Saviour of Rome [Gaius Valerius Verrens 7] Read Online Free PDF Page B

scale matches its creator’s vanity. It is not in my nature to criticize my predecessors. I will only say that, from an architectural point of view I find it out of proportion with its neighbours and I have plans for it, but first …’ He replaced the building and picked up a sunken oblong that represented Nero’s lake. He looked around with a puzzled frown. ‘Now, what did I do with it. Yes, here it is.’ Sitting on the balcony was what looked like a small upturned barrel on a similar oblong of wood, whichhe placed in the position previously occupied by the lake. ‘There.’ He studied Valerius with a smile. ‘My gift to Rome.’
    Valerius blinked. On closer inspection it was a model of an arena. An enormous amphitheatre that dwarfed everything in the city except the even vaster Circus Maximus.
    ‘You think me a hypocrite, Verrens?’
    ‘No, Caesar.’ Valerius almost choked on the words. ‘It’s magnificent.’
    ‘It will seat up to eighty thousand spectators. I fear there will be no great military advances during my reign, so I must give my people spectacle instead of victory. Of course, I may be dead by the time it’s complete. Titus! I’ve just been showing Verrens how we’re going to fill in Nero’s boating lake.’
    ‘Consul,’ Valerius bowed as Titus entered the room by a hidden doorway.
    ‘Have you told him how you’re going to pay for it, Father?’
    ‘I was just coming to that. Come, we will sit in the sunshine on the balcony. Bring wine,’ he called to a slave hovering nearby. ‘I find the sun eases my old bones.’ He eased himself on to a padded couch beyond the window and Valerius and Titus joined him. ‘How will we pay for it? I expect we will borrow. I’ve squeezed the Jews once to rebuild the Temple of Jupiter; I doubt even they can afford twice—’
    Titus saw Valerius frown and interrupted his father’s flow of words. ‘You’re wondering why we don’t use the treasures of Jerusalem?’
    ‘It would seem a possible solution,’ Valerius agreed.
    Titus grimaced as he remembered the aftermath of the siege: the great temple a tower of flame, the bittersweet scent of roasting flesh and the long lines of wagons filled with plunder. ‘All that gold. I thought it limitless at the time. A thousand kings’ ransoms …’
    ‘But we’ve discovered that even a king’s ransom doesn’t go very far when it comes to running an empire,’ Vespasian resumed. ‘I will be candid with you, Verrens: it turns out that this empire I have inherited is on the very brink of financial disaster. The treasury empty, officials white-faced and trembling with fear when I approach, and the mintstell us that the silver denarii issued by Nero during his tenure are considerably less silver than they should be. It means every denarius we do have is worth twenty per cent less than its face value.’ He sipped his wine and sent a meaningful glance in the direction of the treasury in the Temple of Saturn on the far side of the Forum. ‘Eventually I will be forced to raise taxes and squeeze the provinces, but that will make me unpopular. An emperor cannot afford to be unpopular so early in his reign, particularly a New Man whose father was a tax farmer. But the problem is not silver—’
    ‘It’s gold,’ Titus intervened for a second time. ‘And that is why we have asked you here. I’m afraid your Empire must ask one last service of you, Valerius.’
    ‘Your Emperor,’ his father corrected. ‘The problem lies in the goldfields of Hispania Tarraconensis. During the late war, particularly after the death of Servius Sulpicius Galba, the legions of the province were riven by division over their loyalties, firstly between Vitellius and Otho, and later between Vitellius and myself.’ The shrewd blue eyes held Valerius. ‘I attach no blame. When Vitellius marched from Germania in such overwhelming force every man was forced to make a choice. At that time there was no certain outcome and no certain