had it, because the husband turned a blind eye to his wife’s numerous and entirely characteristic indiscretions, his own interests being primarily boys.
It was a ludicrous and squalid affair. Even more farcically, it gave Attila the paper-thin pretext he needed for an attack on the West, as the punitive expedition had for his attack on the East.
‘Helen was the destruction of Troy,’ murmured Aetius, ‘and Honoria of Rome.’
He read the message again.
The last line read, ‘ Attila, my Master and yours, bids you prepare a palace for his reception.’
Aetius found General Germanus in a makeshift hot bath at the field army’s camp outside Ravenna. Germanus looked red-faced, lightly poached and embarrassed.
Aetius flung him a towel. ‘Saddle up,’ he said. ‘Attila’s coming.’
They rode north-west up the Flaminian Way, the field army visibly delighted to be on the move again, away from that vast, wretched, stagnant campsite – even if they were riding to meet the greatest army Rome had ever faced. Despite rumours of the vast difference in numerical strength, it always felt good to be one man among a solid twenty-five thousand.
The two thousand men of the Palatine Guard, grudgingly released by Valentinian after much persuasion, marched at the front, black armour gleaming. Then came the central legions: the Herculians, numbering nearly six thousand men, the ancient complement, with their gold-rimmed shields decorated with black eagles; then the Cornuti Seniores, their shields a red icon on white; the Batavians, their shields a solid red with an evil-eye boss, and among them a single century of intensely trained superventores or special forces, their typically Batavian speciality being to swim fully armoured across rivers of any depth, even in full spate, and slip in among the enemy by night, cutting throats by the dozen, loosing horses, setting fires. Used well, they could be massively destructive.
Then came the Mauri, the light Moorish cavalry, horses’ white manes and riders’ white woollen cloaks of finest camel-hair flowing together in the wind, beautiful to watch. The horses were skittish and high-stepping, manageable only by the very best horsemen, possessing astonishing speed and stamina beneath their pretty white manes and high-tossed tails. You mistook those Berber horses for useless, girlish mounts at your peril, and the Moorish javelin shower at full gallop, javelins tipped with cruel barbed angons, was famous. Next came the equally elite Augustan Horse, positively prancing to be on the road and heading for battle at last. Finally there came the four doggedly surviving frontier legions: the I, II, XII Artillery, and the XIV. Aetius rode at the front with General Germanus and with his own motley, hand-picked close-guard. He glanced back over the huge column of men. They looked good, on this bright winter morning. Outnumbered, depleted, certainly; but they still looked good.
‘Where will we draw up our line?’ Germanus asked.
‘Beyond the Padus.’
‘You think – with respect, sir – but you think he will lead his men across the Julian Alps in winter?’
Aetius nodded. ‘He crossed the Julian Alps in winter once before, when a boy of no more than eleven. He was fleeing from us, with only two companions, another boy and his sister. It will appeal to him: coming back that way again.’
They skirted the marshlands of the Adriatic shore, and then, traversing the rivers Padus, Athesis and Plavis, in five days they came to the broad, flat plain of the Venetia. A good place to fight. Here, history would be decided. Aetius sent scouts out as far as Aemona and the head-waters of the Savus, but from the east there was no sign. The Huns would not be here for at least another three weeks, then. That was to be expected. Attila would be in no hurry, preferring to make them fret, wait and stagnate. He had not conquered this far without being a master tactician.
Aetius would not let his men stagnate or fret for one moment. Their camp having been built, he had them dig trenches, cut down woods and copses, even engage in competitive games, one regiment against another. And there were more solemn rituals, such as the tubilustrium , the purification of the war-trumpets for the campaign ahead, one of the numberless centuries-old traditions of the legions. It crossed Aetius’ mind that this might be the last such ceremony ever performed.
Then, leaving his men under the capable command of Germanus, he rode into Aquileia.
He went to find an obscenely wealthy senator, one Nemesianus, a man whom he despised but who had influence. A man close to the emperor, it was said. Perhaps some good would come of it, some change of heart… So far the senatorial classes had been singularly lacking in martial or patriotic spirit.
From Nemesianus’ vast villa – one of his villas – he was directed to Aquileia’s amphitheatre. Yes, even with the Hunnish hordes riding down upon them, a few tired games were still being held.
Nemesianus was elderly, but he had the golden glow of the very rich, promising great longevity. Aetius found him seated in the higher stalls, wearing a beautiful cloak of what looked like pure ermine, and flanked by two of his spintriae, his young boys, one of them working away with his hand beneath Nemesianus’ furs. Nemesianus greeted the general with no interest, only mild irritation.
The crowds stamped their feet and clapped and hooted as a chain-gang of criminals was whipped into the arena, to be crucified and disembowelled for public edification.
The Church might have put a stop to gladiatorial combat decades ago, but the torture and execution of law- breakers was still regarded as a necessary lesson in civility. All round the expensive upper tiers, there were many spectators whose skilled spintriae or whores would bring them climax at the very moment of death in the arena; sex-slaves with names like ‘Desire’, ‘Happy’ and ‘Beloved’.
Aetius hated the games. The cruel faces of the spectators, brutalised by their own entertainment; the rotten fish sold at the stalls, deep-fried to disguise the stink; the scrawny prostitutes underneath the arches, their lines of customers waiting. That these games today were so shabby and meagre did not help. Two burglars were forced to fight to the death with nets and rusty swords. An aged horse which had trodden on a senator’s foot was roped down and clubbed to death. There was the inevitable re-enactment of the story of Pasiphae, Queen of Crete, always a crowd-pleaser. An aroused bull in a huge harness was lowered from a crane onto a tethered and shaven-headed female slave, guilty, so they said, of attacking her mistress and clawing the skin from her face. The girl died. The crowd was delighted.
Later, slaves would come and gather up the various organs and body parts that littered the ground, strew fresh sand, scrub down the seats. A cocktail of blood, semen, urine and faeces – for none liked to leave their seats during the entertainment, and the plebs always urinated or defecated where they sat – would flow away down to the city’s sewers and out to sea.
Aetius heard a voice saying, ‘Your empire is tottering. Rome’s all done. You have already lost whatever it was that you fought for. Join us.’
It was the voice of Attila, the voice of temptation. With it, Aetius had a vision of a wide and endless steppe- land, a clean wind blowing over the emerald spring grass; vast herds of beautiful horses running, or drinking at crystal streams; a peaceful encampment of free and simple-hearted people, men idly chatting, women busily cooking, children playing and laughing, plumes of woodsmoke rising into the still, clear air. Perhaps a girl there, an ordinary girl with a shy smile and kindly eyes, one hand on her pregnant belly, the other in the hand of a scarred, battered, fugitive man who had once called himself a Roman. And beyond them, great snow-capped mountains, and a golden eagle soaring into that eternal sky…
The crowd roared.
He shook himself free of that impossible dream, closed his eyes and drew breath, then laid out his plan to the bored-looking senator.
‘Rebuild the navy, you say?’ drawled Nemesianus. ‘Here at Aquileia?’ He shooed the slave-boys away for a moment.
Aetius nodded. ‘And turn the lagoon of the Veneto into a huge harbour. Defence would be easy. From there we could oversee the Adriatic, sail against the Vandals of Africa, recapture the grainfields…’
‘Bold plans!’ Nemesianus was looking at him with amusement – amusement! At this late stage. ‘And all this will cost a great deal of money? My money?’
‘Inaction will cost more. If Attila defeats us, what will be left? He will destroy everything. But if we defeat him, we too will be exhausted. We must plan for the future.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Nemesianus, ‘but at times such as these, each man must shift for himself. In the harbour of Aquileia a nice galley awaits me, ready to sail east. I have always fancied one of the Ionian islands. My wealth is secure, much of it now in a Levantine bank in Constantinople. My dear man’ – he made to touch Aetius’ knee, but thought better of it – ‘my dear, old-fashioned, stern, public-spirited, republican-hearted, patriotic Master-General
