He will be smitten by gleaming iron, betrayed by his companions. The magician must have suggested the words to the boy before putting him into a trance. But who had commissioned the hedge wizard? Anyone inquiring into the death of the emperor wanted that event to come about, and soon. Gallienus was in the prime of life, a natural death was unlikely. Smitten by gleaming iron. This summer Gallienus would take the field against Postumus in Gaul. Death on the battlefield would have been the obvious prophesy. Betrayed by his companions. Treachery had struck down many emperors. No one knew that better than Ballista; he had killed two of them with his own hands. It was better to forget the last moments of Maximinus the Thracian and the odious pretender Quietus. A predicted assassination might be welcome to the employers of the mage, but it did not mean that they were part of the conspiracy uncovered in the Mausoleum. There were always plots against the life of the emperor. There were so many that long ago the Emperor Domitian had complained that no one believed in their reality until the ruler was struck down.
Another will come, the sun-sent, dreadful lion . . . he will rule the Romans, and the Persians will be cast down. The words could only refer to Odenathus, Lord of Palmyra. The prophet would seek to tell what his listeners wanted to hear. The men who had consulted the mage must favour those in the court of Odenathus who would bid for the whole empire. Such high politics traditionally was the preserve of senators. The senate chaffed under the rule of Gallienus. Excluded from military commands, not shown the respect their dignity demanded, many senators would welcome an alternative. If he came to the throne, Odenathus, most likely, would remain in the East, giving the senate a free hand in the West.
Was the location of the magic rites significant? The Gardens of Lucullus were owned by the Acilii Glabriones. There was no more prestigious family in the senate. At least two of them were in the imperial entourage. One of them was well known to Ballista. Vain, proud, and headstrong, Gaius Acilius Glabrio had served under Ballista in the East. Nothing was beyond the ambition of the young patrician. Gaius blamed Ballista for the death of his brother at the siege of Arete. Sending Ballista to his death in the Mausoleum of Hadrian would have given Gaius nothing but pleasure.
This was leading nowhere. The problem with unravelling conspiracies was that, once you had started, the thread never ran out. More and more plotters joined the ranks on the most slender and spurious grounds. Quite likely the words uttered by the boy in his trance were no better than gibberish. The mage was a charlatan, his clients no more than fools indulging in a dangerous fantasy.
Above the rumble of traffic came music and a high, wild keening. The funeral cortege could be heard before it was seen. The carters pulled their vehicles over to the kerb, and herdsmen chivvied animals to the side of the road. The Via Tiburtina was still.
First came the torchbearers, flames sawing aloft in the breeze. The musicians followed, puffing their cheeks, as they blew doleful notes from flute and trumpet. The deceased had been well-to-do. There were a dozen hired mourning women. They shrieked and wailed, tearing their clothes, raking their faces and breasts until the blood ran.
As the dead man came into view, the bystanders were quiet. Some muttered a prayer – may the earth lie lightly on him – others put thumb between fingers or smacked their lips to avert evil.
The bier was carried by eight strong men. These vespilliones, professional handlers of the dead, wore the black tunics and colourful caps of their profession. The corpse lay under an awning embroidered with the moon and stars. The dead man was clad in a snow-white toga, his face powdered as white as the material. Slaves carried incense burners behind the bier, but, as it passed, the sickening waft of decay was strong in Ballista’s nostrils.
The family – the widow, three children, others of less obvious relationship – headed a long train of mourners. All wore dark clothes, the men unshaven, the women with loose, unkempt hair. A few had tipped dirt in their hair.
The rear was brought up by a gaggle of men and women wearing the cap of liberty. Freed by his will, despite their master’s death bringing them their life’s ambition, they managed an air of suitable sadness.
Ballista walked out from his alleyway, and joined the cortège. He worked his way through the newly created freedmen and women to stand at the back of those who had either known liberty all their lives, or whose manumission lay further in the past. Here, among those whose connection to the dead was not the closest, he should not be obviously out of place. His long, dishevelled hair and dark cloak were fitting. The latter was voluminous enough to disguise the outline of the sword that he had taken from the mage.
His neighbours talked softly. ‘Poor old Chrysanthus. Nice man – only the other day he stopped me in the street. We’re just so many walking bags of wind. We’re worse than flies – at least they have got some strength in them.’
‘Let’s think of the living,’ another said. ‘He got what he deserved. He lived an honest life, and he died an honest death. What has he got to complain about? He started out in life without a coin to his name. He was ready to pick up anything from a dung heap, even if he had to use his teeth. Everything he touched turned to gold, regular Midas, he was.’
‘Call me a Cynic,’ said a third. ‘He had a foul mouth, and too much lip. He wasn’t a man, he was just trouble.’
The dead had much to complain about, Ballista thought, given Roman views on the afterlife. The souls of the dead who were not properly buried, who lacked a coin to pay the ferryman, would wander for eternity in misery. Those, like Chrysanthus here, for whom the living had made proper provision, faced a stern judge in the underworld. The wicked – murderers, adulterers, oath-breakers, hoarders of money, and the like – were condemned to Tartarus, a place of fire and whips and screaming. There was no appeal, and no end to the sentence. The rest were bound for Hades, the gloomy meadow of asphodel, ringed by black poplars, and lit by dark stars. There they would gibber, and flit like bats, sentient enough to resent and envy the living, but beyond joy, pleasure, or contentment. Only a handful of the just would make the journey to the West, to the Elysian Fields or the Islands of the Blessed.
Better by far to belong to one of those sects that held that death was the end. For them life was nothing but unceasing atoms moving in the void, without purpose or design. The soul was so fragile, composed of such minute particles, that it dissolved with the last breath.
Julia had been brought up in an Epicurean household, and genuinely believed that death was nothing but a return to sleep. Ballista would have liked to share her equanimity, but for him the fear of the underworld was equalled by the fear of nothingness. He still clung to the tales of his childhood. If he died in battle, fighting to the last, not turning his back like a coward, like a nithing, the Shield-maidens might carry him to the hall of his ancestor. There he would pass countless years at the side of Woden-Allfather, feasting and warm, companions to hand, until the final battle, and the death of gods and man.
Thoughts of childhood summoned Calgacus. The old man had been a Caledonian. Ballista had never asked what Calgacus thought lay beyond the great divide. As a child it had not occurred to him, and when a man there had always seemed to be time. Now he knew that one of the terrible tragedies of losing a loved one was the unasked questions, the lost stories.
The procession had reached Ballista’s destination. To the left of the road the buildings fell back to reveal the parade ground of the Praetorian Camp. Ballista stepped out of the cortege, and let the freedmen pass. One or two glanced at him, and he sat on the curb, making as if to remove a stone from his boot.
When the funeral party was gone, the Via Tiburtina came back to life. Carters cracked whips, beasts plodded forward, and the endlessly repeated nocturnal supply of the metropolis resumed.
Ballista leant against the corner of the last building, everything about him suggesting a weary traveller snatching a moment’s rest. Across the beaten earth was the camp, its tall brick walls, crenulations, towers and solid gates sharp
in the moonlight. Ordinary people kept away from the camp. When Ballista had first come to Rome, there had been fighting here; a pitched battle, as the citizens had tried to storm the symbol of their oppression. They had failed, and the praetorians had issued out, sword in hand, and burned swathes of the city.
Half a century or so before, the camp had been the scene of perhaps the most shameful moment in Rome’s long history. After the murder of the Emperor Pertinax, two senators had stood at the base of the walls, and bid for the throne. Gesticulating, indicating on their fingers the sums that they would pay for the purple, each had tried to win over the praetorians.
The praetorians existed to protect the emperor, but they had a dishonourable record of betraying and murdering the men to whom they had given their oath. Hated by the plebs, they were despised by ordinary soldiers. Overpaid and pampered, decked out in elaborate military finery more suitable to the stage, every time they had faced the legions in battle, the praetorians had been beaten, had surrendered or turned tail and fled.
Ballista shared the common soldiers’ contempt, and the citizens’ mistrust. But now he must put his life in their hands. The praetorians were commanded by two prefects. Volusianus was the senior, a man called Censorinus his subordinate. Thank the gods that the latter had been ordered to lead a detachment of the Guard to Milan to join the field army gathering to fight Postumus on the other side of the Alps. Censorinus was known to Ballista from the East. A sly, underhand officer, steeped in deceit, Censorinus had survived and prospered in the civil wars and through changes of regime by timely treachery and desertion.
Volusianus, who had remained in Rome, was a very different man from his colleague. Like Cincinnatus, in the myth, summoned from the plough to serve Rome, Volusianus had left his father’s smallholding somewhere in the backwoods of Italy, and enlisted as a common trooper. Courage, native intelligence, and loyalty had secured an extraordinary career. When Gallienus had formed the protectores, that mixture of bodyguard and college of senior officers, Volusianus had been the first man admitted to the elite band who were allowed to bear arms in the presence of the emperor. Recently Volusianus had distinguished himself against the barbarian horde of the Alamanni at Milan, and against the forces of Postumus in the Alps. Volusianus was a man upon whom Ballista could rely.
Ballista set off across the parade ground. The dust puffed up under his boots. A gull screamed overhead. It was strange walking in the open, in the blue-white night. He angled towards the main gate, where torches flared.
‘Halt!’
The torchlight gleamed on the chased and polished armour and the unsheathed blades of the eight praetorians.
Ballista halted, and opened his cloak to show the sword and knife in his belt.
‘State your name and business.’
Four of the praetorians came forward, and surrounded him.
‘Marcus Clodius Ballista, and I have come to see Lucius Petronius Taurus Volusianus.’
‘Is the prefect expecting an armed barbarian in the middle of the night?’
‘Volusianus will see me.’
The centurion nodded to his men. ‘Take his weapons, and search him.’
Ballista held his arms out as they took the blades, patted him down.
‘Take me to Volusianus.’
‘Open the gate.’ The centurion gave the command over his shoulder, then turned back to Ballista. ‘The Praetorian Prefect is at the Palace, but the gods have guided your steps here. The Prefect of the City Watch has issued an order for your arrest.’
Ringed by armed men, there was nothing to be done.
‘You two take him to the cells. You get down to the Theatre of Balbus, and tell Scarpio that we have the man he is looking for.’
‘This way.’ The praetorian did not manhandle Ballista, but made an almost courtly gesture.
The gate clanged shut behind them.
Ballista knew that he had to make his move before they reached the cells. Once locked in, there would be no escape.
‘Sorry about this, sir. We all know your war record.’
The other praetorian nodded. ‘Must be a mistake, but they are saying you killed some men over in Transtiberim, set fire to a warehouse.’
Ballista stumbled. The guard on his left put out a hand to steady him. Ballista punched him hard in the stomach. The second guardsman turned, his weapon in no sort of position. Ballista kicked him in the balls. Thank the gods the praetorians spent their time on ceremonial duties or bullying civilians, not fighting.
The steps up to the southern wall walk were not far. With both men down, Ballista ran.
‘Guards!’ One of the praetorians had got to his knees, and found his voice. ‘The prisoner is getting away.’
Ballista took the steps two at a time.
A squad of praetorians was tumbling out of a guardhouse, tugging on their equipment.
There was a man on the wall walk. In the gloom, he had not seen Ballista, and was peering down in puzzlement at the commotion in the yard. Ballista bounded to the top of the steps. As the praetorian spun around, Ballista tackled him, shoulder into midriff. The guardsmen crashed onto his back. Landing half on top of him, with an open hand, Ballista cracked his head back onto the flagstones.
‘Up there! On the wall! Get him!’
The wall was too high to jump from. Outside, the Via Tiburtina ran at its foot. As ever there were wagons: one loaded with amphorae, another with barrels, a third piled with sides of meat.
The guards were clattering up the steps.
Ballista moved along the fighting platform, desperately scanning the road. A cart laden with roof tiles, a flock of sheep. There, at last, a wagon full of hay. Ballista climbed up onto the crenulations. The guards were pounding along the wall walk towards him. Just a moment longer.
The wagon was below. Ballista jumped.
A moment later he landed on his back in the soft hay.
‘What the . . .’ The driver twisted around. ‘Where the fuck . . .’
Ballista scrambled up and seized him by the scruff of the neck.
‘My apologies.’ Ballista heaved the man off the side.
‘Stop the bastard!’ The praetorians above were shouting. They were unwilling to make the jump in full armour. Ballista did not blame them.
Grabbing the reins, Ballista shook them up. Yelling, he flicked them across the rumps of the two dray horses. Startled by the unfamiliar urging, the horses bolted. A moment’s delay, and the traces yanked the cart after them so fast that Ballista was almost propelled off the seat, back into the hay.
The shepherd ahead dived for cover, and his flock scattered, bleating in distress.
The horses, wild eyed, whipped into a frenzy, raced down the road.
In moments they would overrun the cart with the roof tiles.
There was a narrow street to the left. Standing, Ballista hauled hard on the reins. The horses responded. The turn was far too tight. The cart was skidding. Ballista felt it begin to tip. He hurled himself over the trailing edge. Rolling on the paving stones, the breath knocked out of his body, he heard the crash.
Levering himself to his feet, fighting to get air into his chest, he saw the carnage. The shattered cart lay on its side, loose timbers scattered on the paving slabs, blocking the street. The horses, dragged by the traces, were struggling to get back on their legs. Although cut and grazed, thankfully neither seemed badly injured.
The onlookers were frozen, petrified with shock.
‘Stop him!’
No one responded to the praetorians’ command.
Ballista swarmed over the broken vehicle, dodged a couple of sheep, and dived down the narrow street leading off the via Tiburtina.
Once again, he was running.
CHAPTER 11
The Subura
The Tenements
B
ALLISTA WALKED DOWN INTO THE SUBURA. The chaos that he had left behind him at the Praetorian Camp had delayed any pursuit. As far as he could tell, no one h
ad managed to follow him. It seemed that he got clean away, but now he needed somewhere to get off the streets, somewhere out of sight to decide what to do next. There was no better place to go to ground than in the twisting alleyways and crowded buildings of the subura. There were inns and lodging houses. It was late, if they were bolted for the night there would be drinking dens and brothels. He had given the pimp’s wallet to the magician, and had lost his sword and knife at the Praetorian Camp, but there were always ways to get money. And Ballista knew from his youth that in the subura money could buy most things, no questions asked.
He turned off the main thoroughfare. The peeling walls and damp brickwork of tall tenements closed around him. Wedged in the low ground between the slopes of the Viminal and Esquiline Hills, the subura was a plebeian district. The poor lived in crumbling apartments, built so close together it was said that neighbours on the upper floors could shake hands from one balcony to another across the alleyways. The dilapidated structures tottered upwards in defiance of imperial building regulations. Their inhabitants were crammed together, often whole families in one room, under leaking roofs, behind ill-fitting doors. Most of the tenements only had one door at street level. They were death traps, and the threats of sudden collapse or fire could never be far from the thoughts of their occupants.
Poets condemned the subura as a sink of depravity, the haunt of criminals and whores. Like most poetry, it had an element of truth, but did not capture the complete reality. The subura was home to many tradesmen – blacksmiths, bootmakers, workers in wool – as well as myriad shopkeepers. Among the latter were those who sold not basic provisions, but delicacies and finery. The most exquisite fish sauce and the softest linen were to be bought in the subura. And amid the plebeian dwellings and workshops were houses of the rich. In the main, the Roman elite made their homes high on the seven hills, for the views, and to catch the breeze, breathe cleaner air. But some had their houses down in the subura. Back in the days of the free republic, it might have been to exhibit fellowship with the common man, to garner votes. Now, under the emperors, the choice probably was dictated by cheaper property prices, or a delight in having rakish pleasures on their doorstep.
The Last Hour: Relentless, brutal, brilliant. 24 hours in Ancient Rome Page 11