Attila:The Scourge of God

TWENTY-SEVEN

Valentinian’s eyes widened in delight as, carried by two slaves, the architect’s model was placed on a plinth before him. Made of wood coated with plaster to simulate marble, it represented a triumphal arch, with panels showing in relief victorious Roman cavalry riding down fleeing Burgundians and Visigoths. For the record, a few Huns, squat and uncouth, had had to be included. But the message above all was that this was a Roman triumph, masterminded by none other than the Emperor himself, whose gilded effigy held the reins of the quadriga surmounting the whole. It was Aetius who had actually conducted the campaigns, Valentinian conceded to himself, but then that’s what generals were for. After all, when people thought of the conquest of Britain, it was Claudius, not Aulus Plautius, whom they remembered.

‘Magnificent!’ breathed the Emperor, walking round the model, admiring the artistry with which terror or resolution had been rendered on the faces of barbarians and Romans respectively. It would of course be erected in Rome (which he much preferred to provincial little Ravenna surrounded by its foggy marshes) and outdo in size and splendour the arches of Titus and Constantine.

There was unfortunately one tiresome matter to be negotiated before the project could go ahead: funding. The Treasury officials were bound to prove their usual difficult selves; but with his mother’s help they could probably be persuaded.

In a reception chamber of Ravenna’s imperial palace, the Emperor and his mother — the Augusta Galla Placidia — enthroned, confronted the two chief financial ministers, the comites rei privatae and sacrarum largitionum, the Counts of the Privy and Public Purses respectively. Between the two groups stood the model of the projected Arch of Valentinian.

‘It can’t be done, Your Serenity,’ said the Privy Purse, shaking his head regretfully. A thin, intense man, he had the manner of an anxious schoolmaster. ‘The expense for such a capital project would be enormous — far exceeding any surplus from the rents of imperial lands. Surplus did I say?’ The man gave a weary smile. ‘Serenity, there is no surplus. The income from your patrimony is barely enough to cover the expenses of your household. In fact, even as I speak, the wages of the secretariat are considerably in arrears.’ He coughed discreetly. ‘If I might presume to suggest, a certain, ah, “readjustment”, shall we call it, of the palace budget would help to balance the books. Last week’s banquet for the Eastern Empire’s ambassadors on the publication of the Theodosian Code, for instance. Snow to cool the wine, brought from the Alpes in baskets by relays of runners; pigs’ testicles from Provincia; dormice stuffed with larks’ tongues. . A trifle excessive, perhaps? Oysters, pork, and hare, obtained locally — at a fraction of the cost — would surely have sufficed.’

‘I see,’ sneered Valentinian. ‘To save a few tremisses, you would have us serve distinguished guests sausage from Bononia¹ garnished with prime Ravenna cabbage, and washed down with that Mantuan vinegar they call wine. Cato the Censor would have approved, I’m sure.’ He turned to the other count, a thickset florid man. ‘If the Privy Purse is too mean to let us celebrate our victories, perhaps the state will prove more generous.’

‘Your Serenity, forget this folly,’ declared the Count of the Public Purse brusquely. ‘The Treasury needs every nummus it can wring in taxes, just to pay the army in Gaul.’

‘You dare address your Emperor thus!’ shrieked Valentinian, spittle flying from his lips. ‘I’ll have you dismissed, banished. A life among the goats of Cephalonia might cure you of your insolence.’

‘Aside from the fact that Cephalonia now falls within the jurisdiction of the East,’ rejoined the count smoothly, quite unperturbed by the emperor’s outburst, ‘what would that achieve?’ The count was secure in the knowledge that, without the backing of Placidia and Aetius, Valentinian’s threat was an empty one. Even mighty emperors like the first Valentinian or Theodosius the Great, had been unable to bully or manipulate (beyond a limited extent) a bureaucracy grown all-embracing, powerful, and quasi-independent, since its virtual creation under Diocletian. Nor, despite sustained efforts, had they been able to rid the system of its greatest evil: endemic corruption. This, combined with the disbursement of salaries for the army of tax and administrative officials, accounted for a serious erosion of funds reaching the Treasury.

‘Perhaps Your Serenity does not fully appreciate just how parlous the situation has become,’ the count continued. ‘Apart from Italia, Provence, and central Gaul, there’s nowhere left to tax. Africa and Britain are both gone. Hispania’s in turmoil from encroachments by the Visigoths, the Suebes’ occupation of Gallaecia, and Bagaudian resurgence. The federates are exempt from levies, and it’ll be years before Aremorica recovers sufficiently to-’

‘But Uncle Honorius had his arch,’ said Valentinian, cutting short the minister and turning to his mother.

‘Yes; finished just in time for the sack of Rome as I recall,’ chuckled the Public Purse. ‘The Goths — any who could read, that is — must have been amused by the inscription: “Subdued for all time — the Goth nation.” To build another might be tempting Providence.’

‘My royal half-brother perhaps could not really afford such an expensive monument,’ said Placidia soothingly to Valentinian. She turned to the Count of the Public Purse. ‘Could we not settle for a compromise: triumphal games in a refurbished Colosseum? That wouldn’t empty the coffers, surely?’

The ministers exchanged glances, a reciprocal nod confirming mutual acceptance of this olive branch. ‘Well, I suppose it might be managed,’ said the Count of the Patrimony grudgingly. ‘It’ll mean economies,’ and he glanced meaningfully towards Valentinian.

‘And an overhaul of the tax net,’ took up the other minister, ‘to ensure that no one who can pay slips through the meshes.’

‘Who, pray, is escaping their fiscal obligations?’ demanded Valentinian.

‘Apart from mass desertions by decurions and coloni to the great estates and, until their revolt was crushed, to the Bagaudae of Aremorica,’ the count replied, ‘we have these monks — a huge and growing class of parasites, whose priority is not to save the empire but to save their souls. Also, quite apart from the fact that they make no contribution to the state in dues or labour, their vow of celibacy is causing the population to diminish, thus further reducing the tax base and eroding recruitment for the army.’

‘Then we must stop the rot!’ exclaimed Valentinian, pleased to have found a target on which to vent his disappointment. ‘I’ll have the Senate ratify an edict forbidding anyone to enter the monastic life without permission.’ He looked at Placidia, seeking her approval. ‘A good idea, Mother?’

‘A splendid one,’ confirmed the Empress warmly, casting an indulgent glance towards her son.

‘I would remind Your Serenities that such legislation has already been enacted,’ put in the Public Purse tartly. ‘It states that no one can leave the land on which they work, to become a monk, without their lord’s permission — which is to be granted only in the most exceptional of circumstances.’

‘Then the edict isn’t working!’ shouted Valentinian, stamping his foot. ‘It must be renewed, extended, with the harshest penalties for non-compliance.’² He glared at the others. ‘Who would be an Emperor?’ he cried. ‘My subjects disobey me, my ministers defy me, even the Augusta fobs me off with honeyed words. Sycophants, traitors — get out, the lot of you! Out! Out!’

Alone at last in the chamber, Valentinian, his features convulsed with fury and frustration, hurled the model from its plinth, to shatter on the marble floor.

¹ Bologna.

² The frequency with which imperial legislation in the late Western Empire was re-enacted, with increasingly dire threats of punishment, shows how weak the central government was becoming.