Iron and Rust

CHAPTER 24

Africa

The Outskirts of Carthage,

Four Days before the Kalends of August, AD236

Zeus Philios, the King of the Gods, was looking old and a little weary. He had laid down his thunderbolt next to his wine cup, but he was nodding happily. Even at his age completely in character, he was admiring the scarcely concealed charms of Aphrodite. Across the room, Hephaistos, a wreath of roses slipping over his eyes, was limping back to the table.

Gordian unbuckled Ares’ grim helm. It was hard to relax under its weight. He looked around the table. The dinner of the twelve Olympians had been one of his best ideas. All the male guests were playing their part. Naturally, as governor, his father was Zeus. Valerian had the trident of Poseidon, and Arrian the winged hat of Hermes. It had taken some effort to persuade Sabinianus as Hephaistos to leave his mule outside. Stoic severity put aside, Menophilus was a suitably drunk Dionysos. As guest of honour, the sophist Philostratus, looking only slightly uncomfortable, now and then remembered to pluck Apollo’s lyre. All their efforts, however, were as nothing compared with those of the goddesses. Gordian’s own mistresses, Chione and Pathenope, wore costumes unlikely to have been chosen for any dinner party by the virgin deities Artemis and Athena. The better to draw a bow, she said, the right breast of the former was bare, the nipple rouged, while the latter had foregone her armour and reclined in nothing but a tiny tasselled cloak as her aegis. Two courtesans from Corinth played Hera and Demeter with less than matronly reserve. But the palm for lubricity had to be awarded to Menophilus’ mistress. Thank the gods her husband was overseas. Lycaenion was Aphrodite risen from the sea. The sheer silk of her gown clung as if wet. There was something more arousing about her nearly concealed body than her companions’ naked flesh. Gordian felt his cock stiffen whenever he looked at her. Perhaps later, when he had had enough to drink, Menophilus might share her with his friend.

Girls from Gades — no Ganymedes here, his father’s tastes had never run in that direction — waited at the table. The main course was not ambrosia but suckling pig, pheasant and partridge, with artichokes, courgette, cucumber and rocket leaves. The latter were a sure aphrodisiac, as were the snails and oysters already consumed. In place of nectar, they drank the finest wines of the empire, Falernian and Mamertine, Chian and Lesbian. In the perfect seclusion of this suburban villa — they were some way outside Carthage — Gordian wondered if it might be a good idea if the serving girls took off their tunics.

‘I remembered, also, the discussions we once held about the sophists at Antioch, in the temple of Apollo at Daphne.’

The elder Gordian removed his gaze from Aphrodite and smiled at Philostratus’ words. ‘That was a very long time ago,’ he murmured.

‘And, of course, I know that your family has always been known for its love of culture.’

Surely, Gordian thought, Philostratus must have seen wilder dinners when he was at the court of Caracalla.

‘I was not that old when I governed Syria.’ Gordian’s father was thinking out loud. ‘It seems a lifetime ago.’

‘And the great sophist Herodes was among your illustrious ancestors,’ Philostratus continued.

‘In some way or other.’ The mind of Zeus was far away. ‘Daphne, there was a place made for enjoyment.’

‘So, most illustrious Antonius Gordian, it gave me pleasure to dedicate to you the two volumes of my Lives of the Sophists.’

Gordian’s father came back from distant, remembered pleasures. ‘My dear Philostratus, no literary work has brought me more profit, nor given me such pleasure, since your own Life of Apollonius of Tyana many years ago. The conclusion, when you write of yourself and your contemporaries Nicagoras of Athens and Aspines of Gadara, when, in your magnanimity, you include your rival Aspasius of Ravenna, you give an old man hope. When the divine Marcus Aurelius died, as is often said, our world descended to an age of iron and rust. Politics became the haunt of the unworthy, and freedom fled from the imperium. Yet your book shows that culture will endure.’

Sabinianus laughed. ‘If Maximinus leaves any of the educated alive.’ He did not look up from caressing the thighs of Artemis. The goddess gave no appearance of finding his attentions unwelcome.

Gordian wondered if that night in Theveste might have been a mistake.

‘Quartinus was a fool,’ Arrian said. ‘The only results of his misguided coup have been more arrests, more condemnations. Quartinus was a fool, just as Magnus was a fool.’

Sabinianus snorted, his hand still busy. ‘Maximinus never needed an excuse. The roads were already choked with closed carriages rushing prisoners to the North.’

‘Cutting the grain dole and the spectacles is a sure way to make the plebs of Rome take to the streets,’ Arrian said. ‘Bread and circuses are all that has ever stopped them from rioting.’

Menophilus looked up from his cup. ‘If other Procurators are anything like Paul here in Africa, the provincials will soon be in uproar. They say the Chain has resorted to the old trick of Verres. When farmers deliver their tax corn to Thysdrus, they are told to take it to Carthage or somewhere further away, unless, of course, they pay a fee for its transportation.’

‘Thracians have always been savage.’ The younger Gordian could not take his eyes off Sabinianus’ hand. ‘Remember what they did at the school at Mycalessus. Any hope of restraint was killed with Paulina.’

‘Proconsul, is such freedom wise?’ The voice of Philostratus was very sober, thick with apprehension.

Gordian’s father raised a hand as if in benediction. ‘Freedom that need cause no worry tomorrow, and nothing you might wish unsaid. Nothing said here will go any further. As tent-companions, we are bound by loyalty and friendship.’

‘Even your son?’ Sabinianus said. ‘Individual pleasure is the only aim in life for an Epicurean.’

‘You have all the understanding of a stevedore,’ Gordian said, possibly more sharply than he intended, because of Chione.

‘Am I not right?’

‘If I did not act correctly to my friends — even to you, Actaeon — it would cause me pain.’

Sabinianus removed his hand from between Artemis’s thighs. ‘I have no wish to be torn apart by my own hounds.’

All applauded the interplay.

‘On my way, I stopped in Athens,’ Philostratus said. ‘While I was there, Nicagoras delivered an extempore oration on the virtues of friendship. He began with Harmodius and Aristogeiton.’

Not the best way to bring the conversation on to safer topics, Gordian thought. It would be hard to find more famous tyrannicides in all of history. Perhaps the sophist was more drunk than he looked. But soon the table talk revolved around display oratory.

Gordian’s mind wandered off to the storming of the village of Esuba. Unlike Sabinianus, his trust in Mirzi had never wavered. It had been a bold stroke, one worthy of the great Alexander, to overrule the doubters and send Menophilus with the native prince to scale the defences from the rear. He looked out through the colonnade at the dark plains before Carthage. It must have been somewhere out there that Scipio had asked Hannibal who was the greatest general of all time. The answer had been Alexander, then Pyrrhus, and third Hannibal himself. The Roman had persisted. And if you had defeated me? In that case, the Carthaginian had said, the greatest would have been Hannibal.