free the woman would be to disappoint the crowd. That might be’ — he paused, searching for the right word — ‘let us say, impolitic.’
‘Impolitic?’
‘Serenity,
All Theoderic’s nature, with its German sense of honour and reverence for women, rose in revolt against the idea of having to appease the Roman mob. Now he could see clearly what that snake Probinus’ game was: to box him into a corner, forcing him to act against his nature, in a demonstration that it was the Senate, not the king, who held the reins of power. Well, he was Theoderic, the warrior king of a heroic race, who ruled by right of conquest. He would show these Romans who was master. Then something tugged at his memory, cooling his indignation. Symmachus had addressed him as ‘Serenity’, a title used for emperors alone! Conflict raged within the king: desire to act honourably, according to his principles and conscience, versus a new emotion, a heady exaltation that his dream, acceptance by the Romans as their emperor, could be on the point of being realized. But that acceptance was conditional, he knew; an emperor must please his people.
Meanwhile, the clamour of the crowd had risen to a rhythmic, thunderous chant: ‘
Like an enormous weight, Theoderic seemed to feel the force of fifty thousand wills pressing against his own. Guilt and shame welled up within him — to be suppressed by the promptings of ambition. Again, his fist came forward, but this time the thumb turned down, in the gesture of
A great spotted cat padded into the arena.
* See Appendix III: Romans and Barbarians.
†
* i.e., the Colosseum — a popular name, bestowed not on account of the building’s size but because of its propinquity to a colossal statue of Nero.
TWENTY-FIVE
Whatever deceives seems to exercise a kind of magical enchantment
Concerned about his master’s growing obsession with what was bound to be a mirage, Timothy decided to find out for himself what the Romans thought of the idea of Theoderic as emperor. With his richly varied background, which had seen his career progress from streetwise gangster to royal minder to
Timothy commenced his research beneath the arches of the Circus Maximus, the vast U-shaped stadium where chariot races were held. Known as ‘Under-the-Stands’, this was an amazing world of its own, a labyrinth of interlocking passages formed by the hundreds of arches supporting the tiers of seats above, and populated by a colourful under-class of fortune-tellers, astrologers, ready-meal vendors, souvenir sellers, pimps, prostitutes, jugglers, conjurers. . The answers to Timothy’s question about Theoderic as emperor, though varied in style of expression, were remarkably consistent in content: ‘A Jerry emperor? You’ve got to be joking!’ ‘We don’t want none o’ them Tedesci* bastards wearing the diadem.’ ‘Theoderic’s all right — gives us bread and circuses don’t he? But emperor? Nah, wouldn’t be right, would it? ’E’s German, see.’ He got similar responses in the stinking alleys of the Subura, in Chilo’s Tavern near the Porta Appia — famous as an emporium of news and gossip — and in the crowded flats of that monstrous tenement the Insula of Felicula, Rome’s tallest building, home to the families of tradesmen living just above the poverty line.
From the top of the great high-rise building — which had become almost as famous a tourist attraction in Rome as the Pyramids were in Egypt — Timothy looked down two hundred feet to the vast city sprawling away to the confining circuit of Aurelian’s Wall. Northwards, to his left, between the Tiber and that great arrow-straight artery the Via Flaminia, stretched the level expanse of the Campus Martius; to his right, on the spurs of the Quirinal and Viminal hills, reared the Baths of Constantine and Diocletian. To the south, between the Baths of Trajan and Domitian’s Palace, rose the mighty oval of the Colosseum with, beyond, the pale oblong of the Circus Maximus, fully half a mile in length. Directly below, a forest of pillars extending from the foot of the Capitol to the Sacred Way, lay the city’s venerable heart, the Forum Romanum. In all directions, striding on tall arches above the roof-tops and the new basilicas everywhere replacing the ancient temples, marched the aqueducts, a network of stone suspended above the huge metropolis. Once again, Timothy found himself wondering how it was that a race capable of creating such marvels had been laid low by primitive tribesmen from the northern forests.
From comments gleaned in the palace, Timothy got the impression that the prejudice against the idea of a German emperor was even stronger among the middle and upper classes than among the plebs, although articulated with more sophistication and some attempt at reasoned argument. Germans were irredeemably wild, treacherous and unpredictable, unfitted by blood to hold the most prestigious office of all. Properly led, they could admittedly make good soldiers; some had even risen to the highest ranks of the army — witness Stilicho, the great Vandal general. But even he had proved untrustworthy, his Teutonic heritage showing through when, having spared his fellow German Alaric, Rome’s great enemy, and preoccupied with plans to invade the Eastern Empire, he failed to stop a huge German confederation crossing the Rhine and overrunning Gaul and Spain.
So ran the special pleading. Timothy, however, suspected that the real reason was much more atavistic. Barring the wastes of Caledonia and Scandia,* Germania was the only part of Europe that Rome had failed to conquer. Her one attempt to do so had ended in disaster — three legions slaughtered in the depths of the Teutoburger Forest. The horror of that event had inflicted an enduring trauma on the collective mind of Rome, something never to be forgotten — or forgiven. And in the end, Rome had endured the ultimate humiliation: being conquered by the very German tribes she feared and hated above all. Small wonder, then, that, alone of almost every race within the empire and beyond, Germans had never been permitted to wear the imperial diadem.
Although his rank of
