Sarum (49 page)
Authors: Edward Rutherfurd
“Are there many women like that in Rome?”
And Porteus, not wanting her to think he considered Lydia too highly replied:
“Yes, many.”
Maeve nodded thoughtfully, and from that moment decided that they should never, if she could prevent it, go there. She had also noticed the delicate and careful way in which the Roman girl held herself.
“Can she ride?”
Porteus grinned.
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
“I ride,” Maeve said firmly, and she tossed her magnificent hair.
It was as the party came down the lane towards the villa that they hurt him. They did not mean to. He had pulled his horse over to the carriage and was bending down to pull aside the curtain so that he could speak to them, when he heard Lydia, who could not see him, exclaim softly:
“Look – oh Marcus look. That hovel: it’s where he lives!”
And he heard Marcus whisper:
“We shouldn’t have come. Praise everything and keep smiling.”
Slowly he straightened up in the saddle. They had no idea he had heard them. As he gazed down at the little villa he had built he saw it, for the first time in years, for exactly what it was: a poor, pathetic little farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, and for a moment, all his conflicting emotions in seeing these friends from his past seemed to dissolve into embarrassment and shame.
At the house the children were brought forward to meet them, and the two boys said a few words of greeting in Latin that did them credit.
“We have two sons back in Rome,” Marcus said. “But I haven’t managed to teach them to speak as prettily as yours, Porteus.”
Then that afternoon Porteus showed them round the place; and if he did so without enthusiasm, it was more than made up for by the voluble commentary of Tosutigus, who was anxious to show them his son-in-law’s brilliant improvements even to the plaster on the walls. Marcus at once spotted the white sheep and asked him intelligent questions about how he had crossed them, as well as providing up to date information on the most recent innovations in land drainage. His enthusiasm seemed to be genuine, and Porteus was grateful for it. But he could not help noticing that when Marcus grinned, it was for just a little too long, and when he exclaimed: “Why, young Porteus, you’ve landed on your feet after all and got yourself a fine estate!” he could only feel that the Roman was looking for a compliment to pay.
The meal that night, prepared by Maeve and her women, would have been hard to surpass even in Rome and Porteus felt some of his pride return.
“Your Maeve . . .” Lydia had some trouble in pronouncing the name, “puts our own poor meals to shame. I can see why you chose her, my Porteus.” Into this last sentence she managed to convey a trace of sadness, as if it were he who had deserted her, rather than the other way round.
She tried, also, to talk to Maeve; but after she had complimented her on the meal the conversation became strained. She spoke a little of Rome, but Maeve, while smiling politely, showed no interest; and when the talk turned to the affairs of other provinces, it became clear that the native girl had only the vaguest conception of the shape of the empire, let alone its individual parts. But Tosutigus was in his element, plying both his guests with questions about affairs of state, the doings of the Emperor Nero and the politics of Rome late into the night, until finally Porteus, with a laugh, declared to the grateful couple that it was time that his visitors were allowed to get some sleep.
“You must visit us again,” Tosutigus urged them as they retired, “and we shall visit you when we come to Rome.”
When Marcus and Lydia left in the morning, the whole party went together to the dune.
“Farewell, my Porteus,” Lydia said with a sweet smile. “I am glad to see you so happy.”
And then Marcus took his arm and said cheerfully: “Glad to see you’re getting rich in your province, my dear friend. The gods be with you.” But as he said it and turned away to his carriage, Porteus saw that faint but unmistakable look of embarrassment which the successful man can never perfectly hide from a friend who has fallen into another sphere.
As the little carriage bowled away down the road. Porteus suddenly realised that he had walked a dozen paces or so after them, leaving Tosutigus and Maeve behind him; and there he stood alone, staring at the little figures receding into the grey horizon. It seemed to him that the road from Sorviodunum was infinitely long. And inside him the small voice spoke and said: you have lost.
When they had disappeared, he turned slowly back to face the chief, his wife, and the dune.
In the year 68, great changes were set in motion in the empire, the province of Britannia, and in the household of Porteus at Sorviodunum.
For in the year 68, the emperor Nero was deposed and died, probably by his own hand. There then followed a period of confusion, known to history as the year of the four emperors, when several claimants, from different parts of the empire, fought for the imperial purple. During this struggle, the province of Britannia under its governor Bolanus remained on the sidelines; the three legions still stationed there all supported one of the candidates, Vitellius, and sent detachments to his army; and though the main body of each legion remained in Britannia, they remained a potential threat which each of the rivals had to take into account. Old Suetonius, now a respected senator in Rome, supported the candidacy of another claimant, Otho; but he was not punished when the Vitellian army defeated him in the battle of Bedriacum in Northern Italy. The victorious Vitellians however made one great mistake. To deter all others from opposing their candidate, they butchered every centurion in Otho’s army. It had exactly the opposite effect. All over the empire, legions heard the news and felt a sense of outrage; and it was not long before other powerful commanders had collected troops and begun to move against them. One of these was the single-minded, hard-faced Vespasian, who was then in command of operations in Palestine where he was suppressing a Jewish revolt. Vitellius summoned more aid from the legions in Britannia. Governor Bolanus hesitated: and before Bolanus made up his mind, Vitellius was defeated and Vespasian took the throne. The remarkable Flavian Dynasty had begun.
It was an extraordinary series of events. Suddenly it became apparent that Rome was no longer able to impose itself on all its parts: a powerful commander of a relatively unimportant family had placed himself, without great difficulty, upon the imperial throne; and from this day, any provincial governor knew that given the right circumstances, he might do the same.
The new regime brought several changes to Britannia. On the whole, the legions in the province accepted the new emperor, and the II Augusta were delighted that their former commander had risen unexpectedly to such heights. But the loyalty of the XX Legion was less secure. Vespasian acted quickly. As legate to the XX, he sent the reliable Gnaeus Julius Agricola, who had performed so well on Suetonius’s staff during the Boudiccan revolt. As governor, he replaced Bolanus with Cerialis, who had gallantly if rashly led his troops down from Lindum when Boudicca and her rebels were destroying Camulodunum. These were staunch, loyal soldiers and they were to serve both Vespasian and the province brilliantly.
They were also known personally to Porteus.
Tosutigus was delighted with these changes.
“Cerialis and Agricola – friends with whom you have served. And Vespasian – a man to whom I have spoken myself! This can only be good for us.” And the next day he wrote a fulsome letter to the emperor reminding him of what he called their friendship. Porteus smiled, corrected his grammar, and let him send it. The emperor would be receiving thousands of such letters – it could do no harm.
But for once, to Porteus’s amazement, the chief’s boundless optimism was not ill-founded.
The first good news came when a staff officer from the new governor arrived in Sorviodunum and handed Porteus a letter.
In recognition of your loyal service and the good reports of your work for Procurator Classicianus, you are appointed as the governor’s personal
beneficarius
to oversee the building of a new baths at the place known as Aquae Sulis.
“It’s an excellent appointment,” the officer assured him, “and it carries a huge salary. I congratulate you.”
It was a normal procedure in the Romanisation of a new province like Britannia to encourage the building of theatres, baths and other visible signs of civilisation as soon as possible; and the commencement of the great Roman baths at Aquae Sulis was to prove such a triumphant example of this process that the place which later became known as the city of Bath retained its Roman atmosphere for the rest of its two thousand year history.
Porteus knew the site well. It stood in a deep valley surrounded by a protective crescent of ridges at the southern tip of the Cotswold hills with their rich deposits of grey and honey-coloured stone, only thirty miles north-west of Sarum. There, powerful warm springs burst out of the rocks bringing up with them rich mineral solutions that were well known to have curative powers. For centuries before the Romans came it had been a place of pilgrimage, sacred to the Celtic goddess Sulis; and though the Romans knew this goddess to be one and the same as their own Minerva, it was typical of their wisdom that they chose to give the place a Celtic name so that the natives would think of the Roman spa as their own.
When the officer briefed him, the instructions were simple. He was to build a large, single bath house – handsome but simple – and situate it in such a way that more elaborate extensions could be added in the future. The budgets were generous.
“It’s to be a showplace – a spa for our soldiers and a place for the natives to discover the delights of civilisation,” the officer told him. “Nothing like a baths for softening these warlike Celts,” he added with a grin.
One summer morning, Porteus set out to inspect the place. With him, after the little fellow had pleaded to be included, was Numex.
“I have learned how to build Roman roads,” the ageless craftsman said, “let me learn more of your Roman arts. I will put them to good use for you at Sarum.”
The preparations which Porteus found awaiting him were impressive. There were contractors drawn from all over the island; architects from Gaul, surveyors, masons, plumbers, and an army of workmen – it was far larger than anything he had controlled before. But so well organised were they that supervising them was comparatively light work. Already the surveyor had inspected the springs, dug trenches to examine the soil and made plans of the entire site. It was not long before a plan for the baths had been drawn up.
A massive, rectangular bath hall would be built on a north west axis beside the sacred springs, whose waters would be fed into the pool from one side. On the east side of this main hall, a smaller thermal bath would be constructed, and on the west side a suite of artificially heated rooms including the warm
tepidarium
chamber and the steaming
caldarium
, where the bathers could sit and allow the open pores of their skin to sweat profusely. The design of these first buildings would be simple, with plain, bold masonry; but this rather solemn effect would be enlivened by brightly coloured mosaics, and carvings of the Roman and Celtic gods.
tepidarium
chamber and the steaming
caldarium
, where the bathers could sit and allow the open pores of their skin to sweat profusely. The design of these first buildings would be simple, with plain, bold masonry; but this rather solemn effect would be enlivened by brightly coloured mosaics, and carvings of the Roman and Celtic gods.
It would take several years to build even the first of the baths, but Porteus set to work cheerfully. Perhaps, after all, life in the province might improve.
Numex had never been more excited. Years before, when he had helped the legionaries build the great road from Sorviodunum, he had recognised at once that the new rulers of the island, as well as being militarily powerful, were masters of building crafts and skills far beyond anything he had seen before, and when he heard about the new baths, he almost burst with curiosity. At Porteus’s request, the contractors had enrolled him in the craftsmen’s guild, and this meant that once he had taken the craftsmen’s sacred oaths to their protectress, the goddess Minerva, he was free to join the builders and learn their secrets. From early in the morning until late at night the little craftsman waddled about the place, his round red face gleaming with pleasure, as he poked his long nose into every corner, and engaged the workers in friendly conversation. He observed how the plumbers laid their lead pipes through which water could be pumped and how they made channels with bricks to carry the excess away. He learned the painstaking work of the men who planned and laid out the mosaics, and came to admire the exact, geometric precision with which every aspect of the work was done.
But above all, he studied the intricate system for heating the baths – the hypocaust – the vast network of central heating air ducts which carried the heat from furnaces under the floors. He had never seen anything like this before, and when he thought of the primitive fires that filled the Celtic huts with smoke he laughed. “Compared with these Romans, our Celtic chiefs used to live like cattle,” he said.
After two years he had mastered many of the arts of the workers he had encountered there.
The building of the Roman baths was not the only change taking place in southern Britain. Important political developments were occurring as well. Soon after Vespasian assumed the purple, he decided that the Durotriges he had conquered twenty-five years before were ready for the next stage in the process of civilisation, and a new provincial capital was laid out in the south of their territory at Durnovaria. And when King Cogidubnus of the Atrebates died a little later, his territory also was reorganised and the northern half of his kingdom formed into a new administrative area that stretched past Sorviodunum and on to Aquae Sulis; the capital of this being the new city called Venta Belgarum. It was in this way, at the start of the Flavian dynasty, that the ancient towns of Dorchester and Winchester were founded.
Other books
Backyard by Norman Draper
William Shakespeare's Star Wars by Doescher, Ian
Consequences by Skyy
Roth(Hell Squad 5) by Anna Hackett
His Woman, His Child by Beverly Barton
The Spanish Connection by Nick Carter
B00BUGFFGW EBOK by Boyle, Megan
Crash & Burn by Lisa Gardner
The Box Garden by Carol Shields
Fool's War by Sarah Zettel
