Fire and Sword

by Harry Sidebottom

  ‘What will the old man do?’

  ‘Make a stand in the palace.’

  ‘A stand?’ Capelianus failed to keep the anxiety out of his voice. ‘They kept troops in reserve?’

  ‘A handful.’ Sabinianus smiled. ‘Nothing to bother the conqueror of Carthage, the new Scipio.’

  Capelianus had granted Sabinianus his life. Yet the decision could be revoked.

  The way clear, they clattered into the town.

  It was a vision of the underworld, Tartarus, where the wicked endure their eternal punishments. Bodies, slumped and naked. Old women and young children wailing. Smashed heirlooms, desecrated homes. A smell of spilt wine and burning, a reek of vomit and excrement.

  They rode up the Street of Saturn, between the Temples of Venus and Salus. As if to mock the divine assurances of Love and Safety, a young matron ran pell-mell from an alley. Hot in pursuit, a dozen or so Numidians.

  Despite himself, despite the urgency of his mission, Capelianus stopped to watch.

  The Numidians caught her on the steps of the Temple of Salus. As they stripped her, there was something arousing about her sharp, desperate screams. Her body was very white, even her legs and arms; a well-brought-up young wife, sheltered from the sun, modest and chaste.

  She lashed out, but they forced her down, bent her over a low balustrade. Her buttocks were pale as marble, her sex dark and desirable. The heat of the climate inclined Numidians to rape, their loose, unbelted tunics facilitated the act. When their leader mounted her, she called some appeal to the men on horseback.

  Capelianus smiled. ‘Health and great joy to you.’

  The men laughed.

  This would not do. Capelianus had an infinitely more pressing desire. Not lust, but vengeance.

  They entered the Forum, passed the white altar of Peace and the bronze tablets inscribed with the ancient laws of Rome. At the far end soldiers and tribesmen promiscuously went to and fro among the pillars of the governor’s palace.

  A Prefect, the commander of one of the auxiliary Cohorts, came down the steps.

  ‘Gordian the Elder is in a small dining room, the one they call the Delphix.’

  ‘Alive or dead?’

  ‘Dead.’

  Before dismounting, Capelianus addressed the Prefect. ‘Your Cohort broke ranks, disobeyed orders, chased the rebels. After the three days of licence, there will be punishments.’

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

  The chastened Prefect led them into the corridors of the palace. From deeper in the labyrinth, muffled by inlaid doors and heavy curtains, came the sounds of bestial revelry. Capelianus half-remembered a passage of Polybius from his schooldays. The Greek historian had been much impressed by the order with which the Romans sacked a town. No soldier turned to looting until he was given the command. All the plunder was heaped in one place to be distributed according to rank and merit. No man kept anything back for himself. But that was long ago. Things were different now. Discipline and virtue were only words. The way of the ancestors, the mos maiorum, all forgotten, no more than an expression.

  In the Delphix a semi-circle of troops stood like a tragic chorus around the hanged man. An overturned chair and a pool of liquid beneath the dangling feet of the corpse. The front of Gordian’s tunic was wet. It was said a hanged man ejaculated. By the smell, it was just urine.

  Capelianus studied the bulging eyes and protruding tongue. A coward’s death. Not the steel, but the rope. A woman’s way of suicide. The dissatisfaction habitual to Capelianus consumed his thoughts. There had been a prophecy that the Gordiani would die by drowning. Capelianus had looked forward to making that come true. A butt of wine would have been fitting. Father and son had both cheated him.

  ‘We have captured one of their friends.’ The young Prefect was eager to make amends.

  The man was pushed forward. He was battered, his clothes torn, his arms and legs laden with chains.

  ‘Name? Race? Free or slave?’ Capelianus intoned the traditional beginning to an inquisition.

  The prisoner did not answer. He was staring at Sabinianus.

  ‘Name?’

  Now the man gave his attention to Capelianus.

  ‘Mauricius, son of Mauricius, town councillor of Thysdrus and Hadrumetum.’

  Capelianus knew of him. ‘The catalyst of this evil revolt. An arch-conspirator.’

  Mauricius drew himself up in his chains. ‘Friend of the late Emperors, Prefect of the Horse Guards of Marcus Antonius Gordianus Romanus Africanus Augustus, Father and Son.’

  ‘A traitor.’

  ‘No traitor, but a true friend.’ Mauricius looked again at Sabinianus, with hatred. ‘A friend loyal to death. We should have known from the start. The signs were there. We should have listened at Ad Palmam when you said you would sacrifice anyone for your safety.’

  No emotion showed on the face of Sabinianus.

  ‘Coward! Oath-breaker with the heart of a deer!’

  ‘You realize you will die.’ Capelianus cut off the imprecations.

  ‘What is terrible is easy to endure.’ There was a smile on the face of Mauricius, its reason unknowable.

  ‘You will be tortured.’

  ‘You cannot hurt me.’

  ‘The claws will tear your flesh.’

  ‘They cannot touch my soul.’

  A local festival, the Mamuralia, occurred to Capelianus. ‘You will be whipped through the streets of Carthage. Outside the Hadrumetum Gate, by the Mappalian Way, you will be crucified.’

  ‘I am a citizen of Rome.’ There was outrage in Mauricius’ tone, yet somehow his self-possession held.

  ‘No, you are an enemy of Rome. As a hostis, you will die. Take him away.’

  Mauricius did not struggle, but he shouted as they dragged him from the room. ‘Death to the tyrant Maximinus! Death to his creatures! You are cursed! The Furies will turn your future to ashes and suffering!’

  Capelianus turned to the Prefect. ‘What of the others close to the pretenders?’

  ‘All of rank dead on the battlefield, apart from Aemilius Severinus, the one they call Phillyrio. He was ordered south some days ago to gather the Frontier Scouts. Together with those speculatores, he was to rally the barbarians beyond the frontier.’

  ‘We will hunt him down. We will hunt down all their followers, high and low.’ Capelianus felt a stab of pleasure. He had always loved the chase; men or beasts, it made no difference.

  ‘Some of their household – Valens, the A Cubiculo, and some other freedmen and slaves – escaped. They had a fast ship waiting by the mole of the outer harbour.’

  Capelianus rounded on Sabinianus. ‘You told me they had no ship ready.’

  Sabinianus said nothing.

  ‘You brought us here. Were you trying to let him escape?’

  ‘No.’ Sabinianus’ downturned mouth twitched slightly. ‘Last night I gave proof of my change of heart.’

  Had the tiny involuntary grimace betrayed the patrician? Capelianus could not be sure. Sabinianus the traitor needed watching, but for now Capelianus put him out of his mind.

  The corpse was still there.

  ‘Get him down.’

  The soldiers bustled about the task, teetering on chairs, holding the legs of the corpse.

  Capelianus wondered what could have induced his old enemy and his wastrel son to have bid for the throne. Certainly not justice or duty. They were archaic concepts, suitable back in the days of the free Res Publica, but outmoded and unfitting in the debased age of the Caesars. Capelianus knew what motivated men under autocracy. Nothing but lust and greed. The latter was far the stronger; greed for power as well as for wealth. At his advanced age perhaps the father had considered there was little to lose, that it would be no small thing to die clad in the purple. As for the son, his thoughts had been addled by wine and debauchery, his reasoning unsound. Yet even so, they must have appreciated in moments of clarity that they would fail. No l
egion was stationed in the province of Africa Proconsularis. The secret had long been revealed that Emperors could be made outside Rome. But never without the backing of thousands of legionaries.

  The corpse was down.

  ‘Cut off his head. It will go to Maximinus.’

  A soldier set about the butchery.

  But would the head reach Maximinus? Against all likelihood, the Senate in Rome had declared for the Gordiani. Italy had gone over to the rebels. The fleets at Misenum and Ravenna controlled its ports. The head would have to travel up the other shore of the Adriatic, go ashore in Dalmatia, then journey overland to seek out Maximinus on the Danube frontier.

  Decapitation was never easy. Sawing away, the soldier was slipping in a welter of blood.

  And what remained for the Senate now? Traitors to a man. Maximinus was born a Thracian, brought up as a common soldier. Forgiveness was not a virtue cultivated by either group. The Senate could expect no mercy. Executions and confiscations, a holocaust. Few would survive. Great houses would be extinguished. The proscriptions of Sulla or Severus would be as nothing.

  The head was off. Blood pooled across the marble floor, soaked into the fine rugs.

  ‘Preserve it in a jar of honey. Maximinus will want to gaze on his face.’

  The Senate could expect no mercy. All its accumulation of experience and expertise in subtle negotiation would do no good. The Senate would have to acclaim another Emperor. Thessalian persuasion; necessity disguised as choice. But who would it clothe in the purple? Surely a governor with troops at his disposal. Maximinus was with the Danubian army. Decius in Spain was his dedicated supporter. So would the Senate turn to a governor on the Rhine or one in Britain? Or would it send a laurelled despatch to one of the great commanders in the East? Or possibly, just possibly, might its gaze focus nearer to hand? To a man proven in the field, a man who had overthrown Emperors, a man who held all Africa in his hand?

  ‘Throw the rest of him out into the Forum for the dogs.’

  Some considered ambition was a vice, others held it a virtue. Capelianus inclined to the latter view. Yet to be Emperor was to hold a wolf by the ears. Better by far to be the man who stood behind the throne of the Caesars. Capelianus looked over at Sabinianus. Traitors had their uses.

  PART I:

  ITALY

  CHAPTER 1

  Rome

  The Temple of Concordia Augusta, Six Days before the Kalends of April, AD238

  ‘Dead? Both of them? Are you certain?’

  Standing before the Senate of Rome, the old freedman was unabashed by the Consul’s brusque questions.

  ‘Gordian the Younger died on the field of battle. When Gordian the Elder ordered me to convey what remained of his household to safety, his mind was set on suicide.’

  Licinius Rufinus leant forward on the Consular tribunal. ‘Was his bodyguard with him?’

  ‘He was alone.’

  ‘You did not see him take his life?’

  This was pointless. Pupienus sat back, let his gaze shift around the huge interior of the temple, run over the myriad sculptures and paintings, part obscured by the gloom. Valens had been A Cubiculo to Gordian the Elder forever, since before the flood. He had served well when his master was alive, and would do the same now his master was dead. There was no doubting his evidence. The Emperors that the Senate had acclaimed were dead. No amount of juristic interrogation could bring them back.

  Opposite Pupienus a painting by Zeuxis hung over the heads of the Senators. Marsyas was bound to the tree hand and foot, naked, already twisted in agony. At his feet the Scythian slave was sharpening the knife, looking up at the man whose skin he would peel from his living body. With the Gordiani dead, every Senator in the temple could expect some similar fate when Maximinus came down from the North and took Rome. Maximinus was a Thracian, a barbarian. They were no different from Scythians; strangers to reason and pity. Clemency was not in their nature.

  Valens was dismissed, and walked out. Pupienus envied the aged ex-slave. The very obscurity of his station might prove his salvation. There was no such hope for himself. No hope at all for the man appointed Prefect of the City to oversee Rome in the name of the Gordiani. None whatsoever for the man complicit in the killing of his predecessor, Sabinus, Maximinus’ appointee. Too late for a change of heart, and compromise was not an option. Some other, desperate course must be taken.

  As presiding magistrate Licinius called on the Conscript Fathers to give their advice.

  In the nervous silence, Pupienus turned the ring on the middle finger of his right hand, the ring containing the poison.

  To the relief of all, Gallicanus sought permission to address the meeting.

  Pupienus regarded the speaker with disfavour. A tangle of unwashed hair and beard, a homespun toga, no tunic, bare feet; an ostentatious parade of self-proclaimed antique virtue. All it needed was a staff and a wallet for alms, and he would have been Diogenes reborn. Pupienus thought Cynic philosophers were meant to abstain from politics; certainly they should not possess the property qualification of a Senator. He trusted his distaste did not show on his face.

  ‘A tyrant is descending upon us. A monster stained with innocent blood. Conscript Fathers, we must recover our ancestral courage.’

  All true enough, although Pupienus considered that more than rhetoric was needed. Specific proposals were required at this desperate pass. The Senate hated Maximinus for killing their friends and relatives, for the continual exactions to pay for the unwinnable northern wars. They loathed him for the lack of respect shown to their order. Since his elevation, he had never set foot in the Curia, or even visited Rome. Ultimately they despised him for not being one of them. When news came of the revolt of the Gordiani in Africa, it had seemed a gods-given salvation. The Senate had voted them the purple, had denied Maximinus and his son fire and water, had declared them enemies of Rome. The Senate had acted hastily. It had gambled, and it had lost. There was nothing for it now but to gamble again. One last throw of the dice: elect a new Emperor.

  ‘A ravening tyrant is coming from the savage North. We must defend our families, our homes, the temples of our gods. We must stand in the ranks ourselves. To elect another tyrant in the hope that he will defend us from the one already approaching is insanity.’

  The words irritated Pupienus. No candidate had yet been nominated. It was too early for personal invective. Unless … surely Gallicanus was not going to propose the mad scheme he had aired in Pupienus’ house three years earlier, when the news had come that the Emperor Alexander had been murdered?

  ‘Place a man above the laws, and he will become lawless. Power corrupts. Even should a man be found with the virtue to resist temptation, a man who would rule for others not himself, history has shown that the heirs to his position will be tyrants, ruling for their own perverse pleasure.’

  The small philosophic coterie led by Gallicanus’ especial friend Maecenas shook back the threadbare folds of their togas and applauded. The majority of the Senators, all better apparelled, sat in silence.

  ‘I am not suggesting anything new, anything foreign. The gods forbid we should institute a radical democracy. The Athenian past demonstrates how quickly such a constitution slides into mob rule. I do not even propose we Senators take power, rule as an aristocracy. Every such state inevitably has been deformed into an oligarchy, where a few rich men trample down their fellow citizens. No, I argue we should return to our ancestral government. Rome became great under a free Republic. Every order of men knew their duties and their place. The Consuls embodied the monarchic element, the Senate the aristocratic, the assemblies of the people the democratic. All was balanced in harmony. As a Republic, Rome defeated Hannibal. As a Republic, Rome will defeat Maximinus. We have already elected a board of twenty men to prosecute the war. We have no need of an Emperor, no need to set the boots of an autocrat over our heads. Conscript Fathers, we need do nothing to restore the Republic. The providence of the gods who watch over Rome has made the Repu
blic live again. Let us seize our liberty! Let libertas be our watchword!’

  Gallicanus, archaic probity personified, glared defiance at the unmoved togate benches. Maecenas came forward, and put his arm around the shoulders of his amicus, said something soft in his ear. Gallicanus smiled, no longer a barking Cynic dog, but, despite his more than forty years, an unsure youth seeking approbation.

  Pupienus was mildly surprised when Fulvius Pius took the floor. Inoffensiveness, not ability, had seen Pius rise to the Consulship then the Board of Twenty. His career had been marked by neither independence of thought or action, nor much display of courage.

  ‘Fine words for a lesson in philosophy, fine words to address two or three pupils. Utterly inappropriate to this august house.’

  Since his election to the Twenty, not only had a certain initiative surfaced in Pius, but an unexpected asperity.

  ‘I will not enter into a philosophical dialogue with Gallicanus. This is not the time or place to debate the tenets of the schools. Instead we should face realities. No one regrets the passing of the free Republic more keenly than me. The busts of Cato, Brutus and Cassius have pride of place in my house. But the free Republic is nothing more than a pleasant memory. If we could not see that for ourselves, long ago the historian Tacitus taught us that the rule of an Emperor and the continuance of our empire are inextricably linked.’

  Still locked in an embrace, Gallicanus and Maecenas glowered at the speaker.

  ‘Only a handful of men, beguiled by the high-sounding words of philosophy, want the return of the long dead Republic. The majority of all orders desire the status quo. The provincials can appeal to the Emperor against unjust decisions of their governors. The plebs urbana look to the Emperor to give them the sustenance of life, and the spectacles that make it worth living. The soldiers receive their pay from the Emperor, and give him their oath. What of the Praetorians? Their sole reason for existence is to guard the Emperor. And what of us, Conscript Fathers? With no Emperor to restrain them, the ambitions of certain Senators would again tear the Republic apart. A welter of civil strife would consume our armies. The barbarians would pour over the frontiers, sack our cities, drown our dominion in blood.’