Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [119]
It was an excellent opportunity. The cohors amicorum of a figure like Suetonius formed an informal staff around the governor: it often contained young men of aristocratic family who were being prepared for greater things, and by joining this elite group Porteus would have many chances to make important friends and to learn the inner workings of Roman administration. If the governor chose, he might appoint him to a temporary post in the new province, and at the end of his time there, the young equestrian would have fitted himself to hold important appointments in the future. Groomed for success, Graccus might be able to start him on a career worthy of a member of his family. In the meantime, he would at least be far away from Rome.
“With luck Lydia will forget him while he’s away,” the senator confided to his wife. “She’s thirteen now, but I dare say it wouldn’t be too late to find her a husband in two years’ time.”
“I’m sure he will do brilliantly and be a credit to us,” his wife encouraged.
To Porteus the senator said severely:
“You are betrothed to Lydia. If you want to marry her, make a success of this post. If you fail, I do not want to see you again.”
It was, when all was said and done, a generous bargain that the senator was making: for the governor of Britannia was a man of consequence.
Gaius Suetonius Paulinus was a pompous, red-faced and testy soldier who had distinguished himself in several campaigns, and most notably in the province of Mauretania where, as Praetorian legate, he had made a daring crossing of the mighty Atlas Mountains. War and mountains were what he understood and as soon as he had arrived in the island province he at once set out to find both.
His influence in Rome was considerable: he was a favourite of Emperor Nero.
For poor Claudius was now dead, poisoned six years before by his wife. It was his own fault: she was a young woman and the lame emperor was well into middle age: she had a young son from another marriage for whom she was ambitious and she persuaded Claudius to make the boy his successor. Once she had achieved that, she found little use for the ageing emperor. He should have realised this, and been on his guard. But Claudius had grown foolish – worse, he was even in love with his cruel young wife: she poisoned him, and young Nero succeeded.
Nero was unstable, though brilliant. Once he was emperor, he murdered the mother who had given him the throne and set out to rule in his own peculiar fashion. It soon became clear that he loved above all to appear on the stage: and with his grotesque and lewd performances he shocked the Senate far more than poor stammering Claudius had ever managed to do. Of his favourites, however, some were men of genuine merit: the philosopher Seneca was one; Suetonius the soldier was another.
Suetonius was a fine commander and he had collected about him a talented group. Amongst them was Agricola, the clear-eyed, hard-faced military tribune who had already shown early promise as a great military commander; several young bloods of the great senatorial families; and Marcus Marcellinus, the leader of this younger group. Marcus’s face was almost a perfect square; his features were strong and symmetrical, with a jutting nose and handsome jetblack eyes, over which the eyebrows met. He was twenty-four, but already bore himself like a man of thirty, and had carried out several civil and military assignments with distinction; it was clear that the soldiers, and even Suetonius respected him and that he would probably follow in the distinguished path of his senior, Agricola, and perhaps Suetonius himself one day. He was tall and powerfully built and Porteus was overawed by him.
At first his life was difficult. The governor had only accepted him on sufferance; he had neither attainments nor great family to recommend him to the young bloods. It was Marcus who, after Porteus had tried for over a month to make a place for himself in the group with little success, decided that something should be done.
“It’s time we welcomed