Northern Italy, September AD 312
The two men sat on folding stools in uncomfortable silence. There were no lamps, nobody around to bring lamps, and the large chamber was becoming increasingly dim. The men did not move; both of them wore the heavy embroidered robes and insignia of members of the Roman Senate. They were not accustomed to fetching and carrying things for themselves.
As the darkness increased so did their discomfort. Both tried to appear unconcerned, maintaining their dignified composure, but each flicked a glance towards the doorway when he thought the other was not looking. How long had they been sitting here now? An hour? Had they been forgotten? Where were the slaves? It was past time for dinner…
Eventually, when the far corners and the high ceiling had almost vanished into the gloom, the man concealed in the passageway outside cleared his throat and paced quietly into the chamber. The two men on the stools suppressed their jolts of surprise.
‘At last!’ one of them said.
‘Who are you?’ the other demanded.
The newcomer had an unprepossessing look, his clothes drab and very plain, his thin face and bowl-cut hair almost deliberately bland.
‘Greetings, clarissimi,’ the man said, with the touch of a smile. ‘I am Julius Nigrinus, Tribune of Notaries. I’m most sorry for having kept you for so long…’
Nigrinus was not sorry at all; he had spent quite a while in the passageway, observing them from the shadows and enjoying their discomfort.
‘But why are you sitting in the dark?’ he said in a bemused tone; then he turned to the far doorway. ‘Lights!’ he called. At once a pair of slaves walked in carrying lamps on tall tripods, which they placed on either side of the seated men. A third slave brought a stool for Nigrinus, and he settled himself upon it, facing them. The two senators pulled themselves together, peering at him warily.
They were not, Nigrinus thought, very attractive specimens of the ancient Roman aristocracy: the ‘conscript fathers’, as senators liked to call themselves. Both were prestigious enough, one a former praetor and the other a former deputy consul, and their names advertised the length and weight of their lineage. Lucius Turranius Venustus Gratianus, one was called. The other was Quintus Aurelius Cornificius Gordianus. Nigrinus himself cared nothing for lineage, or prestige. His own father, after all, had been born a slave.
‘We have been waiting here for a considerable amount of time!’ announced Gratianus. He was a large man, fleshy and bulbous, with a small chin bobbing between pendulous jowls. The other senator, Gordianus, was long-limbed and stiff, with a head like a block of wood and a forbidding scowl.
‘And we placed ourselves in considerable danger coming here too,’ Gordianus said. ‘May I remind you that we are senior members of the Roman Senate? I had expected that I would be given an audience with Constantine immediately!’
‘Ah, yes,’ Nigrinus said, with the slightest smirk of apology. ‘The emperor, you understand, has many pressing engagements. The ongoing war against the tyrant of Rome occupies almost all of his time, and he is currently with his troops. But I assure you that he will be happy to meet with you as soon as he can.’
This was not actually true, Nigrinus reminded himself. The emperor Constantine was at that point little more than a hundred yards away, in another wing of the villa, enjoying a late supper with his military commanders and drinking a very great quantity of wine. But there was no need for these men to know that.
The two senators were among a dozen or so wealthy individuals, most of them with significant property in the north, who had so far slipped away from Rome and travelled to Verona or Mediolanum to present themselves to Constantine. Most, Nigrinus considered, were like them: convinced of their own importance, full of the perils of their journey, surprised that they were not received with rapturous praise by the emperor himself. Instead, all had been accommodated in isolation, and brought separately to this villa on the shores of Lake Benacus to be questioned. All of them, Nigrinus knew, had networks of family and dependants left in the capital, ready to vouch for them if the course of war swung the other way.
Gordianus and Gratianus had apparently crossed the Apennines to the Adriatic coast and paid a fisherman to take them up to Ravenna, then a donkey-driver to conduct them safely to Verona. They claimed that they had been threatened with death by Maxentius, their property seized, their wives imprisoned. Perhaps some of it was even true. Still, it amused Nigrinus to think of the flabby Gratianus and the inflexible Gordianus hunched in a stinking fishing boat, trying to maintain their dignity amid the nets and tackle.
‘Anyway, since we have some time to wait,’ he said, ‘perhaps you could tell me something of the situation in Rome at the moment?’
Gratianus cleared his throat and pursed his lips a few times, clearly ill at ease speaking to someone of such inferior standing. Gordianus just maintained his wooden frown and waited for his colleague to say something.
‘The tyrant redoubles his depredations daily,’ Gratianus said, shrugging his round shoulders. ‘So many of the best people have now been attacked, accused of false crimes and had their property seized that whole areas of the city resemble a desert, with nothing but boarded-up houses and armed guards on every corner!’
‘Really?’ Nigrinus said, finding the claim hard to believe. ‘And yet so few of your fellow conscript fathers have chosen to flee the city and join the party of Constantine. Are they held in severe bondage, perhaps?’
Gordianus raised both eyebrows. ‘A senator of Rome will only abandon the eternal city under the greatest duress!’ he said. ‘I and my esteemed colleague here travel as… spokesmen for our fellows. Ambassadors, you might say.’
‘Indeed,’ Nigrinus said, with a mollifying smile. He had long made it his business to train his eye in detecting signs of duplicity in the human expression. But even a child could have seen that the men before him were concealing their true motives. The ancient Senate of Rome had long been a political backwater; the senators still held their old ceremonial offices, but successive emperors had very sensibly robbed them of any executive power. It was, however, a backwater populated by extremely wealthy men. The richest men in the world, in fact. These two before him, Nigrinus knew, were probably worth their weight in gold, which in the case of Gratianus in particular was a considerable sum.
No, he thought, the elite of Rome did not really care which emperor claimed power over them. The Senate had been among the first to acclaim Maxentius as emperor when he had seized power with the help of the Praetorians six years before. If they despised him now, it was only because he had failed to live up to their expectations. What mattered to them was the maintenance of their wealth, the protection of their property and the respect paid to their dignity. Perhaps Maxentius really was making life difficult for them: he had certainly executed a few senators in recent years. But more likely these so-called conscript fathers were just keeping a foot in both camps, making sure they had men placed to take advantage of victory, whoever it looked like the victor might be.
And it’s my job, Nigrinus thought, to steer them in the direction of the right man.
‘How are the populace of Rome disposed towards the tyrant and his government, would you say?’ he asked, careful to keep his questions respectful.
The two senators exchanged another quick glance. ‘The mob are fickle as usual,’ Gordianus said. ‘A few years back there were riots in the streets. Domitius Alexander had seized power in Africa and cut off the grain supply, and famine was a real possibility. Now the tyrant’s soldiers have defeated the rebellion, the grain flows and all is well—’
‘In fact his granaries are full to overflowing!’ Gratianus broke in. ‘And yet still he extorts money from the aristocracy, to pay his troops and bribe the populace with games and shows!’
‘How appalling,’ Nigrinus said.
‘He’s a great one for festivals,’ Gordianus continued. ‘In fact, he’s invented half a dozen new ones, in honour of Mars and the Dioscuri, even his dead son Romulus – imagine naming one’s son after the founder of Rome – and then declaring him Consul at the age of five...!’
‘He uses his purloined wealth to fill the city with new buildings,’ Gratianus said. ‘There are construction sites everywhere. In summer the dust and noise are intolerable… Apparently he wishes to be remembered as the founder of a new Roman era!’
‘Yes, well,’ Nigrinus broke in. ‘This is all very interesting… but it sounds from what you’re saying that Maxentius is making himself quite popular. Are there any – besides yourselves and your fellow senators – who oppose him? The Christians, perhaps?’
‘Them?’ said Gratianus. ‘Oh no, they’re quite fond of him. When they’re not fighting among themselves, that is… He does still hold a lot of their property, seized by his father during the Persecutions. But they had so very much to begin with, you see…’
‘The Roman people love those who love them back,’ Gordianus said in a tone of great gravity. ‘As I say, the plebs are easily swayed. The city collegia, the trade guilds that is, the circus factions, the burial societies: all can be bought, if the price is right.’
‘But then, forgive my ignorance,’ Nigrinus said, leaning forward slightly, ‘if the members of the Senate wish to be rid of the tyrant, why do they not simply pay the people to overthrow him?’
Gratianus pursed his lips again: his expression of mild pique, Nigrinus supposed. ‘It is beneath the dignity of the Senate to bribe the populace!’ he declared. ‘Besides, it would set a bad precedent.’
‘Absolutely,’ his colleague added. ‘And how could we know if our expenditure would be worthwhile? Maxentius has a vast army camped in and around Rome. He has rebuilt the Praetorian Guard to full strength using drafts from his Illyrian detachments, and enrolled six new legions from Italy and Africa. The walls of the city are powerful, and have already repelled two imperial field armies sent against them. If we back your man Constantine, and he loses, we would all suffer!’
‘And even if he were successful,’ said Gratianus, ‘could we guarantee that he would uphold our honours? We could merely be swapping one oppressive ruler for another.’
So here it is, Nigrinus thought. A simple bargain – that was why these men had come here. One hand washes another.
‘I really think, you know,’ Gratianus went on, ‘that these are matters we should discuss with Constantine himself, face to face. Rather than with… a subordinate.’
Nigrinus managed a pale smile, consoling himself by wondering how this fat senator would fare under torture. There was always the chance the man was a spy, after all: civil wars bred traitors like a corpse bred maggots. But that would hardly send the right message.
‘Certainly you are correct,’ he said, hiding his annoyance with an ingratiating gesture. ‘And, I assure you, the Augustus will be happy to speak with you some time… very soon.’
He got up, excusing himself and pacing silently from the chamber. What the senators had told him only confirmed what he already suspected: that despite the glib words spoken in Constantine’s camp, Maxentius still enjoyed widespread support. A few victories in the north would not be enough to shake the allegiance of the Roman people. And to judge from the prisoners taken after the recent battle, many of the tyrant’s soldiers were still firm in their loyalties too. Half of the prisoners had agreed to change sides, but the rest had not. Only two days before, there had been a riot in the amphitheatre at Verona where they were being held, and in the confusion nearly a hundred had escaped; the fugitives had still not been rounded up.
No, Nigrinus thought to himself: Maxentius was in a strong position. The walls of Rome were formidable, and if defended by a large enough garrison Constantine would be powerless against them. Verona had halted him, and Aquileia was still holding out against Evander. If the tyrant chose simply to sit in his palace and wait out a siege, he could well win…
Was it worth it? Nigrinus often found himself considering this question. In private, even in secret, he saw little to commend Constantine over Maxentius. One of them had to win: their ambitions would not allow compromise. But it seemed immaterial which of them came out on top. All so wasteful, Nigrinus thought. So inefficient. If he were to conduct a war, the fighting would be over before it even began. His enemies would all be discreetly killed in their beds, before the first trumpet had sounded. But such things would not accord with Roman honour.
If only he had a reliable agent in Rome itself. Someone who could report accurately on what was happening there, who could intervene and shape events. Ideally somebody placed very close to the tyrant’s court, or to the other powerful groups in the city. But there was nobody that Nigrinus could trust in that way. He was acting blindly, having to piece together what was happening through the biased and self-serving narratives of men like Gratianus and Gordianus… It was intolerable.
Loitering in the dark passage, he peered back through the doorway into the chamber behind him. The two senators were still seated, waiting for something to happen, somebody to conduct them to their lodgings, their dinners, the emperor himself. The lamps guttered: Nigrinus had purposely cut the wicks very short, and they were almost burnt out.
If you want something done, he told himself, best do it yourself. Or find somebody expendable, who asked no questions, and get them to do it for you… The method had worked for him the past. But already his mind was working, spinning schemes, composing the plausible-sounding story he could feed to his superiors. Yes, he thought, yes, it just might work…
In the room, first one lamp went out and then the other. Nigrinus edged back down the corridor, smiling as he heard to the voices of the two senators echoing through the darkness, their angry demands turning to nervous confusion, and then to panic.