Family Favourites by Alfred Duggan

Author:Alfred Duggan [Duggan, Alfred]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Histororical Fiction
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

8. A God Approaches Rome

In the spring Eutychianus began to prepare for the long overland march to Rome. We would be a large company. Besides the Praetorians, who always guard the Emperor, the Alban Legions, the soldiers who had first acknowledged our sovereign, would march with us to their privileged quarters in Italy. It was a considerable business to assemble adequate supplies along the Via Egnatia, and to provide horses and draught oxen.

The serious planning was done at military headquarters, but the Emperor made his personal contribution. One morning I was chatting with the sentries in the guardroom; for with very little else to do I tried to make myself useful by keeping in touch with the feelings of the common soldiers. Suddenly there was a knock on the door and one of the Augusta’s maids put her head in.

Her welcome made her blush all over; she had to wait until the greeting had died down before she could deliver her message. One does not usually send a pretty slave-girl to carry orders to soldiers, but I was not surprised to hear she bore a command from the Emperor. When he was struck by a bright idea he would send his orders by the first person he met; one got used to that sort of thing in the palace of Nicomedia.

‘Imperial command. Meeting of the privy council in half an hour,’ she stammered, blushing more than before.

‘Well, what about it? What are we supposed to do?’ said the guard-commander sharply. Soldiers resent having their orders delivered by slaves, though it happens constantly.

‘I suppose they want you to mount an extra guard on the council chamber. Is that it, my dear?’ I said, trying to be helpful.

‘No. The message was for you, Duratius. The Emperor commands you to attend,’ she answered.

At the consternation on my face the soldiers burst out laughing. The centurion of the guard quickly gave them something to do, for fear they should get out of hand. ‘Strip, privy councillor,’ he barked at me as though we were on parade. ‘ Greaves, boots, cuirass, helmet, baldric – take them off, the lot of them. Now, two men to each piece of armour and really get down to it. You have a quarter of an hour, no more. The privy councillor Duratius must have the smartest turn-out ever seen on a Praetorian. He’s the first centurion of the corps to attend the privy council, and he will do us credit.’

That gave me a few minutes to collect my thoughts. It was absurd that a centurion should be a member of the imperial privy council, a venerable institution founded by the Divine Augustus. But there would be nothing strange in the Emperor discussing affairs of state with his family and friends, as he frequently did over the supper table. The Emperor was merely being flippant in a serious matter, and not for the first time. This kind of behaviour would not make him popular when at last he reached Rome.

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