Throne of the Caesars 01 - Iron and Rust Read Online Free PDF

immediately – some had even begun to chant acclamations – had it not been for Gallicanus.
    Like a hirsute revenant from the old Republic, Gallicanus had risen up and thundered against the vitiation of senatorial procedure. It was well past the tenth hour of the day. After the tenth hour no new proposal could be put to the house. It was almost dark. Were the Conscript Fathers ashamed of their deeds? Did they seek to hide in obscurity like foul conspirators, or depraved Christians? Had they forgotten that a decree passed after sunset had no legality?
    The Consuls had been left with no choice but to end the session and call for the Senate to reconvene the following morning at dawn.
    Custom demanded the Senators escort home the presiding magistrates. Pupienus was one of those who accompanied Claudius Severus through the rain to his house. At least it had not been at all out of the way. The Consul was his neighbour on the Caelian Hill.
    Returned to his own home, Pupienus had time only for a quick bath and to put on dry clothes before his secretary, Curius Fortunatianus, had announced the presence at the door of none other than Gallicanus. For once, his shadow, Maecenas, had not been with the arbiter of traditional senatorial mores. Indeed, Gallicanus had made a request to speak to the Prefect of the City in complete privacy. The circumspect Fortunatianus had suggested Pupienus receive his visitor in the garden dining room. The hidden back door would allow the secretary, and for certainty perhaps another trustworthy witness, to listen unobserved. Although tempted, as it would ensure his own safety, Pupienus dismissed the idea as unworthy. Gallicanus might be unsavoury, a seeker of notoriety, and his conversation might move towards the treasonous – under the circumstances, Pupienus would have been amazed if it did not – but Senators should not inform against each other, and most certainly they should not set underhand traps.
    Fortunatianus had shown Gallicanus into the small room where Pupienus had dressed and then left them alone. Gallicanus had never been known for subtlety. Peering into every corner, only just stopping himself from tapping the panelling, he had demanded Pupienus swear that no one could overhear them and that nothing said would be repeated. The oaths taken, Gallicanus had launched directly into business. This new Emperor was but an equestrian. Only one man from the second order in society had ever taken the throne. Pupienus would recall the weakness and brevity of the reign of Moorish bureaucrat Macrinus. This Maximinus was worse still. At best, he was a peasant from the remote hills of Thrace. Some said one of his parents was from beyond the frontiers, a Goth or one of the Alani. Others said both had been barbarians. He was a man of no education, no culture.
    Pupienus knew the law of treason was ill-defined, but its malleability tended towards inclusion and condemnation. Gallicanus had already said more than enough to lose his estates and find himself heading towards either an exile-island or the executioner. Still, Pupienus had given his word. ‘What would you do about it?’ he asked.
    Gallicanus had not answered directly. The principate of Alexander had been good for the Senate. Gallicanus’ tone was earnest. Both the Emperor and his mother had shown respect to the Curia. They had given the Senators the chance to regain their dignitas . More than that, with the creation of the permanent council of sixteen Senators always in attendance on the Emperor, they could be thought to have admitted the Senate into a real sharing of power. You might call it a dyarchy.
    Although he had done very well under the regime, a dyarchy would have been far from what Pupienus would have called almost a decade and a half of ineffective and corrupt rule by a weak youth and an avaricious woman who had attached various ambitious and often venal Senators to themselves in an unavailing attempt to gain a reputation for