The Amber Road

by Harry Sidebottom

  Postumus looked at the speaker, a smooth, rounded figure in a toga, standing beyond the low altar where the sacred fire burned. Simplicinius Genialis had done well by the regime. When, at the outset, Gallienus had invaded across the Alps, Simplicinius Genialis, as acting governor of Raetia, had declared for Postumus. The implicit threat of an invasion of Italy in his rear had sent Gallienus back over the mountains. Since then rebellions – the Macriani in the east, Mussius Aemilianus in Egypt, the prolonged defiance of Byzantium – and barbarian incursions – above all, the Goths in the Aegean – had held Gallienus back. But war was coming, if not this year, certainly the next, when Gallienus had completed his preparations. When it came, Simplicinius Genialis would be in the front rank. Gallienus was gathering a huge field army on the plains around Mediolanum. There were only two ways he could march; west into the Alpine provinces and then into Gaul, or north into Raetia. Whichever way he chose, a diversionary force would have to take the other route to prevent a descent into Italy when his comitatus had left.

  The forces in Raetia were not numerous, but they were of proven worth. The one legion in the province, III Italica Concors, unusually for the times, was near up to strength, with about four thousand men under the eagles. Their commander, the Spaniard Bonosus, was renowned as a drinker, but also as a fine fighting officer. The legionaries were matched in numbers by auxiliaries, divided into two alae of cavalry and eight cohortes of infantry, all much below their paper strength. When the Semnones and Iuthungi had crossed the Alps on their way back from plundering Italy, Simplicinius Genialis had had to beg vexillationes of troops from Germania Superior and levy the local peasants. Despite his ad hoc army and his urbane and well-upholstered appearance, he had won a great victory.

  In recognition of the importance of Simplicinius Genialis to his regime, Postumus had appointed him one of the two consuls of the year. Now, as tradition demanded, Simplicinius Genialis had travelled from his province to give his thanks in this panegyric.

  ‘For what gift of the gods could be greater and more glorious than a princeps whose purity and virtue make him their own equal?’

  The introductory invocation of the gods was moving into the concept of divine election. Tactful, Postumus thought, given the reality of his accession. Doubtless it would be followed by the Gauls, oppressed by the tyranny of Gallienus, left undefended from the savagery of the Germans, spontaneously acclaiming a reluctant new emperor. The whole actio gratiarum would take quite a time. Postumus blamed the long-dead Pliny of Comum. Once, the speech of thanks by a consul was a brief thing. Then Pliny had reinvented the genre as this interminable parade of flattery.

  Postumus had never wanted to be emperor. He did not now. From a modest beginning among the Batavians, he had risen through the army to be a general, to be governor of Germania Inferior. He knew himself a good commander. It had been enough. Ironically, it was his own skill – that and the jealousy and greed of that bastard Silvanus – that had made him emperor.

  At Deuso near the Rhine, Postumus, at the head of his mounted bodyguard, and one legion had intercepted a war band of Franks returning from Spain. He had defeated them. Almost all of them were killed or captured, their booty distributed among his soldiers. Silvanus, the governor of Germania Superior, was Dux of the whole frontier then and had charge of the Caesar Saloninus, the young son of Gallienus. In effect, Silvanus had been left in charge of the west when Gallienus had hurried back to Italy to fight a marauding horde of Alamanni. Postumus had received a peremptory command from Silvanus to hand all the booty over to him. In point of law Silvanus was right; all manubiae should go to the imperial fiscus. That had all been very well in the silver age of the Antonine emperors. In this age of iron and rust the troops had to be mollified. Postumus had been left between Scylla and Charybdis. If he had attempted to get the plunder back from the soldiers they would have killed him. If he did not, Silvanus would have accused him of maiestas and executed him for his treason. Postumus had consulted those with him in the field, Lollianus the Praefectus Legionis of XXX Ulpia Victrix, Victorinus the Tribunus of his Equites Singularis Consularis, and Marius, his Praefectus Castrorum. The commanders of the legion, horse guards and camp agreed – he had no choice but to bid for the throne.

  A donative had been given to the troops. The images of Gallienus and his family had been torn from the standards; idealized portraits of Postumus had replaced them. A purple cloak had been taken from the sanctuary of Hercules Deusoniensis and draped around the shoulders of his devotee, the new Augustus.

  Perhaps there had been a way back, even then. A message had come from Gallienus, ambiguous in its brevity: ‘What are you doing? Behave! Do you seek battle?’ Postumus had written back, playing for time: ‘Do not come north across the Alps, do not put me in a position of fighting Roman citizens.’ Gallienus’s response had smacked of madness. ‘Let it be settled by single combat.’ By then events had gathered their own momentum. A judicious distribution of some more of Postumus’s share of the Frankish loot had won over I Minerva, the other legion in his province, along with its commander, Dialis. The same cause lay behind Laelianus and Servilius Rufinus, the commanders of the two legions in Germania Superior, declaring for Postumus. The defection of the legions in his own province catching Silvanus by surprise, he had retired with Saloninus and a handful of loyal troops behind the walls of Colonia Agrippinensis. Postumus had laid siege to the town.

  It might be a negotiated settlement had still had a chance. Postumus had written to Gallienus saying he had been elected by the Gauls and was content to rule over them. But no answer had come back. The siege had dragged on, and the attitude of those camped outside the walls had hardened. When the citizens ran short of food, they bought their own salvation by handing over Silvanus and the young imperial prince. And then – Lollianus and Marius had urged him to it; Postumus regretted it now – and then both Silvanus and Saloninus had been beheaded. With that, all hope of peace had gone. Postumus knew Gallienus would not rest until one of them was dead. He could not blame him. If someone killed his son, he would do the same.

  Postumus had not wanted to be emperor, but once you had taken the wolf by the ears you could not let go. He would do everything in his capacity to keep his grip. He would do anything, absolutely anything, to ensure the survival of his family and himself, and, if it were possible, of course he would be of benefit to those he ruled.

  ‘By his presence he will safeguard the soldiers in the camp, civil rights in the forum, law-suits at the tribunal, the dignitas of the senate house, and he will preserve for each one his personal possessions.’ Simplicinius Genialis had moved his oration into an exegesis of qualities thought by the elite desirable in their ruler.

  Postumus shifted his gaze to the high, shadowed beams of the ceiling. A princeps cannot scruple at deceit or betrayal. Love the treachery, hate the traitor – unless circumstances dictate you love him, too. The agents of Vocontius Secundus, his Princeps Peregrinorum, had brought him the names of those who served Gallienus whom they considered might be suborned. The frumentarii had been diligent, but the list was not over-long, nor, with a few exceptions, were its contents over-mighty. Four caught the eye. Placidianus, the Prefectus Vigilum, still owned lands in Gaul near his birthplace, Augustodunum. The vigiles comprised seven thousand paramilitary firemen in the heart of Rome. It could be useful. Then there was Proculus. He was the Prefect of a unit made up of vexillationes of soldiers drawn from the legions of Pannonia and was now stationed with the comitatus of Gallienus at Mediolanum. Proculus hailed from Albingauni in the Alpes Maritimae. Many of his family were still there, and his cousin was no less than Maecianus, Prefect of Postumus’s Equites Singulares Augusti. For what it was worth, Proculus was an inveterate womaniser, always bragging of his conquests and prowess. The third man of interest was a young officer called Carus, recently appointed a protector. No one was closer to Gallienus than the protectores, and they were assigned the most important tasks. Carus was from Narbo, and retained pro
perty there. Finally, there was Saturninus. His long and distinguished career of civil and equestrian offices had been rewarded with the signal honour of being Gallienus’s colleague as consul this year. The ancestral estates of Saturninus spread across Narbonensis into Aquitania.

  Postumus’s eyes followed the smoke of the sacred fire as it coiled through the dark patterns of the ceiling. One of the stranger aspects of this undeclared but truceless civil war was that – despite its potential efficacy and the disposable wealth it would yield – so far, neither he nor Gallienus had threatened to confiscate the properties in their territories owned by the families of men serving on the other side. Tempting as it was, Postumus would not take the first step. He had more to lose. The old law that every senator must have one third of his property in Italy was not always observed. Yet many of the key supporters of his regime had holdings in lands under Gallienus. His amici Ragonius Clarus and Trebellius Pollio were from Macedonia and Italy respectively. Lollianus came from Syria Phonice. Tetricius, his governor of Aquitania, might be a native of that province, but he possessed one of the finest houses in Rome, a beautiful building on the Caelian Hill, between two groves and facing the Temple of Isis. Postumus would remember to tell Vocontius Secundus to have the frumentarii keep an especially close watch on Tetricius and the others.

  ‘Under the tyrant, humanity’s former blessing of friendship had withered and died, and in its place sprung up flattery and adulation, and, worse even than hatred, the false semblance of love. It was you, Caesar, who brought friendship back from exile. You have friends because you know how to be one.’ The consul’s words rolled out, sonorous with sincerity, seemingly never-ending.

  Enthroned in lonely eminence, Postumus’s thoughts ran their own course on loyalty and betrayal. His gaze tracked down to his German bodyguards at the doors of the basilica. Heart and courage. Arkil and his Angles would keep to their oath. Yet it had been a timely act of treachery by one of their own that had put them in Postumus’s power.

  VI

  Olbia

  ‘Back in line!’

  Ballista watched the ten sailors shuffle back to rejoin their colleagues. They were hot and tired, dragging their feet. There was not one of them who did not look mutinous.

  ‘Next,’ roared the optio Diocles.

  There were just eight in this contubernium. Under their brows they looked pure hatred at Ballista – as well they might after what had happened in the bar down by the docks. Ballista gave no indication that he noticed. He shifted the weight of the mailcoat on his shoulders and studied the impromptu training ground. The old agora in the largely abandoned north of the upper town of Olbia was the only area of open, flat ground near the walls. On three sides were ruins: a collapsed row of shops, a fallen portico backed by the remains of two temples and a less easily identified jumble of buildings. On the fourth side stood a granary. It had been built recently, on the site of what might have been a gymnasium. Its construction had cannibalized the surrounding buildings. Thus passed the glory of the world. Nothing was permanent, not even the gods.

  ‘Javelins ready,’ Diocles ordered. Ten wooden posts, each six-foot high, had been hammered into the ground about thirty paces in front of the men.

  ‘Run and throw.’ The heavy, blunt training missiles arced away. Five found their mark; the other three fell not far off.

  The troops were getting better. Ballista had had Diocles keep them at it all morning. There had been much room for improvement. The crew of the Ister patrol boat Fides were under military law. They were expected to be proficient in military drill. They were not. The fault lay with Regulus, their trierarch. Ballista had taken his measure straight away at the first parade, when Castricius had read out the imperial mandata putting them under Ballista’s command. Regulus was not young. He had the broken veins of a drinker and the disgruntled air of a man who considered that life had treated him harshly. Perhaps, many years before, when he had joined up, he had imagined ending his career as primus pilus of a legion. Instead, he was the centurion in charge of a small river galley. It was likely his own fault. Clearly he was one of those officers who curried favour with those under him, mistakenly believing laxness would lead to popularity. The Fides needed to be got out of the water, her hull scraped and her seams caulked to ready her to take the expedition up the Borysthenes. Ballista had sent Regulus, with one contubernium of ten and the helmsman, rowing master and ship’s carpenter, to see to it. The rest of the crew, twenty-eight oarsmen, had been assembled at first light in the agora.

  To be fair, they had marched in step, formed line and doubled their line well enough. But when ordered to form a wedge, a square and a circle, it had ended in a shambles. Now, their weapon handling was proving little better. Obviously unused to the heavy wooden training weapons, they moved clumsily, finding the extra weight a burden. There was no point in even thinking about ordering them to perform the armatura; the complicated and demanding dance-like arms drill would be utterly beyond them.

  ‘Draw swords.’

  There was a ragged scraping of wood on wood as even this was not performed as one.

  ‘Attack.’

  With little enthusiasm, the eight men hacked desultorily at the posts.

  ‘The point, use the point,’ Diocles yelled. ‘You, cover yourself with your shield. Aim for the face, make the enemy flinch, make him fear you.’

  Diocles was the only good thing. A big, tough, young Pannonian, given authority, freed from the negligent hand of Regulus, he might develop into a fine leader of men.

  It was past noon. The spring sun was hot. The men were being treated like raw recruits, trained all day. It gave them another reason to resent Ballista. But they needed it. The passage up the Borysthenes was unlikely to pass without fighting. Ballista wondered if it would be advisable to put them on barley rations instead of wheat. Certainly their poor performance merited the punishment. Yet, while he had to instil discipline, it would not do to be too heavy-handed. They already had more than enough reason to hate him and the men with him. They needed discipline, but too draconian a hand might be counterproductive.

  ‘Back in line. Next.’

  Ballista went over to Diocles, told him to carry on.

  Ballista, accompanied by Castricius, Maximus and Tarchon, walked back towards the inhabited part of Olbia. Once, the broad street had been a grand thoroughfare, flanked by luxurious houses. Now it was a narrow track, hemmed in by overgrown rubble from the long-collapsed dwellings of the Olbian elite. Off to the left, through the voids, where once had been peristyle and ornamental garden, the view swooped down to the river. Lush spring grass waved on slopes and hillocks where terraces had collapsed. Among the wildflowers, lines of cut grey stone indicated the transient hopes of the past. There were shrubs and trees. Here and there – like primitive squatters in the wreck of some higher order – rough, new buildings showed. A line of potters’ kilns almost abutted the wall of the living town. Further out was a small foundry. The smoke from their industry was taken by a wind from the north-west out across the broad, islet-studded Hypanis. It further misted the low line of blue that marked the far bank some two or three miles distant.

  ‘We are caught between Scylla and Charon,’ Tarchon said in heavily accented, mangled Greek. ‘If we are not teaching these sailor-fuckers to fight, they will be as women on our voyaging, and the tribes of the riverbanks will be killing us.’

  ‘Charybdis,’ said Castricius.

  Tarchon ignored the interruption. ‘But if we are teaching them, they will be turning on us in some unfrequented place. We are forging a sword of Diogenes.’

  ‘Damocles,’ corrected Castricius.

  ‘Names are unimportant to a man with a sword hanging over his head,’ Tarchon concluded with gravity.

  ‘They lack the balls,’ said Maximus.

  ‘The Suanian has a point,’ said Castricius. ‘There are more than forty of them and just the four of us; it might give them encouragement. But Roman disciplina will bring them to
heel.’

  ‘I do not give a shite. There was a time in Hibernia – I was young then, still known as Muirtagh, Muirtagh of the Long Road – we were outnumbered by five, no ten to one …’

  Ballista’s attention wandered as Maximus launched into a lengthy epic with much hewing and smiting, many severed heads rolling and frequent digressions for scenes of violent sexual congress, their consensual nature not always evident.

  They came to the gate. A cart was blocking it. A small herd of six head of cattle and its driver were waiting. On the instant Ballista turned away from the gate, looked all around for danger. Nothing. He turned, scanned every potential hiding place again. Even Maximus was silent. They were all looking. Still nothing.

  Ballista studied the gate again. The cart was carrying furs. With the officiousness of his kind, a telones was checking every bundle – fox, beaver, wolf; each had a different customs duty.

  Stepping off the path, Ballista climbed a low, grassy bank, which probably once had been the front wall of a house. He smiled at his reaction. It was a very old trick: get a cart to shed a wheel, break an axle, get wedged – anything to cause an obstruction which prevented a gate being closed – and from concealment men could storm into a town. Several examples from the ‘Defence of Fortified Positions’ of Aeneas Tacticus hovered at the edges of his memory. It had to be ten years or so since he had last read that book. He had been on his way to the Euphrates to defend the city of Arete from a Persian attack. He smiled again, ruefully. That had not turned out well. Despite all his efforts and all his theoretical and practical experience, the town had fallen. It was odd that of the very few who escaped death or enslavement, three were standing in this ruined street half a world away – Castricius, Maximus and himself. With that thought came another, far less welcome. Calgacus had survived the sack of that city, had survived so much else. But Hippothous had killed him, had left those who loved the old Caledonian to grieve, had left Maximus and Ballista himself, had left Rebecca and the young boy Simon. Ballista had written to Rebecca. It had been a long letter, difficult to write. But one day he would return to his house in Tauromenium on Sicily where they lived, and that would be much harder. He would give them their freedom, make sure they lived comfortably as freedwoman and freedman, but he doubted that would be much consolation.