Maybe the Romans couldn’t. But they could hold the Germans out during that last assault. And, as Arminius had feared, a flux of the bowels and a coughing sickness broke out among his men. They started getting hungry, too. And word came that the Romans were rushing soldiers to the Rhine from all over Gaul.
Men began streaming away from Aliso and heading for their homes. Arminius cursed and wept and pleaded, all to no avail. The Germans had one great deed in them, but not two. Watching his army break up, he gloomily wondered if the same held true for him.
Give Me Back My Legions!
XVIII
Late summer in Rome was the hottest, most unpleasant time of the year. Romans with even the faintest pretensions of importance got out of town. Some of them had seaside villas. Others went up into the mountains; on higher ground, the weather wasn’t nearly so oppressive. The truly rich enjoyed estates on one or another of the little islands that dotted the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Augustus had seaside villas. He had mountain hideaways. He had island estates. He had no pretensions of importance. He had no need for pretensions, and they would have seemed wantonly ostentatious on him. He was important, and he knew it. And so did everyone else in the Roman Empire.
Without pretensions, he stayed in Rome for the summer. If he went to one of his retreats, couriers would have to find out which one he’d chosen and then go there themselves. Things might get delayed for days. The Roman Empire ran slowly enough as it was. Making it run slower than it had to might turn indignation to rebellion, or might cost the chance to nip and invasion or a famine in the bud. Going out to a summer place might slow down good news: just a few days before, word came in that Tiberius had finally quelled the Pannonian uprising.
“The Palatine Hill is not so bad,” the ruler of the Roman world said to whoever would listen - and, when you were ruler of the Roman world, everyone listened to you. “We’re up almost as high as we would be in the Apennines.”
His countless servants and slaves listened, yes. And, behind his back, they rolled their eyes and spiraled their forefingers next to their ears. They knew bloody well it was hotter and nastier in Rome than it would have been at any of the many summer refuges Augustus could have chosen. If he wanted to put up with sweat and with city stinks wafted on the breeze, that was his business. If he wanted them to put up with those things, too . . . that was also his business, and all they could do about it was grouse and fume when he wasn’t watching or listening.
He liked to nap in the afternoon - no wonder, not when he was as old as he was. It gave his servants and his bodyguards (some Romans, others wandering Germans chosen for their size and ferocity) more of a chance to complain. And, as luck would have it, he was asleep when the courier from the north rode up on a horse he’d come as close to killing as made no difference.
Seeing the sorry state of the animal, one of Augustus’ grooms clucked reproachfully. Another said, “You could have come slower, friend, for he’s sound asleep right now. He’ll be up and about in a couple of hours.”
“Wake him,” the courier said in a flat, hard voice.
“Wha-at?” both grooms chorused, as if not believing their ears. One of them added, “He’d skin us if we did.”
“He’ll skin you if you don’t,” the courier said. “The news I bring is that important.”
“What is it, then?” asked the groom who’d talked of skinning.
The courier looked through him. “It is for Augustus - that’s what it is. He’ll skin you if anyone hears it before him, too.”
“Well, go on in,” that same groom said. “Not for us to say who sees Augustus and who doesn’t,” It’s not my job: the underling’s escape hatch since the beginning of time.
In went the courier. He had several brief but heated exchanges with Augustus’ slaves. He finally unbent enough to tell the senior servitors he brought news from Germany. When they asked him what the news was, he looked through them, too. They muttered among themselves, in Greek and Aramaic and perhaps other languages that weren’t Latin. By the way they eyed the courier, they loved him not at all. He was making them decide things in the absence of their master. If Augustus didn’t think they should have let him be disturbed . . .
But, in the end, the courier’s stubbornness carried the day. “Stay here,” one of the senior servitors told the fellow, sending him a baleful stare that he ignored. “We will rouse Augustus and tell him you are here with your important news. What he does after that is up to him, of course.”
“Of course,” the courier said, and visibly composed himself to wait.