You think he is going mad?
7
Tiberius Decius Gracilis was posted to Rome for Domitian’s new Praetorian unit. The incoming emperor felt the need to show his importance by raising the number protecting him from nine to ten cohorts. It brought almost a thousand extra Guards onto the complement, including ten centurions. Gracilis had been a centurion for a number of years, rising to primipilus, ‘first-spear’, or chief centurion in a legion. It was a venerated post, dedicated to ensuring continuity and discipline. These officers did much more than nurture continuity, so the character of any legion owed much to the individual strengths and prejudices of its primipilus. Wielding such power could make a man seriously corrupt, though by the time anyone reached first-spear in a Roman legion, he had learned how to get away with almost anything. Oddly, some of these heroes were surprisingly straight.
It went without saying that where centurions were traditionally reckoned to be bastards, chief centurions were the bloodiest bastards of all, a role they much enjoyed.
It was a one-year post. Afterwards, the holder was entitled to take his retirement, leaving with an enhanced discharge grant and an impressive detail for the mason to chip onto his memorial stone. Yet most wanted to stay as long as possible in their army life, which offered so much simple joy and prestige. They applied to be chief centurions of further legions, taking along increasingly colourful reputations and the elaborate investment portfolios they had put together from their rewards as the army’s super-bastards.
Gracilis arrived at the Praetorian Camp with his decorations in a casket he had designed himself; first-spears adored fancy equipment. Special luggage enhanced their status, if greater status were needed. His box had neat, removable cloth-lined trays for his nine gold phalerae, the heavy round breastplate badges that soldiers who cared about such things jealously collected, and cedarwood inserts to hold his other awards: all his little spears and torcs and honorary bracelets, together with diplomas listing citations. When Gracilis stowed the box in his newly allocated officer’s suite, he gave it a casual kick into position as if the baubles meant little to him. However, he then instructed his servant that nobody else was to touch that casket or he would personally remove their balls with his dagger, barbecue those stinking items with rosemary, and eat them.
The servant, who had looked after Gracilis for years, smiled politely.
The centurion chewed a thumbnail. His expression was that of an overseer as he checked that a crucified thief had been nailed up straight. ‘Or I may decide on marjoram — if that’s not too girlie.’
Nobody — that is, nobody who wanted to keep his spleen intact — would call Decius Gracilis girlie.
He was sturdy, short-legged, short-armed, shrewd and competent. At forty-five, he weighed two hundred and ten pounds naked and barefoot, with a body he was still proud to own. By descent he was Spanish, though born in Northern Italy. His heavily tanned face had wide-set eyes, which gave him a startled, boyish look, and eyebrows which, despite his thinning grey hair, were still brown. In the last year of Vespasian’s reign he had been promoted out of the XX Valeria Victrix in Britain (one of the utterly glorious legions that defeated Queen Boudicca) to be first- spear of the IX Hispana (glorious for the same heroic reason), which had happened to be his grandfather’s legion, as it once served in their home province. Under the Emperor Titus, Gracilis moved on, far across Europe to Moesia, where he served in the I Italica at Novae, staring across the Danube in case the barbarians did something stupid, then further upriver to the V Macedonica at Oescus; he had been expected to shift even deeper into the interior to the VII Claudii at Viminacium, but he had heard a rumour about a new Guards cohort so applied himself to the challenge of obtaining a transfer. He got his wish; now he was here. He had never been to Rome before yet stalked the streets like a man who thought Rome should be glad to have him.
The new cohort’s formation allowed him to skip the vigiles and Urbans to enter directly at the top. Like others, he had volunteered to take a demotion to ordinary centurion to secure this Praetorian post. Though he would have denied being arrogant, Gracilis believed he would soon move up a notch again to his rightful rank as primipilus. All the Guards centurions thought that of themselves, though he might actually achieve it.
Once assigned to a cohort, a vital task was to appoint his assistant, his beneficarius. There was always pressure to look at those who had been selected for promotion to centurion but who were awaiting a vacancy. Gracilis had no particular beef against such hopefuls since he had been one himself once, but he was an individual who took his time. He looked around. Picking his beneficarius was highly personal; by definition the two men had to get along. It was also one of the favours centurions could bestow, part of their much-loved power.
When he noticed a soldier he already knew, the decision made itself. Gracilis remembered Gaius Vinius. Back in the Twentieth, he had liked this legionary’s talent and attitude. The centurion believed he never had favourites, but he had known the young man’s father, Marcus Rubella, in the army years before so naturally he took an interest in his colleague’s son. He had nurtured the recruit, seeing him grow in a couple of years from a casual lad to a highly professional soldier. When, after his wounding, Vinius lay all night unconscious in the sanatorium, Gracilis had watched over him obsessively, alternately raging at the Ordovices and yelling abuse at the surgeon. He knew that if Vinius died, he would have to write and explain to his old friend. Since both men thought saving idiot tribunes’ lives was an insult to the gods, this would not have been easy.
When Vinius came round, it was Gracilis who told him, as considerately as possible, that he had lost his right eye and his good looks.
They were reunited in Rome on the Praetorian Campus, an enormous parade ground that sprawled between the barracks and the city walls. Gracilis was there knocking his cohort into shape with what he believed was a light hand and the men regarded as unnatural punishment. They were all tough, yet Gracilis had them whimpering. There had been rebellious mutters, comparing his treatment to that of Nero’s intractable general, Corbulo, who took troops who needed hardening up to an icy boot camp in remote Armenia, where several died of exposure and harsh treatment…
Vinius and a few comrades had been watching. They were standing on the edge of the parade ground, letting the straining bunch of new boys know by means of ‘helpful’ comments that their performance did not impress. Vinius had now achieved his own acceptance, so he could enjoy handing out this welcome to newcomers. His scars had faded, but his battered face, once so handsome, was instantly recognisable; he in turn quickly remembered his one-time centurion. When Gracilis concluded the exercise, he called Vinius over.
Formality was needed in public but once off duty they retired to the privacy of one of many bars near the camp. These were serious places where a capacity for hard drinking was the entry ticket, yet landlords knew they had to keep order or they would be closed down. The whole point of bringing the Praetorians all together in one place, back under the Emperor Tiberius, had been to impose more discipline than when they were originally billeted throughout the city and caused havoc. Guards were now discouraged from mingling with civilians. They had their own social venues. If members of the public accidentally wandered in they were served and no one bothered them, but the atmosphere soon persuaded them to drink up and leave.
Gracilis and Vinius settled down. Gracilis bought the first round, claiming seniority. They caught up on news. For the centurion this merely consisted of listing his appointments. Vinius had more to say, explaining his sudden move to the Guards and his regret at leaving the vigiles. ‘I really miss being an enquirer. I’m just a face in the ranks now.’
‘Investigators work without much supervision?’ This mattered. A centurion’s assistant would have to know his thoughts before he had them, and act on his own initiative.
‘Complete independence. I loved it,’ answered Vinius ruefully.
‘Were you any good?’
‘Shaping up.’
‘What was involved?’
‘Monitoring undesirables — prostitutes, religious fanatics, philosophers, astrologers. I investigated pilfering at the baths. Crimes in the Forum, domestic disturbances, knife fights in bars, mad dogs, street ambushes at night… On a good day,’ he reminisced, ‘I’d have some charming young lady trip in to report a home burglary.’
‘I can’t remember — are you single?’ Gracilis noticed Vinius wore a gold ring, but that could mark the
