Robert Silverberg: With Caesar in the Underworld

The newly arrived ambassador from the Eastern Emperor was rather younger than Faustus had expected him to be: a smallish sort, finely built, quite handsome in what was almost a girlish kind of way, though obviously very capable and sharp, a man who would bear close watching. There was something a bit frightening about him, though not at first glance. He gleamed with the imperviousness of fine armor. His air of sophisticated and fastidious languor coupled with hidden strength made Faustus, a tall, robust, florid-faced man going thick through the waist and thin about the scalp, feel positively plebeian and coarse despite his own lofty and significant ancestry.

That morning Faustus, whose task as an official of the Chancellery it was to greet all such important visitors to the capital city, had gone out to Ostia to meet him at the Imperial pier—the Greek envoy, coming west by way of Sicilia, had sailed up the coast from Neapolis in the south—and had escorted him to the rooms in the old Severan Palace where the occasional ambassadors from the eastern half of the Empire were housed. Now it was the time to begin establishing a little rapport. They faced each other across an onyx-slab table in the Lesser Hall of Columns, which several reigns ago had been transformed into a somewhat oversized sitting-room. A certain amount of preliminary social chatter was required at this point. Faustus called for some wine, one of the big, elegant wines from the great vineyards of Gallia Transalpina.

After they had had a chance to savor it for a little while he said, wanting to get the ticklish part of the situation out in the open right away, “The prince Heraclius himself, unfortunately, has been called without warning to the northern frontier. Therefore tonight’s dinner has been canceled. This will be a free evening for you, then, an evening for resting after your long journey. I trust that that’ll be acceptable to you.”

“Ah,” said the Greek, and his lips tightened for an instant. Plainly he was a little bewildered at being left on his own like this, his first evening in Roma. He studied his perfectly manicured fingers. When he glanced up again, there was a gleam of concern in the dark eyes. “I won’t be seeing the Emperor either, then?”

“The Emperor is in very poor health. He will not be able to see you tonight and perhaps not for several days. The prince Heraclius has taken over many of his responsibilities. But in the prince’s unexpected and unavoidable absence your host and companion for your first few days in Roma will be his younger brother Maximilianus. You will, I know, find him amusing and very charming, my lord Menandros.”

“Unlike his brother, I gather,” said the Greek ambassador coolly.

Only too true, Faustus thought. But it was a remarkably blunt thing to say. Faustus searched for the motive behind the little man’s words. Menandros had come here, after all, to negotiate a marriage between his royal master’s sister and the very prince of whom he had just spoken so slightingly. When a diplomat as polished as this finely oiled Greek says something as egregiously undiplomatic as that, there was usually a good reason for it. Perhaps, Faustus supposed, Menandros was simply showing annoyance at the fact that Prince Heraclius had tactlessly managed not to be on hand to welcome him upon his entry into Roma.

Faustus was not going to let himself be drawn any deeper into comparisons, though. He allowed himself only an oblique smile, that faint sidewise smile he had learned from his young friend the Caesar Maximilianus. “The two brothers are quite different in personality, that I do concede.—Will you have more wine, your excellence?”

That brought yet another shift of tone. “Ah, no formalities, no formalities, I pray you. Let us be friends, you and I.” And then, leaning forward cozily and shifting from the formal to the intimate form of speech: “You must call me Menandros. I will call you Faustus. Eh, my friend?—And yes, more wine, by all means. What excellent stuff! We have nothing that can match it in Constantinopolis. What sort is it, actually?”

Faustus flicked a glance at one of the waiting servitors, who quickly refilled the bowls. “A wine from Gallia,” he said. “I forget the name.” A swift flash of unmistakable displeasure, quickly concealed but not quickly enough, crossed the Greek’s face. To be caught praising a provincial wine so highly must have embarrassed him. But embarrassing him had not been Faustus’s intention. There was nothing to be gained by creating discomfort for so powerful and potentially valuable a personage as the lord of the East’s ambassador to the Western court.

This was all getting worse and worse. Hastily Faustus set about smoothing the awkwardness over. “The heart of our production lies in Gallia, now. The Emperor’s cellars contain scarcely any Italian wines at all, they tell me. Scarcely any! These Gallian reds are His Imperial Majesty’s preference by far, I assure you.”

“While I am here I must acquire some, then, for the cellars of His Majesty Justinianus,” said Menandros.

They drank a moment in silence. Faustus felt as though he were dancing on swords.

“This is, I understand, your first visit to Urbs Roma?” Faustus asked, when the silence had gone on just a trifle too long. He took care to use the familiar form, too, now that Menandros had started it.

“My first, yes. Most of my career has been spent in Aegyptus and Syria.”

Faustus wondered how extensive that career could have been. This Menandros seemed to be no more than twenty-five or so, thirty at the utmost. Of course, all these smooth-skinned dark-eyed Greeks, buffed and oiled and pomaded in their Oriental fashion, tended to look younger than they really were. And now that Faustus had passed fifty, he was finding it harder and harder to make distinctions of age in any precise way: everybody around him at the court seemed terribly young to him now, a congregation of mere boys and girls. Of those who had ruled the Empire when Faustus himself was young, there was no one left except the weary, lonely old Emperor himself, and hardly anyone had laid eyes on the Emperor in recent times. Of Faustus’s own generation of courtiers, some had died off, the others had gone into cozy retirement far away. Faustus was a dozen years older than his own superior minister in the Chancellery. His closest friend here now was Maximilianus Caesar, who was considerably less than half his age. From the beginning Faustus had always regarded himself as a relic of some earlier era, because that was, in truth, what he was, considering that he was a member of a family that had held the throne three dynasties ago; but the phrase had taken on a harsh new meaning for him in these latter days, now that he had survived not just his family’s greatness but even his own contemporaries.

It was a little disconcerting that Justinianus had sent so youthful and apparently inexperienced an ambassador on so delicate a mission. But Faustus suspected it would be a mistake to underestimate this man; and at least Menandros’s lack of familiarity with the capital city would provide him with a convenient way to glide past whatever difficulties Prince Heraclius’s untimely absence might cause in the next few days.

Stagily Faustus clapped his hands. “How I envy you, friend Menandros! To see Urbs Roma in all its splendor for the first time! What an overwhelming experience it will be for you! We who were born here, who take it all for granted, can never appreciate it as you will. The grandeur. The magnificence.” Yes, yes, he thought, let Maximilianus march him from one end of the city to the other until Heraclius gets back. We will dazzle him with our wonders and after a time he’ll forget how discourteously Heraclius has treated him. “While you’re waiting for the Caesar to return, we’ll arrange the most extensive tours for you. All the great temples—the amphitheater—the baths—the Forum—the Capitol—the palaces—the wonderful gardens—”