Swords Around the Throne (48 page)

‘A sign from heaven!' the man replied, wide-eyed. ‘A blessing upon our emperor...'

Twisting in the saddle, Castus stared back down the line of the column. Then a great shout rose from the people behind him, and light flooded suddenly from the sky. The carriages and carts, the horses and riders, the ranks of soldiers were illuminated in a glowing burst of sun.

All of them were shining like gods.

~

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The next gripping book in the Twilight of Empire series,
The Battle for Rome
, will be released in 2017

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Author's Note

Ian Ross

About the Twilight of Empire series

www.twilight-of-empire.com

An invitation from the publisher

The strange and dramatic events that led to the death of the former emperor Maximian are described by several ancient sources; characteristically, none of them quite agree on what happened.

The bare facts are clear. Maximian – ‘an unnatural parent and a perfidious father-in-law', as the Christian writer Lactantius calls him – rebelled against Constantine and proclaimed himself emperor, probably at Arles (ancient Arelate), but was later defeated or surrendered at Marseille (Massilia). Beyond that, accounts vary and the exact sequence and motivation of events remains cloudy. Perhaps out of confusion, perhaps out of political expediency, our sources often prefer to gloss over many of the details.

In this novel, I've attempted to make the best sense of these conflicting stories, stitching together the shreds of evidence and supposition to create something like a coherent narrative. I've tried to use all the material from the sources wherever possible: an oration given shortly after the event (
Panegyrici Latini
VI
) describes Constantine's march south and the subsequent siege of Marseille, for example, but remains deliberately vague about what happened next. We must rely on Lactantius for the story of Maximian's final nocturnal assassination attempt; it might seem far-fetched, but he was resident at the imperial court only a decade after the event, and his information may have come from palace insiders, or from rumours otherwise suppressed.

Almost all of the sources mention Fausta's role in warning Constantine of her father's treachery. Fausta remains one of the most intriguing, and perhaps the most inscrutable, figures in the story. Even her age is the subject of debate, with some historians estimating that she may have been as young as seven or eight when she was married. However, her part in defeating Maximian's schemes suggests, I think, that she was a young adult capable of making her own decisions and not a child, and so I have chosen to accept the more traditional view that she was in her later teens at the time.

Constantine's concubine (or former wife) Minervina disappears from the historical record shortly before his marriage to Fausta. Most scholars have assumed that she died, but I think it not unlikely that Minervina remained in the background and continued to play a part in the emperor's life; Constantine's mother Helena experienced much the same relegation shortly after his birth. Fausta, meanwhile, was dogged by allegations of adultery in later years, although there is no suggestion in our sources of any suspicion at this early date.

The imperial panegyrics provide our only evidence for the campaigns that Constantine conducted against the Frankish Bructeri, and the spectacular public execution of the two barbarians kings in the amphitheatre at Trier. More importantly, at least for later historians, one of these speeches also describes the apparition of the sun god that Constantine allegedly saw in the sky during his march north from Marseille. This vision gained added prominence when it was reinterpreted by Christian writers – Constantine is best known, after all, for seeing things in the sky – but nobody today is quite sure of what it might have been. A mirage, a hallucination, or just a convenient fiction? Perhaps, as A. H. M. Jones first suggested in 1963, it was the light effect known as a solar halo? The caution in my own description perhaps reflects the confusion of observers at the time...

Anyone wishing to read more deeply into the tangled events of the period will find a wealth of recent scholarship, although much of it, for obvious reasons, remains somewhat opaque on the matter of Maximian's revolt. Recent titles by David Potter, Raymond Van Dam, Paul Stephenson, Timothy Barnes and Jonathan Bardill offer a rewarding spectrum of opinions.

The imperial court of the early fourth century was, appropriately enough, somewhat Byzantine, although it had yet to acquire the truly baffling complexity that would fully justify that name. Like so much at the time, it was a blend of earlier and later practice. In this novel I have tried to find a middle ground, and avoid too much confusing nomenclature where possible. Christopher Kelly's
Ruling the Later Roman Empire
(2009) provides a good modern study, while Anthony Spawford's
The Court and Court Society in Ancient Monarchies
(2007) has some usefully concise chapters on the subject. What I have called the Corps of Protectores (
schola protectorum
, or
protectores divini lateris
– literally the ‘guardians of the sacred flank') developed steadily from a select group of senior officers in the mid third century to something like an officer-training cadre in the mid fourth; my portrayal here is necessarily speculative, but I hope captures something of the feel of the elite bodyguard unit the Protectores appear to have become by the age of Constantine.

H. C. Teitler's
Notarii and Exceptores
(1985) collects what little is known of the organisation and activities of the imperial notaries of the period; they were probably not in reality the sinister inquisitors of popular imagination, but certainly included some unsavoury characters in their ranks.

There is a surprisingly small amount of literature on eunuchs in the ancient world, bearing in mind how influential many of them were to become in the fourth century and later. The methods for ‘making' them mentioned by Sallustius in this novel are based on those described in a seventh-century Greek medical treatise by Paul of Aegina.

One of the pleasures of researching this story was the opportunity to visit many of the locations involved. Constantine's great audience hall still stands in Trier (ancient Treveris), and with the massive ruin of the nearby baths gives a good impression of the scale and grandeur of the imperial palace complex that once covered the surrounding area. In France, the great aqueduct of the Pont du Gard is one of the most iconic structures of the Roman age. The ruins of a Gallo-Roman villa lie beneath the nearby chateau of Saint-Privat, but little is known of its date or appearance. The underground
cryptoporticus
of the ancient forum of Arelate can still be visited in modern Arles, although earlier in the Roman era it was probably not the dungeon-like place it appears today.

In the same city, the amphitheatre and parts of the theatre still stand, as do the remains of the fourth-century baths beside the river, and the Musée Départemental Arles Antique displays a fascinating selection of local finds and some very elegant models of the city in its ancient heyday. The Musée d'Histoire de Marseille holds a similar selection of objects from ancient Massilia, and while actual Roman traces in the city are scarce, the Panier district of the old town to the north of the harbour preserves something of the shape of the ancient city. All these sites are fully described in Simon E. Cleary's
The Roman West, AD 200
–
500: an Archaeological Study
(2013).

Perhaps surprisingly, as this novel largely concerns the activities of the imperial court, I drew much inspiration from Robert Knapp's
Invisible Romans
(2011), a book about the lives of the ordinary people of the empire: slaves and gladiators, soldiers and prostitutes. Knapp also writes about the role of magic in everyday life; for more about the more supernatural aspects of Roman belief, Georg Luck's
Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds
(2006) provides one of the best surveys.

Writing is often a solitary business, but a finished novel is not a solo production. Once again, I thank my agent, Will Francis, at Janklow & Nesbit, and my editor Rosie de Courcy, together with the rest of the publication team at Head of Zeus, for their invaluable support. My thanks also to Michael King Macdona for his help with Latin translations, to Ross Cowan for the ongoing discussion on late-Roman rank structures, and to Professor Raymond Van Dam for sharing his views on the original name of Flavia Maxima Fausta. Any mistakes and misapprehensions remain my own!

The second novel in this epic series, set at the end of the Roman Empire, sees a treasonous conspiracy threatening to bring down the Emperor Constantine. Only one man's courage stands between the rebels and victory.

Rewarded for saving the emperor's life in battle, centurion Aurelius Castus is promoted to the Corps of Protectores, the elite imperial bodyguard, the swords around the throne.

But he soon discovers the court to be just as hazardous as the battlefield; behind the gilded facade of empire, there are spiralling plots, murderous betrayals and dangerous seductions. And one relentless enemy.

‘Hugely enjoyable. The author winds up tension into an explosion of fast-paced events.'

Conn Iggulden

‘Ian Ross blazes into the world of Empire and legions with the verve and panache of an old hand. This is up there with Harry Sidebottom and Ben Kane and is destined for the premier league.'

M.C. Scott

‘An impressive debut… Set in a little-known era of the Roman Empire – the early 4th Century AD – it throws us head first into a chaotic world in which emperors rise and fall, fortunes change and a man does not know who to trust. This is a thumping good read, well-crafted, atmospheric and thoroughly enjoyable. A real page-turner. Where's the next volume, please?'

Ben Kane

‘Lifts the curtain on a neglected but fascinating period of Roman history, with a deft hand and a keen eye. Highly recommended.'

Anthony Riches

I
AN
R
OSS
has been researching and writing about the later Roman world and its army for over a decade. He spent a year in Italy teaching English, but now lives in Bath.
War at the Edge of the World
is the first in the Twilight of Empire series.

www.twilight-of-empire.com

1 – War at the Edge of the World

War at the Edge of the World
is the epic first instalment in a sequence of novels set at the end of the Roman Empire, during the reign of the Emperor Constantine.

Centurion Aurelius Castus – once a soldier in the elite legions of the Danube – believes that his glory days are over, as he finds himself in the cold, grey wastes of northern Britain, battling to protect an empire in decline.