Chapter 1
Baruch ben Matthias to Commander Aelius Spartianus, greetings.
If I didnt know any better, this could be Vindobona or Intercisa rather than Confluentes: Army posts are all the same. By now I can find my way around with my eyes closed. One-third of a mile square, barracks right, command post left, officers quarters swarming with deadly bored orderlies whod sell their mother for a transfer. Even commanding officers are beginning to resemble one another; they all look like middle-aged troopers thickening at the waist.
Speaking of which, Commander, I met your two brothers-in-law at Castra ad Herculem on the Danube: quarts of beef on legs, if you allow me. No wonder you do not go often to family reunions. Were you aware that you are now an uncle to seven nephews and nieces?
I will not bore you with the details of my travels and endeavors in the past month. Suffice to say that I left Egypt shortly before you, and here I am. Business is good, as I have widened my artistic and commercial scope to include sculpted epitaphs (in prose and in verses, with and without portrait of the defunct). Otherwise, aside from the economy, the situation on the northeastern border is what you probably already know. Theres no keeping aliens out, army or no army. For any three of them who are ferried back across the Danube, ten more sneak through by night. As long as an empire needs cheap labor, or ferry-men make a tidy living at the traffic, the matter of illegal settlement within the borders will stand.
But you are probably asking yourself the reason for my letter, so I come to the point. You may remember my daughter (the one whose cakes we ate at Antinoopolis when we met last year, and whose marriage was celebrated in Rome shortly thereafter). Her husband, Isaac, who is a German-born Jew, works as a supervisor in a brick factory south of here. Last week the owner of the brickworks, a man called Lupus, died of a malignant fever and, after all due ceremonies, was buried in the family plot. You may imagine my son-in-laws astonishment, Commander, upon returning to work this morning and finding Lupus at his desk, looking none the worse for his illness, death, and apparent resurrection. A fairy tale, you will say, or else Jewish exaggeration. None of it! My relative does not drink, unlike me he is an observant Jew unlikely to tell a lie, and besides, awe and fear struck all employees at the Figlinae Marci Lupi, to the extent that a couple of them took sick and several ran away swearing not to resume their work ever.
Now, of you—other than having fought against you nearly ten years ago—I know these things: that despite your barbarian origins you are educated, courageous, respectful of your gods but no more than it befits a high-ranking officer, and exceedingly curious. As a historian, you might be interested in recording that at the close of Our Lord Diocletians reign (may he be preserved, etc., as the formula goes), a dead man was brought back to life in the province of Belgica Prima. As an investigator with imperial leeway to inquire, you might wish to discover just what took place at Noviomagus. All I can add to my report is—but you presume this surely—that Lupus is a Christian, prosecution against his kind not having progressed in this neck of the woods, according to our Caesar Constantiuss (may the gods, etc.) tolerant view of the sect.
Keep in mind that I shall divide my time along the Rhine between Confluentes and a charming spot called Bingum, south of here. Will I ever get used to such silly city names? In Confluentes youll find me one door down from the keg-maker Erminius. Best regards and farewell. P.S. I heard that Constantiuss repudiated “wife” is not thrilled that her favorite son, Constantine, has made her a grandmother through Minervina. At half a century of age, Dame Helena keeps up more than appearances, being still as attractive to junior officers today as she was to Aelius Spartianus (so goes the gossip in the army camp) a few years ago. Do not worry, this letter is being hand-delivered by a trusted friend.
Written at Confluentes, north of Augusta Treverorum, Province of Belgica Prima, on 4 Kislev, Sunday, 19 November, day XIII before the Kalends of December.
South of Mogontiacum, 20 November 304 c.e., Monday
Aelius read ben Matthiass letter last, after the concise, badly written one from his father, complaining of “my only sons three years worth of absense from home,” and reporting his mothers “anziety that you havent yet taken a wife as you should.” Despite having retired as a colonel of the Seniores Gentiliorum, the old man had felt no desire to educate himself beyond what was needed these days to build a career—although others had become emperor with less. As for Aeliuss mother, she made sure to propose every six months a marriage prospect: soldiers daughters, landowners widows, or little girls whod have years of growing up before they could share a bed.
Dropping his parents letter in a box where others (each one practically identical to the rest) lay, Aelius was receiving a strange composite image of what his old enemy, the Jewish freedom fighter, had communicated. On one side was Helena, whod seduced him when she was exactly twice his age and left him lovesick like a calf, and on the other, this absurd tale of a dead man reborn. True to the Christians fame as hard workers, Lupus was apparently unable to think of anything better than returning to the office after resurrection. It made him simper, certain that ben Matthias was pulling his leg for whatever reason, sarcastic atheist that he was. But the composite image had a third side, hazy and lopsided, a sting to the heart: because Anubina had borne him a daughter in Egypt seven years before and but for her unwillingness to marry him after her husbands death, he could be writing to his mother to quit looking for a wife.
To be sure, the efficiency of the postal service never ceased to amaze him, yet couriers had been able to find him everywhere, even during the eastern campaigns. Therefore it was only logical that mail would reach him between Noviomagus and Mogontiacum (a few miles south of the latter, in fact), it being known that hed left Diocletians summer capital of Aspalatum nearly two weeks earlier, headed for Tergeste, and from there, across four provinces, already come less than two days from Constantiuss capital city. Hed spent the night, ben Matthias was right, in a place like every other, a stop on the side of the military road, with its stable and tavern, salesmen of shoddy wares, and whatever small industry typified the region. Here it was glassworks; farther ahead it might be pottery, or leather.
The early morning filled with haze the spaces between hills beyond; the straight road led into that haziness, and one could imagine any landscape beneath it: surely Mogontiacum, where the road forked, and then cultivated fields, fallow land bristling with the yellow weeds of late autumn, interminable woods. The Other World, even, if what the poets wrote was true, and constant mist is where the shades are obliged to spend eternity.
The reason given by his parents for the letter was his upcoming birthday, the thirtieth; but his father was wrong in saying he had not been home in three years. It was four and a half, and as far as he was concerned, Aelius felt no great need to go back.
When he mounted on horseback and rode out, heading to the northwest, the haze had not yet lifted. It might be midday before the sun burned it enough to leave the river land, the mountains across the bank, and all details bare and exposed to view. For now, as he proceeded, the mist seemed to recede, yet if he glanced back he could see that it closed behind him, too. How many times had he ridden through the fog to battle, or back to camp, or away from camp. Fog seemed always the same, but hed cut through it in anticipation, or mum fear, or exhaustion. The Other World had better not be like this, or else it was desirable to return from it, as Lupus the brick-maker had apparently done.
Carrying His Divinitys messages for Constantius meant that everywhere doors opened to him, and he had precedence over others waiting to go past checkpoints or manned bridges. He had, in fact, made such comparatively good time from Aspalatum that he was a full day early. Given that the complex ceremonial did not allow for an early call any more than it tolerated lateness, there would be time to stop and see ben Matthias at the army town of Bingum, three or four hours north of Mogontiacum on the river road. It was where he headed now, expecting to reach it by noon.
Constantius he had met during a summer tour of duty at court in Diocletians eastern capital, Nicomedia, but not seen in the few intervening years. One of the two vice-emperors groomed to take power next May at Diocletians and Maximians expected resignation, he had impressed Aelius as a solid general who had asked that staff officers be presented to him after an army review. One by one hed greeted them, a massive, pale, bulge-eyed man with crooked thumbs who had married his colleague Maximians daughter and put away not—as ben Matthias wrote—his first wife but his long-term concubine Helena.
It was a time, that summer, when Helena was as filled with hateful resentment as any ambitious woman snubbed after climbing from obscurity to privilege. That she had never been able to get Constantius to marry her was her principal regret, but there it was. Aelius recalled courtiers and priests taking turns at her side, at any one time seemingly convincing her to embrace one lifestyle or another. The first time she had let him into her bedroom shed told him it might be the last, since she was considering a religious life (she had not decided whether Jewish or Christian). The second, shed informed him of his numerical rank among her lovers. The third, shed mentioned dreaming that she would be a saint and altars would be raised to her. With the doltish flattery of youth, Aelius had said that her bed was an altar already, as far as he was concerned, and shed given him special liberties that day. Constantius knew, of course, as everything was known at his colleagues court. “Tickle her under her navel,” hed unexpectedly advised him one morning at the baths, in good humor. “She loves that.”
From the haze, as Aelius proceeded, on both sides of the road the long walls of fortified farms appeared now and then, whitewashed or brick red in the distance, with their avenues of pruned trees or hedges. In that murkiness, serfs laboring to prepare the fields for winter, and gray crows pricking the mist over them, all had the ghostly appearance of beings from the Other World; or, if not of Hades, they reminded him of battlefields once things were over and a commander paced across them to recognize his dead and collect their cheap rings in a satchel, for the families. Lupus the Christian, dead and buried—as Christians did not believe in cremation—sealed presumably under a monument appropriate to his state, had come back to life. Nonsense, of course. But Aelius could not help thinking of friends and companions lost during the wars. Were they likely to walk back, to come toward him from the haze of death, and feel the flesh once more?
By and by—he had already crossed Mogontiacums streets, where one barely saw the point of ones nose—the sun burned away fog and river mist. To the east, the great Rhine was revealed then, whenever the road climbed enough to show its lucid waters braiding in the wake of heavy vessels. They silently followed the current northward, to dock no doubt at any of the ten and more cities between here and the ocean. Not seafaring boats, but flat-bottomed barges carrying beer and wine, salted pork, and whatever else the army marches on. A sharp odor of stubble fires came from the fields, over whose expanse smoke idled in the windless day; night patrols returned to camp in the distance, advancing in order along the tracks, invisible from here, that crisscrossed the land.
When civilian monuments and a number of military burials became more frequent along the river road, in a closer and closer crowd, Aelius knew he was approaching the next settlement. According to the milestone, Bingum, the town whose name made ben Matthias smile, lay only four miles away.
Confluentes, Province of Belgica Prima
The mark on Lupuss bricks was, predictably, his namesake wolfs silhouette, with the letters ex fig ma lupi ren arranged around it in the hollow of a crescent. The triangular piece of fired clay, clean and unused, sat on the table of Baruch ben Matthiass well-lit, well-appointed workshop near the southern gate of town. Aelius studied it, his ear to the hollow sound of mallets pounding wood at the keg-makers next door. “Ex figlinis Marci Lupi: from Marcus Lupuss brickworks. Dont tell me the ren stands for what I think, Baruch.”
“It does: renatus, for ‘reborn.” Pouring wine into two paunchy green goblets, the painter observed, “I thought you were in Nicomedia and my letter would take weeks to reach you. But you must come from Aspalatum instead, and in a hurry.” Aelius kept mum. “You understand that I am just setting up my franchises here, Commander,” ben Matthias added, even though he hadnt been asked to justify his presence so far from home. “It isnt like I am permanently moving from Egypt to catch cold along this frontier.”
“Well, I noticed that your toughs are traveling with you.” Aelius smiled, refusing with a small wave of the hand the offer of wine from his former enemy.
“Toughs? Theyre not toughs, theyre my sons and relatives. Besides, with all respect for imperial military organization, these long stretches of solitary road between posts and cities call for some precautions. Cutthroats are strewn all over the woodland. I see that—on the contrary—you still travel without an escort.”
“Ah, thats where youre wrong. My horsemen are around.”
Ben Matthias took a sip from one of the two goblets. “This years vintage,” he said, smacking his lips. “Not bad for a white wine.” To his experienced eye, in the weeks since they had last met in Theos spice shop at Antinoopolis, Aelius had been indoors or traveling in northern climates, as hed entirely lost his tan. He was otherwise the same tall and agile cavalry officer ben Matthias had fought during the Rebellion, coming close to killing him. Armenia (or the worries of a career at court) had made him precociously gray-haired, and only because he was fair did the obvious contrast between young age and hoariness appear less strident. Signaling the semiofficial nature of his visit by not removing the northern frontier army cap known as a “Pannonian felt,” a low, dark red cylinder worn by all ranks, he kept observing curiously the brick on the table.
“Its the first marked piece to come out of the brick factory after the resurrection, and you understand I couldnt pass it up,” ben Matthias commented with merriment. “Its a matter of time before some Christian deacon or pious lady comes looking for it, and therell be a bidding war to own a souvenir of the miracle. Just in case, I have ten more in the back room. If you need one to bring proof to Our Lord et cetera, we can agree on a fair price. I already told my son-in-law that you want to meet Marcus Lupus, so if you have time tonight, it can be arranged.”
“Tonight I dine with the staff officers at court. What about tomorrow morning?”
“Ill see what I can do.” Ben Matthias smirked in his beard. “Court, eh? Well, they do say the scent of power whets ones appetite. By the way, if I were you Id also try to see the miracle worker. Otherwise its like sitting in the audience of a magician without knowing the trick.”
“Right. Whos he?”
“His Christian name is Agnus, better known among his own as Pyrikaios, the ‘fire waker.” Again ben Matthias had that look of spiteful amusement, although Aelius assumed that—for all his protestations of atheism—his Jewish sensitivity was offended by the claim that a human being could bring back to life another. “His followers swear that he has made the lame walk and the blind see in towns of Germania Superior and Inferior, but this time he beat all records of miracle working. They say he himself was amazed by his powers! Like all good stage magicians, our man has a female assistant, Casta by name, and I hear that in order to see him you have to make an appointment through her. Yes, yes, I know, I thought that, too: Only in a brothel do you set up an appointment through a woman. Well, what can I say? Thats what I hear.”
At a second offer, Aelius did accept the wine, a more than passable Moselle served without water added. “I suppose you also know how I may find her.”
“Interesting that you should ask. She rooms at Augusta Treverorum with a group of old women, not far from Middle Gate, outside of which the Christians have one of their burial areas. The name of the alley is Solis et Lunae.” Ben Matthias counted on his fingers, looking up. “First, second—no, third house from the left exiting town, with a painted garland across the front. See how good I can be, and charge you nothing? Why, no! What are you thinking? You offend me, Commander. I wouldnt dream of asking you to drop a word in my favor with Our Lord Constantius, even though theres such a competition for army commissions of tombstones and monuments, and were all climbing on one anothers backs to beat the others. Its enough for me to be able to claim that Commander Aelius Spartianus, praefectus Alae Ursicianae in the Persian campaign, His Divinitys official historian, has come to me for a fashionable headstone.”
Aelius laughed at the outrageous proposal. “As long as you do not put it in writing on your shop sign, and make all due conjurations while you carve my likeness.”
Augusta Treverorum, 21 November, Tuesday
Constantiuss capital in the old Gallic province of Belgica Prima featured all the bureaucratic buildings expected of its rank, and naturally a noteworthy bridge on the Moselle. A gray city nonetheless, its dull-colored stones seemed to absorb what morning light came through the clouds. It was one of those sunny moments in the midst of rain elsewhere, when open arches and columns assume the opacity of bone against the stormy sky, but white kerchiefs and white shawls on womens heads seem blinding. Aelius, due to meet the co-ruler for breakfast, was up early and did his waiting in true military form, straddling the floor with arms crossed, looking ahead.
Soon he was to see that despite his well-wishing official titles—Germanicus, Britannicus, Sarmaticus, Persicus Maximus, and more, some granted four times over—Flavius Valerius Constantius no longer looked Herculean or semidivine, far from it. He had aged greatly since the summer in Nicomedia, to the extent that Aelius had to guard himself from showing surprise when he was permitted to glance up at him. As if he were collapsing from within, the old mans stoutness had become flaccid; the handshake (exceptionally granted after the fairly abasing bows and greetings required by ceremonial these days) felt soft and damp, like a wet glove. Yet Constantius dressed his decay with enormous luxury—gold clasps the size of a childs hands, a fanciful uniform that one never saw in the field but only on painted walls of army shrines. “Aelius Bartariuss nephew,” he said. “You favor him, especially around the eyes.”
In his youth Constantius had soldiered with Aeliuss uncle (incidentally Aeliuss mothers first husband) and seen him fall in battle, as he recalled now, “in Germany, protecting the colors.” That he had the real commanders gift of remembering his officers names, he went on to prove. “And youre Aelius Spartuss son.”
Considering he was to become one of the two principal rulers of the Empire in a matter of months, only because of that old friendship did he allow a face-to-face conversation. Still, Aelius had to be told specifically that he was to behave as though conversing with a superior in rank, not the lord of the world.
“And do look up, boy: I cant be talking to the crown of your head.”
The room—not a throne hall, rather like an administrative office—was severe, even lacking in elegance. By the desk, for the imperial breakfast, a small table had been set with peeled boiled eggs, olives, bright red fish roe. Sitting heavily on a stool, Constantius prepared himself to eat. “Here.” He motioned with a dainty knife for Aelius to step over. “Stand where I can see you as I talk.”
Reports that he would have to cross over to Britain sooner or later and fight a major war were known to all. In fact, his regular seat these weeks was Gesoriacum, on the far shore to the northwest. “Trouble on the islands border, Im sure youve heard,” he said, and Aelius noticed there was something like a whistle that came from his chest when he spoke. “At times it seems that this goddamned Empire has nothing but borders, like a loaf of bread that is nothing but crust.”
“Crust is tougher than crumb, Your Tranquillity.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better or worse?” Constantius bit through an egg, halving it. “Your poor uncle, I remember him well on the frontier south of here, when the barbarians caught us by surprise in the river mist. His last wish was that his young widow marry his brother. Being that a woman bears the imprint of the man who deflowered her, I want to hope that in a way youre a son to both men.” Bits of sticky yolk curdled at the side of his mouth, and he did not bother to dab them off. “These foggy days I remember my dead friends better than those breathing around me. Men who never betrayed, those.” Yes, Constantius had been all fat and muscle in Nicomedia. Now his neck hung with empty flesh, chin and mouth dominated the face, and his hands seemed too large for the meager wrists.
As if come to his next subject by a roundabout reasoning about betrayal, he added, “You notice that I manage to avoid religious strife in my piece of the imperial cake, crust or crumb. From the start, I met the heads of the local Christians and struck an agreement: You abide by His Divinitys first edict, give up or burn your books, quit practicing, make no trouble, and I will be merciful.” Constantius looked at him directly, with his bulging, mud-colored eyes. “You havent heard of any trouble made by the Christians hereabouts, have you?”
“None, sir,” Aelius hastened to say. “Well—only the story of the brick-maker, but I am not certain one could term it trouble.”
“It could become trouble.” Difficult to judge how serious Constantius was in saying it. Hed been notorious for his humor in the past, much to the vexation of his imperial counterpart Diocletian, of whom it was said that “hed been seen laughing only once, but the witness was a deaf and blind man.” Constantius picked at his food, sucking rather than chewing it. With a long-handled, minute spoon he laid fish roe on the egg he had in hand, and was quick to lap it off when it threatened to slide down. “I can put up with healing and such, but this! Imagine if those executed by prosecution elsewhere in the Empire—the Christians, I mean—were to resurrect after crucifixion, beheading, and such. Not to speak of those sent to the arena: Itd be quite the spectacle seeing them come back alive in the belly of the animals that tore them to shreds. Would a leg activate in the paunch of a lion, and an arm in that of a panther? Would the limbs magically reunite being vomited out, or would we witness the birth of monsters, half beasts, half humans?”
“I think its a tale, Your Tranquillity. Such claims have been made by charlatans before, many times. The fact remains that not even the legendary Pentheus came back to life after the enraged women lynched him.”
Constantius dropped the argument afterward. He ate all that was on the table, pensively chewing on the blue-green olives and swallowing their stones. According to ceremonial, the official reply to His Divinitys message would be handed to his envoy in a sealed envelope by the head of the palace staff, the day after the meeting. What surprised Aelius, however, was that Constantiuss first private question had not been about his son. For years Constantine had lived as a high-ranking hostage at Nicomedia by order of Diocletian, who had a farmers good sense not to trust alliances without guarantees.
Perhaps His Divinitys message gave assurances about the young mans health and well-being. Perhaps not. Aelius fretted. Did Constantius wait to hear from him a spontaneous declaration, directly from his sons mouth? There had been none. Officially informed of Aeliuss errand, Constantine sent no message for his father. He was biding his time, it seemed to those who knew him, spending a good part of the day in the gymnasium exercising as if the future were a great bodily struggle to which he would be called sooner rather than later. Like Maximians own son Maxentius, his peer, he awaited the two emperors abdication to see how the rich loaf of the Empire would be carved, and how close to the plate he would find himself.
So Aelius stood in silence, trying to think of a way he could convey a greeting from Constantine without blatantly inventing something.
“Hows my son?” Finally Constantius capitulated. “Being his age and at court, I assume you saw something of each other in Nicomedia.”
“He was well when I saw him last April, sir. As a new father, hell be naturally taken with the pride of the occasion.”
“Youre right, yes. Is the child truly curly-haired?” A sudden spiteful turn of the lips made Constantius look sour, not at all accommodating. “Otherwise, why would he call him Crispus, instead of giving him my name?”
“I have not seen the boy. But since Lady Minervina is wavy-haired, it stands to reason—”
Rising suddenly from the stool, Constantius unsteadied the small table, so that plates clacked and slid across it, without falling. “All right, you may go.” His hollow voice was not irritated, not exactly, and in fact the gesture bidding Aelius to leave had a forbearing tardiness. “Still working on imperial biographies, I hear. Which one now?”
The question caught the envoy while he backed toward the door, as required. “The life of Severus, Your Tranquillity.”
“Septimius or Alexander?”
“Septimius Severus, the African.”
“Hm.” Constantius grunted. “Not a lucky one with his sons, either.” Copyright © 2008 by Ben Pastor. All rights reserved.