The Storm of Heaven (23 page)

"One moment, if you will," he said as he put some papers in order. When he was done, he stood slowly, showing the weight of considerable age. "Welcome to my house, Gaius Julius. I am Gregorius Auricus. Please, sit and take some refreshment."

Alexandros followed the older Roman in taking a chair beside the great desk. He was not pleased to be left out of the conversation, but considered the situation and silently acceded to Gaius' will in this thing. It was not the time to dispute the approach, not when one was at grips with the enemy.

"You are most generous, sir." Gaius sat, his face and motions indicating pleased acceptance. "I hope that we do not disturb your work. We can easily return at another time, if that is convenient."

Gregorius waved a hand, settling back into his chair. "It is no matter. You are a welcome guest and diversion from these other matters."

Alexandros hid a smile, keeping his face composed. It was quite early in the evening, well before the usual hour for social visits. Too, it was past the time when a senator would entertain his established clients and employees. Gaius Julius had managed to finagle an interview between other appointments. The Macedonian wondered what it had cost.

"Your letter said that you were recommended by a common friend, that you could offer me expertise that I had need of in these troubled times." Gregorius indicated a folded letter on the tabletop. "It does not say who recommended you, sir, nor what need of mine you fill."

"Noble sir," said Gaius Julius in a straightforward blunt voice, "I've come about the matter of your private efforts to relieve the suffering of those afflicted by the explosion of Vesuvius. A man well known on the Palatine, indeed, one that might even call it home, said that I should find you and offer you my services."

"Private effort?" Gregorius squinted at the older man, his lips pursed. "There is no private effort under way—though I do spend a great deal of my time aiding and assisting the Imperial government in its own efforts to find housing for the displaced and provide them with food and drink and clothing."

"Your efforts are well known, sir. Your name and your generosity are well spoken of in the city. I do not speak of the efforts made to see to the basic needs of those unfortunates that have been driven to seek shelter in the welcoming arms of Mother Rome. Another need, one more pressing, must be met and I am sure that you are the man to see it done."

Gregorius looked pained and raised his hand sharply. "Please, sir, you are my guest, but my weariness is great. Speak plainly and set aside the devices of the orator."

Gaius Julius restrained a smile and nodded earnestly. "As you say, sir. I will be blunt. Sir, the theaters are closed, the amphitheaters locked up, the circus itself desolate and dark. Can there be any greater calamity than this? How will the people know that the Emperor loves them and shares their loss if he does not go among them, attending the theater, opening the races? How can they set aside their fears if they are not given diversions?"

Alexandros was slightly puzzled by this tack in the conversation, but he saw that their host understood Gaius Julius' intent. The senator sighed and picked up a quill pen from the desktop, testing its point with his thumb in a nervous gesture.

"This troubles me too. I have argued with him, more than once, about this very thing.
Princeps
Galen is adamant that the resources of the state will not be wasted on 'frivolity' and 'shadow play' when there are roads to be cleared, cities to be dug out of the ash, grain and oil imported in vast quantities at the expense of the state."

"These are necessary things, sir." Gaius Julius' voice dropped a tone. "But what do the people say, sitting in their homes when the sky is dark with portent? The Emperor must not forget that the people of the city must feel his love, they must see he cares, they must hear his voice and behold his face. He cannot hide on the Palatine, buried in the affairs of state, lest the love of the city be lost to him."

"I know," said Gregorius curtly. "I am not the only adviser who has urged him to reopen the theaters and the Flavian and the circus. He refuses."

Gaius Julius nodded to himself, by which Alexandros assumed that he knew this already, having nosed it out of the wine shops and baths of the city.

"Sir, what of these funeral games, these
munera
, that have been so long rumored? Will he wait, too, before giving the countless dead their due? Will he let the shades and
manes
throng the countryside, all unshriven and restless?"

"There is some news of this, which I have recently heard." Gregorius grimaced. "Galen issued edicts a month ago saying that there would be a great series of games—with gladiators, wild beasts and all—to commemorate the dead of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Baiae. Yet no date was set, no festival declared in their honor. Each day he is pressed for details or a date, yet he demurs. I fear that he will not appoint an
editore
to see to this matter, seeking to handle it himself."

"And his attention is ever elsewhere," said Gaius Julius softly. "There are many demands upon the Emperor's time, many threats to the Empire.
Someone
must ensure the plebe in the street has bread and wine and oil to fill his stomach. In the face of such a catastrophe, some small details might be lost."

"So they have been," said Gregorius, showing great weariness in his face. "Every man in the Imperial service carries a backbreaking load in these times. The relief effort is staggering."

"Not all men are so employed, noble sir." Gaius Julius' voice was firm. "I stand before you, willing to lend hand and thought to the task—but I beg you, sir, that you do not set me to this matter of the public relief. Let me do as the tribunes and
aediles
and magistrates did in ancient times; let me arrange such performances of the theater, such games and wild animal hunts in the amphitheater, as are deemed needful to restore the spirit of the people."

Gregorius sighed and put the pen away. "The Emperor will never release funds for such a thing. I have already related he plans a great series of games."

"This is so," said Gaius quickly, before the senator could continue. "But
you
could spare some coin for some trivial amusements for the citizens, while we wait for the funeral games. You have placed your fortune in the service of the people before—you hired ships to carry corn and wheat and wine into the city when civil war wracked the state and the people were starving. Rome needs you, sir."

The senator seemed suddenly to come awake. Alexandros, watching the two men, thought their host saw his guest for the first time in that moment.

"No senator can undertake to sponsor games, festivals, theater performances or triumphs without the express permission of the Emperor himself. No senator," Gregorius said in a sharp tone, "has ever been allowed to do such a thing since the reign of Divine Augustus himself."

"Indeed," said Gaius Julius, "the noble Agrippa undertook a lavish and prolonged series of games in the time of his
aedileship
. If memory serves, and if Cassius Dio speaks truly, Agrippa 'rained upon the heads of the people tokens that were good for money in one case, in another clothes, or yet again something else.' But Agrippa was the close confidante of Augustus, and surely undertook such things with the full knowledge and support of the Emperor. Sir, the people lament and are fearful. This is such a small thing, perhaps it could be done."

Gregorius shook his head, though his face showed disputed thoughts. He did not speak.

"Sir," said Gaius Julius after a moment, "I have some experience in these matters. I have recently returned from the East, from Persia, and am no longer in Imperial service. Let me lend my arm, my hand, my eye to resolve this. Let me set in motion an effort to restore the normal pattern of life for the Roman people. Perhaps the Emperor will let one of the theaters, not even the Marcellan or the Pompeian, reopen on selected days for the performance of... of classical tragedies, or the
Aeneid
, so that the people—who are tormented by omens on all sides, by the unnatural nature of the sky, by these stenches and fumes—may see that life continues, and the flow of the city may resume its accustomed course."

The senator was thoughtful now and considered the words carefully. Alexandros hid a smile. He knew something of Gaius Julius' experience in these matters, knowing by all accounts the elderly Roman was a master of stagecraft and planning. Alexandros had arranged some spectacles himself, in his breathing life, and he guessed his friend and companion had already prepared all that would transpire. All it needed was coin and some veneer of Imperial permission.

"Just one theater would not tax my coffers overmuch..." Gregorius began. No pantomimes or farces, of course, but instead reliable, older works, reminding the people of the ancient heroes and the traditions of the city."

"Even so," said Gaius Julius, his voice painfully earnest. "Nothing filled with spectacle or trickery, no mechanical elephants, no forests rising from the floor of the theater, no brawling gladiators. But it will be enough, sir, to guide the thoughts of the people away from all this death and destruction. Let them think of life again, and look to the future. Let them think kindly of the Emperor, and of you, whose generosity and concern for the people is so well known."

Gregorius rose, pacing to the window. He drew aside a heavy drape, revealing a window looking down off the hill, across the sprawling mass of tenements and the bulk of the Forum. There, framed in the window, lit by hundreds of distant torches and lamps, was the Palatine. The Imperial palaces gleamed watery red in the night. Ash was still falling, tainting the air.

"I meet with the Emperor in the morning," the senator said. "I will offer him this gesture and I will use, with your permission, your words. It may move him. I know he feels the wounds of the people deeply. Some gesture to them, to reassure the citizens, may warm his heart to this endeavor."

Unseen by the man, Gaius Julius turned to Alexandros for an instant, his face split by a huge grin, his eyes sparkling with triumph. Then he schooled his face to concern and faint hope as the senator turned around again.

"Which theater do you suggest? The Balbus, perhaps? It is small and the entrances could be easily controlled by the urban cohorts."

Gaius Julius rose, taking a wax tablet and stylus out of his robe, and joined the senator at the large table. "My very thought, sir. We would not want a riot! That would be a poor omen indeed."

Dawn was near, shading the dark sky with a muted violet glow, when they left the house of Gregorius Aricus. A chill had settled in the air and the smell of the river seemed sharp. Alexandros, inured to the cold, walked briskly, his hood thrown back, letting the dew bead on his skin. Gaius Julius walked at his side, radiating satisfaction.

"You are well pleased," the Macedonian said as they crossed the empty plaza at the heart of the Forum. Their lodgings, an apartment secured by Gaius Julius during their previous time in the city, were on the edge of the Aventine Hill. The rooms were small but out of the way, and their comings and goings would not be easily noticed. "This business of the theaters and races seems overly indirect. Of course, you may siphon off large sums of coin to finance other schemes by these means, but—"

Gaius Julius laughed suddenly, pulling back his own hood. They had crossed the expanse of the Forum and were passing by the pillared front of the temple of Castor and Pollux. Within, flames burned on the altars, illuminating the massive statues with a flickering light.

"My dear Greek, there is
nothing
indirect about the theater and the circus in Rome! Haven't you paid attention to Suetonius? I know you have, for I saw you grimace and exclaim aloud over the doings of my nephew's successors. Did you mark the fate of dour Tiberius?"

Alexandros nodded slowly. Of the emperors following the Divine Augustus, only the "glorious" Germanicus had died in bed. It seemed, from the vantage of history, that only the enormous impetus imparted by the long-lived and wily Augustus had carried the Empire through Tiberius' foul humor, Germanicus' too-short reign, Claudius' fumbling and Nero's profligate insanity to the able Vespasian.

"Yes, he died friendless and alone, murdered upon his return from that island."

"Do you remember why he had lost the affection of the people and the senate? Why he was murdered? Why the reign of Germanicus, 'he of the highest quality of body and mind,' was so welcomed?"

Alexandros pulled up short, vexed, and stared at Gaius Julius.

"Because Tiberius could not stand to attend the theater, the races and the other public amusements? That is madness!"

"Perhaps," said Gaius, putting his arm around the younger man's shoulder. "But this is Rome and here there is a special and intimate relationship between the people and the Emperor. There is a balance, a harmony, in the city between the least citizen and the most exalted. The theater, the circus and the Colosseum are at the heart of it."

Gaius Julius stopped and pointed up at the towering shapes of the Imperial palaces to their left. "There sits the Emperor in his gilded cage, surrounded by ceremony and guards and the weight of dreadful privilege. The common man, the citizen, rarely sees him. He is remote and distant. The senate, which by ancient tradition should represent the tribes and the citizens, is a useless social club. It has been this way for centuries. Even the fiction of voting for tribunes is long discarded. The Emperor's will is absolute, but he is
not
a tyrant."

They resumed walking, following the covered arcade down into the markets by the river.

"How does he escape becoming an isolated god, as so many of the kings in the east do? Why, my friend, through the theater, through the circuses, through the wild-animal hunts. In these things, the Emperor appears in person, the focus of all attention. Every man and woman and child can see his face, see him laugh or cry or curse if his favorite driver fails in the turn. In the theater, the common people may address the Emperor with their own voices. Do you see what that brings?"