Rome's lost son

CHAPTER VII

‘Do you have the Emperor’s authority for this outrageous request?’ Julius Paelignus, the procurator of Cappadocia, drew himself up to his full height, which was limited to five feet owing to a severe curvature of the spine. ‘Because, I would remind you, I am a very good personal friend of Claudius and it would not do to cross me.’

‘I am well aware of your relationship with the Emperor.’ Vespasian looked down at the deformed little man and tried not to let the contempt that he felt for the procurator’s self-importance play on his face. ‘It is not a request; it’s a suggestion. I have an imperial mandate to act in whichever way I see best in relation to the current crisis in Armenia and I suggest that your auxiliary cohorts secure its border with Parthia.’

‘All of them?’

‘All of them!’ Vespasian’s voice echoed around the marble columns and walls of the procurator’s palace located in the eastern city of Melitene in the mountainous province on the edge of the Empire.

‘I can’t spare them all.’

‘Are they doing anything else important at the moment?’

‘They’re guarding our border with Armenia.’

‘That border is guarded by the Euphrates River; Armenia’s border with Parthia is a vague line just to the south of Tigranocerta.’

Paelignus spluttered, looking up at Vespasian with protruding, bloodshot eyes; his thick, moist lips dominated the lower part of his gaunt face. ‘But they are my troops.’

‘And you shall command them, Paelignus, as is only right as, although I’ve made the suggestion, this will be your idea.’

Paelignus’ thin nose twitched and he rubbed it with his thumb and forefinger; his fingernails were chewed almost to the cuticles. ‘And I shall take the credit for any victory?’

‘Procurator, I am not here. You have seen my imperial mandate and that should be enough for you. My presence should not be mentioned in any official papers or letters and should not be reported to your direct superior, Ummidius Quadratus, the Governor of Syria; so therefore the obvious conclusion is yes, you will not only be able to claim all the plunder but also take all the credit for any victory, worthy feat of arms or successful negotiation through force that you may achieve in your securing of the southern Armenian border during this period of instability in that client kingdom.’ As well as any fiasco, dishonourable retreat or double-dealing agreement, Vespasian added in his head as he smiled ingratiatingly at this puffed-up little joke of a procurator whose eyes had narrowed as he contemplated riches and honour easily come by. He had only met Paelignus once previously, on the last day of the Secular games three years before when the man had been present in the imperial box almost begging Claudius to be given the post of procurator of Cappadocia to restore his finances; his friendship with the Emperor involved many games of dice and wagering on just about anything and his purse had been severely depleted by Claudius’ passion for gambling. Why Claudius would associate himself with such a buffoon he could only … but then he realised that, as a hunchback, Paelignus was exactly the sort of person that Claudius would enjoy having around him: he would make the drooling fool seem less of an oddity. Now that Paelignus had his wished-for position, Tryphaena had judged that his greed and venality would serve her purposes well. Vespasian was unsurprised as the procurator acquiesced.

‘Very well, proconsul,’ Paelignus affirmed, summoning as much dignity as he could in order to seem in command. ‘I will leave in ten days.’

‘Wrong, Paelignus; speed is of the essence and the Emperor will commend you for it. You will leave in three. In ten days you will be in Tigranocerta. Meanwhile, King Polemon of Pontus will bring an army in from the north and secure Artaxata.’ Leaving the procurator speechless and gaping, Vespasian turned on his heel and marched quickly from the room. He was in no mood for more delay; now that he was close to his objective he wanted to achieve Tryphaena’s dubious aims and then get back to Italia and watch the results from the relative safety of one of his estates. It had already taken over half a month to make the two-hundred-mile journey from the port of Sinope, the seat of King Polemon, Tryphaena’s brother. Vespasian had not been surprised to find himself expected and treated with the utmost courtesy by the ageing King; he had been furnished with a unit of Polemon’s personal guard cavalry for his protection overland. They were armed with lances in the image of Alexander the Great’s companion cavalry; shieldless but with stout leather cuirasses and bronze helmets they looked like troops from days gone by, but Polemon had assured him that they had no equal when it came to horsemanship. Their mere presence deterred any banditry along the route and it had been with some regret that Vespasian had released them, upon their arrival in Cappadocia, having not seen them fight.

As he went in search of Magnus who was settling into the sparse comforts of the guest quarters of the draughty and seldom-used palace, Vespasian allowed himself a satisfied smile; he felt as if events had finally started to move. He had commandeered his army: five auxiliary cohorts of eight hundred heavy infantry each, all trained to fight in dispersed order; ideal for mountainous terrain. But fighting was not going to be their primary function and he was looking forward to seeing the expression on the ugly, drawn face of Paelignus when he found out just what really was required of them.

‘This will be a glorious march of conquest!’ Paelignus all but screeched as he raised his voice for the small army of over four thousand foot and horse to hear. ‘The Emperor and the Senate look to us to restore Rome’s rightful influence over Armenia. We will invade from the west and capture Tigranocerta whilst our Pontic allies come in from the north and take Artaxata. For us the hour has come when we can write Cappadocia into the annals of history as the province that saved Roman honour in the East.’

As Paelignus continued to harangue his troops with notions of grandeur far in excess of what was really being asked of them, the infantry stood beneath their banners, rigid, eyes front; weak sunlight glinted on their chain mail, javelin heads and unadorned helms, and the red of their tunics and breeches matched painted shields emblazoned with crossed burnished-iron lightning bolts, giving the impression of rank upon rank of blood and silver. Beside them the baggage train was formed up in surprisingly neatly dressed lines, their appearance less uniform as their clothing was not standard issue. However, they shared one common factor with their infantry comrades: a look of complete non-comprehension.

‘I don’t know why he bothers to waste his breath like that,’ Magnus said, pulling back on the reins of his skittish horse. ‘I don’t suppose more than a dozen of them can speak Latin better than the average five year old.’

Vespasian chuckled as he too was forced to control his mount, which had been spooked by its neighbour. ‘I don’t suppose it’s even occurred to him that he’d have a better chance of being understood in Greek; all he can think of is being seen as the equal of Caesar, Lucullus, Pompey and all the other generals who’ve campaigned in this region. There’s no one so blind as a small man with no military experience who thinks that he’s been given the chance to be a hero without actually doing anything.’

Vespasian steadied his horse, pulling it closer to the mule-drawn cart carrying their tent and personal effects, driven by Hormus, and caught his slave looking with admiration at one of the many young muleteers of the army’s baggage train in which he would travel. The lad smiled back with the promise in his dusky eyes of all received coinage being delightfully rewarded.

‘And so, soldiers of Rome,’ Paelignus falsettoed, his normally pale cheeks almost matching the tunics of his audience, ‘follow me to Armenia, follow me to Tigranocerta, follow me to victory and glory in the name of Rome.’ He punched his sword into the air to little reaction and was forced to repeat the gesture another couple of times before his audience realised that the end of a rousing speech had come and began to react accordingly. Paelignus addressed the five auxiliary prefects standing behind him on the dais before descending the wooden steps to the ragged cheering of his troops. After the bare minimum time that could politely be allowed for an army hailing its commanding officer the prefects signalled to their primus pilus centurions; raucous bellows of command easily cut through the noise followed by the blare of horns. Centuries snapped to attention in unison and turned left, with thuds of massed hobnailed sandals, converting them into eight-man-wide columns. With another series of martial bellows and repeated bucinae fanfares the whole formation began to move, century by century, cohort by cohort, off the parade ground in front of the city’s main gate to head, in one long serpentine column, east towards the Euphrates beyond which lay the snow-capped peaks of Armenia.

Vespasian was impressed by the speed at which the column was able to travel along the Persian Royal Road, built by Darius the Great to connect the heartland of his empire with the sea to the west. Wide and well maintained, it was the equal of any road of Roman construction and its even surface enabled the auxiliaries to march at a good pace.

In fact, the speed with which the whole expedition had been brought together reflected well on the command structure of the province’s military. It was with something approaching a guilty conscience that, later that day, Vespasian watched the auxiliaries traversing the seventy-pace-long bridge over the Euphrates. In order for Tryphaena’s plan to work, it was not to victory that they were heading.

The bridge was narrower than the road, causing a bottleneck, and it took the rest of the day and the best part of the following one to get the whole force and its baggage across; it was as the final carts trundled over that the first tiny silhouettes of horsemen were spotted on the crest of a distant hill.

‘It didn’t take long for news of our march to spread,’ Magnus commented, climbing into the saddle.

Vespasian swung himself up onto his mount. ‘I’m sure that King Polemon has taken the precaution of warning both Radamistus and the Parthians of our arrival by now.’

‘Naturally,’ Magnus agreed. ‘You can’t trust anyone in the East; they’d betray their own mothers for a goat if they thought that they could get more practical usage out of it. But you don’t seem to be too concerned by it. I thought that the whole point of quick strikes like this was to keep the element of surprise.’

‘That would be helpful if this were meant to be a quick strike.’

Magnus shaded his eyes as he took another look southwest at the scouts. ‘What do you mean?’

Vespasian turned his horse. ‘Has it occurred to you that we don’t really have anyone to strike at? Radamistus is meant to be loyal to Rome and the Parthians have not, as yet, as far as we’re aware, invaded.’

‘But I thought that you told Paelignus that the whole point of this mission was to secure Tigranocerta whilst King Polemon invaded from the north and took Artaxata on the basis that whoever controls the two royal capitals controls Armenia?’

‘That is indeed what I told him; but it is far from the truth. Had I told him that, he would probably have tried to have me arrested for treason.’ Vespasian enjoyed the surprise and confusion on Magnus’ face as he kicked his horse forward in search of Paelignus.

‘Probably just local brigands,’ Paelignus announced as Vespasian drew up his mount. ‘It’s beneath the dignity of Rome to send scouts scurrying around the country investigating riff-raff.’

‘If you’re sure, Paelignus,’ Vespasian replied, scanning the hilltop. ‘Whoever they were, they’ve gone now.’

‘That’ll be the last we’ll see of them.’

‘What makes you so certain?’

‘The Armenians would never dare to attack a Roman column.’

‘Maybe, maybe not; but Parthians would.’

‘The Parthians? What would they be doing in the country?’

‘The same as us, procurator, staking their claim to it in a time of change. And, if they did come, I believe they would come from the southwest.’ He pointed to the hill on which the horsemen had appeared. ‘And judging by the sun, that is the southwest.’

The column followed the road east for three days until it turned and meandered south through the dun and dusty rough terrain of the uplands that preceded the Masius range. The horsemen were not seen again. By the time the auxiliaries approached Amida, on the banks of the young Tigris River, where the road struck east again towards Tigranocerta, across the hundred-mile passage in the gentle northern foothills of the Masius mountains, the horsemen had been forgotten by almost everyone. Paelignus led the march on at a hurried pace, imitating the Roman generals of old by disdaining to send out scouts on the spurious basis that looking out for ambushes set by barbarians was yet another thing that was beneath the dignity of Rome.

But what was not below Rome’s dignity was greed and it was soon after noon on the fifth day that the column halted to the blare of bucinae, above the peaceful-looking little town of Amida, set astride the road. The high-pitched calls of the bucinae, used for signals in camp and on the march, soon gave way to the deep rumbles of the G-shaped cornu favoured for battlefield signals, and the column started to deploy into line.

‘What is he doing?’ Magnus asked as auxiliaries filed left and right and farmers, ploughing the freshly thawed fields, abandoned their ploughs and sprinted for the relative safety of the town’s walls.

‘Exactly what Tryphaena predicted he would: rape and plunder. He’s never had this chance; being a cripple no one ever took him into their legion as a military tribune so he’s never been on campaign and he’s never felt the power of the sword.’

Magnus was confused. ‘But this is an Armenian town; how does he think he’ll forward our interests if he destroys everything he comes across?’

‘He doesn’t think, at least he doesn’t think beyond schemes of personal gain, and that’s his problem; that is why he’s so suitable.’

‘We want him to alienate the Armenians?’

‘This is right on the border between Armenia and the Parthian Empire. Tigranocerta is a frontier town that guards the Sapphe Bezabde pass through these mountains into Parthia; what better way to provoke the Parthians than firstly to burn Amida close to the border and then to occupy and rebuild a fortified city actually looking out over their lands.’

Magnus turned to the south. ‘You mean beyond those mountains is Parthia.’

Vespasian surveyed the peaks above them. ‘Yes, if you climbed to the top then as far as you could see and miles, miles further than that is all Parthia. Tryphaena showed me a map and there was hardly anything on it after these mountains, just the Tigris and Euphrates that flow all the way to the sea from where you can sail to India. Almost all the cities are on one of those two rivers but between them is desert.’ He pointed southwest. ‘A hundred miles in that direction is Carrhae where we lost seven Eagles in one battle, and then fifty miles west of that is the frontier of the province of Syria. Across those mountains is where Rome’s influence stops; if the Great King sees us on his border he’ll send an army to try to dislodge us and take Armenia back.’

‘And Paelignus will be responsible for starting a war and you might have some nasty questions to answer.’

‘No, I’m not here officially; if I’m ever asked, King Polemon is prepared to vouch that I was in Pontus all summer using it as a base for my negotiations with Radamistus.’

‘But he’s invading Armenia from the north.’

‘No, he’s not; he’s staying where he is on his sister’s advice. I told Paelignus that to make him feel safe, to ensure that he would bring his forces in. Paelignus will get the blame for starting this war, but as he’s an old friend of Claudius’ he’ll probably survive.’

With the long, low rumble of cornu two of the auxiliary cohorts moved forward as, from either side, the forty cart-mounted carroballistae of the army began to hail down missiles onto the scantily defended walls. From within the town came a great wailing as thousands of people despaired for their lives. The braver, steadier inhabitants shot arrows and slingshot towards the oncoming troops to little effect: many of them fell back, headless, in sprays of blood, decapitated by well-aimed artillery.

With their oval shields raised, the auxiliary soldiers of Rome came on at a steady, silent march as the practically defenceless town lay helpless before them.

Vespasian could see from Magnus’ expression that he was totally confused by the reasoning behind this needless slaughter. ‘We have to fight Parthia sooner or later, we always do, every thirty years or so. But rather than doing so on the defensive, trying to stop them from taking Syria and gaining access to Our Sea, it would be better to have the war on neutral territory as it were. We’ll have less to lose and just as much to gain,’ he explained.

‘But it could take two years or so for Parthia to muster her armies.’

Vespasian watched as the first of the scaling ladders were raised against the walls and troops began to swarm up them. ‘No, they’ll be here in a couple of months; in fact we saw their scouts on that hill just three days ago. Tryphaena really did have King Polemon send a message to Ctesiphon telling the Great King exactly what we were going to do.’

As the first auxiliaries made it onto the wall, the gates opened in a futile attempt to surrender; but peace did not come to the town, only death, and showing it the way was a crooked little man with an unbloodied sword.

Paelignus was having his first taste of glory.

Vespasian and Magnus coaxed their horses past the gates and onwards into a town veiled in smoke and steeped in misery and death. Throughout the narrow streets auxiliaries rampaged, hunting booty, both live and inanimate. Bodies were strewn left and right, broken, pierced, blood-drenched and almost exclusively male. Their womenfolk shrieked and pleaded for mercy as they were tracked down and subjected to the brutal fate that always awaited females in a captured town. Those considered too old to stir carnal passions within the troops were despatched summarily; only babes and infants were considered too young and were likewise doomed.

Huddles of soldiery formed round screaming victims, ripping off their clothes, holding them down and cheering on their comrades as they mounted and rode the spoils of war. Each man hungrily awaited his turn to defile the thrashing wenches who cursed and spat at the persecutors pumping away at them, slapping their faces in vain attempts to quieten their hissing rage.

Those auxiliaries whose lust had been sated guzzled wine and roamed through the town with drawn swords and burning torches, raising fires with heedless recklessness and slaughtering the elderly and the young in the same casual manner.

‘It’ll take a lot to calm the lads down after this,’ Magnus muttered as they passed a group of drunken soldiery urinating into the mouth of a barely conscious teenage girl whose hideous ordeal could be measured by the bruising and welts on her face and naked body, as well as by the pool of blood that had seeped from between her legs.

Vespasian forced himself to watch the final act in the girl’s life as one of the auxiliaries shook the drops from his penis, adjusted his dress, then took his sword and thrust it into her mouth; blood sprayed, diluted by urine, and the soldiers laughed as they wandered off in search of similar sport. ‘Just as long as enough of the populace survive to be able to spread the news of what this little Roman army is capable of doing,’ he muttered, urging his horse on up the main street that bisected the town from the western gate to the eastern one. ‘Now I need to find Paelignus and impress upon him the need to push on with all due haste in this glorious campaign of liberation that he has embarked upon.’

Magnus took one last look at the dead girl and then followed. ‘Now he’s got the taste for it, I imagine that it’ll be hard to hold him back.’

‘I’ll rest my soldiers for two days,’ Paelignus announced from behind a vulgarly large desk to his cohort prefects and their senior centurions as Vespasian and Magnus were shown into the grandiose chamber. The stooped general had commandeered the most impressive house in the town for himself. ‘After such a gruelling victory they deserve rest and recuperation. There’ll be no parades or drills, all fatigues are excused and all outstanding disciplinary charges dropped, double rations of both food and wine are to be issued for both days and sentry duty and patrols should be set at the bare minimum.’ If Paelignus had expected his senior officers to applaud his sensitivity towards his rampaging troops he was much mistaken: his declaration was met with barely concealed disgust both for his orders and his appearance. Paelignus, however, seemed unaware of his staff’s derision; he rose from his chair, placed his fists on the desk and thrust his face towards his subordinates. ‘Any questions?’

‘Yes, sir,’ a balding prefect of auxiliary infantry barked, stepping forward and crashing to attention.

Paelignus sighed with irritation. ‘What is it this time, Mammius?’

‘How can my centurions and optiones keep discipline if you excuse all fatigues and drop all outstanding charges just because we’ve taken a town?’

‘This was an outstanding victory, prefect.’

Mammius was unable to contain himself. ‘No, procurator, it was not; my grandmother and four-score hags of equal age could have taken this place armed only with their distaffs. Where was the defending garrison? Where are their bodies now that we’ve scaled the walls and stormed through their gates? Surely we should be able to see dead men in some sort of uniform with armour and helmets?’

‘We were shot at by arrows; men threw javelins at us!’

‘Civic Militia!’ Mammius bawled. ‘A rabble incapable of doing anything more than hurling a few sticks before bravely running away only to be caught and butchered up alleyways. They even opened the gates for us; but you didn’t call the troops back. And now you want to threaten the cohesion of our cohorts by rewarding them for rape and slaughter when the most danger any of them have been in is from getting a spear up the arse from the man behind them tripping over drunk. I’ve had a report of one single death in my cohort and that was some stupid bugger getting his cock bitten off and bleeding out.’

Paelignus’ mouth opened and shut for a few moments in speechless outrage at the force of the prefect’s diatribe. ‘How dare you shout at me, prefect! I’m a friend of the Emperor.’

‘No, Paelignus, you’re the butt of the Emperor’s jokes as you are the butt of ours.’

‘I think, Paelignus,’ Vespasian said in a conciliatory manner, walking further into the room, ‘that we should sit down and consider the situation in a calm and logical fashion.’

Paelignus’ outrage persisted. ‘And what gives you the right to walk in here uninvited and tell me what to do?’

‘Military experience, Paelignus; something that you evidently lack, as Mammius was only trying gently and politely to make clear to you. Now sit back down.’ He glared at Paelignus until he sat with as much dignity as he could muster. ‘Good; now listen to me: Mammius is right. There is no conceivable way that today’s farce could be called a glorious victory, Paelignus; therefore the troops do not deserve two days’ rest nor do they deserve all the other rubbish that you were suggesting, much to the amusement of all listening, no doubt. I suggest that you rein in the men immediately, get them out of the town, build a camp and give them the night to sober up before marching on to Tigranocerta in the morning. In the meantime, Paelignus, why don’t you strip this house of all that’s valuable and have it loaded onto the baggage train so that you can start to pay off the debts that your friend the Emperor saddled you with as you tried to ingratiate yourself with him, playing dice.’

Paelignus’ sharp-featured face drew back into an ugly leer. ‘That’s already being done, Vespasian, as well as all the other houses of value; that’s why I need two days.’

‘You haven’t got two days; I suggest you leave tomorrow.’

‘I give the orders here!’

‘No, Paelignus; you just take the credit and the plunder.’ He turned to the assembled staff who were having difficulty in hiding their shock that a man whose presence they had been only vaguely aware of on the expedition should exercise such control over their commander. ‘I believe that you gentlemen would also deem it wise to move first thing in the morning rather than let the men lose discipline over the next couple of days.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Mammius replied; his colleagues nodded dumbly.

Vespasian walked to an open door and passed through it onto the terrace beyond, looking north towards the heart of Armenia. ‘Have patrols range out along the border keeping parallel with us as we move east. They’re to keep their wits about them and not infringe upon Parthian territory.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Mammius said, frowning. ‘But on whose authority do you take command?’

‘I’m not taking command, prefect, in fact I’m not even here — officially. I’m just making suggestions that Paelignus will no doubt want to take up. Isn’t that right, Paelignus?’

The procurator did not deny it.

‘Good. See that the patrols go out and pull the men back into order; execute a few of them just to sober the others up. And we are going to need them sober, gentlemen; because when news of what happened here today gets to the Parthian army that is already marching towards us they are going to increase their pace. We need to be safely behind the walls of Tigranocerta when they arrive, otherwise we’ll find ourselves outnumbered on a battlefield and, soon after, quite probably dead.’ Vespasian smiled at the uncomprehending expressions that greeted that news. ‘Yes, gentlemen, I know; the walls of Tigranocerta have not been rebuilt since the last Parthian war as a condition in the peace treaty. But the peace treaty also specified that Rome would not take any troops into Armenia; something that Paelignus neglected to think about in his haste to gain favour with the Emperor and restore Rome’s influence here.’

‘You told me to!’ Paelignus shrieked, pointing an accusatory, shaking, chewed finger at Vespasian.

‘No, Paelignus, all I did was to suggest that while there was a period of instability in our client kingdom of Armenia it might be wise to keep an eye on its southern border with Parthia. I’m not the procurator of Cappadocia, I had no authority to order an invasion, because that’s what it is, isn’t it? You commanded it, you assembled the troops and you’ve led them. Now I suggest that having broken the treaty with Parthia you garrison Tigranocerta to prevent it falling to our old enemy. It’s either that or return to Cappadocia having prodded the Parthian beast and giving it a good reason to go into an undefended Armenia. Not even your close relationship with the Emperor would get you out of that mess.’ Vespasian turned to leave. ‘I suggest you get busy, Paelignus.’

‘Are you ever going to explain to me just what you’re trying to achieve?’ Magnus hissed as he followed Vespasian out of the room.

‘Yes,’ Vespasian replied without venturing any further information.

‘When?’

They walked in silence down the corridor past gangs of slaves stripping the building of anything valuable under the supervision of the auxiliary quartermasters. Vespasian tutted with regret that Paelignus was enriching himself with such ease but he knew that was the price to be paid for the procurator’s folly that would advance Tryphaena’s ambitions in Armenia. Besides, he would not possess his new wealth for long. What mattered was that Paelignus’ greed and vanity had driven him to sack a peaceful town that was part of a kingdom allied to Rome in direct contravention of all treaties with both Armenia and Parthia. News of the outrage would spread and condemnation would come from all sides. With one rash act the procurator had given Parthia a just cause for war and also given Radamistus reason to appeal to the Emperor in protest at Rome’s unprovoked attack.

‘Tryphaena’s objective is to secure her nephew Radamistus on the Armenian throne,’ Vespasian informed Magnus.

‘Then she’s got a strange way of going about it, getting you to persuade the procurator of a Roman province to invade, even if it is with a piss-poor little army.’

‘I didn’t persuade Paelignus to do anything; I just suggested things. However, that piss-poor little army, as you term it, has just done more for Tryphaena’s cause than if she had ten legions of her own. When Parthia invades and overruns Tigranocerta and then moves north to take Artaxata, Rome will be obliged to send in the legions, no doubt under Corbulo’s command.’

‘Great, so what?’

‘So who will be leading the Armenian resistance and allied with our legions?’

Understanding began to spread over Magnus’ face. ‘Radamistus,’ he said slowly. ‘And then when it’s all over in three or four years’ time and Parthia has withdrawn, Radamistus stays as king because he was our ally and the fact that he murdered Mithridates will be conveniently forgotten.’

‘Precisely.’

‘And Nero, her other kinsman, will be emperor by that time and earn the glory of a Parthian defeat.’

‘And will no doubt be voted the name Parthaticus by the Senate, myself amongst them, after celebrating his Triumph.’

‘And meanwhile a whole lot more people like that girl we saw earlier are going to suffer.’

Vespasian shrugged as they clattered down a staircase of ancient oak. ‘I don’t like it any more than you, but what can I do? I’m trapped. I’m meant to be working for Pallas in order to help him protect himself from Agrippina and then I’m also meant to be working for Narcissus in order to help him bring down Agrippina; but I end up working for Tryphaena who’s trying to secure Agrippina as the mother of the next emperor because she has persuaded me that whatever Agrippina might think of me, Nero is my best chance of advancement.’

‘Nero?’

‘Yes; and having listened to her arguments, I agreed with her, but not for all the reasons that she put forward, although some of them were very persuasive.’

‘How would Nero becoming emperor possibly help you?’

Vespasian pushed open the main door that led out to the town’s agora; smoke stung his eyes and caught in his throat. The carnage still continued, although with less vigour than before as most of the population had by now either fled or been despatched. ‘That’s hard to say in logical terms because it’s really just a hunch — but a very strong one based upon the auspices of a sacrifice that I made. Let me put it into your vernacular: judging by the way that he makes free with his own mother, I think that Nero’s got more chance than Britannicus of fucking up on a fucking large scale.’