Hadrian's wall

X

I dismiss the landowner Quintus Maxus from my chambers and review my information with unease. It is but a short step in today's empire from candor to treason, and I realize that my report will have to tread carefully. How much can I blame on the characters of this story? How much on the empire itself?

The truth is that this woman Valeria came to Britannia at a particularly troubled time, and that the key to understanding what happened might be not just her but aging emperors and the dispatch of legions. How much do we control events, and how much are we controlled by them? As my own years grow longer, I argue increasingly for fate, and for blind reaction to trends so enveloping that we fail to notice their significance at the time. The world is changing, and I am disturbed by that change. Disturbed most of all that I can't quite put my finger on what is different. The soldier Titus comes next, and I hope that in his military simplicity he can see what I cannot. That he can explain the strange final episode of the woman's journey northward to meet her future husband.

Larger mysteries remain. I've detected a peculiar restlessness in the empire. Is there something about the human spirit that defeats satisfaction and prevents contentment? Rome provides peace, commerce, and tolerance. Yet there is this strange yearning among the empire's subjects for something intangible and inexpressible, a dangerous freedom that invites chaos. Part of it is this restless longing for religion, this back-and-forth favoritism between the old gods and the crucified Jew. Part is a childlike rebellion against authority. Part is real difficulty with taxation, debased coinage, and cynical corruption.

Now there are no truths, only opinions, and not just rightful birth but, under the Christian creed, an unseemly equality. As if patrician and slave can ever share the same paradise! Is it any wonder that disasters occur? Yet I must he careful how I couch my conclusions. Rome seeks fault in individuals, not in Rome.

Perhaps the problem is Britannia itself. It is too distant, too foggy, too ungovernable. Its northern third has never been conquered. Usurper after usurper has arisen here. The Britons themselves remain crude, intractable, argumentative, and ungrateful. One shudders at what will happen if they ever break loose of their soggy island and create empires of their own. One wonders if the Britons would have been better off left to themselves: ignorant, forgotten, and penned by cold water.

I am investigating only one incident. But as I talk to these people, I'm beginning to wonder if Rome should be here at all.