The Last Hour: Relentless, brutal, brilliant. 24 hours in Ancient Rome

by Harry Sidebottom

  Despite the talk in the bar last night, Ballista knew that Gallienus was a leader of men. Had he not led the cavalry charge that had shattered the horde of the Alamanni on the plains outside Milan? When the Persians captured his father, as revolts flared in many provinces, against all odds, Gallienus had held the empire together. Only last year, high in the Alps, he had defeated the forces of the pretender Postumus. Certainly Gallienus had ever distracted himself with drink and sex and philosophy. But, like Mark Antony, when duty called, he cast off his indolence and pleasures. Even now, in three days’ time, he would set out to take the field, cross the mountains, and bring Gaul and the West back under his authority.

  Ballista had faith in the friend of his youth who had risen to be Augustus. And yet the gossip of the bar troubled him. It was a truism that power corrupted. No matter how the Romans sought to disguise the reality, dress it up with talk of a first among equals, the fact remained that the emperor was an autocrat. His will was law. To his subjects he was either the gods’ vicegerent on earth or he himself was a god; his power was untrammelled. Such power might change a man. Gallienus had been emperor for more than a decade.

  ‘By order of his sacred majesty, Gallienus Augustus,’ a herald proclaimed as walked down from the Arch, ‘let no one who knows himself a law breaker come to pay his respects to the emperor, lest he be discovered, and receive capital punishment.’

  A large party of equestrians were climbing the hill. The narrow purple stripes of their tunics shone in the early morning sunshine. Ballista slipped out, and joined the rear of their group.

  The equestrians were talking about the Games in the Colosseum. Crescens the retarius had been induced to come out of retirement. He would be matched against Iaculator the myrmillo. Then there was the hippopotamus. What a spectacle, and there would be gifts. Say what you like about Gallienus, he had never been parsimonious. Ballista envied them their innocent chatter and anticipated pleasure.

  They came to a halt. The praetorians were working fast, but there was a queue. There were at least a dozen guardsmen, in undress uniform: helmeted, with sheathed sword and dagger, but in tunics, without armour. They were overseen by a centurion, his belt resplendent with awards for valour. But it was another who caught Ballista’s attention.

  In the shadow of the arch, just behind the centurion, stood another soldier. This was no praetorian. His sword belt had no decorations, and he wore no helmet. He was more smartly turned out, but in every other respect like the men at the Mausoleum. Although they had been searched by the guardsmen, the soldier scrutinised everyone who passed under the arch. As if aware that he was observed, he glanced up. The soldier looked straight at Ballista, and recognition dawned on his face.

  Turning away, downhill, Ballista was faced by a solid phalanx of men.

  ‘There he is!’ The shout was that of one accustomed to carry across the parade ground.

  ‘Excuse me.’ Ballista pushed between the first of those waiting. They looked surprised, but did not try to hinder him.

  ‘Stop that man!’

  Ballista shoved through the crowd. A man tried to catch his arm. Ballista shrugged him off.

  ‘It is Ballista! There is a warrant for his arrest!’

  Ballista hefted his staff. Those in front of him shied away. Ballista plunged into the space. But the crush was too great. The gap closed. He could make no headway. Over his shoulder, he could see the soldier and half a dozen guardsmen thrusting into the crowd.

  ‘In the name of the emperor, clear the way!’ Ballista’s invocation of the commander of thirty legions had its effect. The crowd parted. No one ever wanted to stand against an imperial order.

  ‘Stop that man! He is a murderer!’

  At the soldier’s shout, someone grabbed Ballista.

  ‘Not me, you fool.’ Ballista pushed him away. ‘The man down there.’ Ballista pointed towards the bottom of the path, in the general direction of the Arch of Titus.

  Confused, the bystanders shuffled aside. In moments Ballista was clear of the worst of the press. Both staff and toga were impediments. He dropped the one, and unwound the other as he ran. The folds of the toga spooled out behind him on the pavement as he sprinted down the hill.

  At the bottom, he risked a look back. The soldiers also were clear of the crush. No more than fifty paces behind, they were hot on his heels, intent on his capture.

  Ballista turned left, retracing his steps toward the Forum. There were pedestrians in the Via Sacra. They promenaded in ones and twos, or small groups. Not slackening his pace, Ballista swerved around them. The sounds of pursuit at his back spurred him on. An unencumbered man in fear of his life should outrun soldiers burdened with weapons.

  Emerging from the shade of the Arch of Augustus, Ballista was forced to skid to a halt. The Forum was packed. Everywhere men stood talking, or threaded their way slowly through the mass. The only open area was a little ahead, where the ringing of bells warned the multitude to draw back to let a religious procession pass on its stately progress. Not hesitating, Ballista launched himself into the teeming humanity. Sidestepping, folding his body into what spaces offered, using elbows and shoulders, he bored his way after the procession.

  ‘Stop him!’ The yells of the soldiers were lost in the calls of hawkers, the sound of the bells of the devotees of the deity, snatches of song and bursts of laughter, the general hubbub of thousands.

  Ballista had almost reached the procession when he tripped and went sprawling. Two men solicitously aided him to his feet.

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘No, I am fine.’ His knees and the palms of his hands were grazed. The cut on his right hand had opened again, and the ankle he had twisted when he jumped from the balcony in the subura was throbbing.

  ‘You took a nasty fall. Let us help you.’

  ‘No, really. It is nothing.’ Allfather. His ankle hurt.

  The soldiers were breasting the crush, twenty paces away, no more.

  Ballista thrust aside his would-be helpers.

  ‘Health and great joy,’ one called out after him, laughing.

  A final titanic effort – civility abandoned, men staggering in his wake, cursing his back – and Ballista hobbled up to the rear of the worshippers. Most were women, but a few were men. He did not look totally out of place. No one questioned his presence.

  In the meteor tail of devotees that followed the priestesses, Ballista was ushered across the Forum without check or halt. Looking back, he saw the soldiers trapped in the throng, like Laocoon and his children in the coils of the serpents. Injured ankle or not, they would never catch him.

  The traditional gods still had power. Ballista remembered that it was the Kalends of April, the day the golden necklaces were taken from the statue of Vesta. The goddess was washed, her ornaments restored, and roses were placed at her feet. Now the vestal virgins would take the faded blooms to the Tiber, give them to the tawny waters to bear away.

  At the far end of the Forum, near the Mamertine Prison, Ballista slipped from the procession, and set off north. As he walked, the pain in his ankle receded.

  The great courtyard of the Forum of Trajan was as good a place as any to take stock. There were people about – slaves awaiting manumission, scholars heading to the library, the usual groups of sightseers – but there was room to move. Ballista leant against a column, by the apse on the western side. From there he could keep an eye on the main entrance.

  There was no chance of getting into the Palace unaided. The praetorians had orders for his arrest. They were not the only ones watching for him. The cordon around Gallienus would be equally unbreachable as he processed to the Colosseum, and while he was watching the Games. Ballista would not get to the emperor without help. Where could he turn? The first hour of daylight had not yet run its course. The assassins would strike at sunset. There was time to walk to the house of Volcatius, and return with Maximus and Tarchon. If they were still away searching for him at the Praetorian Camp, Rikiar the Vandal and Gri
m the Lame, the other warriors who had followed him from the North, would be in his household. But what good would it bring? With a couple of barbarians he would not be able to force his way into the imperial presence. Greater numbers would be no better. There was no point in going yet further afield to the camp of the emperor’s German bodyguard.

  Who else could he trust? Of course, there was Demetrius. But the Greek boy would be with Gallienus in the Palace. The rest of Ballista’s friends were not in Rome. Tacitus was on his estates by the Danube, the other officers – Castricius, Rutilus and Aurelian – were with the army outside Milan. Ballista cudgelled his thoughts. If only he was not so tired.

  A poem by Ovid came into his mind; not the words, but the import. It had been written in exile. As the poet could not make his way to the Palatine, his little book would have to make its way alone. A message – Ballista needed to find someone who could take a warning to Gallienus. But who? Ballista was on cordial enough terms with two or three senators. They might have invited him to dinner, but could he trust them? Gallienus had banned their order from military command. Would they run a risk to save the emperor? Might they not prefer to see him dead? Perhaps they were part of the conspiracy?

  Who could he find to act as a messenger? It had to be a man of status. Someone hired from the street would not be admitted into the imperial presence. Julia had a cousin in Rome. Decimus Gallicanus had a house up on the Esquiline. It was no distance. But the young equestrian was far from a man of action. At times the noise of a symposium appeared to frighten the bookish youth.

  Something in the scene before Ballista was not right. Abandoning his speculations, he scanned those in the courtyard. Over there, by the entrance – two men, civilian clothes, but military bearing. They were moving slowly out into the open space. They walked side by side. The eyes of one quartered to the left, the other to the right. They reminded Ballista of huntsmen drawing a covert, or army scouts searching for the enemy.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Forum of Trajan

  T

  HE TWO MEN WERE SOLDIERS, without question. They might wear dark tunics and civilian sandals, and carry no swords, but their every movement betrayed them. There was a measure, almost a swagger, in their tread. As he went along, one even twirled the strap end of his belt. Service under the eagles moulded a man, made him walk as if he feared no one, would beat to the ground anyone who stood in his way. If, like Ballista, you had spent the greater part of your life in the camps, it did not matter how they were dressed; you would never fail to recognise their type. He had known them at the Mausoleum, and he knew them now.

  They were soldiers, and they were looking for someone. They advanced slowly, shoulder to shoulder, almost marching. Each scrutinised just his side of the Forum. It spoke of discipline and orders.

  Ballista could see no others, neither behind them at the entrance to the Forum, nor coming down the western aisle in which he stood. He had no doubt that he could slip past these two, and in any case there were other ways out of the Forum. But it was always better to know the location of your enemy. Ballista remained where he was, leaning against a column.

  The raking early morning sunshine played on green and yellow marble columns, dazzled from the white marble pavement. It threw long, black shadows ahead of the soldiers. This was a place of joy, where newly freed slaves wore the cap of liberty, where debtors saw their records burnt. The dark shapes of the soldiers were interlopers. It was a wonder that no one else who was milling about registered their incongruous air of menace. But, apart from Ballista, no one else was looking.

  As they drew near, Ballista moved around the base of the column, so it blocked their line of sight. It was like a child’s game of hide and seek, only with deadly intent.

  Sure enough, they went by without spotting him. Intent on their task, at no point did they so much as glance back.

  Ballista watched them go. They were dwarfed by their surroundings. Above the soaring columns larger-than-life statues of Dacian prisoners in white marble gazed down with resigned faces. From between the barbarians, busts of former emperors and empresses regarded everything with the detachment of the divine. Highest of all, etched against the sky, were the standards of the legions with which Trajan had conquered Dacia.

  The soldiers halted at the foot of the steps that led up to the Ulpian Basilica at the north end of the Forum. They stopped to confer. Perhaps their orders had been unclear, or it could be that they were overwhelmed by the magnitude of their task. Soldiers always complain. How were just two of them expected to search the whole of the Forum? What about the basilica? Were they meant to search that too? And the libraries and the temple beyond? There were hundreds of people, all these slaves and freedmen, all these foreigners wandering about. How, by all the gods, were they expected to find one man? The description said he was tall and fair. Lots of men were tall, half the foreigners here were from the north. Hercules’ hairy arse, this was hopeless.

  At length, they finished their discussion. They split up, and set off, with the same steady, arrogant stride, towards the aisles that flanked the Forum. Most likely they had decided to give the basilica a miss and work their way back to the entrance.

  Ballista moved quickly. A group of freedmen were walking down the aisle, coming back from the basilica. There were four of them escorting a fifth, who wore the cap of liberty. They were laughing and joking, embracing each other.

  ‘I give you joy of your freedom,’ Ballista said.

  ‘Health and great joy to you, sir.’

  The soldier had entered the far end of the aisle. Ballista had no time to waste.

  ‘Last night in a dream Asclepius told me to come to this colonnade, and give money to the first man that I met who had just been manumitted.’

  The newly freed slave beamed.

  Ballista reached for his money. There was only a single wallet at his belt. What? Think about the missing one later. He took out the highest denomination coin that he could find.

  ‘The god instructed me to ask the man to whom I gave the money for his cap of liberty.’

  The freedman looked dubious. The cap was a powerful symbol, something for which he would have longed for years.

  ‘Indulge me, I have not been well, citizen.’ Ballista used the title deliberately.

  The ex-slave eyed the gold in Ballista’s palm. ‘The gods must be obeyed,’ he said. Everyone knew invalids were superstitious, and that the god of healing sent strange dreams. ‘The clothes are not the man.’

  The exchange was made.

  ‘May Asclepius cure you.’

  Ballista walked with them, indulging in small talk. Nothing of what was said registered. They were strolling, and, even at his deliberate step, the soldier was overhauling them. Thank the gods, he never looked further than those immediately around him.

  When they came to where the curtain screened the great western apse, Ballista said farewell, and slipped inside. The soldier was some fifty paces off, peering at everyone that he passed.

  Behind the hangings, in incense-pervaded gloom, a magistrate was holding court. With the litigants, the attendants, and a few spectators, there were twenty or so in the apse. Ballista took a place on a bench in the middle, jamming the soft cap down over his distinctive fair hair, slouched to disguise his height.

  The soldier would check the courtroom. Ballista was unarmed, but the soldier would have no more than a knife. Ballista must deal with him before his companion could cross the Forum. There would be a commotion. Others might appear. Cross those bridges if he came to them.

  Where had the second wallet gone? It must have been when he tripped in the Roman Forum. At least the thieves had not got both. By the hefty chink of the wallet still on his belt, he still had money enough. Perhaps a god had smiled on Ballista.

  The water clock was running out, and the accuser brought his speech to a close.

  In literature, court cases were exciting. The declamations of Ballista’s schooling were full of pirates, ex
iles and murderers, of adultery, incest and rape. In reality they almost always turned out to be about money. This one seemed to concern a codicil to a will.

  The defendant was droning on about his own good character. Witnesses – men themselves of respectable standing and unimpeachable virtue – would be summoned to testify to the truth of his statements.

  The light changed as the curtain was pulled back. Ballista sensed the newcomer standing there, surveying the room. Time’s arrow was arrested in its flight. The drip of the water clock was loud. Some of the audience shifted to look around. The defendant faltered in his oration.

  ‘Enter the court, or leave.’ The magistrate barely glanced up.

  The heavy material fell back, and the defence resumed.

  Ballista got up, and sidled out as inconspicuously as possible.

  The soldier’s back receded down the aisle.

  Once again sheltered by a column, it took Ballista only a moment to pick out the other soldier, working his way in tandem down the opposite colonnade. Two men could not begin to search a busy complex the size of the Forum of Trajan. Whoever the hunters were, there were not enough of them to search a city the size of Rome.

  When they reached the far end, they came together again, and stood conferring by the gate. Soon enough, after a final look around, they left.

  As soon as they were gone, Ballista turned away, and walked to the basilica. Inside was a forest of columns. Yellow and grey, two stories high, they towered over the assembled throng. This also was a place of good omen. Here, from time to time, in carefully staged pageants, emperors would appear in their majesty. From their throne, godlike and philanthropic, they would distribute gifts to their loyal subjects, donatives to mark anniversaries and victories. Some of the latter were real, others invented when it was felt loyalty needed bolstering with hard currency. In the Hall of Liberty, off to the left, slaves won their freedom, and by granting it their masters proved their magnanimity to themselves and to the world.