ACCUSATION
The murder or assassination or execution of Julianus on the Kalends of June shocked Falco even more than the deaths of Commodus and Pertinax. As the June days passed I had to exercise my greatest adroitness to keep him from spending all his waking hours indoors, chiefly in moping about his collection of gems. I did pretty well with him, for I wheedled him into going to the Baths of Titus three afternoons out of four, into going out to dine one evening in three, and I even induced him to give several formal dinners, each of which was a great success.
But, if I left him to himself, I invariably found him glooming over the gems which no longer gave him any real pleasure. And I could not blame him. Indoors one felt reasonably safe in Rome that June, for no residences had been broken into anywhere in the city, though many shops had been looted and some burnt. But, in the streets, the insolence of the Praetorians was unendurable and their unbridled license and arrogance terrorized the entire population, especially the upper classes. Going anywhere in broad daylight was dangerous, even going to the Baths of Titus from the Esquiline was risky. Anyone like Falco was certain to feel safer indoors. And the tense uncertainty of those twenty-four days made everybody restless, feverish, fidgety and morose: civil war between Severus and Pescennius Niger, lord of the East, was inevitable. How Clodius Albinus, in control of Gaul, Spain and Britain, would act, was problematical. We were all keyed-up, apprehensive and wretched.
Our suspense was shorter since it turned out that Severus had made up his mind and begun to make his rapid and effective arrangements as soon as he heard of the murder of Pertinax. Pertinax was murdered on the fifth day before the Kalends of April and so swiftly travelled the imperial couriers who were his friends and who arranged to set out at once and carry Severus the news, that the first of them rode more than eight hundred miles in eight days and reached him at Caruntum in Pannonia on the Nones of April. Severus was cautious, kept secret what he had heard and moved seventy-two miles nearer Rome to Sabaria in Pannonia, where, after the news was confirmed beyond question, he harangued the soldiers and was by them saluted Emperor on the Ides of April. At once he assured himself of the support or acquiescence of his officers and won over the local authorities and garrisons all over Illyricum, Noricum and Rhaetia. Bands of his most trusted soldiers set off towards Rome by every road. He gathered his forces, made sure of their loyalty and began his march. He was already at Aquileia when the news of the death of Julianus reached him there on the Nones of June. He marched straight to Rome and on the tenth day before the Kalends of July, the day of the summer solstice, was outside the city, accompanied by the delegation of senators who had met him at Interamnia and surrounded by the six hundred picked men who acted as his personal guards, who, it was rumored, had not taken off their corselets day nor night since they left Sabaria.
The next day, the ninth day before the Kalends of July, we heard with amazement that the Praetorians had been cowed, had surrendered their standards to Severus and had been disarmed. Certainly knots of them hung about the streets and squares, all in ordinary tunics and rain hats, shorn of their uniforms as well as of their weapons, and looking not only humbled but frightened. It was rumored that all of those directly concerned with the murder of Pertinax had been not only disarmed and stripped of their uniforms, but actually stripped naked and scourged out of the camp by the Illyrian legionaries who had surrounded and cowed them, and ordered to flee the neighborhood of Rome and never again to approach within a hundred miles of the capitol.
From noon of that day the whole city was in a ferment, preparing for the entry on the morrow of our new Emperor. This was acclaimed the most magnificent spectacle ever beheld in Rome; certainly I was never spectator of anything so impressive. The day was fair, almost cloudless, mild and warm, but pleasant with a gentle breeze. From where Falco and I viewed the procession, nearer the Forum, we gazed about on a wondrous picture: the blue sky above, under it a frame of roofs, mostly of red tiles, some of green weathered bronze among them giving variety, and here and there a temple roof of silver gleaming in the sun, not a few gilded and flashing.
As far as we could see about us every balcony was hung with tapestries gay with particolored patterns, every doorway and window was wreathed in flowers, countless braziers sent up columns of scented smoke. The streets were lined with throngs habited in togas newly whitened; spectators of both sexes, the men in white togas, their women in the brightest silks, crowded every window, loggia, balcony, roof, and other viewpoint. The chattering of the crowds ceased when the head of the procession appeared, and, in a breathless hush, we saw leading it on horseback, with two mounted aides, Flavius Juvenalis, who had been third and last Prefect of the Praetorium to Julianus and who, as an honorable gentleman and loyal official, had been confirmed and continued in this post by Severus. Behind him tramped, in serried ranks, an entire legion of the Pannonian troops, in full armor with their great shields gleaming and the sun sparkling on their gilded helmets and their spear-points.
Behind them came ten of the elephants with which Julianus, in his futile, bungling attempts at preparations for resistance, had had some of his men drill. Each now carried in his tower eight Danubians, four tall Dacian spearmen and four Scythian archers, bow in hand, leaning over the edge of the howdah.
Behind the elephants came Norican legionaries carrying the surrendered standards of the disbanded Praetorian Guard; not held aloft, but trailed, half inverted.
Then, amid roars of cheers, came Severus himself, habited not in his general's regalia, but in the gorgeous Imperial robes, as if already in the Palace and about to give a public levee. Though thus clad as in time of peace and walking all the way on foot, he was hedged about by his faithful six hundred, every man stepping alertly, helmet-plumes waving, helmets glittering, shields gleaming, spear-points asparkle, kilt-straps flapping, scabbards clanking, a grim advertisement of irresistible power.