Blood and Steel. Harry Sidebottom

mischievous twins of myth. Despite the solemnity of the occasion, some hint of patrician amusement could be detected in their faces. Serenus Sammonicus, his old tutor, was the same age as his father, but appeared older and very far from well. Aemilius Severinus, the commander of the speculatores, was not young. He must be in his sixties. But he looked tough and fit. Phillyrio, as his scouts called Severinus for some long-forgotten reason, had been scoured and tanned like leather by a lifetime patrolling the desert frontier. At the end was Mauricius, the local landowner whose persecution had been the catalyst. Few enough to support a revolution, none of them, apart from the legates, of any great rank, but loyalty ever counted for more than mere numbers.

      ‘On his father’s side he traces his descent from the house of the Gracchi, on his mother’s from the Emperor Trajan.’ The oration had moved to the origins of Gordian Senior, another safe topic for fulsome exploration. ‘His own father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather, his wife’s father and grandfather, and likewise another of his wife’s grand-fathers and two of her great-great-grandfathers, were Consuls.’

      The offices, deeds and virtues of every one of these individuals would be recalled, exaggerated, or invented. Gordian seemed to have been listening forever, to have been Emperor for eternity.

      Gordian had been busy beyond measure. That first day, before the citizens of Thysdrus could swear their oaths of allegiance, majestic regalia had had to be created. It had been easy enough to find both a small, portable altar for the sacred fire and rods to bind around axes to make the fasces. As governor his father had curule chairs which could serve as imperial thrones. A purple cloak already had been taken from the sanctuary of Caelestis, from the shoulders of the goddess, and draped around his father. Another, most likely of similar provenance, was produced for himself. An imperial seal had been more problematic. But the town gaol had contained a forger – as long as there were coins, there would be counterfeiters – and, once pardoned and reunited with the tools of his illicit trade, it had taken him no time to create a simulacrum; in metal not precious stone, but the impression it made had seemed adequate.

      From the ceremonial Gordian had turned to the practical. After his father had retired to his chamber, he had worked through the night. Many, many letters had been dictated and signed; to all the leading communities in the Province of Africa, to the commanders of the eight small military units stationed there. More thought had been devoted to those destined for the more than forty governors of other provinces across the imperium. Yet the most care of all had gone into the sentiments and wording of those that were to go to the capital, both those that bore Gordian’s signature and those that carried a false subscript. Menophilus and Valerian, accompanied by his equestrian kinsman Maecius, had left for Rome at dawn.

      The imperial party had remained at Thysdrus for just two more days. Long enough to find recruits to bring the horse guards up to two hundred swords. Renamed the Equites Singulares Augusti, Mauricius had been given their command. A makeshift Praetorian Guard, five hundred strong, had been formed out of the local youth association. The Iuvenes might not be seasoned soldiers, but they had a modicum of military training, and neither their appearance nor enthusiasm could be faulted.

      The new Emperors, with escort and entourage, had gone to Hadrumetum, then up the coast road to Horrea Caelia and Pupput, before turning north-west to Ad Aquas, to skirt the gulf of Utica, and so to Carthage. Six days hard travelling, Gordian in the saddle, his father going in a fast carriage before mounting a horse for the entry into the city. The speed of their journey meant that only those communities through which they had passed had yet acknowledged them. But professions of fealty had come from Fuscinus, Prefect of the 15th Cohort of Emesenes based at Ammaedara, and similar messages had been waiting for them at Ad Aquas from the commanders of the Urban Cohort and the detachment of the 3rd Legion Augusta stationed in Carthage. So far things could not have gone better. Gordian was proud of what he had accomplished. Like Mark Antony, he could rouse himself from his pleasures when necessity demanded.

      ‘As Horatius held the bridge, Gordian stood alone amidst the slaughter and held the gate at Ad Palmam. Never tiring, his man-killing hands struck down the foe, threw back the barbarian horde.’

      Gordian had been half aware of the flow of the oration: the excellent omens – in fact they had been appalling, for those who believed in such things – the long distant martial exploits of his father. But now it had reached his own triumphs, he was all ears.

      ‘As Alexander scaled the Sogdian Rock, so our young Emperor climbed the sheer cliff at Esuba. Many was the companion he caught as they slipped, saved from a certain death. When he attained the summit, the brigands discovered neither their remoteness nor their inaccessibility provided any defence against the old-fashioned Roman courage of our Augustus.’

      All too soon a new theme was introduced. ‘Justice is a portion of his humanity: for when victorious, the Emperor did not repay the aggressors in kind, but divided his actions in just proportion between punishment and humanity.’

      Gordian stopped listening. Not a dog had been left alive in the lair of the bandit Canartha. His thoughts scouted ahead. They would not stay long in Carthage. Leaving Sabinianus as the new governor of Africa, as soon as word came from Menophilus, they would sail for Rome. There they would muster the military forces in the city: the Urban Cohorts, the men of the Watch, those Praetorians and the soldiers of the 2nd Legion who were not away in the North, the detachments of sailors, and however many frumentarii were in their camp on the Caelian. They should raise new troops, perhaps recruit some from the gladiatorial schools. Once they had secured the allegiance of the two great fleets at Misenum and Ravenna, they could hold Italy, and wait for the governors across the empire to declare themselves.

      ‘Just as the sons of Asclepius rescue the sick, just as fugitives obtain security in the inviolate precincts of divine power …’

      Agitated, despite himself, Gordian could find no meaning in the words. Had the gods existed, Gordian would have prayed for news. Events were beyond his control. Everything now depended on what was happening elsewhere; in Rome, in governors’ palaces across the empire, and with the army in the distant North. At least three governors were closely bound to the house of the Gordians. Claudius Julianus of Dalmatia, Fidus of Thrace, and Egnatius Lollianus of Bithynia-Pontus had no legions, but their example might sway the undecided. And in Rome the plebs urbana would be well disposed. Some time ago, his father had distributed a hundred Sicilian and a hundred Cappadocian racehorses among the Circus factions. And he had endeared himself across Italy by giving four days of stage-plays and Juvenalia in the cities of Campania, Etruria, Umbria, Flaminia, and Picenum, all at his own expense.

      ‘Because of our Emperors, marriages are chaste, fathers have legitimate offspring, spectacles, festivals, and competitions are conducted with proper splendour and due moderation. People choose a style of life like that which they observe in the Emperors. Piety to the gods is increased, the earth is tilled in peace, the sea sailed without danger.’

      There was no mistaking the tardy arrival of the epilogue. Gordian shifted his numb buttocks. Not long now. Just the already intimated new honorifics, and the interminable speech would be finished. Gordian was dust-stained, tired and hot; the baths would be welcome.

      ‘We fear neither barbarians nor enemies. The Emperors’ arms are a safer fortress than our city walls. What greater blessing must one ask from the gods than the safety of the Emperors? Only that they incline our rulers to accept …’

      Gordian hoped Parthenope and Chione were not too fatigued from the journey. He had earned the special relaxation from the cares of office that his mistresses could provide.

      ‘Although too modest to share with his father the titles of Pontifex Maximus or Father of the Country, however, let the son also take the name Africanus to commemorate the country of his accession, and that of Romanus to celebrate the city of his birth and make evident the contrast from the barbarous tyrant of hated memory. All hail Imperator Caesar Marcus Antonius Gordianus Sempronianus Romanus Africanus Pius Felix Augustus, father and son.’

      As his father stood to accept on both their behalf the not-unexpected titles, Gordian sensed a disturbance behind him in the imperial box. Suillius, the tribune in charge of the detachment from the 3rd Augusta,