Although he had done very well under the regime, a dyarchy would have been far from what Pupienus would have called almost a decade and a half of ineffective and corrupt rule by a weak youth and an avaricious woman who had attached various ambitious and often venal Senators to themselves in an unavailing attempt to gain a reputation for statesmanship. He said nothing in response.
The Senate had been reawakened, Gallicanus had ploughed on. Not since the first Augustus had cloaked his autocracy in fine-sounding words and smothered the last of true freedom — maybe not since long before that — had the Senate been stronger. This Thracian barbarian had not yet squatted securely on the throne. Maximinus had few backers. Most of the Senators with the army would welcome his fall. Maximinus had no legal authority. The Emperor had never been weaker. It was time to bring back libertas. It was time to restore the free Republic.
It had been a measure of Pupienus’ many years of public service that he neither snorted in derision nor laughed out loud. Apart from the court fools and a man in Africa who had been driven out of his wits by the sun, he had never heard anyone say anything more insane.
Gallicanus must have taken the continued silence of his interlocutor as a sign of something else. ‘The Urban Cohorts under your command number six thousand men. Almost all the Praetorians are with the field army on the northern frontier. There are no more than a thousand left in Rome. Many of your men are quartered in their camp. It would be easy to win them over or crush them.’
‘Herennius Modestinus?’ Pupienus had said, speaking at last.
Gallicanus had smiled like a not over-bright student asked a question he had been expecting. The Prefect of the Watch was an equestrian of the traditional type, imbued with a respect for the Senate. Anyway, if he proved contumacious, the vigiles he commanded were just seven thousand armed firemen. There were almost as many in the Urban Cohorts, and they were real soldiers. Modestinus himself was only a jurist, while Pupienus had commanded troops in the field.
‘The detachments from the fleets of Ravenna and Misenum?’
At this question Gallicanus had shrugged with a certain irritation. ‘A few sailors in Rome to put up the awnings at the spectacles.’ It was evident they had not previously crossed his mind.
‘One thousand from each fleet, all trained and under military discipline.’ Pupienus had always tried to know such details: the numbers of troops, their billeting and mood, the disposition of their officers, the family connections of the latter. He had always talked to all sorts of people. Since his rise, especially since he had become Prefect of the City, he had also paid good money to know such things.
Gallicanus had waved the sailors away as of no consequence. There was something vaguely simian in the motion.
‘If I threw my lot in with you-’ Pupienus spoke slowly and carefully; even in the security of his own house he felt a vertiginous fear at saying these things ‘-and if I gathered under one standard all the armed forces in Rome, I would command some sixteen thousand. Of which, as you say, almost half are merely firemen. The imperial field army numbers some forty thousand, before reckoning what further forces could join it from the armies on the Rhine and Danube.’
Gripping him by the arm, Gallicanus thrust his ill-favoured face close to that of Pupienus. ‘My dear friend.’ Gallicanus squeezed the arm. His gaze and voice were fervent in their sincerity. ‘My dear Pupienus, no one doubts your commitment to libertas, your devotion to the Senate, or your courage. But in a free Republic it will not be for us to assign ourselves commands. As it was when Rome grew great, the Senate will vote who leads its armies.’
Gallicanus released Pupienus’ arm and began to pace the room. He was babbling about electing a board of twenty from the Senate, all ex-Consuls, to defend Italy. Others would be sent to win over the troops and the provincials. In his eagerness he was bobbing about the confined space and swinging his arms like an agitated primate in a cage.
Pupienus was seldom flabbergasted, and he had not been so angry for a long time. What sort of fool was Gallicanus? He had come into Pupienus’ home and endangered everyone in it with his talk of treason. And he had done so not to offer Pupienus the throne, not even to offer him a leading role in a new regime. Instead the ape had wanted Pupienus to seize the city for his insane cause, and then, rather than reap the rewards, simply give up his legitimate authority and step down to the level of a private citizen.
‘This must stop.’ Pupienus had recovered quickly.
Gallicanus had rounded on him, suspicion and anger in his eyes.
Pupienus had smiled. He had hoped it looked reassuring. ‘All we Senators wish we had lived in the free Republic. But you know as well as me that the principate is a harsh necessity. The imperium was tearing itself apart in civil wars until Augustus took the throne.’
Gallicanus had shaken his head. ‘We can learn from history.’
‘No-’ Pupienus had been adamant ‘-the same would happen again. The leading men would fight for power until one of them won or the empire fell. You have read your Tacitus. Now we must pray for good Emperors, but serve the ones we get.’
‘Tacitus served under the tyrant Domitian. He was nothing but a quietist, a time-server. He was a man of no courage, a coward.’ Gallicanus had shouted the last words.
‘You and I, we both held office under Caracalla.’ Pupienus had pitched his voice at its most reasonable. ‘Give up this scheme before you bring disaster on your family and your friends.’
Gallicanus stood wringing his hands and pressing them together as if he could physically crush this opposition. ‘I thought you were a man of honour.’
You ape, Pupienus thought, you stupid, arrogant Stoic ape. ‘I hope you will think so again, because I will never mention this conversation to anyone.’
Gallicanus had left.
The mellifluous tones of the Consul brought Pupienus back to the Senate House:
‘… And that whatsoever he shall deem to be according to the custom of the ResPublica and the greatness of divine and human, public and private matters, there be right and power for him to undertake and to do, just as there was for the divine Augustus …’
The Consul had reached clauses that were surely otiose. As Maximinus had already had been vested with the tribunician power, which brought the ability to make and unmake all laws, of course he could do whatsoever he should deem according to the custom of the Res Publica, and any other thing as well. Pupienus was only half listening. He was still watching Gallicanus posturing in his near-rags on the floor of the Senate House. The previous evening he had forgotten that Gallicanus had moved from following the doctrines of the Stoa to those of Diogenes. Not a Stoic ape then. A Cynic dog instead. It made little difference. The ragged Senator was still a dangerous fool, made all the more dangerous by a conviction that profoundest philosophy underpinned all his beliefs and actions.
Gallicanus had not been the only visitor to the house on the Caelian that night. Pupienus and his wife were starting their belated dinner when Fortunatianus had announced another caller. This time the secretary had suggested no ingenious espionage. He was plainly terrified. Honoratus was outside. The street was full of soldiers.
Pupienus had dreaded such a moment since first he acquired wealth and position. The knock on the door in the night. The imperial official standing in the torchlight, the armed men at his back. The muted terror sliding through the corridors of the house. In the reign of Caracalla, it had happened to several men close to Pupienus. Neither those vicarious experiences nor the years of expectation had made the sudden reality any easier.