Richard Blake - The Curse of Babylon

I smiled at the clerk. ‘Do please arrange for five copies on one-third scale,’ I said. He nodded again and scratched my instruction on his waxed tablet. ‘Oh, and please ask the chief drafting clerk to abstract the main figures from each report and tabulate them on a standard sheet of papyrus. I’ll need eight copies of that.’

We’d given special attention to the Home Provinces. I bent low over a band of pink that began in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains and terminated just short of Halicarnassus. More than ever, the patches and banding of different shades of the same colour struck me as the beginning of a new way of looking at everything in the human and the natural world.

Behind me, Theodore was recovering from the wheezing attack that running up six flights of stairs with me had brought on. I heard him shift weakly on the chair I’d given him. Was he about to start coughing again? It was a bad sign when he coughed. I felt another stab of guilt. But he didn’t cough.

I straightened up and continued looking at the solid edging about all the provinces so far lost to the Persians. ‘Go down to the garden and join the others,’ I said to the clerks. I moved backwards to look at the long purple streak surrounded by uncoloured linen that was Egypt. ‘Tell everyone to start the half-hour break again,’ I added. I suppressed a yawn and glanced at a covered jug of wine. No breakfast, Glaucus had said. That also meant no drinking. I turned my attention to a lead box of stimulants I’d left on my desk. I walked over and opened it. I pulled a face at the acrid taste of the pills. There was a jug of water beside the wine. I’d have to make do with that.

‘You are looking well, My Lord — I mean, father ,’ Theodore opened nervously. ‘I expected you would want to rest after the terrible events of yesterday.’ I smiled, and waited for the slight agitation caused by the pills to blot out the hunger pangs. The formalities over, Theodore stood before me and opened and shut his mouth a few times. I could see his nerve had failed him again. Much longer and we’d run out of time. But I kept up the smile till my face began to ache. He looked for a while at the one main document on my desk. This was a folded sheet of papyrus covered in map coordinates. It must have meant as much to him as the characters on my silver cup had to me.

‘What is that?’ he suddenly asked, turning to stare at my big map of the Empire.

‘It’s a population map,’ I said. Our best relationship had always been of master and student. Our closest moments had been over Latin grammar and Greek prose composition. I now took the easy option and got up from my desk to lead him over to the patchwork of linen squares. ‘Our last complete census returns are from the third year of Phocas,’ I began. ‘That was only a decade ago but there have been continued losses to plague and the disruptions of war. What we’ve done is to correct the last full census in light of the partial returns we got last year. We’ve then compared the result with the returns from the last year of Anastasius, which was nearly a century ago.’

His reason for breaking into my day set aside, the boy stared at the Syrian provinces. He looked at Africa, then at Italy. ‘I don’t understand the meaning of the colours,’ he said. He looked again at Africa. ‘I thought Carthage had many more people than Rome. Yet the areas about both are the same colour.’

I nodded and guided him to a spot on the floor from where he could easily see the whole map. ‘I’m not trying to show numbers of taxable units,’ I explained. ‘What the map shows is the differential loss of population since before the Empire fell on hard times. Black shows no loss at all, or an increase. Pale blue shows a loss of more than half. Green shows losses of more than three-quarters. You’d see the meaning of all the colours if you could refer to a guidance sheet that isn’t yet finished.’

Theodore looked again at Syria. ‘How long did it take to prepare?’ he asked.

‘Oh, it took months and months,’ I said with an airy wave. And that was no time at all, considering the magnitude of what had been done. I’d had to create almost a new class of officials to deduce population from the indirect evidence of the returns and then to compare three sets of figures, each of which had been collected in different ways. Would I find anyone, outside the circle of those I’d trained or inspired, able to appreciate how I’d carried light into regions of knowledge no one before had known to exist? Probably not, and I doubted Theodore would be among them. But my stimulant pills were doing their job. Here was the best audience I had.

Theodore was looking at the black and pale-blue banding that covered Africa. ‘And these numbers?’ he asked, beginning to sound oddly interested.

I stroked my nose. ‘Those refer to more detailed maps that show the differing qualities of land in each province,’ I said cautiously. I looked at the boy. His courage must return soon. I thought of putting a comforting hand on his arm. But it sounded so unnatural that I dropped the idea. ‘Come and sit with me on the balcony,’ I said. ‘Join me in a cup of lemon juice, and take in the beauties of Constantinople.’

The windows of my office faced west. Since the sun was still somewhat below its zenith, we could sit in shade. The view from here wasn’t so spectacular as from the other side. It was still plain, however, that you were looking over a city of barely conceivable wealth and magnificence. Looking only at the vastness of the land walls, two and a half miles away, no observer could mistake this place for one of those mere agglomerations of humanity that you read about in the farthest East. I settled myself into a chair lined with padded silk and poured two cups of the thin yellow liquid that would have to do in place of wine.

‘I won’t trouble you with false laments about the burden of work,’ I began. ‘But I do regret that I have been so busy since Christmas that we’ve hardly spoken.’ I raised a hand to cut off his formulaic reply. ‘You were a boy for so long after you came under my protection that I now have trouble accepting how close you have approached to manhood. It is my duty, as your father, to take a close interest in your plans for the future.’ I stopped. The sense of failed paternal duty was beginning to crush me. Perhaps, though, I should leave this till Martin got back. He was so much closer to Theodore than I had ever been.

I was still thinking what to say next — it should have contained something about Antonia — when Theodore broke in. ‘What is the purpose of your big map?’ he asked.

I tried not to brighten at the change of subject. I failed. I put my cup down and stared at the roof of the Law Faculty’s library. I’d passed many useful afternoons in that cavernous repository of oppression and chicanery. My duty was to speak to him as father to son. I took the easy way out.

‘The clerks who worked so hard to produce it still don’t understand the purpose of the map,’ I said, again cautious. We were alone, but I still looked about from habit. ‘What it does is pull together a series of conversations I’ve had with the Emperor during the past four years. You will be aware of the Empire’s difficult situation. The cause everyone talks about is the Persians. However, the military defeats we’ve suffered should really be seen as symptoms of a weakness more fundamental than a lack of competent generals.’

I drank slowly and gathered my thoughts. Theodore had asked his question and would get an answer. It would be an excuse for seeing how well I could summarise a long and difficult — and, at all points, controversial — argument. ‘The Empire, as it stands, cannot be defended,’ I began. ‘Its frontiers are too long, its enemies too numerous, its resources too limited. The loss of population that began with the arrival of plague seventy years ago has set a gulf between ancient and modern times. Italy and Africa can’t be made to pay for their own defence. Any tax gathering at all only makes things worse. It’s the same with everywhere between the Danube and Corinth. Egypt and Syria remain in better shape. But the decay of the Greek population in those provinces has allowed the emergence of dominant classes alien in language and heretical in religion. It’s no surprise that Syria fell so easily to the Persians, or that Egypt will soon fall.