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 The legionaries had withdrawn to the island in the old military harbour.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, a doctor! 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.
Brennus closed up on Gordian’s left flank. Not a reassuring presence, given his role today.
Something flew past Gordian’s head. He jerked back, and his horse shied. Laughter all around. Another missile overshot, rebounded off a mutineer’s shield, and rolled across the pavement. A turnip — humiliating, but not lethal.
Gordian held up his hand, palm out, as if in benediction. He forced himself to smile. ‘We are in your power. Hear us out.’
‘Hear him, hear him,’ some of the more respectable-looking muttered.
‘Then we nail him to a cross,’ yelled a soldier at the back.
At the foot of the steps, Gordian dismounted carefully. He was not so young anymore. The great climactic forty-ninth year was still some way off, but sometimes his limbs felt his age. He hung his helmet on a saddle horn — they would need to see his face — and handed his reins to one of the Scouts. As he ascended, all the Scouts except the horse holders went to follow, but a surge of legionaries blocked them.
Atop the podium of the temple, Gordian stopped and turned. Brennus was on his left shoulder, Arrian his right. Aemilius Severinus and just two of the Scouts were with them. Could they fall back, hold the door of the sanctuary? Gordian dismissed the idea. The speculatores were doughty fighters, but no one would wager on these odds. Their only salvation lay with words, not swords.
The front rank of the mutineers was a few steps below; a wall of hostile faces. Discipline cast off for but an hour or so, and already they looked slovenly and dirty. They were packed together without order, standards sloping randomly above. On one of the standards were hung boards with crude drawings: a brute of a man whose jutting chin almost touched his hooked nose, and a delicate youth with bee-stung lips. Lack of draughtsmanship, not lack of affection, had created these caricatures of Maximinus and his son. Words not swords, Gordian thought. Words soldiers wanted to hear. He wished he had had a drink before he left the Circus.