The Amber Road

by Harry Sidebottom

  More telling opposition had come from within the military. Some years before, struck by the sworn-bands of the northern barbarians who would not leave the field alive if their chief fell, and thinking a little of the companions around Alexander the Great and his successors, Gallienus had instituted the protectores. Part bodyguard, part senior officer, a protector took a personal oath on a naked blade to fight to the death for the emperor. Their oath brought the right to bear arms in the imperial presence.

  The protectores had appeared united in their hostility to Platonopolis. Their loyalty gave them a certain latitude. Aureolus, the Prefect of Cavalry, had used smooth words for one raised as a shepherd among the semi-barbarian Getae. Domitianus had argued in the sonorous tones of a man who claimed descent from an emperor. However, others had gone further. The Praetorian Prefect Volusianus had spoken as the blunt ex-trooper he was. Camsisoleus had waved his hands about, as excited as might be expected of an Egyptian. Aurelian – the one they called Hand-to-Steel – had even raised his voice in the imperial consilium; to the horror of the silentarii. Tacitus was one of their number, and he was the last throw of the protectores.

  Gallienus had decided to grant the petition of Plotinus. An emperor’s reign demanded monuments. The architects had produced nothing but problems, delays and additional expense with the new colossus of Gallienus on the Esquiline. No more than its gigantic feet existed. And future generations might mistake its size for something hubristic. A city dedicated to paideia, to Plato, could never incur that charge.

  Yet Gallienus would give Tacitus a hearing. A civilis princeps did not act on a whim, on personal inclination, like an oriental despot. A good emperor consulted his friends, let his amici speak their minds. Free speech should be allowed in formal council, and also away from the consilium at a rustic meal in the foothills of the Apennines.

  ‘Dominus.’ Tacitus obviously thought the moment auspicious.

  Graciously, Gallienus said his friend should speak what was on his mind. Tacitus’s lined face, never a canvas of levity, took on a cast of deep profundity, and he launched into his considered discourse.

  No one, Gallienus thought, with the exception of an intellectual at the Alexandrian Museum or an habitué of the schools of philosophers or sophists, could have the experience of an emperor in appearing to listen intently to speeches while thinking of something completely different. Gallienus knew what Tacitus would say. This foreknowledge was nothing to do with the frumentarii. The arguments against Platonopolis had been rehearsed on many occasions in many forms.

  Advancing one school of philosophy would alienate all the others. While the tenets of none necessarily led to opposition to monarchy, often they had provided moral underpinning to men contemplating assassination of a ruler. Brutus had been a Stoic, Cassius an Epicurean, and Caesar had died. Less drastic, but possibly more damaging in the long run – the gods would foil any insane attempt on the life of the princeps – intellectuals shaped public opinion. The speeches and writings of philosophers might deform the image of the glorious reign of Gallienus. Street-corner Cynics were ever ready to howl against even the best of emperors.

  ‘What of this place itself?’

  The rhetorical question brought Gallienus back to his surroundings.

  ‘The Pythagoreans came here seeking enlightenment, but ended mired in foul superstition and lust for temporal power. It puts one in mind of Cicero’s speech against the proposal of Rullus to settle men at Capua. The land there is luxurious, it made men who dwelt there the same, and that made them enemies of Rome.’

  Gallienus smiled in recognition of the novelty of this cultured argument. Those among the traditional elite who sneered at the military men from the Danube were fools. The family of Tacitus had owned wide estates time out of mind; many of his compatriots were rougher – Aurelian Hand-to-Steel, for one. But the thing that united these hard men from the north was their reverence for the traditions of Rome. In many ways they were closer to the mos maiorum than the pampered and plucked rich who were born in marble palaces on the seven hills or opulent villas on the Bay of Naples.

  Tacitus had moved on to finances. Gallienus was well aware what this would entail. Plotinus had vastly underestimated the true cost. If building were to be undertaken, better the emperor’s own plan for a portico along the Via Flaminia. Unlike this out-of-the-way spot in the Apennines, it would provide work for the always restless plebs of Rome.

  Tacitus was bound to end with the argument that, in these days of usurpation and barbarian assault, money was better spent on the army. The safety of the imperium must take precedence over everything in these days of iron and rust.

  At the thought, Gallienus felt his skin tighten. There was a new clarity to the light; faint music among the trees. He knew Hercules, his divine companion, was with him. The deity reached into Gallienus’s soul, drew it out of his body.

  Wrapped safe in the skin of the Nemean lion, Gallienus was lifted through the air. Past the heights of the Apennines, he was carried north. Higher and yet higher, until his divine friend set him lightly on the utmost peak of the Alps. From there they gazed down on all the land and all the sea. Hercules laid his hands on them, as one might an instrument capable of playing all modes, and under his fingers they all sang together.

  The whole imperium and everything in it was spread out, an animate map, with mountains for bones, rivers and roads for veins. In the east, Odenathus of Palmyra took the war to the Persians. Gallienus could see Ctesiphon in flames, the easterners fleeing in panic. To the north of the Euxine, out on the vast plains, nomad horsemen wheeled as the Alani fought the Heruli and Urugundi. None of them had the leisure to turn on the empire. Moving west, the King of the Bosporus once again performed adoration to the imperial standards. Of little use in a fight, he would at least sound the alarm should the piratical tribes of the region – Borani, Grethungi, Tervingi, Gepidae and Taifali – take to their boats and venture south. Along the Ister, all was quiet. Loyal men governed the armed provinces of Moesia and Pannonia. Aided by Attalus of the Marcomanni, they watched the bellicose hordes of the Carpi, Sarmatians, Quadi and Vandals.

  The west was different. The vile pretender Postumus – oath-breaker, child-murderer – squatted in Gaul. Corrupt, self-seeking courtiers, traitors to a man, whispered foulness in his ears. The fickle legions along the Rhine swore their sacrilegious oaths to him. The provinces of Britain and Spain – stately matrons reduced to whores – grovelled and submitted to his will. Even the proud barbarians of the distant north had taken his tainted subsidies. The Frisii, the Saxons, even the Angles had ceased to raid the territories he tyrannized. This year the latter at least should change – Gallienus had sent mandata and men to put his plans for the far north in motion. This year also he would deal with Raetia, the rebellious province nestling at his feet north of the Alps. These things done, next year, Gallienus Invictus would march at the head of the field army, cross the Alps and unleash the full terror of his revenge.

  Across the glittering sea, away to the south, the sun beat down on Africa. All was soporific. But in the haze of the heat strange rumours coiled up. The native rebel Faraxen was not dead. Somewhere, in a cave in the High Atlas, his disembodied head sang songs of revolution and apocalypse.

  Gallienus dismissed the fragments of this fevered dream and turned his eyes back to the east. If Odenathus, the man he had appointed Corrector Totius Orientis, remained loyal, nothing could halt next year’s descent into Gaul. If Odenathus remained loyal …

  III

  Olbia

  Achilles’ hair was thick, lovelier than gold. His nose was not quite aquiline, but almost so; his brow the shape of a crescent. The bluish-grey eyes of the hero held a certain eagerness. A soft breeze moved through the tops of the poplars and elms around the sanctuary. Herons and cranes glided low, the seawater falling like dew from their wings. Patroklos moved closer; head held straight, as if in a wrestling school, nostrils flared like an impatient horse. His olive skin looked good
to touch. Dark, black eyes gazed at Achilles. The act of desire begins in the eyes.

  The trampling of horses. High, shrill, female yelps. A myriad of gulls took flight raucously. The Amazons streamed towards the sanctuary, crying aloud and driving on their mares. Achilles bounded up, shouting his great shout. The mares refused, the war cry inflicting on them terror greater than any bit or switch. Rearing and plunging, they threw their riders. The Amazons sprawled, bruised and dazed, on the ground. The horses took on the habits of wild beasts, bristled their manes, pricked up their ears like savage lions. They fell on their former riders; tearing at the forearms of the supine women, stamping down with their sharp hooves. After they had broken open their chests, they devoted themselves to the entrails, gulping them down. The sanctuary was a slaughterhouse, horrible beyond measure. The women were lying everywhere, still breathing and half eaten. Everywhere, severed limbs and pieces of flesh, slobbered with bestial saliva.

  Amantius clutched the threads of the dream, the mingled lust and revulsion. He opened his eyes. The small attic room. His boy, Ion, asleep across the threshold. Space was at a premium in the inhabited quarter of Olbia, let alone here on the acropolis.

  He woke Ion, sent him to buy fresh fruit and oxygala, and honey to sweeten the yoghurt. There was no need to live like a barbarian, even if surrounded by them. He told Ion to get himself bread, not slave bread. Amantius fancied himself a kind master.

  When the boy had gone, Amantius propped himself up on his cushions, his considerable paunch rising and falling with his breathing. He thought he should write to Censorinus. Privacy was hard to come by to write secret letters. His chubby fingers reached for his writing block and stylus. They stopped in mid-air. What was he to report? In the past two years of travel in the barbaricum to the savage Caucasus and the end of the world on the Steppe, Amantius considered he had provided good information. As far as he knew, nothing had yet come of his coup in discovering the possibly treasonous correspondence between Gallienus’s Corrector Totius Orientis, Odenathus, and Naulobates, king of the savage Heruli. But he flattered himself the return of the King of the Bosporus to friendship with Rome was in large part his doing. The Praetorian Prefect was not a man to be bothered with trivialities. What could he tell Censorinus about now – a drunken fight in a bar?

  Amantius lay back, trying to put it out of his mind – hiding under a table, while two men died. He admired the jewels on his hands: garnets and sapphires set in gold. No one could steal rings, unless you were already dead. The thought made him shudder. He so wanted to be at home. Gods forbid not in Abasgia, where he had been born. Few memories remained, and those bad – the pain of the knife, being told his family were dead. He had not wanted to be a beautiful child, to be castrated or unwittingly become the cause of the deaths of his parents and brothers. He lacked the courage to seek revenge. Abasgia held nothing for him. What he wanted – desired with all his soul – was to be back among his own kind in the palace at Rome. Companionship, imperial favour, civilization and safety; he had been happy there.

  It was unfair. He had survived Albania, Suania, even the sea of grass. Miraculously, he had survived when many others had died. He had been on his way home. Amantius had never known such misery as the day in Byzantium when the new orders came to act as secretary to this mission to the far north.

  And the mission was inauspicious, if not already doomed. To begin with, there had been nothing worse than the discomforts of travelling on a warship, the enforced proximity with rough men who held the prejudices of the entire against his sort. He had seen them, thumb between index and middle finger, making the sign to avert evil. He had ignored the mutterings – monkey, crow, neither dove nor raven, thing of ill omen.

  It now seemed an age since the storm had hit when they were off the mouth of the Ister. The Argestes had got up in the north-west, cresting the waves, driving the trireme out into the wild Euxine. When, through spray and low, scudding clouds, the Island of Leuce had been sighted, their delight had brought them to tears. They had embraced each other at their deliverance. All except Amantius. No one hugged a eunuch, no more than they would a monkey.

  The galley had rounded the northern cape and anchored in a small rocky bay which gave some shelter. The boarding ladders in the surf, over treacherous rocks, they had floundered ashore, soaked to the skin.

  The storm still raged when behind the clouds the sun went down. Zeno had said they must return aboard. Amantius had supported him. Leuce was the Island of Achilles. No one spent the night except at the risk of his life. It brought down the wrath of the hero.

  The trierarch had dismissed the idea. The ship was double anchored, but it was a bad holding ground. She could drag her anchors at any moment. If the wind shifted, it was a certainty. Only a fool would put himself in a present danger to avert something intangible in the future. They would propitiate Achilles in the morning.

  In the dark and the rain, they had trudged through the woods up to the centre of the island. There was a portico adjacent to the temple. They bedded down there, sodden and uncomfortable. Amantius had hardly slept, huddled a little apart from the others, full of dread, like a hunted animal in a temporary lair. Divine prohibitions were not to be flouted.

  When the sun came up, the storm had blown itself out. The last few clouds ran like ink away to the east. The leaves of the sacred grove glistened. Gulls and sea-crows spiralled about the cliffs. The island was small, but wild goats abounded. The crew soon caught one. Before it could be sacrificed, they had to discover if it was acceptable to Achilles. The formula was well known. Zeno put out an offering on the round altar in front of the temple. It was generous and fitting; a silver bowl, with scenes from the Iliad chased in gold. They waited for the sign that told the hero approved. His attendants stayed away. After a time, Zeno placed silver coins in the bowl. The sky over the altar remained empty. Finally, gold coins were added. There were innumerable birds, over the sea, around the cliffs, high over the treetops. Not one swooped low over the altar, to fan the offering with the beat of its wings, to anoint it with falling seawater.

  Boldly, Zeno announced it was as he expected. In the night Patroklos had appeared to him in a dream. The son of Menoetius had told him Achilles had gone to Thessaly, to roam the plains and hills of his childhood. Zeno had announced the goat must go free. The offerings would remain. They would please Achilles on his return. Before they sailed they would make libations.

  The lie was so obvious. Sailors were among the most superstitious people in the world. Unhappily, they had trooped down to the bay, gone on board, made the trireme ready. Dark looks were cast at the eunuch, sure bringer of bad luck. Wine tipped into the sea with pious words lightened their mood not at all.

  Yet the remainder of the voyage had passed well. The prevailing north-easterly wind had not reasserted itself. Argestes continued to blow, but gently now. The breeze on the beam or quarter, the trireme proceeded mainly under sail. Soon the rowers, lounging on their benches, sang and joked when not quieted by the officers. Like plebs or barbarians, sailors were quick to change, unthinking. The terrible anger of Achilles was out of their minds. Amantius had not forgotten the implacable anger of Achilles.

  Lying in bed, waiting for Ion to return, Amantius brooded on the Island of Achilles. It was created by and for love. Achilles’ mother, Thetis, had asked Poseidon to make an island where her son and Helen could live together after sloughing off their mortality. The god of the sea had granted her petition, minded that it might also serve as a refuge for seafarers. Poseidon and Amphitrite, and all the Nereids and water spirits had attended the wedding. And there through the ages Achilles and Helen had made love and sung together. But it was also an island of blood. Apart from the hideous fate of the Amazons, there was the story of the Trojan girl.

  A merchant was in the habit of putting in to the island. Achilles not only deigned to appear, but had entertained him with food and drink. When all was convivial between them, Achilles asked the merchant a favour. The n
ext time he visited Ilion, would he buy him a particular girl who was owned by a certain man? Astonished at the request, and emboldened by wine, the merchant wondered why the hero needed a Trojan slave. Because, my guest, Achilles said, she was born of the lineage from which Hector came, and she is what remains of the blood of the descendants of Priam and Dardanos. Thinking the hero was in love, the merchant carried out the task. The next time he came to the island, Achilles praised him, and asked him to guard the girl overnight on his ship. The island was inaccessible to women. That afternoon Achilles feasted the merchant royally and gave him many of the things such men are unable to resist. The next morning the merchant put the girl ashore, and cast off. He had not gone much more than a hundred yards when he heard the screams of the girl. There on the beach Achilles was pulling her apart, tearing her limb from limb.

  Ballista sat in the pool in the hot room of the thermae. They were the only public baths functioning in the town of Olbia. The water was not as hot as it should have been. Despite that, the sweat was lashing off him. It was to be expected when a man stopped after drinking for two or three days.

  Through the gloom of the caldarium, Ballista looked at the wall painting by the door. It was a dwarf with a hunchback. From under its ridiculously short tunic poked an erormous erection. The artist had lavished care on the bulbous head, tinting it purple. Causing Ballista a certain disquiet, it brought Calgacus to mind. The memories remained vague shapes below the surface. Ballista’s head hurt and his chest was tight.

  Ballista had seen many similar grotesques across the imperium: dozens of the deformed in mosaics and paintings, often negroes, with huge penises and testicles. Their very abnormality was intended to provoke laughter, and it was common knowledge that laughter scared away daemons. So the misshapen often performed their apotropaic function in doorways and in bathhouses. It was not just against daemons the Romans thought they needed protection. There was the danger of invidia, or phthonos as the Greeks called it, the very human malign envy that directs its ill will at others. Those who possessed the Evil Eye were said somehow to be able to penetrate their victims with invisible particles of grudging malice, causing illness, madness, even death.