Throne of the Caesars 01 - Iron and Rust

by Harry Sidebottom

  Maximinus’ residual momentum had carried them west for a day. That night, he had drunk himself insensible. The next morning, he had not left his bedchamber. Catius Clemens had come to ask for orders, the watchword of the day. Maximinus had knocked him down, thrown him bodily from the tent. He had called for more wine. He had drunk for three days. Afterwards, he had a blurred memory of having his son by the throat, threatening to tear out Maximus’ eyes because they did not weep for his mother.

  Paulina had had every virtue a woman should possess. Loyalty, reasonableness, affability, religion without superstition, sobriety of dress, modesty of appearance – the list had no end. She had always dismissed her looks, but they had delighted him: her pale eyes, her delicate, small mouth and chin. Why had she died before him? He was older. He should have proceeded her to the grave. She should have buried him. Had they even placed a coin in her mouth for the ferryman? He would not let her life be lost, not let her go as if she had never existed. From his memories of her words and her actions, somehow he would draw the strength to resist fortune. But, when he thought of her, sorrow wrenched away his self-control. How could he hold steadfast to such a promise? How could such a thing have happened? Were the gods so uncaring?

  On the fourth morning, it was Aspines who had coaxed him out from where he lay. Talking all the time of how a man had to endure, quoting lines from Homer, the a Studiis had washed him, with inexperienced fingers helped him arm:

  There is not

  any advantage to be won from grim lamentation.

  Such is the way the gods spun life for unfortunate mortals.

  When they resumed the march, Maximinus had Aspines ride at his side. He had listened intently as the sophist drew on all his learning to offer consolation. Aspines did not know if the soul survived death; no one did. If it did not, there was just sleep. If it did, then there was a deity and, by definition, a god was good, so the souls of the good would not flit like bats through the dark but find a haven, safe and happy with the immortal gods for eternity. Maximinus was suffering, but others had suffered more. Jason witnessed his bride burn, and saw the broken bodies of his sons. Aeneas rescued his father and son, but lost his wife and had to endure the sight of Troy in flames. And then there was duty. Maximinus owed it to himself, to the memory of his wife, to crush the usurper, to drive the barbarians from Dacia, to restore the Pax Romana.

  Words, Maximinus thought, just words. But sometimes words have their place. He shifted slightly as he waited. On a small portable altar, the sacred fire smoked. He had made his decisions, but had told no one.

  A guard pulled back the hanging.

  Macedo walked in. The Graeculus was wearing a gilded and chased corselet. In one hand he carried a sack, in the crook of his other arm he held an alabaster urn.

  ‘Emperor, I have done all I could.’

  Maximinus neither spoke nor moved.

  The Greek placed the sack on the floor. Bent over, one-handed, he fumbled to open it.

  No one went to help him.

  Macedo lifted the thing free by its hair. ‘The usurper is dead.’

  The tent was silent, except for the ticking of the fire.

  Macedo dropped the severed head of Quartinus. It landed heavily on the ground.

  Everyone in the tent looked at the repulsive object, except Maximinus.

  ‘How?’ Maximinus said.

  Macedo wiped his hand on his trousers. ‘Last night, avoiding his guards, all alone I crept into the usurper’s room. As he lay like Polyphemus in swinish drunkenness, I killed him. This morning, the sight of his head brought his rebellious soldiers to their senses. In the light of day, before gods and men, I administered the military oath to their rightful Emperor.’

  ‘The Empress?’ Maximinus said.

  ‘Her ashes, gathered in reverence.’ Macedo held out the white urn.

  Maximinus got up from the throne. His guards tensed. He took the reliquary, held it tenderly in his great, scarred hands. He would not weep. A man has to endure. He turned, and placed the urn on the seat of his throne.

  ‘What happened?’

  Macedo shook his head despondently. ‘The rebels were looting the house. She fell from a high window. Some think she jumped to her death to preserve her honour. Others say she was pushed.’

  Maximinus felt the blood pounding in his temples.

  ‘She has been revenged, my Lord. This morning, I executed all who had invaded her home, all who had offered insult to her sacred person. Their corpses were thrown in the river, given to the fishes. Their souls will wander for ever in torment.’ Macedo looked at Maximinus with tears in his eyes.

  ‘All?’

  ‘Every man.’ The tears ran down Macedo’s cheeks.

  ‘Seize him.’

  Macedo struggled, then stopped. Two soldiers pinioned his arms. Another removed his sword and dagger.

  ‘Imperator, if I had not pretended to join them, they would have killed me. I would have had no chance to rid you of the traitor.’

  Maximinus took Macedo’s sword from the guard. ‘You did not kill all who went into the house.’

  ‘I swear by the gods below, I killed them all.’

  ‘Not all.’ Maximinus balanced the sword on his fingertips. ‘I killed the centurion Mokimos five days ago at Pontes. You Greeks overrate your cleverness.’

  ‘Dominus—’

  Maximinus drove the blade through Macedo’s breastplate into his stomach. He released his grip. The hilt was hard against the gilded leather and the point had burst through the armour on Macedo’s back.

  Going back to the throne, Maximinus picked up the urn, sat. His hands left smears of red on the alabaster. More blood stained the ivory throne.

  The guards let Macedo slide to the floor of the tent. He was still breathing.

  Maximinus’ head throbbed, but his thoughts were clear.

  ‘Send a messenger to the Osrhoenes that I will take their oath in person. Tell them to assemble, without arms, this afternoon outside Viminacium on the Campus Martius. Have the parade ground ringed by our cavalry.’

  Maximinus pointed at Macedo. ‘Take his head. Send it to Rome, with that of Quartinus. Put them on pikes outside the Senate House. Honoratus, you will go to Rome, and announce that Caecilia Paulina will be worshipped as a goddess.’

  ‘Imperator, Flavius Honoratus is in Moesia Inferior, fighting the Goths,’ Catius Clemens said.

  ‘Then you will take my command. Caecilia Paulina will have a temple, priestesses, sacrifices. All our resources must go to the northern war. Tell the Prefect of the City, Pupienus, to reduce the expenditure on the cults of the other deities. If that is not enough, cut the corn dole and sell the surplus.’

  ‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’

  Maximinus sat back, gazing at the bloodstained urn. Paulina was dead. It was unthinkable that the world might carry on unaffected. If the idle rich and the feckless plebs of Rome wanted spectacles, let them remember her. If they wanted bread, let them work for it.

  His grief threatened to unman him. Aspines had done his best, but he had been wrong. Neither Aeneas nor Jason had suffered as much. No one had. Maximinus had been fifteen. He had been out in the Thracian high country, hunting with Tychanius. He had known something was wrong long before they reached Ovile. The village was too quiet. He had seen the first dead bodies in the mud, but he had still hoped. He had walked into the hut, and his entire family had been there: father, mother, his little brother and his two sisters. They were all dead; his mother and sisters naked.

  The northern barbarians had killed his family, and now these easterners had murdered his wife.

  CHAPTER 24

  Africa

  The Outskirts of Carthage,

  Four Days before the Kalends of August, AD236

  Zeus Philios, the King of the Gods, was looking old and a little weary. He had laid down his thunderbolt next to his wine cup, but he was nodding happily. Even at his age completely in character, he wa
s admiring the scarcely concealed charms of Aphrodite. Across the room, Hephaistos, a wreath of roses slipping over his eyes, was limping back to the table.

  Gordian unbuckled Ares’ grim helm. It was hard to relax under its weight. He looked around the table. The dinner of the twelve Olympians had been one of his best ideas. All the male guests were playing their part. Naturally, as governor, his father was Zeus. Valerian had the trident of Poseidon, and Arrian the winged hat of Hermes. It had taken some effort to persuade Sabinianus as Hephaistos to leave his mule outside. Stoic severity put aside, Menophilus was a suitably drunk Dionysos. As guest of honour, the sophist Philostratus, looking only slightly uncomfortable, now and then remembered to pluck Apollo’s lyre. All their efforts, however, were as nothing compared with those of the goddesses. Gordian’s own mistresses, Chione and Pathenope, wore costumes unlikely to have been chosen for any dinner party by the virgin deities Artemis and Athena. The better to draw a bow, she said, the right breast of the former was bare, the nipple rouged, while the latter had foregone her armour and reclined in nothing but a tiny tasselled cloak as her aegis. Two courtesans from Corinth played Hera and Demeter with less than matronly reserve. But the palm for lubricity had to be awarded to Menophilus’ mistress. Thank the gods her husband was overseas. Lycaenion was Aphrodite risen from the sea. The sheer silk of her gown clung as if wet. There was something more arousing about her nearly concealed body than her companions’ naked flesh. Gordian felt his cock stiffen whenever he looked at her. Perhaps later, when he had had enough to drink, Menophilus might share her with his friend.

  Girls from Gades – no Ganymedes here, his father’s tastes had never run in that direction – waited at the table. The main course was not ambrosia but suckling pig, pheasant and partridge, with artichokes, courgette, cucumber and rocket leaves. The latter were a sure aphrodisiac, as were the snails and oysters already consumed. In place of nectar, they drank the finest wines of the empire, Falernian and Mamertine, Chian and Lesbian. In the perfect seclusion of this suburban villa – they were some way outside Carthage – Gordian wondered if it might be a good idea if the serving girls took off their tunics.

  ‘I remembered, also, the discussions we once held about the sophists at Antioch, in the temple of Apollo at Daphne.’

  The elder Gordian removed his gaze from Aphrodite and smiled at Philostratus’ words. ‘That was a very long time ago,’ he murmured.

  ‘And, of course, I know that your family has always been known for its love of culture.’

  Surely, Gordian thought, Philostratus must have seen wilder dinners when he was at the court of Caracalla.

  ‘I was not that old when I governed Syria.’ Gordian’s father was thinking out loud. ‘It seems a lifetime ago.’

  ‘And the great sophist Herodes was among your illustrious ancestors,’ Philostratus continued.

  ‘In some way or other.’ The mind of Zeus was far away. ‘Daphne, there was a place made for enjoyment.’

  ‘So, most illustrious Antonius Gordian, it gave me pleasure to dedicate to you the two volumes of my Lives of the Sophists.’

  Gordian’s father came back from distant, remembered pleasures. ‘My dear Philostratus, no literary work has brought me more profit, nor given me such pleasure, since your own Life of Apollonius of Tyana many years ago. The conclusion, when you write of yourself and your contemporaries Nicagoras of Athens and Aspines of Gadara, when, in your magnanimity, you include your rival Aspasius of Ravenna, you give an old man hope. When the divine Marcus Aurelius died, as is often said, our world descended to an age of iron and rust. Politics became the haunt of the unworthy, and freedom fled from the imperium. Yet your book shows that culture will endure.’

  Sabinianus laughed. ‘If Maximinus leaves any of the educated alive.’ He did not look up from caressing the thighs of Artemis. The goddess gave no appearance of finding his attentions unwelcome.

  Gordian wondered if that night in Theveste might have been a mistake.

  ‘Quartinus was a fool,’ Arrian said. ‘The only results of his misguided coup have been more arrests, more condemnations. Quartinus was a fool, just as Magnus was a fool.’

  Sabinianus snorted, his hand still busy. ‘Maximinus never needed an excuse. The roads were already choked with closed carriages rushing prisoners to the North.’

  ‘Cutting the grain dole and the spectacles is a sure way to make the plebs of Rome take to the streets,’ Arrian said. ‘Bread and circuses are all that has ever stopped them from rioting.’

  Menophilus looked up from his cup. ‘If other Procurators are anything like Paul here in Africa, the provincials will soon be in uproar. They say the Chain has resorted to the old trick of Verres. When farmers deliver their tax corn to Thysdrus, they are told to take it to Carthage or somewhere further away, unless, of course, they pay a fee for its transportation.’

  ‘Thracians have always been savage.’ The younger Gordian could not take his eyes off Sabinianus’ hand. ‘Remember what they did at the school at Mycalessus. Any hope of restraint was killed with Paulina.’

  ‘Proconsul, is such freedom wise?’ The voice of Philostratus was very sober, thick with apprehension.

  Gordian’s father raised a hand as if in benediction. ‘Freedom that need cause no worry tomorrow, and nothing you might wish unsaid. Nothing said here will go any further. As tent-companions, we are bound by loyalty and friendship.’

  ‘Even your son?’ Sabinianus said. ‘Individual pleasure is the only aim in life for an Epicurean.’

  ‘You have all the understanding of a stevedore,’ Gordian said, possibly more sharply than he intended, because of Chione.

  ‘Am I not right?’

  ‘If I did not act correctly to my friends – even to you, Actaeon – it would cause me pain.’

  Sabinianus removed his hand from between Artemis’s thighs. ‘I have no wish to be torn apart by my own hounds.’

  All applauded the interplay.

  ‘On my way, I stopped in Athens,’ Philostratus said. ‘While I was there, Nicagoras delivered an extempore oration on the virtues of friendship. He began with Harmodius and Aristogeiton.’

  Not the best way to bring the conversation on to safer topics, Gordian thought. It would be hard to find more famous tyrannicides in all of history. Perhaps the sophist was more drunk than he looked. But soon the table talk revolved around display oratory.

  Gordian’s mind wandered off to the storming of the village of Esuba. Unlike Sabinianus, his trust in Mirzi had never wavered. It had been a bold stroke, one worthy of the great Alexander, to overrule the doubters and send Menophilus with the native prince to scale the defences from the rear. He looked out through the colonnade at the dark plains before Carthage. It must have been somewhere out there that Scipio had asked Hannibal who was the greatest general of all time. The answer had been Alexander, then Pyrrhus, and third Hannibal himself. The Roman had persisted. And if you had defeated me? In that case, the Carthaginian had said, the greatest would have been Hannibal.

  CHAPTER 25

  The East

  The City of Samosata on the Euphrates,

  the Day before the Ides of September, AD236

  Timesitheus was lucky to be alive. It tempted fate to put himself at risk again. As he rode towards the Euphrates, the thoughts ran ceaselessly through his mind.

  The coup of Macedo could not have been a more abject disaster, mishandled from its beginning to its blood-soaked end. Thank the gods Tranquillina had told him to do nothing, neither denounce the plot, nor join it, just ride away before anything happened. But when news of its failure had reached Bithynia-Pontus, as he joined the provincials to offer sacrifices for the deliverance of the Emperor, Timesitheus could not have been more frightened. It was something near a miracle that he had not fallen in the immediate aftermath. Time had passed, but he remained unconvinced of his safety.

  The death of Paulina was said to have maddened Maximinus. The Emperor had raged, attacked Catius Clemens, threatened to blind h
is own son. The Thracian had tortured Macedo to death with his own hand. Orders had been issued for the arrest of everyone connected to the conspirators. It was common knowledge that Timesitheus had been a friend of Macedo. Volo’s frumentarii must have told him about them hunting, just the two of them, the day before Timesitheus had left for the East. Volo was inscrutable. Surely Domitius did not know about that outing. The Prefect of the Camp hated Timesitheus with a vengeance. Domitius had access to Maximinus, and would have denounced him straight away.

  It was possible both men knew and that, against all probability, the influence of his dull-witted cousin had protected Timesitheus. In a typically repetitive and badly phrased letter, Sabinus Modestus had boasted of his new-found standing with Maximinus. He had won the Emperor’s favour by fighting like a Homeric hero in the battle in the German forest. Of course, his dearest relative had seen him smiting the barbarians as Paris or Thersites had smote the Trojans. More recently, during the revolt, he had captured a dangerous officer of Macedo who had been tampering with the loyalty of his troops. How that had come about was not explained, and Timesitheus could not imagine. Had this centurion walked up to Modestus and announced that he was a seditious revolutionary and, like a Christian, that he wanted to die? Maximinus had asked Modestus to name his reward. Untold riches, adlection to the Senate, powerful governorships – anything had been within his grasp. Modestus had said he wanted nothing but to serve the Emperor by continuing to command the cataphracts. From a man of intelligence, it would have been a reply of genius, a public exhibition of old-fashioned loyalty and duty. From Modestus, it merely laid bare his complete lack of ambition and understanding.