campaigns with you. He will lead you home to your base at Aquincum in triumph. Things look difficult today, but with the gods holding their hands over us, all will be well. Commilitiones, it is time to prove yourselves true to the title of your legio: Pia fidelis.' He repeated, 'Loyal and faithful,' and stopped. He had no more words.
A centurion stepped out of the crowd. He spoke deliberately, with an accent from the northern frontier. 'You are not our commilitiones. You are not soldiers at all. It is true, you have not treated us badly. But you betrayed our brothers in the legions when you betrayed the old emperor Valerian. Treachery turns on itself. The gods move slow, but in the end their power is shown.'
The echo of Euripides in the soldier's Latin, the invocation of the gods, silenced Macrianus. No, he wanted to say, that is all wrong, you do not understand, the gods approved of what happened to Valerian, the gods want Gallienus overthrown. Until today, they have given manifest signs of their favour. But it was all too complicated. He knew then it was hopeless.
Looking around, Macrianus saw that Ragonius Clarus had gone. Macrianus and his son were alone. It was hopeless.
But still he had to try. 'Do what you like with me, but have pity on my son. He is very young. None of this is his fault.'
'What can we do?' The centurion sounded genuinely apologetic. 'The camp is surrounded. It is not down to us. Censorinus brought word that Aureolus wants you dead. He has put a price on your heads.'
The treachery of Censorinus hardly made any impression on Macrianus. A price on their heads. It meant exactly that. Decapitation, their heads paraded before Gallienus, their bodies denied burial. Somehow he had to stop the mutilation of his beautiful son. He could not think of the boy's soul wandering hopeless for eternity.
The muttering was rising in volume. Macrianus had to act quickly.
'You said yourself we had done you no harm. Let us take our own lives, die like the Romans of old. There is money hidden under the floor of the tent. Try to prevent them mutilating my son's body.'
The centurion nodded. He rapped out some orders. Some of his men went inside, others formed a ring around the big purple tent. Close by, the noise of revolution swelled.
'I am afraid you must hurry,' the centurion said.
Macrianus turned to his son. There were tears on the boy's face. He was making no noise, trying to be brave. Macrianus folded him in his arms. He pressed his lips to his neck, breathing in the smell of clean, fresh sweat, the smell of his son. He kissed him on the eyes, the cheeks, the lips.
The noise was growing. Macrianus somehow forced himself to let go of his son and step back. He drew his son's eagle-headed ornamental sword.
'Use mine. It will be sharper.' The centurion handed it over.
Macrianus took it. He looked at his son, and he knew he could not do this thing.
'You want me to do it?'
Macrianus gave the sword back to the centurion.
'Who first?'
Macrianus thought of watching his son die. He imagined his son watching him die, the boy left alone, terrified, waiting. 'My son.'
Macrianus stepped forward. He and his son kissed for the last time. Macrianus stepped back. In the imperial palace at Antioch, no one was sure if the consilium had started. Ballista was watching Quietus — not so as to attract attention — and so was everyone else. Titus Fulvius Iunius Quietus Augustus, Pius Felix, Pater Patriae, had ordered a large painting of Alexander the Great by Aetion hung in the audience hall. All his attention was on that.
Quietus's lips moved almost soundlessly. Everyone said he had been behaving oddly since the news had come about his father and brother. The following day Ballista had reached Antioch from Syria Palestina. When Ballista reported to Quietus, the emperor had given the impression that he was trying to look clean through him to see someone else. On their few meetings since, Quietus's gaze had slid off Ballista like water off a waxed cloak. Indeed, anyone remotely connected to the court had been acting strangely since the news from the west.
None had been acting more strangely than Julia. She had already shifted the familia out of the palace and back to the house in the Epiphania district before Ballista arrived. Her welcome had been reserved and, unexpectedly, physically reserved too. Afterwards she had made a comment about men marking their territory. She had said it on similar occasions before, as a joke, but this time it had a sharp edge. That side of things had improved a little since, but things generally were different, strained. Ballista wondered if someone had told her about the Persian girl Roxanne in Cilicia.
Quietus stopped muttering. He cocked his head to one side, eyes still on the painting. Allfather, thought Ballista, does he think Alexander is talking to him? It was a good moment to look away. It was a reduced consilium. Quietus's father and brother and their once-devoted supporter Piso were dead. Censorinus and Ragonius Clarus had deserted. The former had been appointed one of Gallienus's Praetorian Prefects, the latter told to retire into private life. But others from the east were missing. Trebellianus had withdrawn into the mountains of Cilicia Tracheia. Similarly, safe behind the deserts of Arabia, another governor, Virius Lupus, had not replied to the summons. Mussius Aemilianus, prefect of Egypt, had had himself declared emperor. As he was commander of quite sizeable forces and in control of the majority of the grain supply of Rome, his was not a hopeless revolt, but he would need allies. Obviously, Quietus would not be among them.
There were only two new faces on the dais. Quietus's nonentity of a cousin Cornelius Macer had been hurriedly appointed not only Comes Sacrarum Largitionum et Praefectus Annonae but Princeps Peregrinorum as well. Presumably the loyalty that blood might bring had outweighed any considerations of ability. Much more competent, standing near Ballista, was the tall red-haired figure of Rutilus, the new Prefect of Cavalry.
'Those who wear the likeness of Alexander in either gold or silver are aided in all they do,' Quietus said suddenly. 'My father often said that.' He pointed at the governor of Syria Phoenice. 'Cornicula, include that in your verse panegyric of them.'
Annius Cornicula bowed.
Now that Quietus seemed to be to some extent with them, unbidden, the senior Praetorian Prefect Maeonius Astyanax started talking. 'Dominus, there are reports, completely credible, that Odenathus is assembling his forces in Palmyra. Supplies have been stockpiled on the road west to Emesa. He is getting ready to march against us.'
Quietus put his head in his hands. 'What can be done?' His tone suggested nothing.
'Dominus,' Maeonius Astyanax continued, 'it can be prevented. I have met Odenathus. The two of us got on well. It is true he is avaricious. We have money. Let me go as an ambassador. With adequate funds, I can stop the Lion of the Sun, turn his bellicose attention back to the Sassanids. It would be a good time to attack them. Not only did the Persians suffer defeats last year, but Shapur faces revolts from subjects to the east near the Caspian Sea. If Odenathus attacks now, he may get as far as the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon almost unopposed.'
'Let it be so.' Quietus looked up, brighter. 'Should your mission fail, we will rout this decadent oriental anyway.' He jabbed a finger at one of the governors standing in front of him. 'Pomponius Bassus, you have four legions in Cappadocia, auxiliaries too. You will raise more men. Hire Albanians, Iberians, Cadusii, nomads, Alani or whatever, from beyond the Caucasus. Raise an army fifty thousand-strong. Lots of cavalry. Fast-moving. You will move with all speed down the Euphrates. You will make Arete your base, then strike at Palmyra from the east. Odenathus will have to scurry back to meet you. We will be hard on his heels. With Odenathus caught between our armies, we will win a famous victory in the desert. The so-called Lion of the Sun will grovel at our feet. It will do him no good. We will serve him as Aureolus served our family.'
Quietus again relapsed into a preoccupied silence.
His face very still, Pomponius Bassus intoned the ritual words. 'We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.'
No one else gave any indication of what they were thinking. There were just two legions in Cappadocia, both under strength; a handful of auxiliaries. As Ballista knew only too well, the king of Georgian Iberia had marched with Shapur to the capture of Valerian — would he ever forget the cell in Carrhae? The Alani crossing the Caucasus mountains had long been one of the keenest fears not only of the Roman imperium but of every people living to the south, even of the Sassanid Persians.
Ballista followed Quietus's gaze to Aetion's painting. Alexander was standing in a bedchamber. His new bride, Roxanne, half reclined on the bed. Small erotes prepared her, tugging her clothes off. Others — lots of them
