M. Scott: The Art of War

I said, ‘Leave the carcasses outside the gates for the jackals. No honours.’

The men about me saluted in silence, but they didn’t rush to do my bidding. Instead, the expectation I had read earlier on the faces of the officers was multiplied right along the row.

If I didn’t act swiftly, they’d hail me imperator, there, on the spot, and I’d have to execute them all for treason, or lead them into civil war.

I turned back to Pantera. He was waiting a pace or two behind us, apart from the centurions, the tribunes and the legates.

In that short time, he had rinsed his face, his hands. Only his tunic was bloodstained. His expression was bland. It was over a year since he had sat in my tent and told me I could be emperor. Then, I had laughed in his face.

‘We need to talk,’ I said. ‘Find Titus and Mucianus and tell them-’

‘They’re in the command tent, lord, awaiting your presence.’

‘Oh, Hades, do you never stop? Bring Demalion then. He can guard the door.’

Judaea, June, AD 69

Vespasian

The sun was up by then, not far enough to broil the day, just a cherried orb on the eastern horizon that stained the light in the tent to blood.

Not counting Demalion, who stood within the door flap, we were four who gathered around the table inside to talk treason, taking watered wine in our campaign mugs, eating brown olives, and small silvery fish, caught by their millions on the coast and dried on rocks in the sun.

I was the oldest, the greyest, the one who, seemingly, must carry the conscience for this treachery we planned.

The youngest, not yet thirty years old, was Titus, my elder son, the light of my life, my legacy to the world. I wouldn’t say that in his brother’s hearing, of course. Domitian knows, but he doesn’t need to hear it said aloud.

Unlike his younger brother, Titus has been gifted an honest, open face, an athlete’s never-ending grace, buoyant chestnut hair and a lively eye. If he is not beautiful — and let us be honest, he is too short to be beautiful, his face too round — he has the glorious vivacity of youth that sets lovers trailing after him by the score.

Already a legionary legate, commander of the XVth Apollinaris, with the path to senator and then consul laid wide before him, my son, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, had most to lose.

Mucianus, former consul and now governor of neighbouring Syria, might be a decade younger than I am — it’s hard to tell his age with any accuracy any more than one can tell his exact parentage — but he was one of the few competent generals left alive after Nero’s predations on the senate.

Unmarried, childless, he was quite evidently lost to Titus’ smile, though I would wager my entire estate that the boy had not lain with him, and never will: Titus is made for women to exactly the same degree that Mucianus is not.

Even so, lust and ambition make for a heady wine and they had combined to transform this lean, driven man from the rival he once was to the kingmaker he wanted to become.

He had commanded the three Syrian legions during the recent Judaean war: the IVth Scythians, the VIth, and the newly reformed XIIth. They loved him just as my legions loved me and would have marched into Hades if he’d asked it of them. Just then, Mucianus was minded to ask them to propel me to the throne in Rome if only I would stop being obstinate and accept his offer.

And then there was Pantera, who was playing the role of secretary, a fiction that was laughable. Pantera was the one who had first suggested this path, nearly two years ago. Pantera was the one who had induced the Hebrew prophet to hail me the inheritor of their Star Prophecy that said a man would arise in the east and become lord of the whole world.

But it was Pantera who was so carefully not speaking now, leaving Mucianus to make his points for him, which he was doing, I have to say, with the zeal of the newly converted.

‘Vitellius is an incompetent idiot who excels only at eating and drinking, usually at others’ expense. He wouldn’t be emperor if the Rhine legions hadn’t put him on the throne and even then they wanted Rufus first. He’s a profligate wastrel who makes Nero look restrained in his spending. He’ll bankrupt the empire, and reduce the senate to a bunch of drooling fools.’

‘There are those,’ said Titus idly, studying the tilted surface of his wine, ‘who will say Nero accomplished that many years ago.’

Mucianus stopped. He tapped his long finger to his lips. His thoughts were so clear, and so graphic, that I didn’t know whether to laugh aloud or drag him outside and flog him.

I could do neither, obviously. Addressing them both, I said, ‘I am the second son of a tax farmer. My brother was the first senator in our family and he makes it universally known that I only followed him into public service at our mother’s insistence. Since Octavian became Augustus, there has never yet been an emperor who was not of solid senatorial stock. Drooling idiots or not, the blue-blooded men of the senate won’t have me.’

‘If you’ll forgive my saying so,’ Pantera said, quietly, from the farthest end of the table, ‘there have been three emperors in the past twelve months and the premium on ancestry has fallen noticeably with each one. If we delay, it is not Vitellius we must fear — incompetent and indolent as he is — but his brother Lucius. He is twenty years younger, more ambitious, more intelligent and more ruthless than any of his recent predecessors. If Lucius gains open control, there’ll be more than two assassins sent against you; there will be dozens. With respect, you can’t afford that, and if you won’t fight on your own behalf, then do so for the people and the senate of Rome. They want — and deserve — a leader who can set the empire back on its feet, who will rule with compassion, not caprice or cruelty, and who can count higher than ten without having to take off his boots to number his toes.’

Delivered of this speech, Pantera looked me clear in the eye. ‘My lord, you have six legions here, and two more waiting under Julius Tiberius in Alexandria. He will have them swear their oath to you the day we give him the word. With all that help, you can be emperor. The question is, do you want to be?’

‘Do I have a choice?’

It was a genuine question; I still thought I might wriggle out of it.

Mucianus answered. ‘Not if you want to live, no. If those two are the only ones in your army in Lucius’ pay, I’ll eat my belt. We can hunt for traitors, but they won’t give themselves away easily, and all we can be sure of is that Lucius will know soon that his men have failed. He will send others, or Vitellius will send orders for you to fall on your sword. Either way, you will die. The only chance to live is to take the field against them both. The choice, such as exists, lies in how this may be done. There is a way without bloodshed. Or there is the havoc of civil war.’

‘Without bloodshed? Are you insane?’ I slammed both palms on the table, and to hell with who might be listening outside. ‘Vitellius may be an idiot, but his brother and his generals are not. They have four legions camped in Rome, eating at the city’s heart like so many locusts. You told me yourself that they have sixteen thousand newly made Praetorian Guards. They have the massed naval fleets at Ravenna and Misene with their men in dock over winter and nothing better to do than pick their noses and fuck the local whores. They’ll march when they’re called to and be glad of it, particularly if Vitellius offers to make them into full legions. On top of that, he has legions scattered through the Balkans and the Germanies, any or all of which could block our route to Rome and may well do so. How, exactly, do you plan to take them on without bloodshed?’