The Course of Honour by Lindsey Davis

Author:Lindsey Davis
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780312556167
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Veronica had managed to hire a balcony that overlooked the processional route. It cost so much Caenis felt churlish for wanting to refuse her invitation. So she went, and took the picnic: some cold Lucanian salami, bread, stuffed eggs and pickled fish. She was not sure whether this choice made her a sentimentalist, or stupid, or ludicrously brave.

It was bound to be a long hot day. There were eight of them to a balcony that would comfortably seat three. Elbows kept knocking the plant pots down into the crowd below. Veronica regimented everyone endlessly. She had allocated them all broad-brimmed hats against the sun, and parsley-crowns for when they grew tired of keeping on their hats. She had brought deep baskets of rosebuds for hurling at the parade, and to complete the chaos vast quantities of jugs of wine. ‘Just be grateful,’ cried Veronica, who was a hostess of the most considerate kind, ‘the price for the balcony includes the lavatory downstairs!’

The city was in turmoil long before there was anything to see. People had to arrive early in order to squeeze through the streets. This meant standing or sitting about getting sillier and louder, while far away Aulus Plautius was still reviewing his troops. The pickpockets were putting in gallant work.

At the Field of Mars further honours were announced, this time by Plautius himself. There were batons for the legionary commanders, more headless spears for soldiers who were valiant in battle, coronets for every man who saved a colleague’s life, harness-medals for the cavalry, armlets for some and a bounty in cash for everyone. The legions and their individual cohorts all adopted commemorative standard-discs. And then there was a special award, one which Hosidius Geta had already won (most unusual since neither man had been a consul yet); the granting of full triumphal honours—the right to wear his triumphal wreath at festivals and to have his statue in bronze erected in the Forum of Augustus—to Flavius Vespasianus for his masterly campaign in the south-west.

All this delayed the march off for hours.

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