Iron and Rust

CHAPTER 7

Rome

The Subura,

Seven Days after the Ides of April, AD235

It was not yet dawn. The meeting was over. The owner of the house quietly unbolted the door, looked up and down the narrow street and gestured for the die-cutter to leave first. No further farewell passed between any of them.

Outside, it was still near dark. The die-cutter did not carry a torch. His vision was not good, anyway, beyond a few paces. As far as he could tell, the street was deserted. Hefting the bag with his tools, and his staff, he set off south. His footsteps came back loud from the blank walls. He tried to walk normally; not too fast, not too slow. The bag banged against his leg. The staff clicked on the pavement. The walls were tall, close around him. He had done this before, many times. It did not get any easier. He fought down the urge to run.

Now and then he looked over his shoulder. He did not expect to be able to see anyone, but alone at night in this district not to look around would have been suspicious. He had no particular fear of robbers. He had been born here in the Subura, knew its ways. It was too late for all but the most desperate of the prostitutes and their clients, and thus for the men who preyed on them. Although he himself had renounced violence, more than a year ago, he knew that conversion had yet to impress itself on his looks or demeanour. And he carried a big stick and had a long knife at his belt. It was not the threat of local knife-men that was making his heart pound and his palms slick with sweat.

It had been over a year. He had been lucky. They had all been lucky. They had been careful, taken every precaution, and they had prayed. Yet somehow he knew it could not last. Someone — most likely someone close to them, a neighbour, a friend — perhaps worse still a relative or one of their own — would denounce them. There would be no warning. One morning the men who the die-cutter feared would be waiting in the dark. He would not see them until it was too late, and then no weapon, no resource of character or body would save him.

The sky was lightening. There was woodsmoke in the air. He heard the first homely noises of the new day: voices muffled behind shutters, boots clumping on stairs, a child crying. Doors were thrown open, and the life of the Subura again spilled out on to the streets. Blacksmiths, cobblers, workers in wool or linen, rag-pickers, fullers and barmen; all sorts of men called back to their women, and, almost rubbing shoulders in the narrow confines, greeted each other. Once again the die-cutter was one among many, just another of the plebs urbana jostling his way through the slums of the Subura. He had survived another dawn. He was safe for another day.

The great featureless wall at the rear of the Forum of Augustus reared up in front of him, and he turned left into the street of the sandal-makers. As his fears receded, they were replaced by the mundane matters of the coming day. At the third hour he had to report to the magistrates who ran the mint. Acilius Glabrio, Valerius Poplicola and Toxotius were like all the boards of the Tresviri Monetales under which he had served — rich, arrogant, thoughtless young men blinded by their own wealth and position. Perhaps the first two were even worse than most; the style of their hair and their perfume hinted at unnatural vices. The writing was on the wall for their sort. Until the day of reckoning, the die-cutter would obey their commands, remain beneath their notice and stomach their disdain.

He glimpsed the shaded flower beds and hedges of the Temple of Peace through the gate on his right. High on the brow of the hill to his left the sun struck the roofs of the beautiful mansions of the Carinae. Swallows swooped and banked up there in the clear light. His mood lifted. He liked this street. It was broad and clean. The bookshops were opening. There had not been a sandal-maker here in living memory. The first bearded intellectuals were nosing about. Roughly barbered philosophers glowered disapproval at elegantly clad sophists. The latter moved languidly, trailed by wealthy students and an air of urbane success. The lone young men with dark circles under their eyes were probably poets. Almost everyone clutched a papyrus roll, the universal badge of culture.

The die-cutter yawned. It was early. There was plenty of time. He would treat himself to breakfast. It would be another long day. The food and drink would sustain him. By the statue of Apollo Sandaliarius he went into an eating-house called The Lyre. The owner, clad in the high-belted leather tunic of his profession, greeted him and took his order. There were only two other customers; draymen talking sleepily in a corner. The die-cutter took a seat at a table on his own.

Waiting, he ran his hand over his bag, felt the reassuring shapes of the carefully wrapped tools: the three different drills, his cutters, the burin and the graver, the tongs and pincers, the files, the compass and the pouch of powdered corundum. He knew he was good at his work. It was the one place where, far from being a handicap, his myopia became an advantage. Not for him the cunningly angled lenses, the peering through glass bowls filled with water. It was as if his eyes were designed for nothing but the closest, finest work.

The owner brought him bread and cheese, and warm watered wine. The die-cutter thanked him and began to eat.

It was not just technical virtuosity. Pride might be a sin, but he knew he was blessed with talent. For years he had interpreted the vaguest of instructions. Often, they were so vague he suspected they were meaningless to the aspiring young politicians who issued them. All those ignorant youths wanted was to offer up to the Emperor an image of his own majesty which might appeal should the man on the throne ever chance to view it. In their dreams such exalted approval translated into their own rapid elevation: a Quaestorship as one of Caesar’s candidates: then a Praetorship before the minimum age; a rich province to follow; at the summit a Consulship and its spurious immortality, all gold and purple, the tawdry glories of this world. From such pedestrian and self-serving concepts, and with recalcitrant physical materials, the die-cutter created art.

With this initial issue of coins, it had quickly become apparent that Acilius Glabrio, Valerius Poplicola and Toxotius had no more idea than the die-cutter himself what might be the virtues, aims, interests or religious sympathies of this new Emperor. He was an equestrian army officer from Thrace. From the way they spoke, neither of these things recommended him in the eyes of the young noblemen. Beyond that, Maximinus Augustus was a complete mystery. None of them could remember meeting him, and not one of them had the faintest clue what he looked like.

Given all of which, the die-cutter considered that he had made a fine portrait. Maximinus in profile gazed off to the viewer’s right. Neither too old, nor too young, the Emperor was in vigorous maturity. His hair was short, and he wore a wreath. The latter was a safer choice than the radiate crown, which some saw as the Emperor placing himself too close to God, possibly demanding worship, and thus was indicative of hubris. The jaw line was strong and clean-shaven. A beard could be good, hinting at the manly virtues of the old Republic, but if too elaborate it might evoke thoughts of soft, ineffectual Greeks, and if too short of brutish soldiers. The die-cutter had given Maximinus an aquiline nose and had tried to get something of the keen intelligence of Julius Caesar about the eyes. Surely no ruler could object to any of that.

He had made just the one obverse for the other die-cutters to follow. Given the greater stresses put on them in the minting process, already he had created no fewer than five different reverse dies. The guidance of the Tresviri Monetales had been less than useless here. ‘The usual sorts of things,’ Acilius Glabrio had said, as if the subject bored him. The die-cutter had given it some thought. The first one he did had the Emperor between two military standards; after all, he had come from the army. After that, two imperial virtues, Victoria and Pax Augusti; in the Roman view the latter was always dependent on the former. Then Liberalitas; a safe bet, as a hand-out followed an accession as night follows day. Finally, Votis Decennalibus; everyone, including the die-cutter himself, had already taken vows for the safety of the new Emperor over the next ten years.

These initial reverse types were well chosen. There was nothing innovative. They played to traditional tastes. Yet the die-cutter knew they would win no praise from those set over him. Either the Monetales would appropriate them as their own, or they would quibble and claim others would have been better. The day of reckoning could not come too fast.

The die-cutter jumped as a hand descended on his shoulder.

‘Guilty conscience?’ Castricius sat down next to him.

‘You young fool, I nearly shat myself.’

‘Incontinent as well as blind and deaf — things are almost all over for you.’ When Castricius smiled, odd, angular lines ran across his thin, pointed face.

The die-cutter could not stop himself smiling back.

Castricius called for unwatered wine.

There was no doubt that Castricius was a bad person. He claimed to be from a good family in Gaul and to have had sound reasons to run away from the tutor who had brought him to Rome. His accent and manners seemed to support the story but, true or not, he had settled with alarming ease into the life of a cut-purse in the Subura. Yet, despite it all, the die-cutter could not help but like his young neighbour.

‘You are up early.’

‘No, up late.’ Castricius took a drink. ‘This will help me sleep. Not that it should be a problem. Yesterday I went up to the Carinae to look at the women. Gods, what I would do to one of those rich bitches. Anyway, having made myself horribly priapic, I went down to visit Caenis. She wore me out; said it was good to have a young man between her legs instead of your old, shrivelled carcass.’

The die-cutter felt his affection for the young Gaul turn to anger. It was irrational. Castricius was not to blame. It was his own weakness. Caenis was a whore who lived in the same tenement block as them. The die-cutter had been her client for years. He had changed much in his life, but he had been unable to change that. Even now he felt his prick stir as he thought of her body. He lacked self-control. Now she was in his mind, he knew he would be unable to stop himself going to her tonight. He was a weak man.

The die-cutter got up. He gripped his bag of tools, like a man seeking certainty.

‘Sleep well. I am going to the mint.’

His fears had receded, but, as the die-cutter stepped out into the sunshine, he could not help glancing up and down the street, checking every man loitering in a doorway. You could trust no one. Certainly not Castricius.