Blood and Steel

When it became evident that the Father of the House had no more to say, again all attention focused on the tribunal. Aware he was presiding over a meeting that was slipping towards open treason, Fulvius Pius scanned the room with an air close to panic. ‘Senatorial procedure …’ His gaze fell upon the group of patricians on the front bench opposite Pupienus. ‘The Senator next in order of seniority should speak. I call on Decimus Caelius Calvinus Balbinus.’

The man in question appeared to be asleep, or as comatose as made no difference. Most likely he had come to the session from drinking all night. Gods below, Pupienus loathed those indolent, arrogant patricians, detested their endless complacent talk of their ancestors, and hated their sneering contempt for those – like himself – they regarded as their inferiors. Rome is but your stepmother, they said to him. Tell us of your father’s achievements. He never replied. Everyone knew about his youth in Tibur, brought up by a lowly kinsman, the Emperor’s head gardener. But what happened before, his childhood in Voleterrae, not even his sons knew. As long as ingenuity, subterfuge and money served, he would keep it that way. Dear gods, it must remain that way, or he was ruined.

Balbinus’ neighbour, the grossly obese Valerius Priscillianus, touched his arm. Balbinus opened his porcine eyes, and blearily looked around. Valerius Priscillianus whispered to him. Balbinus did not respond. With a strange delicacy, Priscillianus pinched his recalcitrant friend’s ear. Balbinus slapped his hand away.

Now that was interesting, Pupienus thought. The superstitious thought the ear lobe the seat of memory. What did one corpulent patrician want the other to remember? Was it that Maximinus had killed both Valerius Priscillianus’ father and brother? Could familial feeling stir even the fathomless lethargy of these patricians?

‘Let him be slain, that he who best deserves alone may reign.’

Having recited the line of Virgil, Balbinus folded his hands over his protruding stomach, and, with something like a smirk, closed his eyes.

You fool, Pupienus thought, equivocation will not save you. Whichever side carried this debate, and whichever rulers finally emerged in undisputed possession of the throne, would consider all those who had not supported them as their enemies. If the Gordiani were triumphant, the repercussions might be less swift and savage, but all Emperors bear a grudge, and, if their memory fails them, there are always others to remind them of any perceived injury or slight.

Gallicanus was given the floor. His constant companion Maecenas stepped forward from the small philosophical brotherhood, and took a place close behind him. The wool of Gallicanus’ toga was coarse and homespun, an ostentatious symbol of his often trumpeted devotion to old-fashioned frugality and morality. From under his rough cut mane of hair, he glared about, fierce censure personified. Given a wallet and a staff, and he could have been Diogenes himself, crawled from his barrel and ready to admonish Alexander the Great. Surely even he was not about to propose the ludicrous scheme he had once suggested to Pupienus of restoring the free Republic?

‘Maximinus has murdered our loved ones. No one has escaped. Gordian the Elder mourns his son-in-law, Gordian the Younger his brother-in-law, Valerius Priscillianus his father and brother, Pupienus his lifelong friend Serenianus.’

Pupienus’ face remained as blank as the outer wall of a town house.

‘A tide of innocent blood, flowing across the empire: Memmia Sulpicia in Africa, Antigonus in Moesia, Ostorius in Cilicia.’ As the names rolled out, fired by his own rhetoric, Gallicanus swung his hairy arms, gesturing with angry, simian motions.

‘If any spark of ancestral virtue remains in our breasts,’ Gallicanus dropped to a murmur, ‘any spark at all, we must free ourselves.’ Now he shouted. ‘Declare Maximinus and his son enemies of the Senate and People of Rome!’

Enemies, enemies. The first shouts came from the faction of the Gordiani. They were joined by mutterings from the darkness of the back benches.

‘Proclaim the Gordiani Emperors!’

Emperors, Emperors. The sound swelled, echoed off the panelled walls. Gallicanus had won the house over. As the Cynic dog stood, exulting, Maecenas slipped an arm around his waist.

Not waiting for the Consul to put the question, the Senators began to chant.

Enemies, enemies! He who slays the Maximini shall be rewarded. Let them hang on a cross. Let them be burnt alive. Enemies, enemies!

Pupienus got to his feet. Thessalian persuasion, he thought; necessity disguised as choice. Dear gods, how would this end? With his friends and relatives, he walked to the middle of the floor, the better to be seen. He filled his lungs, and shouted with the rest.

To the gods below with Maximinus and his son. We name the Gordiani Emperors. May we see our noble Emperors victorious, may Rome see our Emperors!

Chapter 6 (#ulink_3bac01bf-f208-5d46-8063-a4b527f18973)

Africa

Carthage,

The Day before the Nones of March, AD238

‘Death is nothing to us,’ Gordian said the words to himself, barely moving his lips.

The sound of their horses’ hooves and the rattle of their armament echoed back from the walls of the unnaturally deserted street. Gordian could smell the sea. They were nearly down at the port.

‘Where we are death is not, and where death is we are not.’

A gap in the buildings revealed the turquoise waters of the Gulf of Utica off to the right. A merchantman was beating into the westerly breeze. Its sails shone white in the sun. A string of villas showed minute along the far shore, and behind the mountains rose green and rugged and misted with distance.

Death was nothing but a return to sleep. But Gordian did not want to sleep. The true goal of life was pleasure. The world was full of pleasure, and he had not had his fill. He knew he was scared, and he did not want to die. He was far from virtue, nowhere near the wisdom of Epicurus.

When word of the mutiny spread the crowd had flowed out of the Circus like wine from a broken amphora. Those at the front, still unaware, had been hailing the new Augusti – May you rule safely, the gods watch over you – as those at the back were running.

There and then they had questioned the tribune of the 3rd Legion, a makeshift consilium in the imperial box. Suillius had provided straightforward answers. No, he could not identify any ringleaders. Yes, the Centurions had remained loyal. The men had not listened to their officers, but so far had offered them no violence. The legionaries had withdrawn to the island in the old military harbour. The Cohort was up to strength, but, with men on detached duties, there were less than four hundred mutineers. They had torn the images of the Gordiani from the standards, but, as Suillius had had them destroyed, no portraits of Maximinus or his son had been available to replace them.

Once he had ascertained that the only other unit stationed in Carthage, the 13th Urban Cohort, had exhibited no signs of disaffection, Sabinianus had argued for tough measures. ‘We should deal with them as Septimius Severus dealt with the Praetorians, or Caracalla the Alexandrians. I will get them off the island by subterfuge. Soldiers have little intelligence. Pretending that I have deserted you and reverted to Maximinus, tears of sincerity running down my face, I will lure them here, draw them up down on the racetrack. While I am addressing them from the comparative safety of this imperial box – promising them the heads of you all, or anything else that comes into my mind – fill the stands with the Urban Cohort, our new Praetorians, Horse Guards and the Scouts. Once they are surrounded, outnumbered by more than three to one, you can make your choice; disarm them or kill them. I favour the latter, a salutary dose of severity.’

Arrian had dismissed the need for the dangerous duplicity. Blockade the island; the mutineers could surrender or starve.

‘Gods below,’ Sabinianus had laughed at his fellow Cercopes, ‘I hate it when your simple-mindedness tramples my Odysseus-like cunning.’

Gordian the Elder had been dead set against. Their reign should not begin with treachery and massacre. Gordian had seconded his father. Feeling like a Roman of old, a hero of the free Republic, he had announced he would go and recall the legionaries to their duty. Equally, like characters from a story in Livy, almost everyone else had said they would go with him. Gordian had demurred. He would take just the bodyguard Brennus, to ensure that he did not become a hostage, was not taken alive. He had never felt more noble. If he was killed, he had said, the others should implement the plan of Arrian, and take revenge. Much discussion ensued. In the end, Gordian had agreed to have Arrian accompany him and Brennus, with Aemilius Severinus and his detachment of twenty Scouts as a token escort. Sabinianus had said he would ring the island with the loyal troops, promising to keep them out of sight.

Gordian had called for his armour, and wriggled out of the constricting folds of his toga; better to go to them as a soldier than clad in purple. Arrian and Aemilius Severinus had done the same. Their struggles with straps, buckles and knots were interrupted by an awful dull thump. Serenus Sammonicus had collapsed onto the hard marble. The heat and the tension had been too much for the old tutor. A doctor, adoctor! Everyone shouted. Give him room, as they crowded around, ineffectually fanning him. Gordian the Elder had knelt by his unconscious friend. Cradling Serenus’ head, he muttered, incoherent in his horror. For a moment, Gordian had feared his father would speak of the prodigy or the words of the astrologer. His worries had proved unfounded, a lifetime of reining his emotions like a horse on a curb bit did not fail his father.

The cavalcade emerged onto the quayside. The hexagonal commercial harbour lay to the right, the circular military one ahead. Gordian saw the crowds out on the island. The mutineers stood silent, watching. Gordian led his small party to the left, around towards the one bridge. The dockside was deserted. Not a stevedore in sight, just piles of crates, bales, amphorae, thick coils of rope. No sailor visible on the moored merchantmen. Not a sound except their horses’ clopping tread and rigging slapping against masts in the gusting breeze.

Death is nothing to us. The thought did not ease the constriction in his chest.

A dense mass of legionaries blocked the arch at the end of the bridge. They were armed, carried shields, but so far the shields still had their covers on and their swords remained sheathed. They stood in no order, silent and hostile.

‘Imperator Marcus Antonius Gordianus.’ He announced himself laconically, just the military title, and the first three of his names.

‘You can pass, but not the others.’ The speaker was an old legionary. Doubtless his back bore the scars of decades of insubordination.

‘All or none,’ Gordian said.

‘Let them in,’ another old soldier said. ‘Twenty-four men are easily overcome.’

Grinning unpleasantly, the legionaries shuffled aside.

Gordian nudged his mount out onto the bridge, the others following.

The mob closed behind them.

The water on either side was very blue. The air full of the accustomed smells of seafaring; hemp, mutton fat, tar, and salt encrusted timber under a hot sun.

Death is nothing. What would Alexander have done? He had quelled one mutiny by saying it was more dangerous to turn back than go on. In another he had brooded in his tent. Neither was appropriate. The latter had not worked even for the Macedonian conqueror of the world.

The crowd was dense on the island. There was no tribunal. Gordian walked his horse towards the temple in the middle. The press parted slowly, with ill grace.

Julius Caesar had dismissed an entire legion with one word: citizens. They had clamoured to be recalled to the standards. That was unlikely to be the case here.

‘Maximinus Imperator!’ a voice called from the rear ranks. ‘Gordiani traitors!’ shouted another.