Rome 4: The Art of War Read Online Free PDF

there’s the Hundred Steps on the north face that take you straight up to the north gate, but it’s a stiff and savage rise. If you want something slightly less vicious, there’s the Gemonian steps on the southwestern aspect. That’s the place where the bodies of executed criminals are exposed before they’re tipped into the Tiber.
    And then there’s the long, slow, winding path that takes you up the south slope on to the Arx and then across the saddle of the Asylum before you reach the Capitol proper and the temple of the three gods.
    This was the new emperor’s opportunity to display his victorious troops to his city, which meant we had to take the slow route so that the masses could line the streets and cheer. They did, of course; to do anything else risked being arrested for sedition.
    He’d already banned the astrologers, which did nothing much beyond ensuring that every street corner was decorated with graffiti telling in detail how the stars predicted his death. Everyone read it and half believed it, but nobody wanted to be next in line for exile, so the plebs turned up in force and stood in the driving rain to cheer us as we marched out of the forum.
    I hadn’t been back in Rome for long and it was interesting to see what had changed. Nero’s giant statue was still there; Galba had takenit down and Otho had put it back up again. I think Vitellius couldn’t decide whether he wanted to make friends with the senate, who hated Nero, which meant he’d have to take it down, or with the people, who’d loved him, and wanted it to stay. I don’t think the fact that it was still there meant he sided with the people, more that he was just really bad at making decisions.
    So we passed Nero, and remembered not to salute as we’d done when we were last in Rome, and on we marched up the hill, past the statue of Juno Moneta and on towards the mint, where you could feel the blast from the furnaces even through the rain.
    The coiners had been working night and day since we came back to Rome, melting down coins of the other emperors ready for reminting. Vitellius had only just got round to sitting for the celators so it was only the newest coins that had his image on.
    It wasn’t a bad likeness. If you only look at his face, he’s a good-looking man, taller than any of us by half a head, with a strong nose and a bald circle on his pate that can look quite stately at times.
    He was lame, though, which is less than ideal in a general, and it wasn’t as if it was an injury gained in the field; he’d broken his thigh bone in a chariot accident, which is about as stupid as it gets, really.
    So we passed the mint and the coins in my pouch jingled in sympathy with those being put to the fire, and my guts griped, and if I could have walked off down the path I would have done.
    Why? Because the whole thing was a mistake. If you’re going to follow someone all the way to Rome, you have to make sure it’s the right man, and Vitellius was never that.
    I said so in January when the whole thing started about not renewing our oath to Galba and swearing to Vitellius instead. Iargued as long as I could, but there’s a point when loyalty to the old regime becomes treachery to the new and I had my men to think of.
    So I swore with the rest of them and after that … when it comes to the edge, a man’s word is his only coin. If you can’t keep an oath, you’re no better than the barbarians.
    On we trudged, past the row of dilapidated priests’ dwellings, each leaning on the next like an old man in want of a stick, and on, shuffling in through the vast and ancient gates of the temple, which has been home to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva since the time when Rome was too poor to build them a temple each and had to house all three under the one roof. Later, when there was gold enough and more to spare, nobody was about to offend two out of the three most revered deities in the city by rehoming them elsewhere.
    So we were left that day to