Lucilla never went to the Camp. She knew what it was like: about two-thirds the size of a legionary fort, said Gaius (that meant little to her), with room for ten to twelve thousand men if needs be: a small army. Accommodation was packed in, with unique two-storeyed barracks and even extra buildings crammed against the inside walls in a way that would be unsafe in a campaign fort, where a clear berm was always left to catch enemy missiles and allow emergency manoeuvring. Lucilla knew the exterior, a mighty square beyond the north-eastern city gate, with red-brick-faced walls about ten feet high; these walls were not entirely daunting, yet their extreme solidity seemed forbidding, beside a city that was mainly unfortified. The Camp’s sheer size, with its massive parade ground outside, helped it dominate that area.
Gaius worked at the centre, on the main interior crossroads where all military forts had impressive command posts. His office adjoined the suite used by the Praetorian Prefects. Gaius saw that as only a mild disadvantage; if one of them dropped in for a moan about a colleague, he generally managed to stop picking his teeth before they noticed. If not, stuff them; it was his office. He had his own secretary, a couple of clerks and a runabout, whom Lucilla knew because that cross-eyed lad would sometimes be sent to let her know when Gaius intended to come to Plum Street. In his personal quarters, which had almost the space and amenities a cohort tribune would expect, a body servant looked after him, his uniform and his equipment.
Lucilla liked to think that since he left the liaison post, his work had changed. The Guards’ involvement in rooting out crimes continued, but she let herself believe Gaius spent more time on personnel issues, supervision of clerks, monitoring the savings bank and checking granary records. He was content to give the impression that his life was a long round of ordering new note tablets. He never wanted to worry her.
Their first year together passed quietly. Domitian’s huge equestrian statue was unveiled, so there was Praetorian interest in the formalities, but that was a passing excitement. They were not yet in what would be known as the Reign of Terror, but had certainly reached constant anxiety.
The Emperor liked inventive punishments. A senator and informer called Acilius Glabrio was summonsed to Alba and ordered to fight a huge arena lion single-handed in the small amphitheatre. Glabrio unexpectedly got the better of the lion. Domitian then exiled him. He had allegedly been stirring up revolution.
‘True?’ Lucilla asked Gaius.
‘Probably said the wrong thing a few times. Which of us hasn’t? It’s the lion I feel sorry for. He can’t have expected to lose.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
With her, Gaius allowed his conscience to show. ‘No. Good on Glabrio, for not consenting to get mauled — though much good it did the poor sod.’
Glabrio had been called back from exile and executed for ‘atheism’.
The following year a new war erupted on the Danube. Sarmatian tribesmen, the Iazyges from the great plains, joined with the Suebi and attacked Pannonia, wiping out the XXI Rapax legion. Once again, the Emperor put on uniform and went to war.
Domitian was away for a good eight months. This time, Gaius was not required to go. That meant eight months of comparative peace, although he did act as the absent Praetorians’ focal point for their communications with Rome. It was extra work, but work he relished. He dealt with correspondence swiftly and was able to spend more time than usual with Lucilla. They both enjoyed that, though they accepted this would be a limited treat.
Perhaps it made both of them consider having a full life together. A life where they lived in one home, as one domestic unit, all the time.
While Gaius was kicking his heels at the Camp, he sometimes mused over investment calculations. This, he knew, is traditional in bureaucracy where, when you are not scooping your ear wax, or reading love letters under the desk, naturally you work out financial projections for your retirement on the back of an old report. He began to correspond more closely about the import-export business in Hispania Tarraconensis that he had inherited from his old centurion, Decius Gracilis. He had never sold that; maybe an inspection trip over to Spain would be something to do if he ever retired. He certainly thought it a good idea to frighten the freedman he had inherited with that possibility. After he wrote to the manager, income picked up. Impressed, he even looked up Colonia Caesaraugusta on a map. Just in case.
He had served with the Praetorians now for almost thirteen years. If he wanted, he could leave after another three. He was thirty-six. In his prime, he reckoned, with years to come; even though many men never made it to his current age, he was still fit and full of energy.
He had been earning a high salary for a long time and had barely touched the money. It struck him that he and Lucilla could have a very pleasant life ahead of them. He told her. Seeing him as a dedicated career soldier, she did not take this too seriously, though she noted how Gaius was thinking.
Gaius had been involved in the flurry of intense commissariat activity that preceded the Emperor leaving on campaign; there were similar japes on Domitian’s return. The Emperor had been successful in quieting the Suebi and Sarmatians, although from intelligence coming back from the frontier, this was viewed as only a temporary respite. Military action along the Danube might continue for years. Indeed it did, though what Domitian had achieved would serve as a sound basis for future campaigns, one day to be immortalised on Trajan’s Column.
A Triumph was suggested for the January of Domitian’s return to Rome. But this time, even he took a muted view of his achievements; he only accepted the minor celebration called an Ovation. It involved some pageantry, in which Gaius was tangentially involved, and culminated in the Emperor dedicating a laurel wreath to Jupiter on the Capitol. It lacked the elaborate street procession of a full Triumph but, for the third time, Domitian handed out a congiarium of three hundred sesterces apiece, so as they clutched their big gold pieces the public were happy.
That year there was a serious grain shortage, with a long period of famine. Even the Praetorian cornicularius had to attend extra victualling meetings with a slightly furrowed brow; he had ten thousand men to feed daily, plus supplying horse fodder for fifteen hundred cavalry. If the military granary ran low, it would be grim. When Rome was short of food, supplying the Guards took some precedence, but that had to be handled carefully to avoid unrest. Good public relations in a time of distraught bread queues were essential. A cornicularius who had family in Rome could grasp the sensitivities.
For Gaius the grain shortage was an interesting aspect of his job. A political solution was not his remit, thankfully, but he was called to occasional tactics meetings. A Prefect of Supply had oversight of grain acquisition, markets and distribution, so at such mainly civic gatherings Gaius was an unimportant contributor, with his report scheduled last on the agenda, so it would be summed up in a minutes appendix if discussion overran. Nobody reads appendices.
‘Another action meeting,’ he would groan to Lucilla. ‘Memo: an “action meeting” is one where an “action list” will be produced, probably the same as last time — and resulting in no action.’ Like all the best administrators, his outlook was pessimistic. Like the very best, his office usually out-performed his cautious forecasts.
He learned more than he expected about the great provincial grain baskets that supplied Rome’s hungry mouths: the endless golden wheatfields of North Africa, which produced nearly two-thirds of the city’s requirements, and Egypt which sent a large contribution, with additions also from Spain, Sicily and Sardinia. He cared more than he had expected, too.
It made him think about the enormous trade in commodities around the Empire. Both necessities and luxuries were shipped and carted in all directions. Most Romans enjoyed the benefits automatically, especially since trade was barred to the senatorial class, so they loftily sneered at it. Clearly there was a packet to be made. A constant theme at the provisioning meetings was how to avoid speculation. How to encourage the provinces to grow and send what the great greedy city of Rome constantly needed. How to keep the negotiators and shippers sweet, especially since so many of those slippery buggers were foreign.
Vinius Clodianus was no snob and at heart he would always be a logistics man. He had learned that from his father, who as a vigiles tribune had kept order across two districts of Rome, balancing the needs of disparate communities and the differing demands of law and firefighting, balancing the books, keeping his superiors at a safe distance, keeping one jump in front of the criminal and corrupt, keeping his head. Glimpses of the business world brought Gaius back to his own small involvement in trade, with his inherited Spanish wine enterprise. He knew he could be an entrepreneur. He filed that thought away, though an intrigued Lucilla was watching him.
Eventually Domitian passed an edict that in order to encourage cereal production, no new vines could be planted in Italy, while in the provinces at least half of the existing acreage was to be torn up. On this almost unique occasion when Domitian ventured into legislating for the Empire as a whole, the plan failed to work. After petitions from the eastern provinces, the Emperor rescinded his edict.
