Sword of Rome(41)
He turned away, leaving Valerius with the odd feeling that he might have misjudged Galba’s new consul. But Vinius’s warning counted for nothing. It would take five full days for Galba to draft his message to the governor of Germania Inferior, and by then it was already too late.
XVI
The nature of the other priority taking up Galba’s time became clear the next day, with disastrous consequences for the new Emperor and for Rome. Titus Vinius – who to Valerius’s astonishment turned out to be one of Otho’s new friends, thanks to the young senator’s timely offer to marry his daughter – sent word. The scribes were to write later that the omens were bad, that thunder crashed and rolled and lightning split the sky, but the day Valerius remembered was one of those still winter miracles, with pale blue skies and barely a hint of breeze to stir the standards of the Praetorian Guard as Servius Galba Caesar Augustus announced his choice of heir.
He and Serpentius joined Otho as he rushed to the Castra Praetoria just in time to be present when the man in whom he had placed his trust, his loyalty and his life shattered his dreams and destroyed him politically and financially. By rights, the Senate should have been told first, before an announcement to the people from the rostra in the Forum, but Galba hoped the honour he paid the Praetorians might make up for the thirty thousand sesterces a man he had robbed them of. As Serpentius said later, it was a ‘true measure of the idiot’s judgement’.
They watched from close to the gateway as the Emperor took his place on a reviewing platform on the Praetorian parade ground, part shadowed by the great red-brick barracks that lined the walls. Five thousand men of the Guard stood silent and motionless in their ranks. At Galba’s side waited a dark-haired, unsmiling young man of medium height with the soft, careless features and empty eyes of those born to rule. He was of an age with Valerius and his face stirred a memory. A memory of a family graced with power and riches for generation after generation, but one in which the aptitude for survival appeared to have become extinct. A father and a brother executed by Claudius. Another brother murdered by Nero, and this one until recently exiled for his part in his family’s intrigues. Valerius shook his head. Why him? And why now? The Praetorians listened in mute puzzlement as the Emperor began the speech that would become the suicide note for his rule. Of all the men at the Castra Praetoria that day, Servius Galba Caesar Augustus and the young man at his side were among the few unaware of that fact.
Galba began with a long preamble extolling the virtues of the Praetorians before he came to the point. ‘A man reaching the twilight of his lifetime needs an heir, and never more so than when that man is Emperor. Rome requires firm leadership. History tells us that to ensure such leadership requires a man of special character and impeccable ancestry. A man young enough to provide a prolonged period of stability, yet old enough to make the kind of mature decisions that face any great ruler.’ Valerius glanced at the man beside him, thinking that Otho might have been listening to a eulogy about himself. The handsome face remained emotionless, but his eyes glinted like sword points as he stared at the two figures on the distant platform. Galba’s voice grew in strength as he continued. ‘I present to you Lucius Calpurnius Piso Licinianus as a young man of great stature. A young man who was born to rule. The blood of the triumvirs runs in his veins. The blood of Pompey the Great and Marcus Linius Crassus, the men who saved Rome from the scourge of Spartacus. Perhaps not the blood of Caesar, but with the strength of a Caesar, and the wisdom of a Caesar.’ He paused and won a few cheers from the tribunes and the centurions in the front rank, but from the mass of troops behind there was only sullen silence.
‘One last chance, old man. Now is the time to offer them their money.’ Valerius wondered if he had imagined the hissed words that emerged from Otho’s lips.
But there was no offer of reward from Galba, just a long list of the Piso family’s accomplishments, their consulships, the temples they had endowed and the great games they had sponsored. Throughout it all, the expression on Piso’s face never altered from self-satisfied complacency. He had held no public office, not even a lowly quaestorship, yet now he was being offered control of the greatest Empire the world had ever known, and he accepted it as his by right.
‘Patrician, politician, soldier and citizen,’ Galba continued. ‘We all want the same for Rome. Strength and stability, prosperity and peace …’
‘What about glory?’ The voice came from somewhere at the back of the Praetorian ranks and was quickly followed by a second. ‘Aye, and what about loot?’