Robert Silverberg: The Reign of Terror

With Torquatus locked away, the task of dealing with this was entirely his. He ordered Papinio arrested and interrogated. The interrogation was swift and efficient: at the first touch of the torturer’s tongs Papinio provided a full confession, naming twelve co-conspirators. The trial was held that evening and the executions took place at dawn. So much for the new incarnation of Junius Lucius Brutus.

There were great ironies here, Apollinaris knew. He had put Torquatus away in the hope of halting the torrent of killings, and now he had ordered a whole new series of executions himself. But he knew he had had no choice. Papinio’s plot would surely have brought the whole Imperial system down if the man had managed to live another two days.

With that out of the way, he took up the matter of the increasing troubles in the slum districts. The rioters were breaking statues, looting shops. Troops had been sent in and hundreds of plebeians had been killed, yet each day brought new violence.

Apollinaris’s agents brought him pamphlets that the agitators in the Subura were passing out in the streets. Like the late Julius Papinio, these men were calling for the overthrow of the government and the restoration of the Republic of olden times.

The return of the Republic, Apollinaris thought, might actually not be such a bad thing. The Imperial system had produced some great rulers, yes, but it had also brought the Neros and Saturninuses and Demetriuses to the throne. Sometimes it seemed to him that Roma had endured this long despite most of its Emperors, rather than because of them. Reverting now to the way things had been in antiquity, the Senate choosing two highly qualified men to serve as Consuls, supreme magistrates ruling in consultation with the Senate, holding office not for life but only for brief terms that they would voluntarily relinquish when the time came—there was more than a little merit in that idea.

But what he feared was that if the monarchy were overthrown Roma would pass instantly through the stage of a republic to that of a democracy—the rule of the mob, is what that meant, giving the government over to the man who promised the greatest benefits to the least worthy segments of society, buying the support of the crowd by stripping the assets of the productive citizens. That was not to be tolerated: democracy in Roma would bring madness even worse than that of Demetrius. Something had to be done to prevent that. Apollinaris ordered his men to seek out and arrest the ringleaders of the Subura anarchy.

Meanwhile Torquatus himself, safely tucked away in the Imperial dungeons, lay under sentence of death. The Senate, with Lactantius Rufus presiding over the trial, had been quick to indict him and find him guilty. But Apollinaris had not been able to bring himself, thus far, to sign the death warrant. He knew that he would have to deal with it sooner or later, of course. Torquatus, once imprisoned, could never be freed, not if Apollinaris intended to remain alive himself. But still—actually to send the man to the block—

Apollinaris left the matter unresolved for the moment and returned to the issue of the new co-Consul.

He went through the list of Senators but found no one who might be acceptable. They were all tainted in one way or another by ambition, by corruption, by laziness, by foolishness, by any of a dozen sins and flaws. But then the name of Laureolus Caesar came to mind.

Of royal blood. Intelligent. Youthful. Presentable. A student of history, familiar with the errors of Roma’s turbulent past. And a man without enemies, because he had wisely kept himself far from the capital during the most deplorable years of Demetrius’s reign. They would work well together as Consular colleagues, Apollinaris was sure.

Apollinaris had sounded Laureolus out about the Consulship once already, back in Tarraco. But he had withdrawn the suggestion as soon as he had made it, realizing that the Emperor would probably see young Laureolus as a potential rival for the throne and reject the nomination. That problem was no longer a factor.

Well, then. Summon Laureolus from his country retreat, let him know that Torquatus had been removed from office, tell him that his duty as a Roman required him to accept the Consulship in Torquatus’s place. Yes. Yes.

But before Apollinaris could call Tiberius Charax in to dictate the message to him Charax came running into his office unbidden, flushed, wild-eyed. Apollinaris had never seen the little Greek so flustered-looking before.

“Sir—sir—”

“Easy, man! Catch your breath! What’s happened?”

“The—Emperor—” Charax could barely get the words out. He must have sprinted all the way across the Forum and up the eight flights of stairs. “Has bribed—his way—out of his confinement. Is—back in the palace. Is under—the protection—of the former Praetorian Prefect, Leo Severinus.” He paused to collect himself. “And has named a completely new set of governmental ministers. Many of whom are dead, but he doesn’t know that yet.”

Apollinaris muttered a curse. “What is he saying about the Consuls?”

“He has sent a letter to the Senate, sir. Commanding that yourself and Torquatus be dismissed.”

“Well, at least I’ve taken care of the second part of that for him already, eh, Charax?” Apollinaris gave the aide-de-camp a grim smile. This was a maddening development, but he had no time for anger now. Action, quick and decisive, was the only remedy. “Get me the same dozen men you used when you arrested Torquatus. And half a dozen more of the same quality. I want them assembled outside this building ten minutes from now. I’m going to have to pay a little visit to the Praetorians.—Oh, and send word to Prince Laureolus that I want him here in Roma as soon as he can get here. Tomorrow, at the latest. No: tonight.”

The headquarters of the Praetorian Guard had been located since the time of Tiberius in the eastern part of the city. By now, nearly eighteen centuries later, the Praetorians, the Emperor’s elite personal military force, had come to occupy a huge forbidding block there, a dark, ugly building that was meant to frighten, and did. Apollinaris understood the risks he was running by presenting himself at that menacing garrison. The little squad of armed men accompanying him had purely a symbolic value: if the Praetorians chose to attack, there would be no withstanding their much greater numbers. But there were no options here. If Demetrius had really regained control, Apollinaris was a dead man already, unless he succeeded in winning the Praetorians over.

Luck was with him, though. The mystique of the Consular emblem, the twelve bundles of birchwood rods with the axe-heads jutting through, opened the gates of the building for him. And both of the Praetorian Prefects were on the premises, the Emperor’s man Leo Severinus and the replacement whom Torquatus had appointed, Atilius Rullianus. That was a good stroke, finding them both. He had expected to find Rullianus; but Severinus was the key player at the moment, and it had been more likely that he would be at the palace.

They might have been stamped from the same mold: two big pockmarked men, greasy-skinned, hard-eyed. The Praetorians had certain expectations about what their commanders were supposed to be like, and it was good policy to see that those expectations were met, which almost always was the case.

Severinus, the former and present prefect, had served under Apollinaris as a young officer in the Sicilian campaign. Apollinaris was counting on the vestiges of Severinus’s loyalty to him to help him now.

And indeed Severinus looked bewildered, here in the presence not only of his rival for command of the Guard but also of his own onetime superior officer. He stood gaping. “What are you doing here?” Apollinaris asked him immediately. “Shouldn’t you be with your Emperor?”