"These are necessary things, sir." Gaius Julius' voice dropped a tone. "But what do the people say, sitting in their homes when the sky is dark with portent? The Emperor must not forget that the people of the city must feel his love, they must see he cares, they must hear his voice and behold his face. He cannot hide on the Palatine, buried in the affairs of state, lest the love of the city be lost to him."
"I know," said Gregorius curtly. "I am not the only adviser who has urged him to reopen the theaters and the Flavian and the circus. He refuses."
Gaius Julius nodded to himself, by which Alexandros assumed that he knew this already, having nosed it out of the wine shops and baths of the city.
"Sir, what of these funeral games, these munera, that have been so long rumored? Will he wait, too, before giving the countless dead their due? Will he let the shades and manes throng the countryside, all unshriven and restless?"
"There is some news of this, which I have recently heard." Gregorius grimaced. "Galen issued edicts a month ago saying that there would be a great series of games-with gladiators, wild beasts and all-to commemorate the dead of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Baiae. Yet no date was set, no festival declared in their honor. Each day he is pressed for details or a date, yet he demurs. I fear that he will not appoint an editore to see to this matter, seeking to handle it himself."
"And his attention is ever elsewhere," said Gaius Julius softly. "There are many demands upon the Emperor's time, many threats to the Empire. Someone must ensure the plebe in the street has bread and wine and oil to fill his stomach. In the face of such a catastrophe, some small details might be lost."
"So they have been," said Gregorius, showing great weariness in his face. "Every man in the Imperial service carries a backbreaking load in these times. The relief effort is staggering."
"Not all men are so employed, noble sir." Gaius Julius' voice was firm. "I stand before you, willing to lend hand and thought to the task-but I beg you, sir, that you do not set me to this matter of the public relief. Let me do as the tribunes and aediles and magistrates did in ancient times; let me arrange such performances of the theater, such games and wild animal hunts in the amphitheater, as are deemed needful to restore the spirit of the people."
Gregorius sighed and put the pen away. "The Emperor will never release funds for such a thing. I have already related he plans a great series of games."
"This is so," said Gaius quickly, before the senator could continue. "But you could spare some coin for some trivial amusements for the citizens, while we wait for the funeral games. You have placed your fortune in the service of the people before-you hired ships to carry corn and wheat and wine into the city when civil war wracked the state and the people were starving. Rome needs you, sir."
The senator seemed suddenly to come awake. Alexandros, watching the two men, thought their host saw his guest for the first time in that moment.
"No senator can undertake to sponsor games, festivals, theater performances or triumphs without the express permission of the Emperor himself. No senator," Gregorius said in a sharp tone, "has ever been allowed to do such a thing since the reign of Divine Augustus himself."
"Indeed," said Gaius Julius, "the noble Agrippa undertook a lavish and prolonged series of games in the time of his aedileship. If memory serves, and if Cassius Dio speaks truly, Agrippa 'rained upon the heads of the people tokens that were good for money in one case, in another clothes, or yet again something else.' But Agrippa was the close confidante of Augustus, and surely undertook such things with the full knowledge and support of the Emperor. Sir, the people lament and are fearful. This is such a small thing, perhaps it could be done."
Gregorius shook his head, though his face showed disputed thoughts. He did not speak.
"Sir," said Gaius Julius after a moment, "I have some experience in these matters. I have recently returned from the East, from Persia, and am no longer in Imperial service. Let me lend my arm, my hand, my eye to resolve this. Let me set in motion an effort to restore the normal pattern of life for the Roman people. Perhaps the Emperor will let one of the theaters, not even the Marcellan or the Pompeian, reopen on selected days for the performance of… of classical tragedies, or the Aeneid, so that the people-who are tormented by omens on all sides, by the unnatural nature of the sky, by these stenches and fumes-may see that life continues, and the flow of the city may resume its accustomed course."
The senator was thoughtful now and considered the words carefully. Alexandros hid a smile. He knew something of Gaius Julius' experience in these matters, knowing by all accounts the elderly Roman was a master of stagecraft and planning. Alexandros had arranged some spectacles himself, in his breathing life, and he guessed his friend and companion had already prepared all that would transpire. All it needed was coin and some veneer of Imperial permission.
"Just one theater would not tax my coffers overmuch…" Gregorius began. No pantomimes or farces, of course, but instead reliable, older works, reminding the people of the ancient heroes and the traditions of the city."
"Even so," said Gaius Julius, his voice painfully earnest. "Nothing filled with spectacle or trickery, no mechanical elephants, no forests rising from the floor of the theater, no brawling gladiators. But it will be enough, sir, to guide the thoughts of the people away from all this death and destruction. Let them think of life again, and look to the future. Let them think kindly of the Emperor, and of you, whose generosity and concern for the people is so well known."
Gregorius rose, pacing to the window. He drew aside a heavy drape, revealing a window looking down off the hill, across the sprawling mass of tenements and the bulk of the Forum. There, framed in the window, lit by hundreds of distant torches and lamps, was the Palatine. The Imperial palaces gleamed watery red in the night. Ash was still falling, tainting the air.
"I meet with the Emperor in the morning," the senator said. "I will offer him this gesture and I will use, with your permission, your words. It may move him. I know he feels the wounds of the people deeply. Some gesture to them, to reassure the citizens, may warm his heart to this endeavor."
Unseen by the man, Gaius Julius turned to Alexandros for an instant, his face split by a huge grin, his eyes sparkling with triumph. Then he schooled his face to concern and faint hope as the senator turned around again.
"Which theater do you suggest? The Balbus, perhaps? It is small and the entrances could be easily controlled by the urban cohorts."
Gaius Julius rose, taking a wax tablet and stylus out of his robe, and joined the senator at the large table. "My very thought, sir. We would not want a riot! That would be a poor omen indeed."
– |Dawn was near, shading the dark sky with a muted violet glow, when they left the house of Gregorius Aricus. A chill had settled in the air and the smell of the river seemed sharp. Alexandros, inured to the cold, walked briskly, his hood thrown back, letting the dew bead on his skin. Gaius Julius walked at his side, radiating satisfaction.
"You are well pleased," the Macedonian said as they crossed the empty plaza at the heart of the Forum. Their lodgings, an apartment secured by Gaius Julius during their previous time in the city, were on the edge of the Aventine Hill. The rooms were small but out of the way, and their comings and goings would not be easily noticed. "This business of the theaters and races seems overly indirect. Of course, you may siphon off large sums of coin to finance other schemes by these means, but-"
Gaius Julius laughed suddenly, pulling back his own hood. They had crossed the expanse of the Forum and were passing by the pillared front of the temple of Castor and Pollux. Within, flames burned on the altars, illuminating the massive statues with a flickering light.
"My dear Greek, there is nothing indirect about the theater and the circus in Rome! Haven't you paid attention to Suetonius? I know you have, for I saw you grimace and exclaim aloud over the doings of my nephew's successors. Did you mark the fate of dour Tiberius?"
Alexandros nodded slowly. Of the emperors following the Di
vine Augustus, only the "glorious" Germanicus had died in bed. It seemed, from the vantage of history, that only the enormous impetus imparted by the long-lived and wily Augustus had carried the Empire through Tiberius' foul humor, Germanicus' too-short reign, Claudius' fumbling and Nero's profligate insanity to the able Vespasian.
"Yes, he died friendless and alone, murdered upon his return from that island."
"Do you remember why he had lost the affection of the people and the senate? Why he was murdered? Why the reign of Germanicus, 'he of the highest quality of body and mind,' was so welcomed?"
Alexandros pulled up short, vexed, and stared at Gaius Julius.
"Because Tiberius could not stand to attend the theater, the races and the other public amusements? That is madness!"
"Perhaps," said Gaius, putting his arm around the younger man's shoulder. "But this is Rome and here there is a special and intimate relationship between the people and the Emperor. There is a balance, a harmony, in the city between the least citizen and the most exalted. The theater, the circus and the Colosseum are at the heart of it."
Gaius Julius stopped and pointed up at the towering shapes of the Imperial palaces to their left. "There sits the Emperor in his gilded cage, surrounded by ceremony and guards and the weight of dreadful privilege. The common man, the citizen, rarely sees him. He is remote and distant. The senate, which by ancient tradition should represent the tribes and the citizens, is a useless social club. It has been this way for centuries. Even the fiction of voting for tribunes is long discarded. The Emperor's will is absolute, but he is not a tyrant."
They resumed walking, following the covered arcade down into the markets by the river.
"How does he escape becoming an isolated god, as so many of the kings in the east do? Why, my friend, through the theater, through the circuses, through the wild-animal hunts. In these things, the Emperor appears in person, the focus of all attention. Every man and woman and child can see his face, see him laugh or cry or curse if his favorite driver fails in the turn. In the theater, the common people may address the Emperor with their own voices. Do you see what that brings?"
Alexandros nodded, for he had sustained much the same relationship with his hoplites.
"A grievance aired," he mused, "is a grievance halved."
"Just so," grinned Gaius Julius. "You will see, my friend, that the weariness of this Emperor Galen, his distaste for these frivolities, will deliver the heart of Rome to me."
He paused, running a hand over his bald pate.
"I have some talent for swaying the allegiance and favor of the people, I must say."
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Severan Palace, Roma Mater
Long drapes, rich with gold thread, luffed slightly in the faint night breeze. The room was dim, lit only by a pair of beeswax candles. A man was lying on the quilts, still in his tunic and toga from the day. One sandal was on the floor, the other still on his foot. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, trying to dispel a throbbing headache. A door opened in one of the painted walls, casting flickering shadows on naiads and swimming dolphins. For the moment that it was open, the piercing wail of a crying child stabbed into the room. The man on the bed twitched as if struck by a spear, then sat up, his thin face tense.
The woman that had entered made a sharp motion with her hand. "Galen, lie down, there's nothing to be done by you."
The Emperor of the Western Empire, Augustus and god of the Romans, master of Italy and Gaul and Germania, lay back down, relieved. He turned his head, watching his wife sit at her side table, carefully brushing her neat, short hair. Even with a screaming child in the next room and all the despair and unease in the city, she remained well kept and elegant.
"What makes him cry like that?"
Helena cast him a look over her shoulder, eyebrows hard over her dark brown eyes. "Do you care? If you knew, would you order the matter resolved? Issue an edict to quiet him?"
Galen sighed. Helena was as tired and worn as anyone. Her pregnancy had been hard, though she had delivered a strong boy, if the volume of his wailing was any indication. In the decade since they had married, he a young tribune from the provinces, she the daughter of an ancient patrician house, she had struggled with numerous ailments. Once he had feared that bearing a child would kill her outright, but her stubborn will seemed to have overcome that obstacle.
"Is he all right?"
"Yes," she said, putting down the brush and letting her face soften a little. "The nurse says that he is colicky. She says that it will pass as he grows older. She's giving him some smelly infusion, catnip, I think."
Galen let his eyes close. The soft sound of the comb continued for a moment, then stopped. Turning his head, he let one eye open. Helena leaned close to the small silver mirror set on a three-legged stand on her table. She was wiping powder from around her eyes with a soft rag dipped in oil. The Emperor smiled and rolled over, his hands under his head so that he could watch her. Before they had come to Rome, she had never bothered with makeup. Now removing it was a nightly ritual, a colophon to the weary day.
"The boy could be raised by the servants, in Catania, perhaps."
Helena stopped and put down the rag. She turned, her eyes narrow and her lips compressed into a thin line. Galen frowned at her reaction.
"I will raise my son. If you wish us to leave so that you might sleep easy at night, we can certainly do so." The Empress' voice was very cold. Galen sat up and swung his legs off the bed.
"A suggestion only, my love. I do not want you to go, or him either. As you say, the colic will pass."
"Then don't talk like a fool," she snapped, turning back to her mirror. Sitting up, he could see part of her face in the silver. The lines of anger faded and she dipped her hands in a porcelain ewer filled with rose-scented water. After laving her face, she took a towel from the table and patted herself dry.
"How went things today?"
Galen smiled to himself as he removed his remaining sandal. Somewhere in the palace, there were slaves specially trained to remove his shoes, and his tunic, and the toga. There were probably slaves who were supposed to brush the Empress' hair and remove her makeup, too. Galen had spent too many years in the field lugging his own kit and tending to his own business to allow them into the tiny, besieged sanctuary of the Imperial apartments. The palaces on the hill were enormous, but they also held a vast army of servants, clerks, ministers and other hangers-on. Nearly everyone in the city shared a room with someone. The addition of the refugees from the south only made things worse. The thought of a private space was almost unheard of, but-by the gods!-he was the Emperor. If he could have a room to himself and his wife, then he would.
"It is very difficult. Everyone is still recovering from the shock of the disaster, I think. It's almost impossible to get things done. The provision of food to Campania is a particular problem."
"I heard," said Helena, sniffing with distaste. "I have received an inordinate number of letters from various and sundry distant relations, all begging for corn tokens." She slid under the covers of the bed, wriggling her toes down into the quilts.
Galen turned his body, making a space for her to fit against him under the covers. She was warm and soft and smelled of roses and coriander. He buried his face in her neck.
"It's the harbors at Misenum and Baiae," he said, his voice muffled. "Moving so much grain and salt pork and bread and wine and oil is impossible over the roads between here and there. Most of the bridges are damaged and the highways themselves are crowded with refugees or looters or troops sent in to restore order. It will be months before you could travel overland in safety."
Helena sighed and curled her husband's forearms to her chest, kissing his fingers. The candles had gone out, leaving them alone in the nest of the bed, in the dimness. "The harbors are still closed?"
He nodded, holding her tightly against him. "The work of dredging them clear of wrecks and sunken ships will take weeks, too. The work crews are mo
ving at a snail's pace… it's the same malaise which afflicts everyone here."
She turned her head, shifting so that she could see his face. Even in the darkness, there was still a little light from the windows. The height of the Palatine was studded with towers and temples, all illuminated by great torches and lanterns. Here, at least, it was never fully dark.
"How do you feel?"
"Tired. Exhausted. There is this weight, which is so enormous… Aurelian is a dutiful brother, and he is putting in the same long hours, but he does not have the breadth of vision, the understanding of the problems, to resolve things on his own."
Helena nodded and put the tip of her finger on his nose. "You need help," she said. "Like you had before the disaster."
Galen raised an eyebrow, looking down at the serious, small face of his wife. The smell of her hair tickled his nose, but he was not too distracted to notice the tone in her voice. He felt his weariness increase-must he politic and bargain in his own bed, too?
"Are you lobbying again? I have made up my mind. The Duchess is a broken woman; the loss of those men and her daughters was too much for her. The loss of my trust worse. I will not place her in charge of the Office of Barbarians again. She has proved far too dangerous to myself and our family."
Helena frowned, watching his face. The curious events of the days immediately before the eruption of Vesuvius and the annihilation of the Atreus estate at Ottaviano had only been discussed obliquely in passing between them. The Empress knew Anastasia had sent men into the south, to deal with some trouble. She had not heard "some daughters" were involved. Helena ransacked her memory-there was nothing to indicate the old Duke had gotten her with child. Though, doubtless, the ancient goat had tried!
"Daughters?" Helena tried to keep feral curiosity out of her voice. "I didn't know she had any daughters."
Galen hissed and tried to hide his head in the pillows. "Let us talk of it another time."
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