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| ISBN-13: | 9781939650832 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Santa Fe Writer's Project |
| Publication date: | 09/01/2018 |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 495 |
| Sales rank: | 939,751 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.30(d) |
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CHAPTER 1
'Assume the honours which are justly due to your worth.'
HORACE
1
I was not in Rome when the Senate received the news that Veranius Nepos, Governor of Britain, was dead. The usual rumours of disaster followed the bald announcement, until an irritable message from the Secretariat revealed that he had died in his bed, in London, of congestion of the lungs and not, as had been surmised, under the chariots of a victorious Silurian army.
Soon afterwards a courier arrived at my headquarters in Lower Germany, where I had just assumed command, to recall me instantly to Rome. An immediate summons of this kind, even in those early days of Nero's rule, naturally caused a certain amount of nervousness in the recipient. My conscience was clear; my relations with the Prince were excellent and my speculations were not unduly gloomy during the journey home. There I heard from friends of Veranius's death and gathered some sidelong and exciting hints concerning my own future. I hastened to seek an audience at the Palace — the old Palace, not the Golden House.
The Prince received me. He was seated at the head of a long marble table, with Sextus Afranius Burrus, Prefect of the Praetorian Guard, on his right, Lucius Annaeus Seneca on his left and Claudius of Smyrna, Financial Secretary, standing beside him. Tribunes of the Guard flanked his seat; a soldier watched every doorway, and various Secretariat clerks, laden with reference-scrolls, crowded the background. These people were, in effect, the Government of Rome and her dominions; we Senators were the mouthpiece for decisions made in this unofficial but all-powerful Council.
Nero greeted me with all the charm of the Julian family, inquired shortly about affairs in Lower Germany and even apologized for my abrupt recall. Then he waved me to a chair and came to the point.
'You have doubtless heard,' he said, 'that Veranius has died in Britain?'
'Yes, Caesar,' I answered. 'I am sorry. He was a good officer and a loyal servant of Rome. I knew him when he was Governor of Lycia.'
'A sound man. More of a theoretical than a practical soldier, though. A great writer on military matters. He didn't accomplish much in Britain, though his intentions certainly had a wide enough scope. We have just seen his will: it arrived in the last batch of dispatches.'
I waited. This meant nothing to me. Nero tugged thoughtfully at his lower lip.
'Veranius thought he could conquer Britain — the whole of Britain — in two years. He spent his only year there fighting the — what are they called? — the Silures, as Gallus and Scapula did before him, and with just as much result. He never got anywhere.'
'What were his instructions, Caesar?' I asked quietly.
Nero frowned. 'His instructions were to subdue Britain as far north as the country of the —' He paused, stuttering, and Burrus murmured a word. 'These barbaric names! The Brigantes. As far north as the Brigantes and westwards to the sea. That was all I required. I still require it.'
Nero's protuberant blue eyes glared at my face without amity, remorselessly searching through flesh and bone for the quality beneath. I sat very still. He was very much a ruler during the golden years.
'Do you know anything of Britain?' he snapped.
'Nothing, Caesar, beyond what is known by any educated man in Rome.'
'So. Then Burrus here, and Claudius, can tell you later about the muddle and mess going on in that Province. You will need to know, because I am sending you there as Governor to put matters straight.'
I rose, stood at attention and thanked him formally for the honour. Nero grinned.
'I hope you will still thank me when you hear what you're going to. Listen carefully. Burrus, send everyone out. This is confidential.'
The clerks vanished from the room without further bidding. The guards remained. The Prince waved a document at me.
'This,' he said, 'is the latest financial return from Britain. We won't go into the details now: Claudius can do that with you some other time. These totals are the crux. Look.'
He tossed the papyrus over. I scanned the columns, rather at a loss. Claudius came to my side and ran a lean finger along a row of figures.
'You see?' Nero said. 'For the last financial year the costs of administration, occupation forces, navy, loans and everything else exceeded the income from the Province by a thousand million sesterces. A thousand million! The year before it was five hundred million, and the same before that.'
He beat the marble with his fist.
'This cannot go on. The Province is bleeding Rome dry. We have other expensive provinces; none costs so much as Britain.' He slouched, elbows on table, hands clasped before him. 'I had intended to withdraw our army and administration from the country, to abandon it entirely. Seneca dissuaded me.'
He turned to his old tutor and smiled somewhat maliciously.
'I took his advice, though I think he has special reasons of his own for giving it, and sent Veranius off with his orders. This was going to be Britain's last chance; if Veranius failed we should evacuate.'
Nero paused and frowned at his clenched hands.
'Veranius did very little in the time he had; but he could appreciate a military situation and he was no fool. He thought he could conquer Britain in two years. I believe it can be done.' He looked at me. 'I believe you can do it.'
I bowed my head. 'If you think it possible I will do it, Caesar.'
'A rash promise, Paulinus,' Nero said. 'You yourself declared you knew little of Britain. Listen. The country is rich in minerals: iron, copper, lead and tin. There is also gold. We get some of these metals but not nearly enough. Why? Because we have been in Britain for sixteen years and haven't yet conquered half of it. Sixteen years, and the Divine Julius subdued all Gaul in eight! The wealthiest mines still lie outside our area of occupation. We have made no serious effort at further conquest since our Governor Scapula died seven years ago. For seven years there have been no full-scale operations, nothing but frontier brawls. Consequently we've taken few prisoners and the labour force even for the mines we operate is now insufficient. So the revenue is steadily falling.'
Nero pushed back his chair and stood up. We all rose with him.
'I am sending you to Britain, Paulinus,' he said distinctly, 'to make war. I have examined all the evidence, all the reports from the Province, and have decided on the operations which you must undertake. You will not find them unreasonably difficult. Burrus and Claudius will give you your directive and any information you want.'
He paused, as though considering, and went on in a voice edged, ever so slightly, with menace. 'If you succeed your reputation will be second to no one in my armies. If you fail, you will have lost a province.'
2
The next month was turbulent. I retrieved all the household furniture, personal baggage and servants dispatched to Lower Germany in the expectation of three years' residence in that Province and overhauled and augmented it to accord with the greater splendour befitting a Governor of Britain. A considerable train of carts, wagons and draught animals had to be assembled for transport by the long route through Italy and Narbonne to the Belgic coast. As the month was October I had decided against travelling by sea to Marseilles. Dispatches went to military posts along the road so that escorts could be provided for each stage of the journey. My family was to remain in Rome: Nero's instructions, together with what I heard of climate and conditions in Britain, predicted that my life there had better be free of domestic ties.
Within a few days of my interview the Senate met and, for the second time in six months, conferred on me the Government of a Province and the gilded scroll which was my charter of office. The performance maintained all the gravity and solemnity of a former age when Rome's proconsuls were indeed chosen by the Fathers in Council and were answerable to them alone. The practical result of the official ceremony was a flood of applications for positions on my staff from Senators on behalf of their relations and friends. The candidates were nearly all Half-Year tribunes: young men who would clutter my civil offices and headquarter tents for six months, learning nothing and doing the minimum of work, before going elsewhere to continue their careers. I could have had a cohort of them if I had accepted everyone. However, they fulfilled certain useful, minor functions of an administrative nature and their turnover was rapid, so I chose a dozen of the best after interviewing each one personally and going through his records and credentials in detail. There was also one Broad Stripe tribune, going to serve his year with IX Legion, and three Narrow Stripe men about to start their military careers as prefects of auxiliary cohorts.
I was spared the cost of a troupe of gladiators, actors and dancers for the entertainment of my provincials. Nero had issued an edict only two years before which forbade governors to give gladiatorial, wild beast or other displays in their provinces, ostensibly on the grounds of expense. Cynical opinion whispered that really he feared lest his representatives might thereby attract to their own persons the popularity that should belong to the Prince alone. In truth, Nero at this time was very well liked both in Rome and in the Provinces and, to give him his due, I think it was not jealousy that caused the edict but a genuine care for the well-being of his subjects. Costly displays might well act as a kind of bribe to stifle accusations to Caesar of maladministration and corrupt practices on the part of a governor.
Amid these arrangements I found time to study most of the books written about Britain, from Pytheas through Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, the dispatches of the Divine Julius and the Divine Claudius's account of his brief visit. In addition I delved into the Senate's archives and read the dispatches of successive governors. These, naturally, were little more than news-letters containing information of general interest: all confidential material was confined to letters sent directly to the Prince or his Council. From these varied sources, and from maps of the Province kept at the Secretariat, I obtained a fairly detailed picture of the land which had to be converted, during my three years' term of office, from a wasting liability to a horn of plenty.
Flavius Vespasianus was in Rome at this time, making preparations similar to my own before leaving for Africa as Proconsul. During a meeting of the Senate I induced him to talk about his experiences in Britain during the Conquest. Everyone knows about his whirlwind campaign across southern Britain with II Legion; I was hoping to get his personal opinion of the quality and methods of the British warrior. He did not tell me much.
'How do they fight?' he grunted. 'Very well, for savages. Braver than any I've met. Tougher. Good physique. Catch them in the open and you'll have no trouble. They've no discipline. No knowledge of tactics. Attack in mass. No idea of manœuvre. No body armour. Give them the javelins and then charge. Hard work, though. Don't break easily.'
I tried to sort this out. Vespasianus's undoubtedly brilliant military intellect is not matched by his powers of conversation.
'Under what conditions do they fight best?' I asked.
He scratched his grey, scanty hair.
'Got to catch them in the open. Always have trouble otherwise. Shut themselves up in hill-forts. Very difficult. Remember a place I took with Augusta. Dorchester, they call it nowadays. Tremendous fort. Three lines of ditches. Stormed it all day. Lot of casualties. Took it in the evening. Hardest fight of the campaign.'
I gave it up. Vespasianus was out of date; conditions in Britain had changed since his day. I knew that nearly all hill-forts in the settled areas had been abandoned; they had lost their purpose when the land was pacified and tribes no longer indulged in private warfare. The forts still ringed the hilltops, their crumbling ramparts gradually filling the ditches, the stockades robbed for building timber and firewood. Their former inhabitants, actively encouraged by the Provincial Government, had moved down the slopes into open villages and towns.
Vespasianus rumbled on. 'Hear you're going to Britain. Filthy country. Damp. Better off in Africa. Dry and hot. Might make a bit of money out of it.'
This last remark was unwise, to say the least. I knew Vespasianus was having money troubles; unfortunate speculations had reduced him almost to penury and city gossips declared that Nero had given him the African appointment to help him over a difficult period. But the good old days when a governor could make a fortune out of his province were gone. Nero himself had tightened up the existing regulations and introduced new ones which made corrupt provincial government difficult though not actually impossible. Moreover, the provincials were encouraged to make official complaints to Rome of any instances of venality.
'You should guard yourself, Vespasianus. These savages in the provinces love nothing better nowadays than to accuse their governors to the Prince. Don't you remember Pedius Blaesus, of Cyrene, who was condemned? Next week Acilius Strabo will be on trial. It shows how careful you must be. For myself, I hope only to finish my term without actually losing money.'
'You'll be lucky.' Vespasianus stretched his legs inelegantly, hitched his toga up to his knees and glanced irritably at an ancient Senator droning an interminable speech. 'Hope to live on your salary?'
'It seems ample enough. Besides, it's not money I hope to make in Britain.'
'Ambitious, eh? Afraid of being outshone in glory by Corbulo? Don't look so angry, Paulinus; you must expect common remarks from a common fellow, and it's what everyone in Rome says, anyway.'
He put a hand on my shoulder.
'Listen, young man'— there were exactly five years between us —'your career and mine so far are very alike. Both of us very fortunate very early. You in Mauretania. I in Britain. Sixteen or seventeen years ago. Since then neither of us have done very much. Lack of opportunity. Now we've each got our chance. Africa for me. No wars there. Might be some easy money: I want it badly. Britain for you. No cash. Plenty of fighting. Suits us both. Interesting to see how we come out, eh?'
He chuckled and belched. I surveyed him without pleasure.
'I prefer my own ambitions, Vespasianus. My advice to you is to live on your pay, accept only small and infrequent bribes, and keep your accounts straight.'
'So?' He eyed the aged Senator, now in the full flood of his peroration. 'How much longer is Thrasea going to keep us here? Well, I'll give you some really useful advice. Watch those Britons in what they call the "settled areas?" Keep an eye on your Procurator and his taxes. Don't press the natives too hard. Beat them in the field and they respect you. Govern them well and they might even like you. Oppress them and they'll try to tear your guts out. I wasn't in Britain long but I learned that much. Good, the old fool's finished. I'm off. Farewell, Paulinus.'
In the outcome it would have been better for each of us had we heeded the other's counsel.
3
My written directive arrived during this time. The general tenor, though draped with all the verbiage and safeguards customary in Secretariat drafting, accorded well enough with Nero's succinct instructions. With it was a letter from Burrus asking the favour of a personal interview so that he might amplify certain points in the directive. He asked for a meeting at his own house instead of the Secretariat, which was unusual: I guessed that the Prefect wished to impart some peculiar and highly confidential interpretations.
I saw him the same day. When we were settled Burrus dismissed all his clerks and attendants.
'I hope your directive makes the broad outlines of our policy clear, Legate?' he asked.
'Clear enough so far as it goes, Burrus,' I assented. 'I should like some information which isn't in my orders and cannot be ascertained from official files in the Senate House. I know, for instance, the designations, strengths and localities of military units in Britain, but nothing of their fitness, morale or characters of their commanders. What is the temper of the people in the settled areas? How far can I rely on the co-operation or neutrality of friendly tribes on the frontiers? Litigation arising from taxation and revenue, which are not my direct concern, may require my judgment: are there local variants in the general system of provincial taxation? What are the army's commitments in the matter of revenue collection? These are a few points. I have others in mind.'
'They are matters of detail,' Burrus said with a touch of impatience. 'If, before you leave, you will list them I shall see that your questions are fully answered by the Secretariat departments concerned.'
He pushed back his chair, rose rather wearily and paced the floor. He looked tired and aged more than his years.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Imperial Governor"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Geoffrey Herdman.
Excerpted by permission of SFWP.
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Table of Contents
Introduction,
Prologue,
BOOK I The Sowing,
BOOK II Harvest,
BOOK III Aftermath,
APPENDIX,