Emperor of Rome Read online

  To everyone who has taken the time to read the Vespasian series; I thank you all.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  PART I

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  PART II

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  CHAPTER XII

  PART III

  CHAPTER XIII

  CHAPTER XIV

  CHAPTER XV

  CHAPTER XVI

  PART IIII

  CHAPTER XVII

  CHAPTER XVIII

  CHAPTER XIX

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  THE VIA POSTUMIA BETWEEN

  CREMONA AND BEDRIACUM IN THE

  VENETIA AND HISTRIA REGION OF

  ITALIA, 15 APRIL AD 69

  CHAOS WAS AN understatement. The shambolic deployment from column to line was in marked contrast to the neat cohorts drawn up, chequerboard, straddling the Via Postumia; with the River Po on their right flank, they blocked the way to Cremona. Tens of thousands of legionaries and auxiliaries stood in silence, burnished helms glowing soft in the dawning rays of sun, watching their enemy struggle to form battle order. But it was not because the deploying army was a mass of ill-disciplined barbarians that there was disarray, nor was it a lack of generalship; quite the contrary. It was a surfeit of generalship that this army suffered from, for, in the absence of the Emperor, Marcus Salvius Otho, no one man was fully in command. There was nothing wrong with the troops’ discipline either, for they too, like their opponents, were Roman.

  And this was civil war.

  Titus Flavius Sabinus grimaced as he watched the centurions of the five Praetorian Guard cohorts, under his command, bawl and beat their parade-ground soldiers into a new position, the orders having changed for the third time since the sighting of the foe. How had it come to this, he wondered, raising his eyes and surveying the army of the Rhenus that had marched south, in a two-pronged attack, in support of the man they had hailed as emperor, Aulus Vitellius, the noted gourmand and Governor of Germania Inferior. How, in under a year since Nero’s suicide, having been declared an enemy of the state by the Senate, had it reached the point that there were two emperors and Roman blood would be spilt?

  Caecina Alienus and Fabius Valens, the two Vitellian generals, had surprised the forces loyal to Otho, the Emperor in Rome, by the speed of their advance and descent into Italia so early in the season. Otho’s response had been to try to negotiate a settlement; however, he had been rebuffed.

  Thus, civil war had become the only choice for Otho if he were not to immediately abdicate by committing suicide. And it was here, in the Po Valley, that the issue would be decided.

  Sabinus’ father and namesake, the elder Sabinus, prefect of the city of Rome under Nero, had been replaced by his successor, Galba, and then reinstated by Otho, who had also promised the younger Sabinus a consulship. And so the family found themselves on the Othonian side of the civil war.

  But for how long? Judging by the army’s situation, not long was the younger Sabinus’ assessment; confusion had reigned all around him since he had started to bring his command across the Po before dawn to join the main body of the Othonian army. ‘Otho should have stayed here with us rather than retire to Brixellum,’ he observed to his second in command, mounted next to him, ‘then, Nerva, we might have a clear command structure rather than this … this …’ He indicated to the Legio I Adiutrix, recently formed from marines of the Misinium fleet, deploying directly onto the right flank of his own command and having difficulty forming the chequerboard, quincunx formation due to the baggage train being in the wrong position.

  Marcus Cocceius Nerva, who at thirty-nine was three years Sabinus’ senior, sucked the air through his teeth. ‘Otho has been badly advised throughout this campaign; although, with no military experience, having him here wouldn’t make much difference. He’s great fun at dinner but on the battlefield he’d be worse than a man short. He’s like his brother Titianus when it comes to organisation, but perhaps marginally more efficient.’

  ‘And, as Titianus’ brother-in-law, you should know.’

  ‘It’s because I made the mistake of marrying Titianus’ sister that I’m obliged to be here witnessing this.’ Nerva looked in disbelief at the shambles unfolding. ‘Gods, but we could do with the infantry and cavalry Otho took with him; forty-odd thousand against our thirty; does he need that large a bodyguard so far from the enemy? It’s lost us the battle before it’s even begun.’

  Sabinus shook his head and turned to the thin-stripe military tribune awaiting orders behind his superiors. ‘Has our personal baggage been taken to the rear?’

  The lad nodded, trying to keep the fear from his expression with a false smile. ‘Yes, sir; and the spare horses you asked for.’

  Sabinus nodded with grim satisfaction and turned back to his companion. ‘We put up a decent show, then get out as fast as possible and surrender to Valens, hopefully.’

  ‘That would seem the wisest course of action. And then we become the ardent supporters of Vitellius until …’ Nerva left the sentence hanging.

  ‘Until what?’

  Nerva lowered his voice and leant closer to Sabinus. ‘I heard that your father made a trip to Judaea during the time that Galba relieved him as prefect of Rome.’

  Sabinus kept his face neutral; Vitellian horns sounded their advance. ‘Maybe; but it’s no business of yours.’

  Nerva was not to be deterred. ‘He returned soon after Otho had assassinated Galba and the Senate declared him emperor, just before the news arrived that Vitellius had been hailed as such on the Rhenus.’

  Sabinus concentrated his attention on the river where two thousand gladiators, making up the rest of his unlikely command, were in danger of being caught disembarking from the flotilla that had ferried them across.

  Nerva pressed his point. ‘It wasn’t a sightseeing trip, I’m sure. Your uncle, Vespasian, commands the eastern legions putting down the Jewish revolt. That’s a powerful force. My guess is that your father and uncle had some in-depth conversations about how this crisis would play out and, if I’m right in thinking, Galba, Otho and Vitellius aren’t the only emperors that we’ll see this year. The question is: who’ll get the prize, your father or your uncle? But, just so you know, I’ll support either of them.’

  Titus Flavius Sabinus did not respond but, rather, busied himself by sending the tribune with orders to the gladiators to keep themselves positioned hard on the bank of the Po so as to prevent the Batavian auxiliaries, advancing towards them, from outflanking them. His mind, however, was elsewhere: he wondered how Nerva had come by this information and who else knew of his father’s secret errand.

  Otho slumped back in his chair and looked up along the line of sullen faces; none of his generals could meet his eye as they apprised him of the calamitous defeat. And calamitous it had been: the Vitellian forces had shown no quarter to their fellow citizens with different loyalties as, through the convention of civil war, they could be neither sold nor ransomed so were therefore worthless to them; thousands had been slaughtered. ‘It’s over, then,’ Otho said, fingering the tip of one of the two daggers on the desk before him.

  ‘The rest of the Moesian legions could still come to your aid,’ Otho’s older brother, Salvius Titianus, urged as he saw despair in his sibling’s eyes and, therefore, probable execution in his own future.

  Otho shook his head with regret; his face was handsome and melancholic but running to fat after ten years of
luxurious exile as Governor of Lusitania. ‘It was my mistake not to wait for them to arrive in the first place. I thought that delay would bring disaster; now I find the very opposite to be the truth.’ He paused, reflecting upon his position, running a hand through the thick curls of his hair. ‘Am I to expose your courage and valour to further risks? That would, I believe, be too great a price for my life. It was Vitellius who initiated our contest for the throne and began this war, but it is I who shall end it; let this one battle be enough. This is the precedent that I shall set and posterity shall judge me by it.’ Otho stood, looking down at his two blades. ‘I am not the man to allow the flower of Roman martial strength to be mown down senselessly and thereby weaken our Empire. So, gentlemen, I take consolation in the fact that you were prepared to die for me, but you must live. I will not interfere with your chances of pardon so don’t attempt to interfere with my resolve.’

  *

  ‘And did he do it then and there?’ the elder Sabinus asked his son.

  ‘No, Father.’ The younger Sabinus took a draught of warmed wine, draining the cup. ‘It was rather embarrassing; he praised our loyalty, even though he knew that we had deserted him in our minds some time ago. Then he sent us on our way, saying that with his death and his mercy for Vitellius’ family he was earning Vitellius’ gratitude, thus buying our lives.’

  The elder Sabinus grunted, refilling his son’s cup. ‘Very noble, I’m sure. Then did he do it?’

  ‘No; he went to quell a disturbance amongst his remaining troops who had tried to stop some of us from leaving the camp.’

  ‘Not you?’

  ‘No, Father; I stayed as you had told me to, so as to see it done.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And once he had calmed his men he returned to his tent, drank a cup of iced water, tested the sharpness of his daggers and then, choosing one, retired to bed with it under his pillow. Believe it or not, he slept deeply the whole night through.’

  ‘That shows remarkable nerve.’

  ‘It was impressive and made more so by the fact that as soon as he awoke at dawn he reached for his dagger and fell out of bed onto it without a sound.’

  The elder Sabinus rubbed his near-bald pate and contemplated this as a light draught made the oil-lamp on the desk between them gutter, causing shadows to drift back and forth across his rounded face, dominated by a bulbous nose. Night had long since fallen; they were sitting in his study in the house on Rome’s Quirinal Hill that he had inherited from his uncle, Gaius Vespasius Pollo, after his suicide at Nero’s command, three years previously. ‘And that was dawn two days ago?’

  ‘Yes, Father; I rode fast, pausing only to change horses, to bring the news.’

  ‘Good lad. So, at the moment, we’re the only people in Rome to know?’

  ‘I would think so; no one could’ve got here faster. Otho was warm when I left.’

  The elder Sabinus steepled his fingers and brushed them over his lips. With a slow nod, he came to a decision. ‘Very well. I’ll assemble the Praetorian Cohorts remaining in the city as well as the Urban Cohorts and the Vigiles at dawn tomorrow and administer the oath to Vitellius; that will force the Senate to recognise him as emperor. Get yourself back north and surrender to the Vitellians; tell them what I have done to secure the city for them. That should keep us safe for the moment.’ Sabinus winked at his son. ‘Especially if you add that I have taken both the Vitellius brothers’ wives and children under my protection. That will concentrate their minds.’

  ‘You play a dangerous game, Father.’

  ‘No one ever won by being nice. Tell the Vitellii, I’ll be more than happy to send them their families if they write to me requesting it; they’ll understand what that means.’

  ‘Confirmation of your position as prefect of Rome and …?’

  ‘And you keep the consulship that you’re due to take up at the end of this month.’

  ‘What happens then?’

  The elder Sabinus tapped his fingers against his lips. ‘Then? Then we shall see.’

  ‘Come here, my boy!’ Aulus Vitellius’ great bulk prevented him from reaching down too far and so a stool had been placed next to him on the dais. His six-year-old son stepped onto it to be enfolded into his father’s many layers of blubber. Lifting the boy, Vitellius presented him to the ranks of legionaries, making up his escort, and the crowd of senators and equestrians, newly arrived in Lugdunum, the provincial capital of Narbonese Gaul, to hail their new Emperor as he processed in Triumph from Germania Inferior to Rome. ‘I name him Germanicus after the province whence I launched my glorious bid for empire. I confer upon Germanicus the right to wear imperial insignia and confirm him as my sole heir before my victorious legions.’

  Rapture greeted this statement as Vitellius’ victorious troops hailed their Emperor – the fact that they had not taken part in the battle but had, rather, escorted Vitellius on his slow, gastronomical progress through Gaul was conveniently overlooked.

  The younger Sabinus joined in the adulation; as the consul heading the senatorial delegation that had come to congratulate the new Emperor, it was only right that he should be seen to be most enthusiastic as this hippopotamus of a man wrapped himself in the dignity of the Purple.

  ‘You might not believe it,’ Sabinus whispered to Nerva, next to him, ‘but my father met Vitellius at Tiberius’ villa on Capreae when he was a teenager. He was lithe and beautiful and much prized by Tiberius for his, shall we say, oral skills, and I don’t mean as an orator.’

  Nerva looked at Sabinus, incredulous, as he kept up his applause. ‘No?’

  ‘It’s true; he even offered my father a demonstration of his art. You wouldn’t have thought it looking at him now; I suppose he must have learnt the joys of hedonism kneeling at the feet of Tiberius, so to speak.’

  ‘Not only hedonism,’ Nerva said, indicating to more than fifty prisoners, wearing only unbelted tunics, like women, being led out for execution, their heads, which they were soon to lose, held high. ‘There was no need for this: making an example of the centurions who most vigorously supported Otho.’

  With a solemn countenance Sabinus masked his satisfaction that Vitellius was acting to character. ‘This will not please the Moesian legions.’

  Nerva concurred. ‘I was a part of the delegation of former Othonian officers sent to induce them to return to their bases and swear allegiance to Vitellius. They only did so grudgingly as they saw no alternative.’

  They may see an alternative soon, Sabinus thought as the first head fell to the ground in a spray of blood, and when news of this gets out, the Moesian legions will want their revenge.

  The silence of Vitellius’ troops was almost physical as head after severed head rolled across the ground turned to mud by gore; the silence deepened so that it pierced, eventually, the thick skin of the Emperor, his face flushed with the joy of cruelty. As the last body slumped, Vitellius tore his gaze away from death and looked about him; gradually his eyes registered nervousness as he perceived the heavy atmosphere. He cleared his throat. ‘Bring the generals!’

  ‘I hope he decides to spare them after that bloodbath,’ Sabinus whispered, wishing the exact opposite. ‘We’ve had enough vengeance for one day.’ And, in truth, as he watched the two Othonian generals, Suetonius Paulinus and Licinius Proculus, as well as Salvius Titianus, the brother of the dead Emperor, led forward and forced to kneel before Vitellius, Sabinus felt relief that he was not also in that position. It had been his father’s shrewd offer of protection to Vitellius’ family that had secured his pardon and consulship. Then he had been given the dubious honour, by Vitellius himself, of returning to Rome to escort his son north and deliver him to his imperial father; a task he had completed with great ceremony as if it had been the pinnacle of his career.

  ‘And what have you to say for yourselves?’ Vitellius demanded. Folds of fat wobbled beneath his clothing as he shook with indignation at the sight of the men who had opposed him.

  ‘You should rewar
d us, not accuse us, Princeps,’ Paulinus said, his voice steady and loud so it carried over the assembly, ‘for it is to us, not Valens and Caecina, that you owe your victory.’

  Vitellius stared down at the prisoners, baffled; his mouth opened and closed as he struggled to comprehend just what had been said.

  ‘It was us,’ Proculus insisted, ‘who created the circumstances whereby a victory for Otho was inconceivable.’

  ‘How so?’ Vitellius demanded, regaining his composure and control of his mouth.

  ‘By insisting that Otho attack immediately, before the bulk of the Moesian legions arrived.’

  Paulinus nodded in vigorous agreement. ‘Yes, and then pushing our troops into a long march so as to arrive as quickly as possible into contact when there was no need to rush.’

  ‘Our men were exhausted by the time we arrived,’ Proculus confirmed, backing up the argument. ‘And then we made the deployment from column to line a shambles by issuing counter-orders to each other’s commands and then revoking them.’ That, having witnessed it, Sabinus could believe. ‘Plus, why else would we have placed wagons all through our lines if not to make forming battle order even harder?’

  Vitellius studied the two generals and Titianus, who had remained silent throughout. ‘Are you telling me that you sabotaged the battle? And what about you, Titianus? Did you betray your own brother?’

  Titianus looked up with weary eyes. ‘No, Princeps; I didn’t need to. My innate inefficiency meant that, whatever I was given to do, I was more of a hindrance than a help.’

  Vitellius nodded. ‘I can believe that. I’m minded to spare you anyway as you cannot be blamed for supporting your own brother; and your ineptitude is legendary. I pity the man who would ask for your help.’

  ‘I too, Princeps. Thank you.’

  Vitellius turned his attention back to the other two defeated generals. ‘As for you—’

  ‘If you want real proof, Princeps,’ Paulinus cut in, ‘ask yourself why I placed our worst troops, a band of gladiators, opposite your Batavians on our extreme left flank and so doom our line.’ Sabinus looked astounded at Paulinus as he made this claim that was so obviously untrue, as it had been his doing. ‘Ask Titus Flavius Sabinus, who was in command of the left wing, whether I specifically ordered him to make that disposition after he crossed the river to join us.’