The Amber Road by Harry Sidebottom Read Free Book Online Page B

could have the experience of an emperor in appearing to listen intently to speeches while thinking of something completely different. Gallienus knew what Tacitus would say. This foreknowledge was nothing to do with the frumentarii . The arguments against Platonopolis had been rehearsed on many occasions in many forms.
    Advancing one school of philosophy would alienate all the others. While the tenets of none necessarily led to opposition to monarchy, often they had provided moral underpinning to men contemplating assassination of a ruler. Brutus had been a Stoic, Cassius an Epicurean, and Caesar had died. Less drastic, but possibly more damaging in the long run – the gods would foil any insane attempt on the life of the princeps – intellectuals shaped public opinion. The speeches and writings of philosophers might deform the image of the glorious reign of Gallienus. Street-corner Cynics were ever ready to howl against even the best of emperors.
    ‘What of this place itself?’
    The rhetorical question brought Gallienus back to his surroundings.
    ‘The Pythagoreans came here seeking enlightenment, but ended mired in foul superstition and lust for temporal power. It puts one in mind of Cicero’s speech against the proposal of Rullus to settle men at Capua. The land there is luxurious, it made men who dwelt there the same, and that made them enemies of Rome.’
    Gallienus smiled in recognition of the novelty of this cultured argument. Those among the traditional elite who sneered at the military men from the Danube were fools. The family of Tacitus had owned wide estates time out of mind; many of his compatriots were rougher – Aurelian Hand-to-Steel , for one. But the thing that united these hard men from the north was their reverence for the traditions of Rome. In many ways they were closer to the mos maiorum than the pampered and plucked rich who were born in marble palaces on the seven hills or opulent villas on the Bay of Naples.
    Tacitus had moved on to finances. Gallienus was well aware what this would entail. Plotinus had vastly underestimated the true cost. If building were to be undertaken, better the emperor’s own plan for a portico along the Via Flaminia. Unlike this out-of-the-way spot in the Apennines, it would provide work for the always restless plebs of Rome.
    Tacitus was bound to end with the argument that, in these days of usurpation and barbarian assault, money was better spent on the army. The safety of the imperium must take precedence over everything in these days of iron and rust.
    At the thought, Gallienus felt his skin tighten. There was a new clarity to the light; faint music among the trees. He knew Hercules, his divine companion, was with him. The deity reached into Gallienus’s soul, drew it out of his body.
    Wrapped safe in the skin of the Nemean lion, Gallienus was lifted through the air. Past the heights of the Apennines, he was carried north. Higher and yet higher, until his divine friend set him lightly on the utmost peak of the Alps. From there they gazed down on all the land and all the sea. Hercules laid his hands on them, as one might an instrument capable of playing all modes, and under his fingers they all sang together.
    The whole imperium and everything in it was spread out, an animate map, with mountains for bones, rivers and roads for veins. In the east, Odenathus of Palmyra took the war to the Persians. Gallienus could see Ctesiphon in flames, the easterners fleeing in panic. To the north of the Euxine, out on the vast plains, nomad horsemen wheeled as the Alani fought the Heruli and Urugundi. None of them had the leisure to turn on the empire. Moving west, the King of the Bosporus once again performed adoration to the imperial standards. Of little use in a fight, he would at least sound the alarm should the piratical tribes of the region – Borani, Grethungi, Tervingi, Gepidae and Taifali – take to their boats and venture south. Along the Ister, all was quiet. Loyal men