Authors: Gore Vidal
"Of a fever, Augustus." The older officer, Aligildus, did most of t.he telling.
"Had there been omens?" I particularly wanted to know because I had myself received a number of mysterious signs during the previous weeks. It is good to be scientific about these things. Might not an omen observed to be malign by Constantius appear simultaneously to me as benign?
"Many, Augustus. For several weeks in the field he had been disturbed by waking-dreams and nightmares. On one occasion, he thought he saw the ghost of his father, the great Constantine, carrying in his arms a child, a handsome, strong child which Constantius took and held on his lap."
I turned with wonder to Oribasius. "Is Constantine my creator?"
For it was plain enough that I was the child in the dream.
"Then the boy seized the orb Constantius held in his right hand…"
"The world," I murmured.
"… and threw it out of sight!" Aligildus paused. I nodded. "I understand the dream. Did he?"
"Yes, Augustus. Shortly afterwards, when we came to Antioch, the Emperor told Eusebius that he had a sense that something which had always been with him was gone."
"The Spirit of Rome. These are the signs," I said to Oribasius. Like so many who deal too much in the material world, Oribasius puts little stock in omens and dreams. Yet I think even he was impressed by what he had heard. I quoted Menander, "A spirit is given each man at birth to direct his course." Then I asked about my cousin's last days.
"He spent most of the summer at Antioch, assembling an army to…" Aligildus paused, ill at ease.
"To use against me." I was amiable. Why not? Heaven was on my side.
"Yes, Lord. Then in the autumn, after many dreams and bad omens, Constanfius left Antioch for the north. Three miles outside of the city in a suburb…"
"Called Hippocephalus," said Theolaif, the other officer, reminding us that he too was messenger and witness. "We saw, on the right-hand side of the road, at noon, the headless corpse of a man [acing west."
A chill ran through me. I hope that when my star falls I shall be spared the torment of such signs.
"From that moment on, Lord, the Emperor was not himself. We hurried on to Tarsus, where he came down with a fever."
"But he could not stop," said Theolaif, suddenly inspired: the deaths of princes and the malignity of Fate obsess us all. "I know. I was with him. I rode beside him. I said, 'Lord, stop here. Wait.
In a few days you will be well.' But he looked at me with glazed eyes, his face dark with fever. He swayed in the saddle. I steadied him with my hand and felt his hand, hot and dry. 'No,' he said, and his tongue was dry, too. He could hardly speak. 'We go on. We go on. We go on.' Three times he said that. And we went on."
Aligildus continued, "When we came to the springs at Mobsucrene, he was delirious. We put him to bed. In the night he sweated and the next morning he seemed better. He gave orders to leave. We obeyed, reluctantly. But when the army was ready to move, he was delirious. Constantius was ill three days, his body so hot that it was painful to touch him. Yet he had moments of clarity. In one of those moments, he made his will. This is it." Aligildus handed me a sealed letter which I did not open."How was he, at the end?"
"When he was conscious, he was angry."
"At me?"
"No, Lord, at death, for taking him in his prime, for taking him from his young wife."
"It is bitter," I said formally. Who is so inhuman as not to feel something at a man's death? even at that of an enemy.
"Then, shortly before dawn on 3 November, he asked to be baptized, like his father. After the ceremony, he tried to sit up. He tried to speak. He choked. He died. He was forty-five years old," added Aligildus, as though he were making a funeral address.
"In the twenty-fifth year of his principate," I noted, in the same style.
"Pray, Augustus," said Oribasius suddenly, "you reign as long."
We were silent for a moment. I tried to remember how Constantius looked and failed. When a famous man dies one tends to remember only the sculpture, especially when there is so much of it. I can recall Constantius's monuments but not his living face, not even those great dark eyes which are to my memory blank spaces cut in marble.
"Where is the Chamberlain Eusebius?"
"Still at the Springs. The court waits upon your orders." Aligildus for the first time sounded uncertain. "You, Augustus, are the heir legitimate." He pointed to the letter that I held in my hand.
"There was no… objection in the Consistory?"
"None, Lord!" The two men spoke as one.
I rose. "Tomorrow you will return to the Springs. Tell the Consistory that I shall meet them as soon as possible at Constantinople.
See that the body of my cousin is brought home for a proper burial, and that his widow is treated with all the honour due her rank."
The officers saluted, and departed.
Then Oribasius and I opened the will. It was short and to the point, unlike the usual imperial prose. One knew that a man had dictated it, not a lawyer.
"The Caesar Julian at my death is raised legitimately" (even on his deathbed he could not resist this jab) "to the principate of Rome. He will find my stewardship has been faithful. Despite much treason within the empire and formidable enemies without, the state has prospered in my reign and the borders are secure."
I looked at Oribasius, amused. "I wonder how they feel about that in Amida."
I read on. "We entrust to our most noble cousin and heir our young wife Faustina. She is provided for in a separate testament, and it is our final prayer that our most noble cousin and heir will respect the terms of that will and carry them out as befits a great prince who can afford to show mercy to the weak…"
I paused. "Once I tried to make that same speech to him."
Oribasius looked at me oddly. "He spared you," he said.
"Yes. To his regret." I hurried through the rest of the document. There were a number of bequests to retainers and friends. One particularly struck me. "I cannot recommend to my most noble cousin and heir a wiser counsellor or one more loyal than the Grand Chamberlain Eusebius." Even Oribasius laughed at this. Then, at the very last, Constantius spoke directly to me. "We have had differences, the Caesar Julian and I, but I think that he will find when he fills my place that the earth seems not so big as he thought it was from his previous place or from any other place, saving this summit where there can be but one man and a single responsibility for all men, and great decisions to be made, often in haste and sometimes regretted. We are not to be understood by any except our own kind. My most noble cousin and heir will know what I mean when he takes up the orb I have let go. Now in death I am his constant brother in the purple and from whatever place God sees fit to put my soul I shall observe his deeds with fellow-feeling and hope that as he comes to know the singularity of his new estate—and its cruel isolation—he will understand if not forgive his predecessor, who wanted only the stability of the state, the just execution of the law, and the true worship of that God from whom come all our lives and to whom all must return. Julian, pray for me."
That was it. Oribasius and I looked at one another, unable to believe that this crude and touching document was the work of a man who had governed the world for a quarter century.
"He was strong." I could think of nothing more to say. The next day I ordered a sacrifice to the gods. The legions were most enthusiastic, not only at my accession (and the avoidance of a civil war), but at being allowed to pray to the old gods openly. Man7 of them were fellow brothers in Mithras.
Priscus
: This is quite untrue. In actual fact there was a near-mutiny when the sacrifices were ordered, especially among the officers. At this time Julian was very much under the influence of a Gaul named Aprunculus, who had foretold Constantius's death by discovering an ox liver with two lobes, which meant that… et cetera. As a reward for having found that double liver, Aprunculus was made governor of Gallia Narbonensis. It was said at the time that a quadruple liver might have got him all of Gaul.
Aprunculus persuaded Julian to place the images of the gods next to his own image so that when each man came to throw incense on the fire as homage to the emperor, he also did reverence, like it or not, to the gods. This caused a good deal of bad feeling, none of which Julian notes.
Julian Augustus
Less than a week later, I gave the order to proceed to Constantinople. I will not dwell on the elation of those days. Even the cold winter—and it was the coldest in many years—did not depress us.
In a blizzard, we filed through the pass of Succi and descended into Thrace. From there we proceeded to the ancient city of Philippopolis where we stayed overnight. Then we moved south to Heraclea, a town fifty miles south-west of Constantinople where, shortly before midday, to my astonishment, most of the senate and the Sacred Consistory were gathered in the main square.
I was hardly prepared for such a greeting. I was tired, dirty, and I desperately needed to relieve myself. Imagine then the new emperor, eyes twitching with fatigue, hands, legs, face streaked with dust, bladder full, receiving the slow, measured, stately acclamation of the senate. Looking back, I laugh; at the time, I was hard pressed to be gracious.
I dismounted at one end of the square and crossed to the prefect's house. The Scholarian Guards made an aisle for me. They are called Scholarian because their barracks are in the front porticothe "school"—of the Sacred Palace. I studied my new troops with a cold eye. They were smartly turned out; most were Germans… what else? They studied me, too. They were both curious and alarmed, which is as it should be. Too often in the past emperors have been frightened of the guard.
I climbed the steps to the prefect's house. There, all in a row, were the officers of the empire. As I approached, they fell to their knees. I asked them to rise. I hate the sight of men old enough to be my grandfather prostrate before me. Recently I tried to simplify the court's ceremonies but the senate would not allow it, so used are they to servitude. They argue that since the Great King of Persia keeps similar state, I must, too, or appear less awesome in men's eyes. Nonsense. But there are too many important changes to be made to worry about court ceremonial.
The first official to greet me was Arbetio, who had been consul in the year I was made Caesar. He is a vigorous, hard-faced man of forty; born a peasant, he became a soldier, rising to commander of cavalry and the consulship. He wants my place, just as he wanted Constantius's place. Now there are two ways to handle such a man. One is to kill him. The other is to keep him near one, safely employed, always watched. I chose the latter for I have found that if someone is reasonably honest and well-meaning-though he has treated one badly—he should be forgiven. When men are honest in public life we must be on good terms with them, even though they have treated us badly in a private capacity; while if they are dishonest in public affairs, even though they are personally devoted to us, they must be dismissed.
Arbetio welcomed me in the name of the senate, though he was not its chief officer.
"We are here to do as the Augustus wills." The proud loud voice belied the words. "In everything."
"… and to prepare for his entering the city as our Lord!" I turned when I heard those words and there, approaching me from a crowd of senators, was Julian, my uncle. He was trembling with excitement (and infirmity, for he suffered from a recurrent fever, souvenir of his days as governor of Egypt). I embraced him warmly. We had not seen each other for seven years, though we had corresponded as regularly as we dared. My uncle had aged alarmingly; his face was haggard, the yellow skin loose, eyes deepset, but even so, this day he was transfigured with delight. I kept my arm through his as I addressed the crowd.
"I am moved at your gesture, since it is not usual for the senate to leave their city to meet the first citizen. Rather it is the first citizen who must come to you, to his peers, who share with him the task of governing, and I shall be with you shortly in your own house to do you the homage you deserve. Meanwhile, I make only one announcement: I shall accept no coronation money from the provinces, imitating in this Hadrian and Antoninus Plus. The Empire is too poor at present to make me a gift." There was applause. Then after a few more ungraceful remarks, I pleaded fatigue, and excused myself. The town prefect bowed me into the building, stammering, stumbling, getting in my way, until at last I shouted, "In Hermes's name, where do you piss?" Thus graciously did the new Emperor of Rome come to the East.
The prefect's house had a small private bath and while I soaked in the hot pool, taking deep breaths of steam, my uncle Julian discussed the political situation.
"When Constantius died, Eusebius sounded out several members of the Consistory to see if they would accept Arbetio as emperor, or Procopius… or me." My uncle smiled shyly at this. He wanted me to hear this from his own lips rather than from an informer.
"Naturally," I said, watching the dust from my beard float like a grey cloud into the centre of the pool where a Negro slave stood, ready to scrub me with towels and sponges, unaware that I never let bath attendants touch me.
"What did the Consistory say to all this?"
"That you were the Emperor, by blood and by choice."
"As well as being only a few hundred miles away."
"Exactly."
"Where is Eusebius?"
"At the palace, preparing for your arrival. He is still Grand Chamberlain." My uncle smiled.
I submerged for a moment, eyes tight shut, soaking my head. When I came to the surface, Oribasius was sitting on the bench beside my uncle.
"That is no way to approach the sacred presence." And I splashed Oribasius very satisfactorily. He laughed. My uncle Julian laughed, too, for I had soaked him as well. Then I was alarmed. In just this way are monsters born. First, the tyrant plays harmless games: splashes senators in the bath, serves wooden food to dinner guests, plays practical jokes; and no matter what he says and does, everyone laughs and flatters him, finds witty his most inane remarks. Then the small jokes begin to pall. One day he finds it amusing to rape another man's wife, as the husband watches, or the husband as the wife looks on, or to torture them both, or to kill them. When the killing begins, the emperor is no longer a man but a beast, and we have had too many beasts already on the throne of the world. Vehemently,! apologized for splashing my uncle. I even apologized for splashing Oribasius, though he is like my own brother. Neither guessed the significance of this guilty outburst. Oribasius told me that the Consistory wanted to know whom I intended to appoint as consuls for the coming year."Uncle, what about you?"