Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [136]
At last. This was what he had been waiting for.
“Which area am I to rule?” he asked eagerly.
The swarthy man frowned. Whatever was this young Celt talking about? He took no notice and continued.
“All the land of the Durotriges will remain under military occupation. Sorviodunum is excepted and will form part of the land for sixty miles to the east, which is to form a new client kingdom.”
Tosutigus went pale. This was all the land that the Atrebates had occupied in their heyday; a huge and magnificent territory.
“I am to rule all that?”
The swarthy man paused.
“Rule?” He decided he must have misunderstood the young native.
Tosutigus shook his head in wonder. He had never dared to hope that his letter would have impressed the governor so much.
It had not occurred to the swarthy Roman that Tosutigus expected to rule anything and even now he failed to realise the great delusion that still filled the young chief’s mind. He went on stolidly.
“The new king of all the Atrebates is the chief Cogidubnus – he’s your king now. In recognition of your gift to the emperor, you are exempt during your lifetime from all taxes on your estates – both the annona and the poll tax.”
Tosutigus stared at him, only gradually understanding what was being said. He had heard of Cogidubnus of course – a pro-Roman chief of the Atrebates with estates far away in the south east.
“He is my king?”
“Yes.”
“What am I to rule then?”
“Nothing.”
He turned it over in his mind.
“Is he a Roman citizen?”
“The emperor has granted him citizenship.”
“Am I?”
“No.”
“What am I then? What status have I?” he asked in sudden despair.
“Peregrinus: a native.”
“So, apart from the tax exemptions, that’s all I have?”
“That’s all.”
What Tosutigus should have realised was that the Romans were following their normal pattern in settling a new province, and that in fact they were dealing with him kindly.
The governor was wisely maintaining a military zone in the territory of the troublesome Durotriges, and rewarding the Atrebates for their longstanding friendship by, at least temporarily, restoring their lands. This would leave the troops and administrators free to deal with the north and the west of the island where most of the tribes were yet to be conquered. At that moment, the legionaries were constructing the great road known as the Fosse Way that ran from the western part of the conquered Durotrigan lands in a north eastern diagonal across the whole of the southern half of the island. This formed the frontier from which they would advance. In time, both the client kingdom of the Atrebates and the military zone in the south west would disappear – though perhaps not for a generation. Then there would be provincial capitals, councils and native magistrates with the chance to obtain the coveted Roman citizenship. But not yet. To have excluded this obscure young chief from the military zone and to have given him generous tax exemptions was to treat him better than he had any right to hope.
But still Tosutigus dreamed.
It was the following year that he made the journey eastwards to pay his respects to Cogidubnus; and when he did so he received two more shocks.
The new client kingdom of Cogidubnus was so large that it contained two provincial capitals, the northern one of which lay on the main road from Sorviodunum to Londinium. It was called Calleva Atrebatum.
The first shock came when he saw it. He could have wept: for though only half built, Calleva was everything he had hoped Sorviodunum would be. It contained a forum, handsome buildings of wood, even a few of stone, and a generously proportioned network of streets covering many acres. But the king, he discovered, was not there. He was far away on the south coast and it was there, seven days later, that Cogidubnus and the chief from Sarum came face to face, and Tosutigus received the second blow.
Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus – he had wisely taken the emperor’s first names