by Peter Tonkin
The man in the lead was clearly a slave. His aged body was spare but wiry. His eyes and cheeks sunken. His chin was grey with ill-barbered stubble. His mud-coloured tunic was threadbare and clung to his torso in the same way as his grey hair was plastered to his skull. When the bitter wind blew hard enough to lift the cloth of the short sleeves, it was just possible to see his owner’s brand among the gooseflesh on his shoulder. It was easy to count the ribs beneath his skeletal arms. He was bareheaded and wore an old-fashioned slave-ring round his neck. Every now and then he glanced over his shoulder to make sure his two companions were still following close behind.
These men were vastly different. Although it was impossible to tell their age, it was obvious their bodies were strong and bulky. Well-fed and young. They both wore heavy cloaks through which rich tunics could occasionally be glimpsed. Hooded capes of oiled wool designed to keep them warm and dry. The footwear at the ends of their muscular legs was solid if otherwise unremarkable and their feet were further protected by thick woollen socks which reached up to meet their heavy leather braccae trousers. It was possible to differentiate them only by noting that one was taller and more massive than the other. Their hoods were pulled forward, but it was obvious to the meanest observer there were no owner’s brands on these shoulders; no slave-rings round these necks.
*
There were a number of observers paying attention to the trio as they hurried by. Suspicious eyes followed them along the Vicus Patricii down from the Esquiline Hill, as they passed the Subura to reach the Forum Romanum by way of the Argelitum, as swiftly as possible without running fast enough to call attention to themselves, for these were still the early days of the Triumvirs’ bloody proscriptions. The lists naming the condemned had not yet been torn off the Senate House door by the wind or the rain, though the writing was nearly impossible to read now. Anyone could find themselves among the proscribed – their name put forward by dissatisfied wives, angry offspring, impatient heirs, ruthless rivals, vindictive or greedy neighbours. Even by slaves who harboured grudges – with or without good reason.
There were some 2,000 names on the original list, and a reward of 25,000 Attic drachmae to any citizen bringing the head of a proscribed man to Mark Antony or Caesar Octavianus. A slave was paid 10,000 drachmae for his master’s head, automatically freed and offered the dead man’s right to citizenship. Added to which, all across the Republic, but especially here in Rome, there were execution squads. Soldiers answering directly to the Triumvirs themselves, were out hunting for particular victims who had somehow raised the personal anger of the Republic’s rulers. These carnifices butchers were well rewarded for their bloody work. The same rewards were given to anyone who gave information about where someone proscribed was hiding. Anyone caught trying to save the proscribed was added to the list. All the belongings of the victims, including their slaves, were to be confiscated and sold at auction.
The Forum was crowded with the severed heads of the men named on those increasingly illegible, illimited lists who had not managed to escape. A few of them, like that of Marcus Tullius Cicero, still quite recognisable, at the apparent whim of the glutted crows which had done little more than peck out his succulent eyeballs. Though the huge iron spike driven through his forehead, securing the great orator’s cranium to the front of the rostra, was beginning to rust and a dark red line divided his vacant sockets, ran over his battered nose and his gaping mouth was overflowing with blood. As though the lolling tongue, so famously run through with hairpins and a stylus by Antony’s wife the fearsome Fulvia, could still bleed, more than two months after the brutal desecration.
ii
‘You’re sure about this, Lucius?’ called the taller of the two hooded figures, his voice carrying easily to the companion at his shoulder. His accent was Roman and patrician, his tone abrupt; that of a man used to command not only in his household but also on the battlefield.
‘Deuterus says so,’ answered the other figure breathlessly, gesturing towards the slave, whose Latinised name was Greek for ‘second’ describing his place amongst the other possessions in his owner’s household. His accent was as patrician as his companion’s, but his tone more youthful; less decisive.
‘Both of them?’ demanded the taller man, angrily.
‘Both mother and my sister Calpurnia,’ young Lucius answered, clearly scarcely able to believe it.
‘To see Octavianus?’ the taller man’s voice quivered with simple outrage.
‘And beg for our names to be removed from the proscription lists…’ The young man’s answer dropped almost to a whisper.
‘Has your mother no understanding of the price the little corruptus pervert Octavianus demands?’ wondered the taller of the two, incredulously.
‘I have no idea. You know how she is. Not of this world. Cato’s daughter. The essence of Stoicism …’
‘It’s all over the city that Octavianus only grants favours like that in return for sex. Just like Antony, in fact. But word is, Octavianus has been hoping to get a mother and daughter both at once…’
‘I know…’
‘And that’s what your mother is offering him? Herself – herself of all people – and her daughter. Your sister Calpurnia. My wife! In exchange for our freedom.’
‘She’s desperate, Messala…’
‘Demens mad, more like! To even dream that our gravitas dignity would allow us to accept such a sacrifice! But Deuterus thinks we can get there in time to stop them? That’s what my Calpurnia told him?’
‘Yes. She is terrified. Of Mother as much as of Octavianus. But I pray to the gods she is right and there is still time to stop them. Or we have put ourselves in the most deadly danger for no reason at all.’ The young man’s voice quavered with something more than breathlessness.
‘And you trust Deuterus, do you?’
‘He has served our family for years. My father bought him long before he married Mother. And he has been with the household ever since. Even after Father died six winters ago, soon after Caesar and Iscauricus became Consuls. Even after the Civil Wars and the turmoil of the proscriptions. Calpurnia could not have chosen her messenger more wisely.’
‘Hmm…’ growled Messala, clearly unconvinced.
*
This conversation was sufficient to take them into the Subura Major at its junction with the Vicus Collis Viminalis. To their right, on the north side of the road, there stood the tall insulae tenements, their upper reaches packed with apartments that grew smaller and smaller with each floor. Their main doors guarded by bulky janitors armed with clubs. At street level, they contained mostly taverns and shops where the crowds of plebeian freedmen and their families who thronged the Subura bought their meagre day-to-day requirements.
The plebeian area was by no means exclusive to the hopelessly poor. Divus Julius had lived in the Subura in his youth. But as well as the upwardly-mobile, the dangerously criminal lurked here. This had been the stamping-grounds of Clodius and Milo, leaders of the most ruthless and dangerous street-gangs, whose power had been so great that they had even sought to rule the city. Both were now dead and had been supplanted by Galliae The Gaul and his brutal cohorts. Who, if they did not yet rule Rome, nevertheless ruled these streets and alleys. And who were almost as efficient as the Triumvirs’ execution squads at collecting proscribed heads and the riches they could bring.
At least the foul weather kept the streets relatively empty, thought Messala. For he and Lucius were dangerously exposed here. Had been from the moment they came out of hiding. If they lowered their hoods they stood every chance of being recognised and executed; beheaded on the spot. Messala had served in the legions before his name was added to the proscription lists and the city was still full of old soldiers, many of whom would know him at once – most of whom would behead their own mothers for 25,000 Attic drachmae. And young Lucius was also well-known – the son of a famous father and of one of the most famous women in the Republic. Though one was long dead and the other notoriously remarried.
Both men tempted out of seclusion by the slave Deuterus and the astonishing news he brought from his terrified young mistress.
But anyone with their hood pulled forward – just as theirs were now – automatically stirred suspicion, begged confrontation and demands for identification. Even on a foul day like this one when any sensible person forced outdoors would be doing his utmost to protect himself against the sleet-filled wind, unless he was a slave. But, despite Messala’s concerns, the three men hurried on unmolested, turning out of the Subura into the Argelitum and almost running down into the Forum Romanum itself. Like patrician citizens practising for the famous race of the Lupercalia festival, due to be held on the Ides of the month in a few days’ time.
Octavianus’ office, according to the information Deuterus had been given by his young mistress Messala’s wife Calpurnia, was currently in the Temple of Juno Moneta. A logical place for the young Triumvir to work, even though it stood high on the Arx, a spur of the Capitoline Hill, joined to the precincts of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus by a narrow ridge. Even though it also housed a menagerie of geese and chickens used by the city’s augurs to see and understand the plans of the gods at the open-air temple of the auguraculum. Because beneath the temple of Juno Moneta was the mint which supplied the city and much of the Republic with its coins. And Octavianus, was, after all, accepting fortune after fortune in gold and silver possessions confiscated from the proscribed, turning statues, plates, cups and jewellery into ready money as fast as he could. Into the immense funds urgently needed to finance the campaign he and Antony planned to mount against Brutus and Cassius in the east as soon as the campaigning season started.
But also, so the rumour went, maintaining a private bed-chamber beside his work area where he could discuss with desperate wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters just how far they were willing to go in their attempts to get their fathers, husbands, sons, or brothers removed from the proscription lists. Octavianus, it seemed, had inherited more than his adopted father’s ruthless political acumen, fabulous possessions, army of clients and considerable fortune. Like Divus Julius, he had the blood of a satyr flowing in his veins.
And Messala’s mother-in-law had somehow convinced her daughter, his wife Calpurnia, that together they might seduce the little pervert into taking Lucius and Messala off the list. Unless the two men and the slave could catch up with their women and stop this madness before it went any further.
iii
The Forum Romanum was busier than the streets surrounding it; crowded with more than the heads of the proscribed. The business of the Republic carried on whatever the weather. Divus Julius’ half completed Basilica Julia, standing along its southern side, was bright with public and private spaces – courts, businesses, committee rooms, as was the Basilica Opimia beside it. Magistrates sat upon the Tribunal, hearing cases that could not wait for better weather. Slaves hurried between the citizens, statues, columns, basilicas, and temples on missions: clutching bills from businessmen and letters from lovers; carrying baskets, shopping lists; heavy purses, heavier litters and flaming torches that guttered and spat beneath the downpour. All of them, noted Messala grimly, better fed, and clothed than Deuterus, who was clearly unfortunate in being owned by an unworldly mistress with preoccupations far removed from the welfare of her household.
He glanced up to his right. The Capitoline Hill loomed there, with the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus at its crest, outlined against the sleety sky. And, nearer, at the end of that ridge, stood the Temple of Juno Moneta, the mint, Octavian’s office: their destination. The disguised patrician ex-soldier felt his heart clench at the thought of what might be happening in Octavian’s office even now to his beloved Calpurnia and her mad mother.
But Messala’s dark thoughts were interrupted before they were properly formed. A tightly organised squad of soldiers in full armour carrying gladii swords and pugiones daggers at their belts came across the Forum towards him, pushing through the crowds. Like a trireme breasting a stormy sea. Led by a centurion, he noted. Who marched at the point of a triangular boar’s head formation, as though attacking an enemy army. The soldiers were clearly about some business too important to be affected by inclement weather or bustling crowds. Which, for a disturbing heartbeat, he supposed might include arresting Lucius and himself.
The slave Deuterus stopped abruptly the moment he too saw the soldiers. Stopped walking and started bellowing in a surprisingly loud voice, ‘These men are proscribed! They are Lucius Calpurnius Bibulus and Marcus Valerius Messala Corvinus. Proscribed! Proscribed! I claim my reward and my freedom!’
*
The only heads that did not turn towards the shouting slave were the severed heads on the rostra. A kind of surge went across the Forum like a great wave rolling across the ocean. All other movement seemed to stop. Everyone stood still, staring. The wind died. The rain eased. ‘Proscribed!’ bellowed Deuterus again. ‘These men are proscribed!’
Only the soldiers kept moving. And there was no doubt about their destination now.
Messala swung round, looking for some way to escape. But he saw at once that there was none. The nearest roads, the Via Sacra, and the Vicus Jugularius were both packed. The hill-slope leading up the Capitoline notoriously steep and covered in wild undergrowth, except for where the statues of the Gods stood watching. There was no hope of turning and fleeing back the way they had come, for that way only led to the Subura and the ruthless head-hunters of The Gaul’s brutal gang.
Lucius and he were trapped here and the legionaries would arrive in a heartbeat. All of them armed as well as armoured. Like any soldier in his situation, however, Messala did take action. His fist smashed into the slave’s shouting mouth. Deuterus staggered back and fell to the ground. Messala aimed a kick at his head that would have rendered reward and freedom pointless by killing him there on the spot.
But a surprisingly gentle voice close behind him said, ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’
Messala swung round to face the speaker and the squad of legionaries standing at his shoulders. Oddly, it was not the soft-voiced centurion who claimed Messala’s immediate attention, even though his face was strikingly handsome. It was the soldiers standing either side of him. On the right stood a hulking brute of a man wearing a gladiator’s helmet instead of a standard legionary issue, the sort of helmet usually worn by a Murmillo or a Thracian. Above the projecting rim was the image of Nemesis, Greek goddess of Retribution. Below the rim, two latticed sections closed to protect the soldier’s face, especially his eyes. The right eye gleamed ferociously from beneath a thick, beetling brow. The left was painted on an eyepatch that covered what was obviously an eye-socket as empty as Cicero’s. Below the patch, the legionary’s cheek was scored as though by a lion’s claws.
On the centurion’s other side stood a soldier who it took several heartbeats for Messala to recognise as a woman. He had seen female gladiators – gladiatrices – before. But it had never even occurred to him that a woman could serve as a soldier – other than the various descriptions of Queen Hippolyta and her Amazon army. She was tall, broad-shouldered, deep-chested. Even in the metal scale armour she was wearing it was clear that, unlike the legendary Amazons, she still had both of her breasts. Her face might have been carved of ebony wood or obsidian, statuesque, even with the drizzle beating against it. Wide brown eyes, almost as dark as pitch, regarded him emotionlessly without a flicker. As he eventually looked back at the quietly-spoken centurion, confronting a long face ending in a square chin, with the faintest gleam of stubble as though it had been brushed with copper. A long Grecian nose above thin lips and icy grey eyes. Weighing him up and deciding how to proceed as though considering a problem by Pythagoras or Euclid.
And Messala knew that his life hung in the balance.
iv
Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Divus Fili glanced up from his accounts as one of the temple slaves, assistant to the janitor doorkeeper priest, came into the room as the commander of C
aesar’s praetorian bodyguard closed the door behind him. Although Octavianus counted amongst his friends and clients Divus Julius’ private secretary the fabulously wealthy financier Lucius Cornelius Balbus, who had a cohort of Greek slaves capable of overseeing the Republic’s accounts, there were times when Octavianus wished to have a firm grasp of the current financial situation himself. Antony didn’t seem to care about any money he wasn’t planning to spend on parties, whores, or wine. Poor old Lepidus was busy with his consular duties. And somebody needed to have a firm grasp of realities.
The proscriptions were falling worryingly short of expectations in their most important aspect. For their main objectives had been two-fold. To rid Rome of anyone the Triumvirs could not trust to stay supportively quiet while they carried their war of revenge eastwards – which seemed to be working well enough. Almost all the men who had supported Brutus, Cassius and their gang of murderers were either dead, in hiding, or on the run.
But the second objective, to raise enough funds to mount the campaign of revenge in the east, was much less satisfactory. They were still millions of Attic drachmae short by the look of things. He and Antony could not afford to go to war with Brutus and Cassius because they did not have sufficient funds to pay a large enough army; to finance even a short campaign, let alone a lengthy one.
Oh, he knew well enough that they controlled more than 20 legions between them. Or they did in theory. But the legions were not fully manned – except for the IVth, the Vth – the Alaude Larks – the VIth Ferrata Ironclads, the reconstituted VIIth and the Martia. Bringing the rest up to strength would be a lengthy and expensive business. Increasingly, it was becoming clear that the legions were motivated by money above all else. Would not stir – let alone fight – unless glittering promises turned into regular pay. Unless things improved soon, they would be lucky to set out before the autumn.
Octavianus glanced up, frowning, as the slave crept across to the table’s edge and hovered distractingly. There were only two circumstances under which the young Triumvir could be disturbed: the arrival of an urgent message from Antony, or the arrival of a female supplicant here to trade her honour for the safety of some relative.