Getorius had once considered opening a practice in Classis and remembered a little about the port, two miles south of Ravenna. The naval base for the Roman Adriatic fleet was rundown now, but at one time its docks, berthing facilities, and shipyards could service two hundred and fifty war galleys.
The commercial buildings of Classis spread along the southern curve of its crescent-shaped harbor entrance. Wharves followed this bend, before the waterfront streets straightened out where the Via Armini jogged through the city center and continued south. A wooden bridge spanned a narrow western arm of the harbor and connected an island of shops and warehouses to that end of the port.
In the four hundred years since Augustus Caesar had chosen the site as the Adriatic base for Rome’s eastern fleet, the inland arm of the bay had gradually silted up. Alluvial deposits from rivers had added additional soil, which choked up the old galley berths. Classis had also suffered a population decline after barbarians breached the Rhine frontier, thirty-two years earlier. Port authorities had ordered the quadrant nearest the sea abandoned, and a new wall built further in, but the barrier was never completed.
Recently, the vital trade links with North African cities had been cut by the Vandal capture of Carthage, which left the polyglot population of Classis struggling to survive. The port had attracted Asian Pontians, Syrians and Judeans, who competed on the docks with Thracians, Macedonians, Dacians, and even citizens of the northern Pannonian plains. Most of the groups kept to themselves on streets named after their areas of origin. Despite these rivalries, Getorius recalled that the population was fairly tolerant of differences. Tenants of apartment blocks that smelled of regional cooking realized they were bound together by the sea, in a common hope for prosperity.
Discussions among the men often centered on religious differences between the predominant Arian Christians and a fast-spreading Manichaean faith. Even fanatical Donatists, who had been exiled by imperial decree, still emerged from hiding to argue their justification for excluding sinners from their ‘pure’ congregations. A few Nestorians, who taught the literal manhood of Christ, as opposed to the dual Natures that even Arians accepted, were endured for a time before they were forced aboard ships and exiled to whatever destination the galleymaster chose. Toleration, it seemed, did have some limits.
For a month now the talk in dockside taverns had been about the capture of Carthage, in October, by the Vandal king Gaiseric. Rome itself, and now the African city; both had fallen to barbarians in the space of a generation. The metropolis of Rome had recovered to an extent, but the topic of many presbyters’ sermons was the horror prophesied in the Book of Revelation. Many people accepted that the catastrophic events described were being fulfilled and prepared for the final stage of the world’s existence.
Flavius Aetius was not one of them. Instead, he was making sure that what had been a devastating event for the citizens of Carthage would be a revitalizing one for those at Classis. He ordered his fleet prefect to recondition war galleys at the port by stripping older vessels of equipment to outfit newer ones. The commander hoped that the overhauled triremes could repel any Vandal invasion of Italy.
The Western naval commander at Misenum, on the Bay of Neapolis, had been given the same orders, but with a greater sense of urgency. No one knew for certain whether the Carthaginian war galleys had been burned, captured, or been able to escape eastward and find refuge in Egypt. Rumors, to confirm Revelation, tended toward disaster. Misenum was three or four days’ summer sailing north of Carthage. Winter would make that a longer, more risky venture, but Sicily was well within reach. Gaiseric and his Vandals were Arians, as was Maximian, the bishop on the island. He was said to have offered his co-religionists hospitality if they invaded.
Getorius ordered Brisios to ready the covered carriage for a journey. By the fourth morning hour on November twenty-first, the fog was beginning to thin out.
After the gateman slid a leather traveling case into the back, he helped Arcadia onto the seat next to her husband. She felt slightly nauseous from stomach cramps. Her monthlies had begun the night before.
Getorius leaned across his wife. “Brisios, I told Childibert that we’re going to Caesena. Your mistress needs to get away for a few days. This miserable rain and taking care of patients have tired her.”
Brisios nodded and went to open the courtyard gate. Getorius clucked the mare left, onto the Via Caesar. At the intersection with the Via Honorius, about twenty paces distant, visibility disappeared into a lingering veil of fog.
Arcadia pulled the hood of her coat higher against the dampness and turned to her husband. “Why did you tell Brisios that we were going to Caesena? We’re going to Classis.”
“We don’t need everyone knowing that,” he answered. “With the Gothic Queen worried about Aetius’s spies, the fewer people who know our true destination, the better.”
“But, Brisios?”
“I’m sure he has gossiping friends in local taverns.”
“Getorius, I’m not sure I appreciate being the excuse for a lie.”
He patted her hand. “Sorry, cara. We don’t know what this is all about and I’d rather be cautious.”
“But no one goes to Caesena in the winter, it’s a summer resort. Even Brisios could figure that out.”
Getorius did not reply, realizing his wife was right and not wanting to antagonize her further by persisting in the discussion.
At the corner of the Via Theodosius the market square teemed with slaves and their mistresses picking out the day’s food supplies. Getorius threaded the mare between the carts and pedestrians, then to the right, onto the Theodosius. The carriage passed fragrant smells coming from bakeries and sausage vendors’ stalls, and the less pleasant tavern stink of stale wine and vomit from the
