Douglas Jackson: Saviour of Rome

Valerius blinked. On closer inspection it was a model of an arena. An enormous amphitheatre that dwarfed everything in the city except the even vaster Circus Maximus.

‘You think me a hypocrite, Verrens?’

‘No, Caesar.’ Valerius almost choked on the words. ‘It’s magnificent.’

‘It will seat up to eighty thousand spectators. I fear there will be no great military advances during my reign, so I must give my people spectacle instead of victory. Of course, I may be dead by the time it’s complete. Titus! I’ve just been showing Verrens how we’re going to fill in Nero’s boating lake.’

‘Consul,’ Valerius bowed as Titus entered the room by a hidden doorway.

‘Have you told him how you’re going to pay for it, Father?’

‘I was just coming to that. Come, we will sit in the sunshine on the balcony. Bring wine,’ he called to a slave hovering nearby. ‘I find the sun eases my old bones.’ He eased himself on to a padded couch beyond the window and Valerius and Titus joined him. ‘How will we pay for it? I expect we will borrow. I’ve squeezed the Jews once to rebuild the Temple of Jupiter; I doubt even they can afford twice-’

Titus saw Valerius frown and interrupted his father’s flow of words. ‘You’re wondering why we don’t use the treasures of Jerusalem?’

‘It would seem a possible solution,’ Valerius agreed.

Titus grimaced as he remembered the aftermath of the siege: the great temple a tower of flame, the bittersweet scent of roasting flesh and the long lines of wagons filled with plunder. ‘All that gold. I thought it limitless at the time. A thousand kings’ ransoms …’

‘But we’ve discovered that even a king’s ransom doesn’t go very far when it comes to running an empire,’ Vespasian resumed. ‘I will be candid with you, Verrens: it turns out that this empire I have inherited is on the very brink of financial disaster. The treasury empty, officials white-faced and trembling with fear when I approach, and the mints tell us that the silver denarii issued by Nero during his tenure are considerably less silver than they should be. It means every denarius we do have is worth twenty per cent less than its face value.’ He sipped his wine and sent a meaningful glance in the direction of the treasury in the Temple of Saturn on the far side of the Forum. ‘Eventually I will be forced to raise taxes and squeeze the provinces, but that will make me unpopular. An emperor cannot afford to be unpopular so early in his reign, particularly a New Man whose father was a tax farmer. But the problem is not silver-’

‘It’s gold,’ Titus intervened for a second time. ‘And that is why we have asked you here. I’m afraid your Empire must ask one last service of you, Valerius.’

‘Your Emperor,’ his father corrected. ‘The problem lies in the goldfields of Hispania Tarraconensis. During the late war, particularly after the death of Servius Sulpicius Galba, the legions of the province were riven by division over their loyalties, firstly between Vitellius and Otho, and later between Vitellius and myself.’ The shrewd blue eyes held Valerius. ‘I attach no blame. When Vitellius marched from Germania in such overwhelming force every man was forced to make a choice. At that time there was no certain outcome and no certain legitimacy.’

As a lawyer Valerius could have argued that this was semantics. Otho had been hailed Emperor by the Senate and people of Rome, but since Vespasian had been in the same position as Vitellius when his own legions marched on Italia it didn’t seem politic to make the point.

‘Even individual cohorts of the same legion were split over who to support,’ the Emperor continued. ‘With no guidance from Rome, and little more from Tarraco, individual unit commanders were forced to act on their own authority, with varying degrees of success. In the north, around Asturica Augusta, local tribespeople, who had long been thought to be fully Romanized, sensed this weakness and attacked our convoys and supply depots. The supply of gold dropped to a trickle, most of it from the mines around Carthago Nova in the south.’

‘Naturally, the treasury officials were concerned,’ Titus said. ‘But they assumed the mines were operating as normal and storing the gold until it could be safely dispatched. They have been proved wrong. Although the supply has increased, it is still much less than it was before Galba left Spain, and much of the backlog is unaccounted for. We have had various excuses about lower yields, labour problems and continuing trouble from bandits.’

‘With respect, sir,’ Valerius addressed Vespasian. ‘You have been Emperor for two years. Surely the legions are no longer divided? A proconsul with five thousand legionaries at his back should be able to get the mines working again and teach the natives a lesson.’

‘That may well be true, young man, but there are no five thousand legionaries. At the end of the civil war the Batavian revolt was at its height and threatening to ignite the entire Empire. I was forced to assign the First Adiutrix and most of the Tenth and Sixth legions to join Petilius Cerialis on the Rhenus. I cannot release them until we are certain the entire area is pacified and the threat from east of the river extinguished. Our entire presence in Hispania consists of a few auxiliary units, a vexillation of the Sixth based at Legio in the north and another from the Tenth at Carthago Nova, and they are scattered across the country providing security.’

‘My father replaced the proconsul with a man he trusts: Gaius Plinius Secundus.’

‘Pliny?’ Valerius frowned at the mention of the familiar name. Pliny was an old friend and fellow lawyer who had spoken for him at his trial for treason.

‘Plinius Secundus must deal with his own problems in the south before he can venture to the northern goldfields,’ Titus continued. ‘In the meantime he has asked us to send him a special agent he can dispatch to Asturica Augusta. A man with a nose for trouble, subtle and versed in the ways of the law, but capable of wielding a sword at need. A lawyer and a soldier. In short, Valerius, you.’

‘The Empire cannot function without gold,’ the Emperor continued relentlessly, ‘and our most prolific source is the goldfields of Hispania. I am appointing you legatus iuridicus metallorum , with a warrant giving you full powers to inspect all aspects of metalworking in northern Hispania. The decision will be yours, in discussion with the proconsul, of course, whether you use these powers overtly or covertly. Is something troubling you, Verrens?’

‘My apologies, Caesar,’ Valerius bowed; he’d barely been listening. ‘I’ve just recalled that I have an old friend who had connections with Asturica.’

Titus laughed. ‘Your Spanish wolf. The man I told you about, Father, the one who rescued me from the Judaean skinning knives.’

Vespasian gave him the look of a commander who believed generals should never allow themselves to end up within range of skinning knives, Judaean or otherwise.

‘We left Serpentius with the medicus of the Twelfth,’ Valerius said. ‘When he recovered from his wounds he intended to take ship direct to Hispania. The generous bounty you provided would have purchased him a small estate. He talked of planting vines and olive trees, but it is difficult to imagine a wolf pushing a plough.’

‘You have heard nothing from him?’

Valerius shook his head. ‘For all I know he could be dead.’

Serpentius clawed his way up through a dark pit of insensibility like a swimmer struggling towards the surface of a pitch black sea. Gradually it returned to him. The room with the scrolls. The spreading pool of darkness beneath his friend’s bowed head. The triumphant, malignant faces. And finally the explosion of light he thought had ended it all. He opened his eyes and a soft whimper escaped him at the terrible finality of eternal night. He was blind.