“It was fourteen years ago that the Scythians dared to set up camp outside the city. I was here at the time. So was my father. But the emperor—Gallienus, at the time—was far away, and so were all the legions. The Senate mustered the best army it could, calling up old veterans and gladiators and slaves who had served as bodyguards…”
“And the Scythians saw the brave defenders, took fright, and ran!” said Zenobia. “That was the story we heard in Palmyra.”
“And a fine story it is.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Is it not a true story?”
“True, as far as it goes. But sometimes, behind one truth, there is another truth.”
“You sound like Longinus,“she said. She never missed a chance to remind him that the world’s leading philosopher had graced her court in Palmyra.
“The late Longinus,” he noted. Serving as advisor to the queen of Palmyra ultimately proved fatal for the famous thinker, after Aurelian took the city.
She ignored this jab. “But you were here, when it happened,” she said. “So you know this other truth.”
“Perhaps…” Should he tell her? He thought not. Better to hold on to any little scrap that piqued her curiosity or elicited her desire for knowledge. His marriage was a daily transaction. She needed or wanted certain things from him. He desired other things from her. Information was one form of currency. “Remind me, wife, to tell you the story some day.”
She glared at him and said something in her native language.
“What did you say, wife?”
“I said you are a beast. A big, mean, Roman beast.” Her accent was so funny he almost laughed. How desirable she looked at that moment, with her eyes narrowed and her lips taut. He was aching to take her in his arms.
Seeing the spark in his eyes, sensing his desire, she smiled faintly and turned her gaze back to the skyline. “And after the Scythians left?”
“Oh, they marauded all up and down Italy, sacking one city after another—those cities, too, had no walls—looting and burning and enslaving a great many Roman citizens who were never heard from again. All those cities have walls now. And a good thing, because after the Scythians there came yet more barbarians, all eager to have a go at taking Rome. They were all repelled—some of them, just barely. Aurelian himself, not long after he became emperor, suffered a huge loss at Placentia, so devastating that many thought the barbarians would push straight to Rome. The Sibylline Books were consulted—something the Senate does only in direst emergency. The verses dictated that certain sacrifices should be performed at various river crossings and mountain passes, so as to keep out the barbarians.”
“Did these magical spells work?” she asked.
“Not magic, my dearest. Appeals for divine protection.”
“What is the difference?”
Gnaeus snorted. Had it come to this, that he must argue theology with a woman? He sidestepped. “However one puts it, the efficacy of those rituals was never actually tested. Aurelian regrouped and routed the barbarians. His success on the battlefield was astonishing. Nonetheless, he decided not to try his luck twice, and announced that the time had come to build a new wall around Rome, long enough and thick enough and tall enough to keep out the most determined barbarian horde. With Rome secure, he was free to set about on an even bigger task, clawing back the breakaway kingdoms in the west … and in the east.” Here he meant Palmyra, so he spoke carefully. “For a few years it seemed that the empire was coming apart at the seams, splitting into warring kingdoms, until Aurelian took matters in hand—and just in time. ‘Restorer of the World,’ it says on his coins, and so he is. Savior of the Roman world, at least. The greatest man of his generation, and one of the greatest of all Roman emperors.”
Zenobia sighed. In a way, he had flattered her. If one must be conquered, let it be by a great commander, not by accident or because of one’s own failings.
“He restored my own family’s fortunes, as well. Or at least his wall did.” Gnaeus had never before discussed with her the source of his wealth. Had she been a Roman matron he wished to court and marry, the families would have discussed money matters openly; but Zenobia was in no way a typical bride.
“The wall?”
“Much of the building was carried out by soldiers, but such a huge project demanded the best designers and artisans in the city. That is how the Pinarii made their fortune in past generations, as builders and artists. Then my grandfather died in the great fire, and my father lost virtually everything. Then, the patronage of the emperor Philip gave us this house. After that, my father struggled to reestablish the family business, but there was not much call for art and embellishment under Valerian and Gallienus, no grand projects here in the city. There was no money for such things, especially when people were dying right and left from plague. Gallienus mostly built fortifications and walls for cities menaced by the barbarians, like Athens. There was no such building project here in Rome—until Aurelian decided the time had come. I happened to be in the right place at the right time, able to put together a workshop of men with all the right skills. Building that wall made me a very rich man.” Rich enough to marry a queen, he thought. “Twelve miles of wall more than ten feet thick and twenty-five feet high, built of concrete and faced with brick, with a square tower every hundred feet, and nineteen gates. Along with all the construction, there was also a great deal of demolition, getting rid of obstacles in the way.
“The wall marked a change, of course. For many old-timers, including my father, the very sight of it is hard to take.” Gnaeus mimicked the slightly pompous voice his father used when reading aloud from his histories: “‘A Rome with walls is no longer my Rome! Nor is it the Rome of Augustus, or of Marcus Aurelius!’ Never mind that building that wall filled the family coffers! I tell the old fellow, ‘This is the Rome of Aurelian. Walls keep out barbarians, Papa. And usurpers.’”
“The same walls that keep some out, keep others in,” said Zenobia quietly.
“Do you feel like a prisoner, wife?”
“How can it be otherwise?” Though nothing about her expression seemed to change, she suddenly looked tragic. Her shoulders stiffened as she drew a deep breath. Gnaeus could not resist embracing her. But she remained stiff inside his arms. After a brief, awkward moment, he stepped back.
Her tragic posture reminded him of the first moment he saw her, which was the moment he fell in love with her. It was the day of Aurelian’s triumph …
* * *
In only three years as emperor, Aurelian seemed to have crammed a whole lifetime of accomplishment.
The empire had reached its lowest ebb when he became emperor. Gallienus had managed to hold power for fifteen years, a remarkable achievement considering the endless disasters of his reign. Invasions from without and insurrections within had split the empire into three parts, with Gaul a breakaway state to the west and Palmyra in the east behaving more like an independent kingdom than a client state. Gallienus’s father, Valerian, had been captured by the resurgent Persians and was never seen again. His two young sons had been cruelly murdered by would-be usurpers. Year after year the plague wore on, a pestilence even worse than that of Marcus Aurelius’s days. And to make matters yet worse, in the year Gallienus ventured to celebrate ten years of rule by staging Decennalia festivities, earthquakes devastated cities all around the Mediterranean.
One of the greatest disasters of his reign was man-made—the massacre of the entire population of the city of Byzantium by Roman soldiers on a rampage. Gallienus with an army traveled to Byzantium, convinced the miscreant soldiers to open the gates to him, and summarily put them all to death. Byzantium, one of the jewels of the empire, became a ghost city, populated by vultures and wolves.
As Titus had once noted, “No wonder people like your mother turn to bizarre cults like Christianity. A reasonable man might well conclude that the gods have turned irrevocably against mankind, or have simply abandoned the world—or perhaps never existed at all.”
Gallienus was remarkably resilient and brave, but eventually went the way of his predecessors, murdered in murky circumstances while on military campaign. His successor had been a military man of humble origins, Claudius, who seemed a competent general but who died of plague in Sirmium, far from Rome, after a reign of only fifteen months.
From the ensuing scramble for power emerged Aurelian, another military man of humble origin in his mid-fifties. Thus far his reign had been like a comet blazing across the night sky. As a dedicated worshipper of Sol, Aurelian preferred comparison to the sun breaking through clouds.
In short order Aurelian defeated the latest of the barbarian threats from the north, the Goths, and largely through diplomacy reclaimed the breakaway province of Gaul. When Zenobia, after the death of her husband, attempted to make Palmyra a kingdom independent of Rome, with its own imperial ambitions—she claimed Egypt as well—Aurelian trounced her armies and successfully laid siege to Palmyra. He executed most of the queen’s court—including the unfortunate philosopher Longinus—but he spared the queen, wanting her to adorn his triumph back in Rome.
And what a triumph it had been! Who would ever forget the sight of Aurelian’s chariot pulled by four elephants, their flesh dyed white and their tusks brightly gilded? They were followed by twenty more elephants, part of the booty from Zenobia’s palace in Palmyra that had been transported by sea to Rome.
Gnaeus and his father, both senators, had taken part in the procession, walking near the end, just ahead of Aurelian. Gnaeus had not worn the fascinum, though his father practically begged him to. Having lost his wife and son to plague, and never having remarried, of what use to him was a family heirloom? A few years previously, on the date when his son, had the boy lived, would have turned sixteen and been given the fascinum, Gnaeus put the talisman away. He had not looked at it since.
While waiting in the staging area for the triumph, Gnaeus had been able to see the contingents ahead of him as they moved into place on the Sacred Way. That was when he caught his first glimpse of Zenobia.
By including her in the procession, Aurelian wanted both to show the people what a prize he had captured, and to completely humiliate his captive. The sight of Zenobia was at once titillating and pathetic. She was adorned with so much gold and silver and gems that she labored under the weight of her ornaments. She managed to keep her head stiffly upright, but staggered from time to time, not only from the load of her jewelry, but because her feet had been bound with shackles of gold and her hands with golden fetters. Around her neck was a golden collar attached to a leather leash more suitable for a dog, which was carried before her by a dwarf dressed in the motley costume of a Persian buffoon, with long pointed shoes and a false nose in the shape of an erect phallus. The dwarf mocked her whenever she paused, and encouraged the gaping, jeering crowd to do likewise.
Gnaeus had been stunned at the sight of her. How could anyone jeer or mock such an extraordinary creature? That was how he thought of her, as a nearly supernatural being, more beautiful and majestic than any mortal woman possibly could be. He had turned to look up at the emperor, who watched from a high, screened platform above the staging area where he could observe the crowd without being seen. Aurelian looked pleased by his captive’s sensational effect on the crowd.
Night after night, following the triumph, Gnaeus could not sleep. He tossed and turned. He summoned the prettiest of his slave girls to his bed, but could find no interest in them. What was wrong with him? For years, ever since he was widowed, he had been quite satisfied with slaves and courtesans. He never thought of remarrying. The loss of his wife had been too devastating. When guests came to the House of the Beaks, his widowed younger sister, Pinaria, served as his hostess. She, too, showed no interest in remarrying.
But from the moment he saw Zenobia in chains, a mad desire possessed him. Gnaeus had to have her. He knew such a desire was out of bounds, irrational, but still it hounded him, every waking hour of the day and then in his dreams. At his household shrine, he prayed to Antinous that his impossible love might find a way, but he avoided the shrine of Apollonius. The only proper prayer to the wise man of Tyana would be to rid himself of such an earthly desire altogether, and Gnaeus could not bear to give up his obsession.
Finally, Gnaeus sent a letter to the emperor begging for an audience. The audience was granted.
Seated on a golden throne on a high dais, Aurelian was literally dazzling. His purple robes were embroidered with golden threads and countless jewels of every color. On his head he wore a golden diadem with radiant spikes, so that pointed beams of golden sunlight appeared to radiate from his brow. His courtiers observed protocols inspired by the royal courts of the East, so that there were a great many steps of formal ceremony before Gnaeus finally came face to face with his Dominus.
Early in his reign, some had said the new emperor was just another boorish soldier from peasant stock. This was Aurelian’s way of proving just how wrong they were. But it seemed to Gnaeus that it was precisely Aurelian’s humble origins that accounted for the man’s taste for gaudy display and his demand that everyone bow before him. Erudite, high-born men like the Divine Marcus had never needed such trappings to bolster their confidence or to exert their authority.
Although Gnaeus had requested a private audience, they were by no means alone. Secretaries and courtiers stood all around. The two men already had a professional relationship, because of Gnaeus’s work on the wall. Aurelian began the conversation by saying he was a great admirer of the history written by Gnaeus’s father. Whatever his upbringing, the emperor was old-fashioned enough to start by complimenting his visitor’s family—and canny enough to know that Roman aristocrats were easily disarmed by courtesies that cost nothing.
“How old is your father?” Aurelian asked.
“Sixty-four, Dominus.”
“Ah, then, not much older than I. Perhaps he’ll be around long enough to write an account of my reign. If I live long enough to have a reign worth recounting.”
“Dominus, in a very short time, you have already achieved the work of many lifetimes,” said Gnaeus. He knew the words sounded fawning, but he meant them sincerely. “You reunified the empire, you built the magnificent new walls, you led Rome to victories over the Vandals, the Juthungi, and the Sarmatians. Even the lowliest inhabitants of Rome sing your praises, grateful for your increase of the dole.” This was certainly true. The bread dole was now daily rather than monthly, and regularly included wine, pork, salt, and olive oil.
Aurelian seemed pleased. “You are very cognizant of my accomplishments, Senator Pinarius. Perhaps you, not your father, should become my court historian.” Gnaeus was taken aback by the suggestion—he had not inherited his father’s way with words—but Aurelian did not wait for a response. “I’m glad that you mention the dole. All the rest is obvious, of course, but not only did I drive back the barbarians and secure Rome with a wall, I saved her people from starvation. It was an outrage, that Romans were literally starving in their homes, and virtually every farm and vineyard in Italy lay fallow because the barbarians had wreaked such havoc. I’ve put the farmers and the vintners back to work. I feed the people. And I give them all a bit of wine so that they can enjoy the spectacles I put on. Because that is what emperors do. But you, Senator Pinarius, look quite well fed, so I do not think you are here to thank me for the dole. Why are you here?”
Gnaeus took a deep breath. “What will become of the queen of Palmyra?”
Aurelian frowned. “First of all, Zenobia is not a queen. Nor was she ever one. Palmyra never left the possession of Rome. She and her husband raised troops to hold the Persian threat in check, but they did so on behalf of Rome. After her husband died, Zenobia seems to have misunderstood the relationship. She put her young son on a throne. She started wearing a diadem herself—that is, when she was not wearing a helmet and waging war on horseback.”
“Those stories are true? About Zenobia leading men into battle?”
Aurelian nodded. “I
thought about dressing her in her warrior’s armor for the triumph—let the people of Rome see a real Amazon for once, not the make-believe sort who fight as gladiators—but I decided against it. That would make her appear a beaten rival rather than a trophy, and what Roman could be proud of besting a woman on the battlefield? An upstart would-be queen weighed down by golden chains—that’s another matter. Augustus never got to show off Cleopatra in his triumph. The Egyptian queen killed herself rather than be captured. Not so Zenobia, though she claims to come from Cleopatra’s bloodline. When we took the city, she fled from Palmyra, hoping to find sanctuary with the Persians, but I tracked her down—and caught her!” He leered at the memory. “The men in the crowd certainly enjoyed the sight of her in the procession. So did the women. They all loved seeing a haughty beauty brought low.”
“But … what will become of her?” asked Gnaeus, his mouth dry.
“I haven’t yet decided. Her son is dead. I’d have paraded him in chains, as well, but he managed to escape his irons on the ship crossing the Bosphorus and jumped overboard. My men found his body washed up on the shore. Did he think to escape, or did he deliberately drown himself? When I gave his mother the news, not the faintest glimmer of emotion crossed her face. She’s either very strong, or quite coldhearted.”
Gnaeus remembered the death of his own son. He had wept like a child. He had lost a beloved son, and so had Zenobia, and they both had lost a spouse. He felt a pang of sympathy for her. Might she not feel a similar sympathy for him?
Aurelian ticked off his fingers. “She now has no husband, no son, no kingdom. To execute Zenobia at this point might seem churlish, or an admission that she poses a threat, or at least once did. But she can hardly be set free to plot mischief, and she is more than capable of doing that. I blame her for the second siege of Palmyra. I decided to be merciful and to spare the city when I took it the first time. But then, on my way back to Rome, the city rebelled, and so did the Egyptians, saying they were still loyal to Zenobia and her brat. How she managed to plot rebellion while held captive I don’t know, but she’s crafty enough. So I turned back. I had to stage one bloodbath in Egypt and another in Palmyra. A nasty business! So what now? I suppose I should keep her under constant guard in some appropriately remote location, perhaps a small island somewhere…”
Dominus Page 36
