Harry Turtledove: Give Me Back My Legions!

“I hope you are well, sir,” Augustus’ slave said politely.

“Yes, thank you.” Varus enquired not about the slave’s health but about his master’s: “I hope Augustus is, too.”

With a hint of a smile, the slave answered, “He says a man who gets as old as he is is either well or dead.”

That held considerable truth, and truth told with Augustus’ usual pith. The ruler of the Roman world was seventy, an age many aspired to and few reached. He’d had several serious illnesses in his earlier days, but recovered from them all. And he’d outlived the younger men he’d expected to succeed him.

Varus, in his early fifties, already felt the first hints that the proud strength of his youth would not last forever—and might not last much longer. And he’d enjoyed good health most of his life, the main exceptions being a couple of bad teeth that finally needed the dentist’s forceps. He shuddered and tried to forget those times.

The slave led him and his attendants to a small room on the north side of a courtyard. A roofed colonnade shielded it from direct sun, but the broad doorway still let in plenty of light. The slave darted in ahead of Varus. His voice floated out through the doorway: “Sir, Quinctilius Varus is here to see you.”

“Well, bring him in.” Augustus’ voice was mushy; over the years, he’d had more trouble with his teeth than Varus had.

At the slave’s gesture, Varus and his pedisequi walked into the room where Augustus waited. Despite his years, the ruler of the Roman world moved very gracefully. He stood so straight, he seemed uncommonly tall, although he wasn’t. He wore a toga of solid purple: a luxury he’d reserved for himself alone.

“Good day, sir,” Varus said, bowing. His slaves bowed deeper, bending almost double. As he straightened, he went on, “How may I serve you today?”

“We’ll get there, don’t worry.” Augustus turned and waved towards a chair. “In the meantime, sit down. Make yourself at home.” Seen full on, his broad face seemed mild and unassuming. In profile, though, the harsh curve of his nose warned there was more to him than first met the eye.

“Thank you, sir,” Varus said. The pedisequi stood on either side of his chair.

Augustus eased himself down into a larger chair with a cushion on the seat. One of his slaves brought in refreshments: green figs, sardines, and watered wine. He’d always had simple taste in food.

As he and Varus nibbled, he asked, “How is Claudia?”

“She’s fine, sir,” Varus answered. “She sends her great-uncle her love.” If his wife hadn’t sent it, Varus would have said she had anyhow.

“That’s good.” Augustus smiled, showing off his bad teeth. A lock of hair—almost entirely white now—flopped down over his right eye. Varus, whose hairline had retreated farther than Aristocles’, was jealous of Augustus’. Smiling still, the older man went on, “She’s a pretty girl.”

“She is, yes.” Varus could say that in all sincerity. His wife was called Claudia Pulchra—Claudia the Good-looking. It made what had been a marriage of convenience more enjoyable.

“How’s your son?” Augustus asked.

“He’s studying in Athens right now.” Varus smiled, too. “Whenever he writes, he wants money.”

“What else do children want from their father?” Augustus said with a wry chuckle. “Still, we have to civilize them if we can.” He spoke the last sentence in fluent Greek.

“That’s the truth,” Varus replied in the same language. Dropping back into Latin, he continued, “I couldn’t have managed anything in Syria if I didn’t know Greek. Only our soldiers there know any Latin—and some of them do better in Greek, too.”

Augustus sipped from his wine. It was watered more than Varus enjoyed; Augustus had always been a temperate man. “You did well in Syria,” he said as he set down the cup.

“Thank you very much, sir. It’s a rich province.” Varus had been staggered to discover how rich Syria was. Places like that showed him Italy was only a new land. Rome claimed to have been founded 760 years earlier, but it had been a prominent place for only three centuries. Some of the Syrian towns went back thousands of years—long before the Trojan War. And the wealth they held! Varus went into Syria poor and came out prosperous without being especially corrupt.

“You did so well there, in fact, that I’ve got another province for you,” Augustus said.

“Sir?” Varus leaned forward. He had all he could do not to show too much of his excitement. After you’d been governor of Syria, where could you go? Achaea? It wasn’t so rich as Syria, but it held more cachet than any other province. It was under senatorial administration, not formally Augustus’ to control, but if he asked the Conscript Fathers to honor his kinsman by marriage, how could they say no?

Or maybe Egypt! Egypt belonged to Augustus—he wouldn’t dream of letting the Senators get their hands on the place. Egypt made Syria seem poor by comparison. If you served as Augustal prefect in Egypt, you were set for life, and so were all your heirs.

“Yes.” The ruler of the Roman world leaned forward, too. “Germany,” he said.

“Germany?” Varus hoped his disappointment didn’t show. He’d been thinking of civilized places, comfortable places, places where a man could enjoy himself, could live. “It’s a long way from… well, everywhere, sir.” That was as much of a protest as Varus would allow himself.

“I know it is. And I know it will be a bit of a shock after Syria.” No, Augustus was nobody’s fool. When he was very young, Antony made the fatal mistake of underestimating him. Everyone who made that mistake was sorry afterwards, but afterwards was commonly too late. Of course Augustus would have a good idea of what Varus was thinking right now. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I am sorry, but I need someone I can trust there. It just hasn’t shaped up the way I wish it would have.”

“I’ll do my best, sir, if that’s what you want,” Varus said. Gods! How will I tell Claudia? he wondered. The fit she’d throw would make facing overgrown blond savages seem delightful. It also made him give evasion another try: “Shouldn’t you perhaps think of someone with, ah, more military experience?”

“I’d send Tiberius, but he’s busy putting down the uprising in Pannonia,” Augustus replied. “He’s finally getting somewhere, too. Why the Pannonians couldn’t see they’d be better off under Roman rule… But they couldn’t, and so he has to show them.”

“I’m glad to hear he’s doing well,” Varus said. He wished Tiberius were doing better still, so he could deal with the Germans. Plainly, though, that wouldn’t happen. Which meant Varus was stuck with it. Which meant he had to make the best of it. If there was any best to be made.

“When my father conquered Gaul, he did it in one campaign, and the conquest stuck,” Augustus said fretfully. He was Julius Caesar’s sister’s grandson. But he was also Caesar’s heir and adopted son, and he’d taken advantage of that for more than half a century now. The comparison still had to weigh on him, though, for he went on, “I’ve been sending armies into Germany the past twenty years. They mostly win when they fight the Germans, but the country isn’t subdued yet. And it needs to be. A frontier that runs from the Elbe to the Danube is much shorter and easier to garrison and cheaper to maintain than the one we’ve got now, on the Rhine and the Danube. I could hold it with far fewer soldiers.”

“Yes, sir.” Varus suspected Augustus had got to the root of things right there. Augustus had been cutting the army down to size ever since winning supreme power. Paying soldiers was the most expensive thing the Roman government did. A shorter frontier would mean he didn’t have to pay so many of them.