he is distracted, strike. Do not waste words, no prattling about liberty, strike quickly. Do not be afraid. The guards will not stop you. Remember we will all be there.
Ballista wondered how accurate the dialogue was. Even the great Thucydides had admitted that in the speeches in his History he could not always give the exact words, but instead would provide those appropriate. At least Ballista was sure the informant had done the latter.
The conspirators had not seen the spy, but, as they left, he had had a glimpse of their faces. Both were old and well-dressed. The silent one was bald, the talker had a face like a peasant. In a city of a million souls, it was not much to go on.
Now that Ballista was accustomed to the faint light in the tomb, he saw there were frescos on the walls and ceiling. In the gloom above his head was the glimmer of white horses pulling a chariot driven by a god. On the opposite wall a shepherd carried a sheep on his shoulders. More puzzling, on another wall a man who had fallen from a boat appeared to be about to be consumed by a sea monster, perhaps a whale. The hero of Lucian’s True Story had been swallowed by a whale. The satire was an unlikely choice for a funeral monument.
Could it be Jonah and the whale? A story of the strange cult of the crucified god? Ballista had encountered Christians in the East. A sect of them had betrayed his defence of the town of Arete on the Euphrates. He had been given the unpleasant task of overseeing their persecution in Ephesus. They were spreading everywhere, seemingly even to here, the insalubrious and unhealthy Ager Vaticanus.
The light dimmed, and the paintings blended back into the walls. It was almost fully dark.
Tomorrow. The last hour of daylight. They are going to kill the emperor.
And only Ballista could save him.
CHAPTER 2
The Bridge of Nero
C
UI BONO? WHO WOULD BENEFIT if Emperor Gallienus was
killed?
Ballista sat in the dark, thinking.
Postumus, the pretender in the West, was the obvious choice. While Gallienus had wintered in Rome, his troops had been gathering on the plains of northern Italy. In four days Gallienus would leave to lead them over the Alps. Postumus had sent several envoys saying that he did not want to fight, that he would defend the Rhine from the barbarians, and was content with the provinces he ruled. They had been wasted journeys. While Gallienus lived, nothing could avert war. At the outset of his rebellion, five years before, Postumus had killed Gallienus’ favourite son.
Ballista’s legs ached. Gingerly he tried to stretch the stiffness out of them.
Postumus was far from the only candidate. Odenathus of Palmyra ruled Rome’s eastern provinces, nominally in the name of Gallienus. Ballista knew Odenathus, and thought he harboured no greater ambitions. But those around the Palmyrene were another matter, especially his wife Zenobia. If Gallienus were assassinated, it might force Odenathus to make a bid for the throne.
Stretching was not helping. Ballista used the wall of the tomb to lever himself to his feet.
Here in Rome the senate had no love for Gallienus. Many of their number claimed to find the emperor’s lifestyle offensive: the boys and girls, the drinking in arbours of flowers, the philosophy and poetry. More to the point, they resented being excluded from high military commands, and thought Gallienus did not treat them with the respect they deserved. Among the nobility there would be those who thought their lineage better qualified them to wear the purple.
Whoever was behind the plot, did they not realise the chaos that would ensue? If Gallienus was struck down, the intricate web of alliances that he had woven along the Danube would unravel. The barbarians – Goths, Alamanni, and Sarmatians – would pour over the river. They would bring fire and sword to the frontier, untold destruction to the peaceful, unarmed provinces to the South. Greece, the cradle of civilisation, would lie open. Athens would burn.
Ballista knew there was worse. When an emperor was murdered, those close to him would also die, their estates would be confiscated, their families hunted down. Political expediency and the need for funds to reward supporters of the new regime would result in a bloodbath.
Ballista was counted a friend of Gallienus. If he were executed, his family . . . He pushed the thought away, sought something else to occupy his mind.
Was Scarpio part of the conspiracy? The Prefect of the City Watch had prevailed on Ballista’s loyalty, but had he sent him to his death? Scarpio had insisted Ballista go alone: time had been of the essence, who could tell how far the plot reached? No one at court could be trusted. Ballista had only met the prefect once before. Returning from the distant North, Ballista had been welcomed by Gallienus, had been seated at the emperor’s right hand in the Circus. Scarpio, standing at the rear of the imperial box, had been one of those cursorily introduced. Although Ballista did not know the prefect, his reasoning had been cogent. It was possible that Scarpio had acted in good faith.
With geriatric slowness, Ballista walked through the darkness to the door.
A sudden noise outside made him freeze. The footsteps passed by the tomb.
His heart was pounding. He was in no condition for this: alone and unarmed, battered and in pain, barefoot with no money or friends, and on the wrong side of the river. His family came into his mind. No, he would not give way to despair. The thing was simple. He had to save Gallienus, and all would be well.
As youths they had grown up together, diplomatic hostages on the Palatine for the good behaviour of their fathers; the one a leading senator, the other a client king. Years later, serving in the East, Ballista had been forced to let himself be acclaimed as emperor. After a few days, he had stepped down. Even so, under most rulers such presumption would have led to the headsman’s block. Gallienus had spared him, and subsequently entrusted him with important missions. Everything else aside, Ballista was honour-bound to save the emperor.
He needed a plan.
Turning, he began to pace, trying to walk off the hurt, order his fractured thoughts.
To the South was Transtiberim. The region was densely populated with immigrants from the East: Syrians, Jews, Armenians, even Parthians and Persians from beyond the frontier. They worshipped strange gods – Hadad, Iaribol, and Malakabel – Ballista had no friends among these people. Then there were the barracks of men seconded from the fleet at Ravenna. Ballista had never served with them. Again, there was no reason to expect their help. And there was a station of the City Watch, but given the circumstances they were best avoided.
He needed to cross the Tiber. Swimming was not an option. Some doctors recommended swimming the river as a cure for insomnia. With the Tiber in flood, it would bring a sleep from which there would be no waking. The river was not so fast that you could not row across. But he had nothing with which to pay his passage, and stealing a boat would raise an outcry. It would have to be a bridge. Most likely the knifemen from the Mausoleum would be watching them.
Ballista stopped by the door.
He had lived in Rome for years in his youth. The rhythms of the streets of the city were eternal, as familiar as his own heartbeat. If he was to slip across unnoticed, there was no better hour than now.
Part of him did not want to leave the tomb. Be a man, he told himself. There was no choice.
At first, as he made his way down through the graveyards and gardens towards the river, the streets were nearly deserted. A lone wagon passed, going in the other direction. It was stacked with unclaimed corpses. Every night the metropolis produced its harvest of paupers. Naked and waxy, they made their last journey to some mass burial pit. No headstone would mark their grave, no coin in the mouth would pay the ferryman.
The collectors of the dead did not speak to Ballista, and he did not acknowledge them. They lived outside the city, only allowed to enter to ply the trade that set them apart from humanity.
At a cr
ossroads was a small fountain, water spilling from the mouth of a dragon. Ballista washed thoroughly. The cold water stung and partly opened the gash on his palm. He rinsed and pushed back his long hair. He doubted he looked any more respectable.
The noise reached him first, a murmur of many voices like the surf on a stony shore. It was punctuated with the sharp calls of different animals. Then came the smell. There was cut wood, fresh produce, and flowers, but also sweat and dung, both human and bestial.
The queue stretched back two hundred paces from the Bridge of Nero. There were herds of sheep and pigs and cattle, wagons full of timber and kindling, carts piled with roses and jasmine or laden with vegetables, in-season asparagus and artichokes. There were trussed chickens and loose dogs. All, apart from the latter, waiting their turn at the customs house.
This was the produce of local villas and market gardens brought in by road. The staples that fed the megalopolis – grain, oil, and wine – came by river. Some was floated downriver on rafts, but much more was towed against the current from the ports where it was offloaded having been shipped from abroad.
It was clear that Ballista had nothing to declare, and he was largely ignored as he walked up the line.
Ahead, a herd of nine or ten bullocks was playing up. An old man and a boy chased after the stamping, agitated beasts. No one helped them. Some of the onlookers scuttled away from the widespread horns; others laughed. As a child, Ballista had joined the thralls herding in his father’s cattle.
Standing tall, arms outspread – now hallooing, now silent – he helped round them up, calm them, get them to a stand.
‘We have nothing to pay you.’ The old peasant had the ingrained suspicion of his sort.
‘I want no coins, Grandfather.’ Ballista addressed him with respect.
The peasant grunted, turned away in dismissal.
‘A swallow of wine would be welcome.’ Ballista nodded at the pack the man wore. ‘Perhaps a bite of bread.’
The old man gestured Ballista to sit, and told the boy to watch the cattle. He sat next to Ballista on the kerb, put aside his stockman’s cudgel, opened the sack, and passed a wineskin.
The wine was smooth and well watered, brought for refreshment not intoxication. There was only the one skin, and Ballista was careful not to drink too much.
A usurer came down the queue, offering rates for those who needed credit to pay the custom’s dues. The old man jerked his head back to send him on his way.
‘You have had a hard time.’ The peasant handed over the heel of a loaf.
Ballista chewed, just sipping the wine to moisten the hard bread.
‘I was robbed,’ he said at length. ‘Out by the fifth milestone.’
‘They were fools.’ The rustic nodded at Ballista’s hand which held the wineskin.
On the third finger was the gold ring of an equestrian. Ballista had forgotten it was there.
‘A god blinded them, or they were fools,’ Ballista finished the bread, and gave back the wine.
The queue moved, and they got to their feet to drive the cattle forward.
They halted not more than fifty paces from the customs post. It was lit by torches. Ballista could see those at the front being divided. The livestock was corralled into pens to be counted for the Gate Tax. The vehicles remained in the road, their contents tallied for the Handle Tax. Ballista could see a squad of eight of the City Watch lounging against the parapet of the bridge. That was to be expected. Their equipment – axes, buckets, unlit torches – were scattered around their feet. The Spartoli, the Little Bucket Men, as they were known, did not look alert. Apart from the customs men, he could see no one else checking the multitude entering the city. No sign of the men from the Mausoleum.
‘Where were you coming from?’ The eyes of the old man were pale blue, bright in a face tanned and lined by a life out in the weather.
‘I am a soldier, returning from a posting in Africa. Most of my money was lost at dice on the boat. I had to walk up from the port.’
‘Now you have nothing, but that ring.’ The peasant took a pull of wine. ‘What will you do in the city?’
‘My service is ended. My brothers in the emperor’s German Guard will take care of me until my discharge pay comes through.’
‘Your Latin is good, but I could tell you were a barbarian. You could not be anything else at that size, and with that fair hair and chalky skin.’
The peasant seemed to have accepted the story. Crafty Odysseus, Ballista thought, cunning Loki.
‘Will you be going home to your people?’ Now that they were talking, the attitude of the rustic was thawing.
The boy had sidled closer. ‘Did you fight in any battles?’
The old man hefted his cudgel. ‘Hold your tongue when your elders are talking.’
The boy backed off, not looking greatly abashed.
‘Usually my brother comes on the drove. He has the fever. That is his son. Useless, a dreamer. His first time in the city. If I take my eye off him, they will rob him blind, fuck him up the arse, turn him into a bitch.’
Ballista was grateful that the talk had moved from his invented life story, and he encouraged the peasant to talk. ‘You do not care for the city?’
‘Care for it?’ The rustic smacked his lips to avert evil. ‘It is a shithole. You can smell it a mile off. You cannot breath for all that smoke. Those tenements towering over you, never a glimpse of the sun, a breath of fresh air. Streets ankle deep in shit and offal. People everywhere, pushing and shouting. Your best tunic gets ripped to shreds in the crush. You look down and your wallet is gone. No idea who did it. No one gives a fuck. You can hardly move, not hear yourself think in all that crush. Here is the great trunk of a fir tree swaying along on a wagon, another behind stacked high with pine logs, all about to topple on your head. If an axle snaps and a cartload of marble crashes down, what will be left of you? Who could identify bits of flesh and bone? Your flattened corpse vanishes along with your soul. Meanwhile, all unwitting, your wife at home is scouring dishes, blowing the fire to a glow, setting the soup to boil, filling up your oil flask, a pitcher of wine. A meal you will never eat. You are sitting by the Styx. No chance of a passage over, without so much as a copper stuck in your mouth.’
Like many unaccustomed to company, the rustic had a store of words when he found an audience.
‘The beef has to be sold, but, if the gods were kind, I would not set foot in the city. My brother and me inherited our place from our father. Two huts, a byre, a barn, and an enclosure of palings for the calves. The vegetable garden is not large, but the home meadow grows a good deal of hay to put up. The pasturage is set in a valley, deep and shaded. Through the centre flows a quiet stream. The cows and calves can wade across with perfect ease. Abundant water, bubbling up clean and sweet from a spring nearby, and in the summer a breeze always blows through. Never a gadfly or any other pest. No wonder the cattle never range very far.’
‘It sounds idyllic,’ Ballista said.
The rustic gave him a sharp look. ‘Better than this shithole, at any rate.’
At last it was their turn at the stock pens. A customs officer came over to talk to the old man. One of the City Watch glanced over. Ballista averted his face, hunching slightly to disguise his height.
‘Carry on.’ The customs man, wax tablet and stylus in hand, went ahead to open the gate of the stock pens.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ballista saw the watchman talking to his neighbour. Allfather, let it be about the weather, some girl.
Ballista moved to the far side of the herd.
With a call, and a clout of his cudgel, the rustic tried to urge the bullocks into motion. At first they stood, sullen and mulish.
The two watchmen were walking around, their shadows disjointed in the guttering torchlight.
Ballista did not look at them again. It might be nothing.
The old man shouted louder, used the cudgel again.
Hooves clopping on the paving, reluctan
tly the beasts began to trudge after the customs officer towards the gate.
A hand grasped Ballista’s arm.
‘Don’t fight,’ the watchman said. ‘Marcus Clodius Ballista, you are under arrest.’
CHAPTER 3
The Quayside
‘W
E’VE GOT HIM!’
The speaker gripped Ballista’s left arm, while the second watchman was moving up behind him.
If Ballista was going to escape, it had to be now, while the rest of the squad were still on the bridge. The customs officer had not yet opened the gate of the stock pens, and the cattle remained in the way.
Without warning, Ballista spun, jerking at the waist. Ignoring the stab of pain in his own ribs, he brought his right elbow clubbing down into the face of the shorter man. The watchman released Ballista’s arm, his hands going up to clutch his nose. Ballista’s injury had robbed the blow of some of its force. The man did not go down, merely staggered away a step or two.
No time to finish him. Ballista kept turning. He glimpsed the old man and the boy, both open mouthed with surprise. The cattle, now stationary, were shifting uneasily.
The other watchman was fumbling to get the hilt of his sword free of his cloak. Ballista stepped close, aimed an identical blow. The City Watch might be under military discipline, but they were firemen by profession. A soldier trained in unarmed combat might have dived forward, taken the blow on his left shoulder or upper arm. The Bucketman did the opposite. Raising an ineffectual hand, he reared backwards. His chin came up like a novice boxer. Ballista’s elbow, the weight of his body behind it, crashed into the exposed throat. This one went down, full length, the back of his head cracking on the pavement. He was unlikely to get up anytime soon.
The left hand of the first watchman was still pressed to the bridge of his nose, but he had his sword in the other. Behind him, across the broad backs of the bullocks, Ballista could see the other six men drawing their weapons, readying themselves for the fight. Very few men can move straight to violence without some moments of preparation or bluster.
The Last Hour: Relentless, brutal, brilliant. 24 hours in Ancient Rome Page 3