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Back Emperor
Chapters (76)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. I
  4. II
  5. III
  6. I - INVADER AD 43-70
  7. I
  8. II
  9. III
  10. IV
  11. V
  12. VI
  13. VII
  14. VIII
  15. IX
  16. X
  17. XI
  18. XII
  19. XIII
  20. XIV
  21. XV
  22. XVI
  23. XVII
  24. XVIII
  25. XIX
  26. XX
  27. XXI
  28. XXII
  29. XXIII
  30. XXIV
  31. XXV
  32. XXVI
  33. II - BUILDER AD 122-138
  34. I
  35. II
  36. III
  37. IV
  38. V
  39. VI
  40. VII
  41. VIII
  42. IX
  43. X
  44. XI
  45. XII
  46. XIII
  47. XIV
  48. XV
  49. XVI
  50. XVII
  51. XVIII
  52. XIX
  53. XX
  54. XXI
  55. III - EMPEROR AD 314—337
  56. I
  57. II
  58. III
  59. IV
  60. V
  61. VI
  62. VII
  63. VIII
  64. IX
  65. X
  66. XI
  67. XII
  68. XIII
  69. XIV
  70. XV
  71. EPILOGUE
  72. I
  73. II
  74. III
  75. IV
  76. Afterword

It seemed to Thalius that what Cornelius really wanted of him was an ear in which to pour complaints about his own grievances. Not that those grievances weren’t extensive, for somebody of Cornelius’s patrician background. ‘Constantine’s butchery of authority and tradition has reached all the way to the heart of imperial government,’ Cornelius complained, ‘in fact, into his own court ...’

Constantine had created a whole new layer of aristocracy, called the ‘Order of Imperial Companions’. His council, the consistorium, was drawn from this group. Many of the Companions were the gaudy bishops who made Thalius so uncomfortable. And by establishing the Companions Constantine had excluded the old senatorial and equestrian classes. Cornelius’s family, senators since republican days, had been largely disenfranchised, and Cornelius’s own position in court was precarious.

Cornelius fumed. ‘Not only has Constantine violated centuries of tradition, he has casually upturned checks and balances within an imperial system that has been evolving since the days of Augustus ...’ But Thalius was sure that Cornelius’s concerns were not about the welfare of the empire but his own ambitions.

And it struck Thalius that Cornelius, for all his sophistication and power, was so obsessed with court intrigues and his own ambitions that he simply could not see the deeper truths of his age. After all, within Thalius’s own lifetime the empire had nearly collapsed altogether. You could complain about Constantine’s reforms, as Thalius did himself, but was it possible that the Emperor actually had no real choice in how he acted, if he was to hold the empire together?

VIII

VIII

The caravan at last approached the bristling walls of Camulodunum. The lead carriages came to a gate in the west wall which had once, curiously, been a triumphal arch before being incorporated into the wall, and was now mostly blocked up. Here the caravan broke up.

Thalius, happy to see the back of Ulpius Cornelius for a while, led his own companions to the townhouse he owned just a short walk from the forum. It had actually been some months since Thalius had been back to the city. Even though he had grown up here, and his affairs were closely bound up with the city, he much preferred his country estate half a day’s ride out of town. Now, as he walked through a grubby, decayed town crowded with hawkers, chancers, beggars and prostitutes all drawn to the tawdry gleam of a soldier-emperor’s court, Thalius was reminded why.