Callistratus brought the debate about the slaves to an end by volunteering to equip and serve on an embassy to the governor of Moesia Inferior. The first archon moved on to raise matters he described of the utmost importance. This spring the king of the Gothic Tervingi had not appeared with his men on the borders to demand his customary gifts. The councillors called out like a disturbed flock of birds. Zeno, his bladder ever more urgent, could not see the cause of their alarm. Surely given the impecunious state of their civic treasury they should welcome the absence of the Goth?
There was more, Callistratus continued. Word had come downriver that the Castle of Achilles, the most northerly fortified settlement on the right bank of the Hypanis, was deserted; the half-Greek inhabitants had fled. Zeno nearly snorted with derision. Who were these Olbians to judge others half-Greek?
What was he doing in this barbarous place? How had it come to this? Four years before, he, Aulus Voconius Zeno, Vir Perfectissimus, had been governor of Cilicia. In the revolt of Macrianus and Quietus, he had remained loyal. Although unable to defend his province, his fides — and his devotion to paideia — had been rewarded by Gallienus with the post of a Studiis at the imperial court. Zeno had carried out his duties with diligence, searching out the texts Gallienus wished to read and the intellectuals he wanted to talk to, discussing them with him. He had spoken out in the consilium with the freedom of speech expected of a friend of the emperor, always arguing for the traditions of Rome. Despite it all, last year he had been dismissed, sent away to the Ister as deputy to the senator Sabinillus on a diplomatic mission to turn the tribes of the Carpi, Gepidae and Tervingi against each other. Of course the attempt had failed. Yet — and here he could barely stomach his bitterness — Sabinillus had been summoned back to court, while he had been ordered to undertake this most likely equally hopeless and certainly far more dangerous embassy.
Zeno had had enough of this; his bladder could take no more. On the point of leaving, he was addressed by Callistratus.
‘Vir Perfectissimus, those under your command have committed public affray. Two men are dead. What — ’
Zeno cut him off. ‘All the men involved, the killers and the victims, are under military law. It is of no concern to the polis.’ He stood. ‘Now, if you will excuse me.’
Sat on the latrine, relief flooding through him, Zeno thought about the impression he had made on the Boule of Olbia. Pompous, abrupt, even rude; a typical, arrogant imperial functionary employed on a trivial errand. Perhaps they would change their minds, if he were able to reveal the real intention behind his journey to the north. Although the odds against its success were long, even to try to bring the tribes around the Suebian Sea ruled by the Angles back into allegiance to the rightful emperor Gallienus, to break their recent alliance with the pretender Postumus and once again to turn their ships against the coasts he tyrannized, was a noble undertaking.
As he dried his hands, Zeno wondered if, should they know it, the members of the Boule would also appreciate the irony that one of the killers he had just removed from their justice was the very man who had driven him from his province of Cilicia. Zeno despised all barbarians, but there was a special place in his animosity for Marcus Clodius Ballista.
Germania Inferior
Marcus Cassianus Latinius Postumus Augustus, Pius Felix, Invictus, Pontifex Maximus, Germanicus Maximus sat perfectly still on the raised throne in the great apse of the Basilica of Colonia Agrippinensis. The five years he had worn the purple had inculcated in him one of the vital skills of an emperor, the ability to sit motionless, alert yet remote, godlike in his imperturbability, while men made speeches.
It was the same the imperium over. In a sense, Postumus thought, it was not men under arms, not money and materials, not even ties of amicitia that held the Res Publica together, but men delivering and listening to formal, public orations. By their mere presence they pledged allegiance to a specific regime, more generally to a way of doing things, to an ideal of humanitas, to Rome itself. Yet the Gauls who formed the core of his breakaway regime were particularly addicted to rhetoric. They were as fond of verbosity as the Greeks. His son, Postumus Iunior, was as bad as any. Educated by the finest, and most expensive, rhetors in Augustodunum, Lugdunum and Massilia, left to his own devices the boy did nothing but scribble and declaim speeches for imaginary law suits. His Controversiae were said to show skill. Postumus was no judge of such things. He had sent the boy away south to act as Tribune of the Vocontii. It was a minor administrative post, but Censor, the governor of Narbonensis, would make sure he applied himself. It was necessary he acquire proficiency in governance: one day the youth would be Caesar.
‘To proffer advice on an emperor’s duties might be a noble enterprise, but it would be a heavy responsibility verging on insolence, whereas to praise an excellent ruler and thereby shine a beacon on the path posterity should follow would be equally effective without appearing presumptuous, as the excellent senator from Comum once said to the best of emperors Trajan.’
Postumus looked at the speaker, a smooth, rounded figure in a toga, standing beyond the low altar where the sacred fire burned. Simplicinius Genialis had done well by the regime. When, at the outset, Gallienus had invaded across the Alps, Simplicinius Genialis, as acting governor of Raetia, had declared for Postumus. The implicit threat of an invasion of Italy in his rear had sent Gallienus back over the mountains. Since then rebellions — the Macriani in the east, Mussius Aemilianus in Egypt, the prolonged defiance of Byzantium — and barbarian incursions — above all, the Goths in the Aegean — had held Gallienus back. But war was coming, if not this year, certainly the next, when Gallienus had completed his preparations. When it came, Simplicinius Genialis would be in the front rank. Gallienus was gathering a huge field army on the plains around Mediolanum. There were only two ways he could march; west into the Alpine provinces and then into Gaul, or north into Raetia. Whichever way he chose, a diversionary force would have to take the other route to prevent a descent into Italy when his comitatus had left.
The forces in Raetia were not numerous, but they were of proven worth. The one legion in the province, III Italica Concors, unusually for the times, was near up to strength, with about four thousand men under the eagles. Their commander, the Spaniard Bonosus, was renowned as a drinker, but also as a fine fighting officer. The legionaries were matched in numbers by auxiliaries, divided into two alae of cavalry and eight cohortes of infantry, all much below their paper strength. When the Semnones and Iuthungi had crossed the Alps on their way back from plundering Italy, Simplicinius Genialis had had to beg vexillationes of troops from Germania Superior and levy the local peasants. Despite his ad hoc army and his urbane and well-upholstered appearance, he had won a great victory.