King of Kings

by Unknown

  A particularly florid burst of swearing, and a large, domed skull rose up the gangway. A moment later, Calgacus’ thin, pinched face appeared. As usual, the Caledonian’s muttering was perfectly audible. ‘No, no… it’s quite all right. You two just stand there and take it easy. No way I need a hand with all your kit and forty fucking attendants to get onboard.’ Then, in a somewhat different tone but at exactly the same volume, ‘One of the sea-chests is missing, but most of the attendants are in their quarters.’

  ‘Well done,’ said Ballista. ‘You are not overdoing it, are you?’

  Instead of answering, Calgacus gave Ballista a withering stare and turned to stump back on board. ‘Ha, fucking ha,’ floated behind him.

  The Caledonian had been exaggerating wildly. Ballista had tried very hard to keep the numbers down. But Roman ideas of what was fitting had not let him get away with fewer attendants than he had possessed when he was Dux Ripae. So there were six viatores to run messages, four scribae, two praecones to announce him and two haruspices to read the omens in the pecking of chickens and the livers of slaughtered animals. Fourteen in all. Two of them, the North African scribe and a messenger from Gaul, had been with him since he first left Italy for the east. As was his custom, he had appointed Demetrius accensus, to run his staff. Presumably that was where the Greek boy was now.

  ‘Here they come,’ said Maximus.

  Ballista turned but did not see them. His eyes were drawn upward by the zigzagging alleys and staircases flanked by jumbled houses which climbed towards the acropolis and the stark Doric temple which dominated the city of Seleuceia. Behind were the scarred, grey-white slopes of Mount Pieria.

  ‘No, over there,’ said Maximus.

  They were much nearer than Ballista had expected. The blue litter was flanked by the two ex-gladiators still employed as household guards. It was carried by eight porters. Ballista felt a flick of irritation. Possibly Julia was reverting to type – the senator’s daughter who could not even walk the few minutes down from the house where they had stayed to the dock.

  The porters grounded the litter. A hand pulled back the curtain. Ballista stepped over to give his wife a hand. Julia stumbled slightly as she got out. Steadying her, Ballista was surprised by her weight. It did not trouble him. He had always liked his women rounded. He reached in and lifted out his son. He was not in the least surprised by his weight as he swung him through the air. He was well aware that Isangrim was big for six. Ballista kissed him on the forehead and, with a slight grunt of effort, set him on his feet. Allfather, how many more of these partings? Ballista had asked permission for his family to accompany him to Ephesus. Denying it, Valerian had stated that women and children might be upset witnessing the rigours of a determined persecution.

  Ballista still had no more idea why he had been chosen than he had had in the consilium. Julia, well-versed in the ways of the court, had not been able to find out either. Even Cledonius professed himself unsure. No one could fathom the warmth with which Macrianus had urged the appointment. Ballista had begun to mistrust the intimacy between his wife and the ab Admissionibus slightly. As they walked along the dock, he put the thought aside. Julia and Cledonius had a shared background, he was married to one of her many second cousins, and they understood the inner circles of the imperium in a way the big northerner knew that he never would.

  They reached the ship. It was time to go. Ballista crouched down by his son and hugged him, burying his face in the blond curls. He breathed in the smell of clean skin and hair, willing himself to remember it. He whispered in the native tongue he had been so insistent Isangrim should learn. ‘Be brave. Look after your mother.’

  As Ballista went to stand, Isangrim held out a hand. The boy unclenched his small fist. Inside, rather crumpled, were two leaves. ‘We can put them in our wallets.’ His solemn blue eyes looked up at his father. ‘We can look at them to remember.’ Not trusting himself to speak, Ballista looked down and busied himself putting his leaf away safe.

  Ballista drew Julia to him. He kissed her gently on the lips. This time he spoke in Latin. ‘Take care. I will be back as soon as I can.’

  She leaned close. ‘You take care.’ Her lips were close to his ear. ‘When you come back you will be a father again.’

  Ballista felt the strange lurch that all men feel when told that. ‘When?’

  Julia smiled. ‘Towards the end of the year.’

  For a moment Ballista nearly said that he would kill the Christians quickly, but stifled the inappropriate and probably ill-omened words. He looked into her eyes. ‘Good. Take care,’ he said simply.

  It was time to go. He turned and walked aboard the ship, his boots ringing hollowly on the gangplank.

  XV

  The theatre of Ephesus can be seen from miles out at sea. The Venus came out of the early morning mist and there it was, directly ahead, its marble cladding gleaming white, its geometrical simplicity drawing the eye from the architectural complexity that surrounded it.

  It had been an unexceptional and unhurried voyage. As was the preferred way with oared warships, each night they had moored, for the crew to eat and sleep ashore. Only when crossing from mainland Syria to Cyprus, then later from that island to Rhodes, had they been forced to sail in cramped discomfort through the hours of darkness. They had lingered for several days in New Paphos, the provincial capital of Cyprus, and again in the decorous city of Rhodes.

  Ballista was in no hurry to reach Ephesus. It was not that he had any grave doubts about the rightness of persecuting Christians. As Valerian had said, they were dangerous atheists, and their continued existence threatened Roman defeat in the coming war with the Sassanids. Ballista himself had found out that the members of the cult were not to be trusted. Yet it was not the same as a military command. To be a vicarius, deputizing for the governor of an unarmed province and chasing civilians, was a different matter entirely – no matter how vile and depraved the civilians, no matter how very deserving of persecution – from being a Dux on a wild frontier, commanding troops and facing a daring enemy in arms.

  And there was what Julia had said. No matter how settled, how emotionally and financially capable, how ready one was, it took some getting used to the idea. Ballista wondered if he had the capacity to love another child as he loved Isangrim.

  All in all, the northerner had been glad to be on the boat. It was a time out of time. Soothed by the ever repeated, hypnotic rhythms of life on a warship, he felt urgency, even responsibility itself, slip away. He was rather like a boy unexpectedly released from school.

  Ballista had given out that their stay on Cyprus was in order to honour the senatorial governor – having taken his hospitality on the voyage east, it would be a terrible snub not to visit him on the return.

  At least one member of Ballista’s familia was delighted. All his young life Demetrius had wanted to see the ancient shrine of Aphrodite at Old Paphos. Although it was just down the coast from the seat of the Roman governor in the new city, the pressing urgency of their mission to Arete three years earlier – everyone continuously crying, ‘No time to lose’ – had prevented him up until now.

  This time, Demetrius had had a whole day; more than enough time to ride there, study the antiquities, worship the goddess, consult her oracle, and return. Ballista had let himself be persuaded to go as well. Actually, the cloak of religion was welcome; the governor, although well meaning, was a crushing bore, much given to lengthy expositions on the genealogy of the Roman elite and the size and location of their land holdings – ‘Your wife’s family, my dear Vicarius, of course must be kinsmen of the Julii Liciniani, who have such broad estates in Cisalpine Gaul up near the lakes around Sermio.’ The governor was far too well mannered to give any hint that he had noticed the barbarian origins of his guest, yet it had been a relief to escape from him.

  Ballista and Demetrius had ridden alone, leaving Maximus and the others to their own devices. Cyprus was a quiet province, far from any enemies and with no great reputa
tion for bandits, and it was almost two years since the three assassination attempts many miles away on the mainland at Antioch. Ballista was certain in the knowledge that his would-be killers had been hired by Quietus and Macrianus the Younger but still had no idea why they had not tried again. And, confusing matters further, he did not understand why their father, the powerful Macrianus the Lame had wanted him sent to Ephesus. Certainly he did not like the feeling of being an ordinarius, a pawn, in a game of latrunculi, robbers – moved here and there across the board with no idea of his role in the game.

  The Cyprian plain sloping up from the sea to the parched-looking brown foothills was green even in August. The road east had been empty, the only sounds the clop of their horses’ hooves and birdsong. ‘Where Aphrodite treads,’ Demetrius quoted, ‘grasses and flowers spring up, doves and sparrows fly around her head.’

  When they reached the sanctuary, Demetrius had loved everything about it: the cult object of the black stone fallen from heaven, the open-air altar on which no rain ever fell and where a sacred fire burned for ever, the glitter and antiquity of the many offerings. Demetrius happily paid his money and went to wait for a private oracle. Less keen on gods, even those he had grown up with, Ballista had found some shade and looked at the sun sparkling on the sea a couple of miles away.

  When the Greek youth had returned, his mood had changed to one of anxious introspection. Ballista could recall clearly how their conversation had gone.

  ‘Priests often misinterpret the will of the gods,’ he had said.

  ‘Not in this case,’ the boy had replied glumly. ‘The priests here are all descended from Cinyras who founded the sanctuary. Everyone knows their reputation. I paid for them to inspect the liver of a kid goat– expensive, but it ensures infallibility. A long time ago, they correctly foretold that Titus would accede to the throne.’

  ‘I know. I also have read the Histories of Tacitus.’

  ‘I am sorry, Kyrios. I did not mean to imply…’

  ‘It is all right. I only wanted to make you less anxious about whatever the goddess had foretold of your future.’

  ‘The answers to the questions about me were propitious. It was the answers about you – you and your friend Aurelian – which trouble me. They said the goddess promised both of you the highest glory, but that it would vanish in a moment.’

  Ballista had laughed. ‘Glory – and what do your beloved philosophers make of it? For most, it is no more than a threadbare cloak, the worthless shouts of the mob. It is better gone. Anyway, its loss does not have to mean exile or death. Think of our situation. It may mean no more than that the emperor will praise me for persecuting the Christians of Ephesus, then his words will be quickly forgotten.’

  On the ride back, Ballista had put himself out to cheer the youth, but it was not until they were approaching the suburbs of New Paphos and he told the story of the embarrassing incident in a backstreet in Massilia that had happened to Maximus a long time ago that Demetrius had brightened. It was a favourite story in the familia. Ballista told it well, with free addition of dialogue and anatomical detail. As they had crossed the breezy headland to the palace of the governor, Demetrius had begun to laugh.

  With these memories turning in his mind, Ballista walked to the prow of the trireme. The Venus was nosing into the great harbour of Ephesus. Progress was slow. There was a great deal of traffic in the fairway, from massive merchantmen out of Alexandria and Ostia, down to minuscule local fishing boats. It was good that the fear of Gothic pirates out of the Black Sea had not strangled trade in the Aegean.

  Behind him, Ballista could hear Maximus and Demetrius talking. The Hibernian was teasing the young Greek.

  ‘And what makes the temple of Artemis here better than any of the other hundreds or thousands of temples of Artemis scattered all over the place?’

  ‘Even a barbarian must know it is one of the seven wonders of the world? It is its size and beauty that makes it so. Its inviolable right of asylum. The power that comes from being the favourite dwelling on earth of the goddess.’ The Greek boy’s voice rang with the tones of a true believer.

  ‘Sure, but in the back of my barbarian mind is there not a story that it once all burned down?’

  ‘It is true. Long ago, a madman committed that terrible sacrilege. Great Artemis of the Ephesians had gone north to attend the birth of Alexander the Great.’

  ‘Was that not terrible careless of her? It being her favourite place and all.’

  The Venus lay motionless in the water, resting on her oars. Large mudflats had narrowed the entrance to the harbour. Many vessels were waiting to enter or leave. The military engineer in Ballista considered the difficulties of closing the harbour. There would be a serious problem putting a chain across, with the oozing reed beds providing no secure footing for the towers and winches necessary on either side. Dredging would be the only answer. Ruinously expensive and hideously time-consuming, but the only answer. As it was, with the port wide open and all the wealth bobbing about on board the moored ships and stored along the quays, if he were the leader of a Gothic pirate fleet, he would be sorely tempted. A moonless night. A quick raid. Cut out one or two of the richer-looking roundships. Be gone before dawn. But if the fleet were big enough, what then? What of the city itself, let alone the famed wealth of the temple of Artemis just beyond?

  Flavius Damianus, the scribe to the Demos, stood waiting dutifully on the quay. He looked around him. It was the festival of the Portunalia, the dock-hands’ holiday, but everything seemed in order. The retinue behind him was sober and quiet. It was of just the right number and quality – enough to show respect for rank but not so exalted as to give the man arriving ideas above his station. Flavius Damianus looked up at the harbour gate, with its triple arches flanked by tall Ionic columns. He surveyed the white marble quay curving away on either side. It was all good, possibly too good for a barbarian. Marcus Clodius Ballista: from his name you would not know he was a barbarian. The praenomen and nomen might indicate that he had been given Roman citizenship by Marcus Clodius Pupienus, one of the two emperors that had ruled for a few months after the killing of the tyrant Maximinus Thrax. The cognomen, Ballista, was a civilized name, if unusual.

  The scribe to the Demos permitted himself a slight smile. Words can mislead. His own title might suggest that he was a minor functionary and that Ephesus was a democracy. Both impressions would be very wrong. Flavius Damianus was happy to avow publicly that his was the magistracy that carried the weightiest duties and thus, naturally, the highest honour in the city. As for Ephesus, of course it was a democracy in name, but it was one where there was a property qualification to attend the assembly and whose agenda was strictly controlled by the council, the Boule. There was a high joining fee to pay when elected to the Boule. Some four hundred and fifty men – rich men, men of prudence, men who served for life – controlled the politics of Ephesus, the city of Great Artemis. Flavius Damianus knew from his wide reading of the ancients that the well-ordered government of modern Ephesus was little like the ochlocracy, the mob rule, for which the Athenians had invented the term democratia, and of which they had been so proud in the days of Hellenic freedom long before the coming of Rome, before even the rise of Macedon under Alexander the Great and his father Philip.

  The imperial trireme carrying the new Vicarius to the Proconsul of Asia had cleared the confusion at the harbour mouth and was coasting gently with a slow oar beat towards the quay. Flavius Damianus thought it was a pity that the hulk of a merchantman embedded in one of the ever-encroaching mudflats spoiled the approach to the quay. As the morning was well advanced, the onshore breeze had died. With its passing, the smell of decay from the reed beds and the odour of the fish market came to his delicate nostrils.

  Possibly it was all to the good that Marcus Clodius Ballista was a barbarian. They were notorious for their savagery, barbarians from the north most of all. Certainly the utmost severity – it might be savagery itself – was needed for the task in han
d. The pernicious cult of those who worshipped the crucified Jew was spreading. They tended to keep away from the educated, the wise, anyone sensible, but anyone ignorant, anyone stupid, anyone uneducated, children, them they drew up to boldly. They whispered their poison in the ears of the young: they should leave their father and their schoolmaster, and go along with the women and the little children to the cobbler’s or the washerwoman’s shop, that there they might learn perfection. Savagery was needed to wash Ephesus clean of the Christians – they were traitors to the emperors, traitors to the gods, atheists whose treachery could turn the gods against the imperium and bring it down in ruin in the coming war with the Sassanid King of Kings.

  The trireme swung in a neat circle and backed oars to the quay. Sailors leaped ashore and secured the mooring ropes. A wide boarding ladder was run out. From the warship, a herald boomed out, ‘Marcus Clodius Ballista, Knight of Rome, Deputy to the Proconsul of Asia.’

  A large man appeared at the top of the boarding ladder. His shoulder-length blond hair betrayed his origins in Germania, but the folds of his toga were well arranged, the narrow purple stripe of his equestrian status gleaming against the dazzling white. He walked slowly down. At the bottom, he seemed to hesitate for a moment before very carefully stepping on to the quay.

  Flavius Damianus stepped forward and made a formal speech of welcome. Great Artemis be praised that she had put it in the august mind of the most noble emperor Valerian to send to the favourite city of the goddess the glorious victor of the battle of Circesium. All the citizens were as one in rejoicing in the safe arrival of Marcus Clodius Ballista, warrior of Rome. Flavius Damianus kept it short and reasonably simple, but he felt that his ancestor and namesake, the famous sophist, would not have disapproved.