Iron and Rust

CHAPTER 31

Africa

Carthage,

the Kalends of September, AD237

The ring was set under a big tree. Sunlight dappled the sand. Gordian took another drink, and offered a wager on the black. Menophilus accepted, and backed the russet. Gordian was still surprised that Menophilus had come with him; it was not his type of thing. But Sabinianus and Arrian were away, and Menophilus was a good friend.

The trainers held the fighting cocks in both hands, passing them in front of each other, lingering a moment when they were almost close enough to strike. At a sign from the official, the men stepped back with exaggerated theatre and, bending, gently dropped them to the ground. Released, the cocks flew at one another in a wing-beating, head-thrusting, leg-kicking eruption of animal fury so pure, so absolute and in its way so beautiful as to be almost abstract. They collided and merged into a tight, thrashing ball; a single animate thing of spurs and claws and hatred. Only when they both left the ground could they be told apart. The crowd sighed, and the black lay, alive but bloodied and not moving.

Gordian passed over the stake. ‘That is the third bout running. My genius is afraid of yours. It fawns on you, as Antony’s did Octavian.’

Menophilus put it in his wallet. ‘Then be thankful we are contending for a handful of coins, not mastery over the inhabited world.’

Gordian finished his drink. ‘I should have avoided your company today. Stoics are not meant to approve of cockfighting.’

Menophilus refilled their cups. ‘We cannot all be Marcus Aurelius.’

The trainer picked up the vanquished black. Tenderly, he stroked and fluffed it, his hands expressing the grief his face would not. The crowd looked on, respecting his self-control.

Gordian took another long swallow of wine. The news had arrived that morning. He had never been close to his sister. There was nothing of their father in her, none of his delight in the pleasures of life. Maecia Faustina had always been disapproving; more than disapproving, she had always been forbidding. She took after their maternal grandfather. Still, she would be upset. Tomorrow, when he was sober, he would write her a letter of condolence. He felt sorry for that son of hers. A sickly, weak-looking little boy; bad enough having Maecia Faustina for a mother, but to have no father.

Frowning, he tried to work out where Junius Balbus would be now. The ship had made a quick passage from Syria to Carthage. It had left two days after the arrest. They were taking Balbus to the North by carriage. Fuddled by the wine, Gordian counted on his fingers. Most likely, Balbus was somewhere in Thrace. Was it true the prisoners were given no food and no water? The fat fool would not care for that. It was unlikely that he had any experience of deprivation.

Two new birds were in the ring. The official was inspecting the binding of their spurs.

Of course, it could not be true. Unless they were brought no distance, the prisoners would be dead by the time they reached Maximinus. There would be nothing for the Thracian to insult or torture. Although they said he had gloated over the head of Alexander. They said he had fucked the corpse of Mamaea.

Gordian beckoned for more wine, waved away the water. The estate of Balbus would go to the treasury. Although Maecia Faustina had seen to the running of her husband’s house in Rome, she preferred to live in the Domus Rostrata of the Gordiani. She could remain there. The property of the Gordiani would not be confiscated. At least, not yet.

Balbus was blamed for the defeat outside Arete; the one where the Sassanids had killed Julius Terentius, the commander of the garrison. At the time, Balbus had been sitting on his fat arse in Antioch, miles away. Indolent, possibly negligent, but hardly deserving the death penalty. If the fault of Balbus was small, no dereliction of any sort had attached to Apellinus, arrested in his province of Britannia Inferior. There were rumours that the governor of Arabia, Sollemnius Pacatianus, had fallen as well. This was a reign of terror: Septimius Severus after the defeat of Albinus, Domitian in the dark last years of his reign. When an Emperor began imitating Polycrates, or whichever Greek tyrant it had been, and started lopping off the heads of the tallest flowers, it would not be long before he turned to the Gordiani, the sons and grandsons of Consuls, the owners of Pompey’s house in Rome, the most palatial villa in Praeneste, and another dozen properties besides. No time at all, now Gordian’s fool of a brother-in-law was a convicted traitor.

‘I will bet on the scrawny speckled bird, give you a chance to get some of your money back,’ Menophilus said.

Gordian fumbled for some coins and a couple fell on the ground. He left them. ‘My brown does not look as if it has much fight in it.’

These cocks were more circumspect. They circled, came together, reared up and struck with their spurs then backed away, circling again. Feathers fluttered across the sand on the downdraught of their wings.

Gordian looked away. The ring was low, constructed of packing cases. Except where he sat with Menophilus, isolated by their exalted status, the audience was jammed together. Men leant over the barrier, encouraging their bird with wordless gestures, shifting in sympathy with its movements, rapt in their attention. It was not unknown for spectators to lean too far, to lose a finger or an eye.

The birds were in the air. The speckled cock drove several inches of razor-sharp steel into its opponent’s breast. The brown was down, the victor strutting sideways in its triumph. Somehow the brown gathered itself into a final, doomed attack. The spurs of the speckled bird hurled it back to the sand, trampling it to ruin.

‘A day for Stoic duty, not Epicurean pleasure.’ Gordian gave Menophilus the coins in his hand.

The crowd parted and the solid figure of Valerian approached. Menophilus called for a chair for the legate, and Valerian sat down.

‘I am sorry about Balbus.’

Gordian smiled. ‘Thank you.’ He handed him a cup.

‘Have you heard about Mauricius?’ Valerian went on. ‘Paul the Chain has summoned him to appear in court at Thysdrus.’

‘Why?’

‘Mauricius’ steward went to pay the tax grain there, and the Chain told him to deliver it to Thabraca, or pay a huge transportation cost. When Mauricius heard, he rode over in a rage. He cursed Paul, told him that he had worked his way from poverty to wealth without ever submitting to extortion, and he was not going to start now. Apparently, Paul would have arrested him there and then, but he had only a couple of guards with him, and Mauricius had a dozen or more armed friends and clients.’

‘This cannot go on.’ Gordian spoke precisely, as he did when well on his way to being drunk. ‘We need a new Chaerea or Stephanus or …’ He could not think of any other killers of tyrannical Emperors.

‘Keep your voice down,’ Menophilus said.

Their servants were out of earshot, and the crowd were shouting the odds for the next fight, but he spoke more softly. ‘If we do not kill Maximinus, he will kill us — all of us.’

It was a measure of their friendship that the other two did not suspect entrapment.

‘We have no legions,’ Valerian said.

‘Africa controls the grain supply to Rome,’ Gordian said. ‘No grain shipments, and the plebs will take to the streets.’

‘And Vitalianus’ Praetorians and the new Prefect of the City’s Urban Cohorts will massacre them.’ Valerian shook his head.

‘Other provinces would join us.’

‘Soldiers pull Emperors from the throne, not the plebs or the provincials.’ Menophilus leant forward. ‘Only three armies are big enough to win a civil war, those on the Rhine, the Danube and the Euphrates. It is unlikely the eastern army could win against the two in the North. Maximinus can only be brought down by those with him.’

‘We must save Mauricius,’ Valerian said.

‘The Chain has the trust of Maximinus.’ Menophilus spoke sadly. ‘The thing is impossible.’

Gordian relapsed into silence with the others. His eyes followed the cockfight, but his thoughts were elsewhere. Mauricius had fought with them at Ad Palmam. He was a friend. Real friendship must take pains for its friends, run risks for their safety. A man should avoid pain, but even painful actions for a friend bring pleasure. Without friendship, there could be no confidence in the future, no trust, no ease of mind. Such a painful life was not worth living. Epicurus had said a wise man will not engage in politics unless something intervenes. When a tyrant threatens your friends, your tranquillity, the security of the Res Publica itself, a man cannot continue to live quietly out of the public eye.