Blood and Steel

Chapter 27

Rome

The Milvian Bridge,

The Day after the Ides of March, AD238

Menophilus did not really think that he had shortened his life, let alone signed his own death warrant the previous day.

Out of the carriage, off to the left, could be seen the detritus of the feast: broken amphorae and cups, empty barrels and wine skins, tattered and collapsing shelters of boughs and reeds. An army of public slaves should have been working across that beaten ground, clearing everything away. It said much about the Res Publica that the only people in sight were a handful of rag-pickers.

The day before the Campus Martius had worn a very different aspect. The festival of Anna Perenna was always relaxed and popular. The plebs urbana had come from their tenements in their tens of thousands. Reclining on the grass, they drank, got up and danced lumbering measures, sang snatches of songs they had heard in the theatre, or traditional airs of startling obscenity. Supposedly innocent young virgins sang how the old goddess had nearly tricked Mars into ramming her aged quim with his erect spear. Many couples, under the limited privacy of a cloak, reached the end denied Anna Perenna. Above all they drank. Men and women, young and old, prayed that each cup they drained granted them another year of life. The barbarian hostages had enjoyed themselves enormously. Barbarians and plebs, there was little to choose between them. Blessed with huge capacity, Cniva and Abanchas had seemed to be aiming for near immortality. Crapulous, and with a great deal to do, Menophilus had taken just three cups, before he left. It was good that he was not superstitious.

There was more traffic on the Via Flaminia as they neared the Milvian Bridge. Their carriage slowed. Timesitheus carried on reading. At least, Menophilus thought, the Graeculus looked like being a quiet travelling companion. There were just the two of them in the carriage. Menophilus’ servant, and the gladiator who accompanied Timesitheus rode behind.

Yesterday afternoon, up on the Caelian and the Esquiline, the breezy hills where the rich lived, it had not taken long for Menophilus to ascertain that the majority of the plans of the Twenty were being implemented with no alacrity whatsoever. One or two things were in hand. Crispinus had already set out for Aquileia, and Egnatius Marinianus and Latronianus, the two envoys to the east, had sailed. Old Appius Claudius Julianus also was near ready to depart for the west. But everything else was bad.

In Rome Maecenas had vetoed Pupienus’ proposal to conscript the gladiators of the Ludus Magnus and other schools into the forces being raised to defend the city. It was not only against all philosophical precepts, but against the mos maiorum itself, Maecenas had claimed. The Senate and People of Rome should not entrust their defence to slaves and such scum. The militia must be the citizens in arms.

Rufinianus had insisted that Lucius Virius not leave to begin constructing fortifications on the roads across the Apennines until he was ready to accompany him. Likewise the mission to close the passes of the western Alps to any reinforcements destined for Maximinus had not left Rome, Cethegillus being detained by the inertia of Valerius Priscillianus.

Worst of all, Claudius Severus and Claudius Aurelius, the interchangeable descendants of the Divine Augustus Marcus Aurelius, were far from ready to leave for what soon would be the front line on the eastern Alps. Great aristocrats did not set forth without carefully organized entourages to take care of every eventuality. Nobiles such as them were not to be hurried or chivvied.

It was the latter that had induced Menophilus to summon Timesitheus to the Palatine. The Greek would accompany him as far as Aquileia. He would remain there but Timesitheus would continue to the mountains. While talking to Corvinus the arch-brigand, the Graeculus could gather information, survey the main routes, and, on his return, begin to levy troops and supplies. Despite the leisureliness of the two distant scions of the imperial house, there would be a commander in the Julian Alps.

Menophilus looked over at his companion. Timesitheus was reading the Histories by Tacitus. What a man read was a statement of how he wished to be seen, like the art in his house, or the friends with whom he passed his time. Tacitus was a classic, which made reading it a claim to be both serious and cultured. The Histories recounted a civil war fought in northern Italy, so it was eminently practical under the circumstances. The text was in Latin, thus indicating Timesitheus was not one of those Greeks who lived in the past, and affected to despise the modern world and all culture except their own.

Ringlets of dark hair curled over Timesitheus’ forehead. His eyes were very dark, liquid. Unlike his choice of literature, nothing could be made of his looks. Menophilus had complete contempt for physiognomy. He based his judgements on deeds and words, things within a man’s control, not irrelevances like fine cheekbones or a strong jaw.

No one could fail to see that Timesitheus was intelligent, energetic, and capable. But it did not call for much insight to realize that he was ruthless, ambitious, and untrustworthy. Armenius Peregrinus blamed him for an attempt on his life and the burning of his house. Most likely he was right. Valerius Priscillianus hated him for denouncing his father. That was a certainty. Others disliked him without such specific reasons. Maecia Faustina had told her kinsman Maecius Gordianus to turn him away from the Domus Rostrata when the Greek had arrived bearing toys for her son.

As often, when Gordian’s nephew came into his mind, Menophilus felt a stab of pity for the boy: his father dead, that echoing mausoleum of a house, living under the joyless eye of that severe mother.

Maecia Faustina and all the others might mistrust Timesitheus, but, paradoxically, now in this war, and only while it lasted, Menophilus knew there was no one he could trust more. Maximinus had ordered the death of the Greek. Timesitheus could not desert. If Maximinus won, he would die, most likely a hideous death.

They were almost at the bridge when the carriage came to a halt. Timesitheus stopped reading, leant out. A dense crowd blocked the way. Timesitheus asked a bystander what was causing the delay.

‘The frumentarii are questioning everyone.’ The man put his thumb between his fingers to avert evil. ‘They have taken a Christian.’

After the man stepped away, they waited.

‘Many believe the Christians are the root of all our troubles,’ Timesitheus said. ‘If the dominion of Rome truly rests on the Pax Deorum, they are right. The Christians deny our gods exist. As we suffer the atheists to live among us, it is no wonder the gods withdraw their favour. When the Gordiani are safe on the throne, they should order a per-secution across the empire. In any event, their confiscated property would swell the imperial coffers.’

Menophilus made a noncommittal noise. In his vision of the gods, each was an emanation of the divine intelligence that oversaw the Cosmos, far above such petty jealousies. The arrest was just bad luck on the atheist, Menophilus thought. He had told Felicio to use what Praetorians and frumentarii remained in Rome to prevent any spies or assassins from Maximinus getting into the city.

What a difference a few hours could make in politics. Assassination was not the Roman way. Long ago, when a man had offered to kill her great enemy Pyrrhus of Epirus, the Senate had rejected the scheme as unworthy. Even later, under Tiberius, the same answer had been given concerning Arminius, the German leader who had massacred three legions in the forest. Menophilus had every intention of following the mos maiorum, until yesterday when he was confronted by the sheer ineptitude of those tasked with defending the Res Publica from Maximinus. I shall meet with interference, ingratitude, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness. Marcus Aurelius could have added indolence, complacency, and sheer stupidity. No doubt all caused by a basic failure to distinguish between what was right and wrong.

Castricius had been brought up from his cell. The knife-boy was young. Menophilus was uninterested in the truth of his story of the betrayals and misfortune that had led him to the Subura. Castricius talked a lot, but he was not without sense. Presented with the alternatives — the beasts, the cross, or the mines — he had readily agreed to the offer.

Menophilus had modified the original scheme proposed by Timesitheus, removing all mention of the Senator Catius Celer. Instead, Castricius would carry a straightforward despatch to Maximinus. In his own handwriting, in return for his own safety, Menophilus would propose to kill the Gordiani when they landed from Africa. That should get Castricius access to Maximinus. The dagger would be hidden in a bandage on the knife-boy’s arm.

Should Castricius manage to escape in the ensuing chaos, he would be rewarded with wealth beyond his imaginings. In case he decided to slip away, a frumentarius would accompany him as far as the imperial camp. Of course his nerve might fail him. He was assured that if it did, when the war was over, he would be hunted down.

After the complicated plan involving Castricius, he had made another simpler one: sending a messenger to Axius Aelianus the Procurator of Dacia offering huge rewards if he removed the governor of the province by whatever necessary means.

The carriage moved forward and stopped just short of the bridge. A soldier briefly scanned their diplomata, saluted, and waved them through. They clattered across the bridge. Timesitheus returned to the Histories.

In a short while the Via Flaminia would turn right and head through Saxa Rubra towards the Apennines. They would reach the Adriatic at Fanum Fortunae, journey north through Ariminum and Ravenna to join the Via Annia, and finally the Via Postumia, which would take them to Aquileia. Seven or eight days’ travel usually, using their diplomata to requisition fresh horses, not driving them to death. But the times were far from usual. If beasts had to founder, so be it. Perhaps he could make Aquileia in three or four days.

Three or four days out of another three years of life. Even should the vulgar superstition prove to be true, Menophilus did not fear death. Dying was a different thing. The possible pain, squalor, humiliation of the event; those might be difficult to deal with, would test all his resolve. But being dead was nothing. He had been nothing before he was born, and he would be the same after his death. Having been dead before, he remembered no punishments or pleasures, no sentience at all. It was an area where his Stoicism met the Epicureanism of his friend Gordian. If they could hold to their principles, neither should be afraid to die.

An ordinary journey — like from Rome to Aquileia — would be incomplete if you stopped in the middle, or anywhere short of your destination. But a life was never incomplete, if it was an honourable one.

Was there any honour in killing Vitalianus or Sabinus? Would there be in striking down Maximinus? Could honour be reconciled with unleashing the Goths and Sarmatians into the empire?

A man must do his duty; to himself and his fellow men, to the Res Publica and the deity. Maximinus was a tyrant. He was beyond reform or redemption. It was the duty of a good man to free others from his tyranny. As far as the barbarian could, Maximinus acted against the harmony of the Cosmos. The deity would approve his removal.

There was no doubt that killing Maximinus was an honourable act. But the others? Were they too beyond redemption? Perhaps not, but they stood in the way. The world could not be freed from Maximinus unless they were eliminated. Menophilus had given Sabinus a chance, and the offer had not only been rejected, but met with treachery. Sabinus deserved to die. But what of Vitalianus, or Licinianus the governor of Dacia, or numberless provincials along the Danube? At least, if there were no afterlife, there could be no punishment.