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

statesmanship. He said nothing in response.
    The Senate had been reawakened, Gallicanus had ploughed on. Not since the first Augustus had cloaked his autocracy in fine-sounding words and smothered the last of true freedom – maybe not since long before that – had the Senate been stronger. This Thracian barbarian had not yet squatted securely on the throne. Maximinus had few backers. Most of the Senators with the army would welcome his fall. Maximinus had no legal authority. The Emperor had never been weaker. It was time to bring back libertas . It was time to restore the free Republic.
    It had been a measure of Pupienus’ many years of public service that he neither snorted in derision nor laughed out loud. Apart from the court fools and a man in Africa who had been driven out of his wits by the sun, he had never heard anyone say anything more insane.
    Gallicanus must have taken the continued silence of his interlocutor as a sign of something else. ‘The Urban Cohorts under your command number six thousand men. Almost all the Praetorians are with the field army on the northern frontier. There are no more than a thousand left in Rome. Many of your men are quartered in their camp. It would be easy to win them over or crush them.’
    ‘Herennius Modestinus?’ Pupienus had said, speaking at last.
    Gallicanus had smiled like a not over-bright student asked a question he had been expecting. The Prefect of the Watch was an equestrian of the traditional type, imbued with a respect for the Senate. Anyway, if he proved contumacious, the vigiles he commanded were just seven thousand armed firemen. There were almost as many in the Urban Cohorts, and they were real soldiers. Modestinus himself was only a jurist, while Pupienus had commanded troops in the field.
    ‘The detachments from the fleets of Ravenna and Misenum?’
    At this question Gallicanus had shrugged with a certain irritation. ‘A few sailors in Rome to put up the awnings at the spectacles.’ It was evident they had not previously crossed his mind.
    ‘One thousand from each fleet, all trained and under military discipline.’ Pupienus had always tried to know such details: the numbers of troops, their billeting and mood, the disposition of their officers, the family connections of the latter. He had always talked to all sorts of people. Since his rise, especially since he had become Prefect of the City, he had also paid good money to know such things.
    Gallicanus had waved the sailors away as of no consequence. There was something vaguely simian in the motion.
    ‘If I threw my lot in with you—’ Pupienus spoke slowly and carefully; even in the security of his own house he felt a vertiginous fear at saying these things ‘—and if I gathered under one standard all the armed forces in Rome, I would command some sixteen thousand. Of which, as you say, almost half are merely firemen. The imperial field army numbers some forty thousand, before reckoning what further forces could join it from the armies on the Rhine and Danube.’
    Gripping him by the arm, Gallicanus thrust his ill-favoured face close to that of Pupienus. ‘My dear friend.’ Gallicanus squeezed the arm. His gaze and voice were fervent in their sincerity. ‘My dear Pupienus, no one doubts your commitment to libertas , your devotion to the Senate, or your courage. But in a free Republic it will not be for us to assign ourselves commands. As it was when Rome grew great, the Senate will vote who leads its armies.’
    Gallicanus released Pupienus’ arm and began to pace the room. He was babbling about electing a board of twenty from the Senate, all ex-Consuls, to defend Italy. Others would be sent to win over the troops and the provincials. In his eagerness he was bobbing about the confined space and swinging his arms like an agitated primate in a cage.
    Pupienus was seldom flabbergasted, and he had not been so angry for a long time. What sort of fool was Gallicanus? He had come into Pupienus’ home