cities of the imperium. To assuage their fear – on occasion to ameliorate the harsh reality – frequently they stripped the countryside bare, reducing peasants and poor tenant farmers to eating strange, sometimes noxious roots and leaves. The three rich men in the consilium stepped up. They would feed their city. They would scour their estates, empty their granaries, have their dependants transport the produce to Ephesus.
Given the potentially ruinous magnanimity of their gesture, it was only right that the governor had allowed Flavius Damianus to discourse at some length on how such generosity and love of the polis ran deep in his family – had not his eponymous ancestor, the famous sophist, planted his lands with fruit trees and given the demos free access to them? After that, naturally, both Gaius Valerius Festus and Publius Vedius Antoninus were granted similar indulgence.
Ballista’s thoughts had wandered. Could it be that a disaster such as this transformed the love of honour with which the Greek elite so often credited themselves into a practical reality? Yet looked at in a more sardonic way, this engrained virtue of philotimia was nothing if not competitive. By this signal act of generosity, these three eupatrids were elevating themselves far above the rest of the rich men in the Boule of Ephesus. The demos could not but praise them: their action would reach the ears of the emperor.
Was there an imperium -wide pattern to be found here? Was there a small group of incredibly rich men rising up from the ranks of the larger oligarchy in each city? Ballista remembered how, in Arete, his friend Iarhai had told him that there used to be a dozen or so leading men in that city. When Ballista had arrived at that town, there had been just three. Maybe, but Arete had been a special case. Situated perilously but profitably between the great empires of Rome and Persia, its notables owed their status to their abilities in deploying armed force. And now, had this earthquake not made Ephesus also something of a special case? Of the four hundred and fifty members of the Ephesian Boule, forty-seven were dead or unaccounted for. Unsurprisingly, finding this out had been one of the first acts of the authorities.
When Publius Vedius Antoninus launched into an ample review of the buildings with which past members of his family had adorned the city, some might have considered he had strayed rather from the point. Maximillianus urbanely interjected to thank most, most sincerely each of the eupatrids. He was sure many decrees of the Boule and Demos of the Ephesians would be passed extolling their virtues. It may well be that when the Heroon of Androclos was repaired, the heroic founder would have to share his quarters with statues of men still living. Their munificence was unparalleled: Hellas and poverty might be foster sisters, but one should not forget that Croesus had reigned here in Asia.
After the admiring laughter which acknowledged the governor’s playful allusion to the aphorism of Herodotus, Maximillianus had brought proceedings to a close with a brief speech intended to keep up everyone’s spirits. A unit of auxiliary cavalry, double strength, one thousand-strong, was en route from the interior. Letters had been dispatched to the emperor; soon the bounty of Gallienus would ease their troubles. All would be well.
Maximus walked out on to the terrace and up to Ballista. ‘Sorry I was not here when you came out. I waited, but one of the governor’s men said you would all be at it for hours. So, I… I went for a wander.’
‘Went for a wander?’
‘Yes, a wander.’
‘And was it good?’
‘Sure, it was magnificent.’ Maximus smiled. ‘You cannot be praising too highly the dedication and enthusiasm of the girls of this town. Straight back to work, putting their backs into it. Now, if your public servants learnt a trick or two from them, the place would be back to rights in no time.’
‘You really are a sadly deluded man.’
‘Well,’ considered Maximus, ‘you might say that, but not if you had any knowledge of philosophy. Does not each one of us recreate the world in our own minds based on what our eyes and ears tell us? Now, I know that some of your Stoics hold that only the wise man gets it right. But they themselves will admit that a wise man is harder to find than a virgin in a whorehouse. So, given that most of us are going to get it wrong, and given it is up to us, what sort of fool would you be if you did not make the world you perceived into the sort of place that suited you?’ He waved a dismissive hand. ‘I am surprised at an educated man like you – do you not have any understanding of sense perception theory at all?’
‘Have you been talking to Hippothous again?’
‘Well, not just now, luckily. But, it has to be said, he does like to philosophize. Just like little Demetrius he is: cannot get enough philosophic dialogue. Mind you, he is also very keen on that physphysiog-’
‘ Physiognomy – reading people’s characters from their faces.’
‘That is the one. A noble science, infallible in the hands of a skilled practitioner, so he says. Loves it, he does. Tells stories that would make your hair stand on end.’
‘And that probably tells him a lot too.’
‘Where is Corvus?’ Maximus asked.
‘The governor held him back for a private conversation.’ Ballista leant on the parapet. Maximus joined him. Together they looked out at the sea, all quiet under the waxing moon.
Ballista’s thoughts ran back to the casualties among the Boule: nearly one in nine dead. Now, if the death rate across all the citizen body were about the same magnitude, and there really had been about 250,000 in the city, that would mean around 28,000 corpses, by far the majority still to be unearthed. But it is the collapsing houses that kill, and a rich man’s house is likely to be better built. Yet what about the poor who lived in huts? They were easier to get out of; there was not much to collapse. There were no simple answers.
Out to sea, the light of one of the fishing boats winked and went out. Ballista’s thoughts continued on their way: to his own household. Seven of the eight people who had been with Ballista had survived. A few others had lived. The cook and a kitchen porter had been shopping in the agora. They were shaken, but unhurt. The day after the earthquake, a stable-boy had reappeared. No one could tell what had happened to him. His wits were gone. They had dug Rebecca and Simon out of the ruins, but with Constans and the others they had failed. Twelve of them – men, women and children, almost half the familia – all gone. Constans, the boys’ pedagogue, Julia’s custos, three of her maids… the rest – all gone.
After the fire had burnt itself out, Ballista, Maximus and Calgacus had returned again and again to the wreck of the house. Hippothous had joined them. With insane dedication, running ridiculous risks, they had climbed over and dug into the teetering ruins. Repetition had not dulled the fear. Each time, Ballista had found it harder to force himself up the slope, to cram himself into the black, tomb-like niches in the rubble. They had scraped and burrowed, always calling out for survivors. They had retrieved many of their possessions: the strongbox, their weapons, much of Julia’s jewellery. But no voices answered their calls. They came across just four corpses, mangled and charred. They had left the sad things where they were, a coin pressed between their teeth.
It was Corvus who had released them from their Sisyphus-like labours. The house of the eirenarch, on the other side of the Sacred Way, was in a block miraculously unscathed. Corvus straightaway had taken the remnants of Ballista’s familia into his own household. On the fifth evening of their fruitless digging, he had invoked his powers as head of the watch to order them not to return to the site of their former home. Ballista had seldom felt such simple gratitude to another man. Words could not touch it.
A burst of lamplight shone out across the terrace. Just as suddenly, it was shut off as the door closed again. After a moment or two, the bulky figure of Corvus, stepping carefully, joined Ballista and Maximus. He leant by them on the parapet. In the silence, their eyes adjusted to the night. Out on the silver-black sea the lights of only two fishing boats were to be seen. They seemed to be returning to port. Above the pale moon and amid a myriad of other stars, the nine gems of Ariadne, the newly risen constellation of the Cnossian Crown, one of the harbingers of spring.
Corvus spoke. ‘They say Electra ceased to shine in grief for Troy. Now there are only six Pleiades.’
Maximus looked up. ‘But they do not rise until-’ Ballista, not unkindly, silenced his friend with a hand on his arm.
Corvus seemed not to have noticed. ‘But others say the missing Pleiad is Merope, the wife of an oath- breaker, hiding herself in shame.’
Corvus paused. The others did not speak.
‘Grief and shame,’ Corvus continued, ‘they go well together. The day before the earthquake, as eirenarch of the Metropolis of Ephesus, all I had to worry about was a couple of thefts and a missing girl. Her father was a potter. They lived out by the Magnesian Gate. By all accounts, she was a pretty thing, good natured, trusting. The neighbours suspected an old fraud of a fortune teller who had a hovel out there. I had my men tear his place apart.
