She wanted nothing but to run.
‘We have to get him away, before the Watch arrive.’
Caenis had to live in the same block with them. Tugging her clothes into some decency, she went to help the die-cutter.
Chapter 8
Rome
The Senate House,
The Nones of March, AD238
Today I shall meet with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness. Menophilus turned over the words of the Meditations. Was Marcus Aurelius correct that man naturally inclines to virtue, and so all vice was due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil, all some sort of near-blameless mistake? Regarding his fellow Senators, he judged that the divine Emperor’s view could be true only in the very strictest sense of Stoic philosophy.
Menophilus had answered Gallicanus’ question with honesty. He could give no realistic estimate how long it would be before the Gordiani arrived from Africa. The tone of the query had been offensive, somehow implying both that any tardiness was his fault, and that previously he had failed to give proper consideration to the issue. The hirsute Cynic appeared quick to impute blame, like most of his kind.
Since he had despatched the summons, Menophilus repeatedly had deliberated on the capabilities of ship and crew, the vagaries of the weather and potential routes, and the parameters of previous voyages. The Liburnian was said to be a fast galley, well manned, and its captain recommended as a seafarer of experience. Yesterday, after it had pulled out of Ostia, obligingly the wind had picked up and shifted to the north. It was just possible that it would make Carthage today. But if it had been overtaken by the full force of the storm, it might have been forced to run for shelter in Sicily or Malta, or might have been blown wildly off course, perhaps even to the dreadful shoals of the Syrtes. At worst, it could have foundered. When the storm abated, he would send another ship. Perhaps Gallicanus was right; he should have sent two vessels initially. There was all too much to think about in the midst of a revolt, even if he did not have the killing of Vitalianus on his conscience.
Like countless generations of Senators before, Menophilus gazed out of the window set high in the wall opposite the bench where he sat. Low, black clouds, dragging curtains of rain, scudded across. Open the doors! The angry chants were muffled, but audible. Only conspirators debate behind closed doors! Someone behind the scenes was whipping up the plebs, Menophilus had no doubt. Normally the first drops of rain dispersed any mob, no matter how riotous. Continued urban unrest best served whose interest?
Gallicanus had the floor. There had still been no sighting of the Prefects of either the City or the Watch, and, in the continuing absence of Sabinus and Potens, with no soldiers on the streets still loyal to Maximinus, many more Senators had found the courage to venture out of their close guarded homes, despite the mob. The Curia was packed. Gallicanus was speaking. Menophilus dragged his mind back.
‘Outside the storm rages. The people of Rome grow impatient. They need leadership. There is no telling when the Gordiani will come. Conscript Fathers, it is our duty to bring order to the streets of the city.’
Yes, Menophilus thought, your bluff democratic posturing appeals to the plebs.
‘The Gordiani are far away over the seas. Maximinus and his army are close at hand. At any moment the tyrant will cross the Alps.’
An exaggeration, but a real fear. What Maximinus would do to the man who had killed his Praetorian Prefect did not bear thinking. Still, the human condition was that of a soldier assaulting a town; at every moment you should expect the barbed arrow.
‘The barbarian and his vicious son will bring fire and sword, murder and rape. In their savage and perverse fury none will be spared. I see the Tiber foaming with much blood. I see shrines and temples consumed with fire; northern tribesmen ruling amid the ruins and on the ashes of a burnt-out empire. Conscript Fathers, it is our duty to protect Italy.’
Followers of Diogenes were encouraged to eschew bookish learning, instead to rely on a god-given education, a bolt of instruction from the blue, something open to all, something far less time consuming and requiring no foreign languages. Replete with reminiscences of Cicero and Virgil, Gallicanus’ speech might not fit the ideal of Cynicism, but it was having an effect on its cultured audience. The Senators were receptive. Now all that remained, Menophilus thought, was to discover where it was all leading, and what Gallicanus actually wanted.
‘We must elect from among ourselves a new college of magistrates. We must elect twenty men from the Senate to oppose Maximinus, to defend Rome and Italy, to defend the Res Publica.’
Amid a general roar of approval, the presiding Consul, possibly not without intention, failed to notice the Father of the House waving his walking stick in an attempt to get his attention. As old Cuspidius Celerinus relapsed into muttered imprecations against modern ways — it never would have happened in the time of Marcus Aurelius, not even under Severus — Balbinus was granted the right to speak.
Previous generations respected age, valued experience. The queru-lous complaints of Cuspidius went unheeded.
Fat, jowly, with a face like a pig, and the manner of an Oriental potentate, Balbinus got up. Paying no more attention to the Father of the House than anyone else, he strode to the centre of the Curia, his habitual lethargy cast aside.
‘Roman virtue, true old-fashioned virtus, is near extinct. True Roman blood runs thin in this august house. For centuries the Emperors have admitted men whose fathers could teach them nothing of the weighty responsibilities of a Senator. They have scoured the provinces to let in trousered Gauls, yapping little Greeks, and Africans with loose clothing and looser morals.’
Himself a new man, Menophilus thought Balbinus a fool. Great houses died out, new ones took their place. The majority of those present had no Senatorial ancestors; over half came from the provinces. It had always been the way. Unlike Athens, let alone exclusive Sparta, Rome had grown great by admitting outsiders. Romulus had given refuge to runaway slaves who wished to join his new community.
‘Once in a while, however, one of these novi homines reminds us of our duty. Despite coming from some unheard of village near Carthage, Gallicanus has shone a light on the path of duty. Yet he has not surveyed the path to its end. To command respect, the twenty men elected must have seniority and distinction. I support his motion, but propose an amendment. The election should be limited to those who have held the Consulship.’
Balbinus sat down. He was patted on the back by Rufinianus, Acilius Aviola, Valerius Priscillianus, and other patricians. None of them attempted to conceal their mood of triumphal cunning. Perhaps dissimulation was beneath them.
Menophilus tasted disgust, like vomit in the back of his throat. Men were despicable; politicians worst of all, no better than animals. Some were wolves, faithless and treacherous and noxious, others lions, savage and wild and untamed, but most foxes, ill-natured and wretched and mean. Menophilus wished he did not have to be among them. The tenets of their philosophy demanded participation, yet several Stoic wise men had never entered politics. Appealing as it was, Menophilus could not follow their example. In retirement they had framed laws for the greater state of all mankind. Menophilus knew he lacked their intelligence. He was bound to serve the temporal Res Publica, or abandon any claims to live according to his nature, and thus all hopes of happiness.
The sometime Prefect of the City Pupienus was on his feet. Not exactly pompous, although his luxuriant beard would support such an interpretation, there was something stiff and slightly off-putting about his evident self-control.