As the boy talked, the procession entered the square in front of the theatre. Wordlessly, Flavius Damianus led them to the right, into Marble Street. As ever, the main street in the city of about two hundred thousand was crowded. Auxiliary archers went ahead to clear a path through the throng. Flavius Damianus was still covertly watching the responses of the northerner. Marcus Clodius Ballista was nodding his head, now smiling broadly. Once he exchanged a quick grin with his bodyguard.
This was all very encouraging, thought the scribe to the Demos to himself. A hulking barbarian warrior enraptured by tales of the Hellenic past. Flavius Damianus required a vicarius who could be led to carry out the savage persecution the city of Ephesus needed, that the gods demanded, that was so necessary for the forthcoming war with Persia. And had he not had the signal honour of a private letter urging him to keep this Ballista up to the mark from no less a man than the Comes Sacrarum Largitionum et Praefectus Annonae, Macrianus the Lame himself? It should be child's play. Nothing was as malleable, as easily led, as a barbarian enamoured of culture.
XVI
The heavy purple curtains erected to make the walls of the court hung down motionless. Although it was still quite early, it was already hot. There was no hint of a breeze. It was going to be another stifling day. It was 27 August. Ballista had been in Ephesus since the seventeenth of the month. Comfortably lodged in the luxurious palace of the Proconsul, he had been in no hurry to begin his work. But the scribe to the Demos, the earnest Flavius Damianus, had been most pressing. The vaguely distasteful task could not be postponed for ever. If nothing else, the prisons were full.
Ballista shifted on his curule throne of office. The court functionaries appeared to have ceased their scurrying about. They must be satisfied. He looked around. The statues of the reigning emperors, the Augusti Valerian and Gallienus, accompanied by that of the latter's son, the Caesar Valerian, had been brought into the Chalcidium, the committee room at the east end of the Stoa Basilica, and set up in front of and below the permanent statues of the founder of the principate, Augustus and his wife Livia – both depicted seated, larger than life, and with severe expressions. In front, an altar had been placed on which a low fire burned, adding to the heat. The incense in the air was already cloying. All seemed ready.
'Bring in the first prisoner,' said Ballista.
The curtains parted, and a thin man flanked by two soldiers entered. His prominent eyes flicked round the room. He had a strange air of unstable hilarity, as if he had been celebrating a festival on his own.
'Name? Race? Slave or free?' Ballista rattled out the formula.
'I am a Christian,' the man replied.
'You may well be, but that is not one of the questions I asked you.'
'I am a Christ-' The man staggered forward to his knees as one of the soldiers hit him across the shoulders with a cudgel.
The eirenarch, chief of police, stepped forward. 'He is Appian son of Aristides, a Hellene from Miletus. He is of free birth.' The soldiers hauled the prisoner to his feet. The eirenarch continued, without needing to consult the notes in his hand. 'He was denounced last year, anonymously. That, of course, strictly speaking, is illegal, but in court he admitted he was a Christian, adding of his own volition that he was a priest of the cult, one they call a presbyter. He was exiled to the village of Kleimaka. There, in flagrant disobedience of last year's imperial edict – the terms of which were made clear to him – he openly attended cult meetings and travelled to one of their burial places that they call a cemetery.'
He stepped back as he finished. The eirenarch, Corvus, had a heavy, not unintelligent face. He flashed an odd look at Flavius Damianus. There is bad blood there, Ballista thought, before giving his mind back to the case.
The prisoner was grinning, although his eyes still slid nervously around the court.
'You were aware of the emperor's orders?' Ballista's words were as much a statement as a question.
'I do not know the orders. I am a Christian.' A quick gesture by Ballista stopped the soldiers knocking the prisoner down again.
'They have ordered you to worship the gods.'
'I worship the one God who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them.' The brave words were a little undercut by a nervous, high-pitched giggle.
'Do you know the gods exist?'
'No, I do not.'
'You might do soon.' Some of those in court smiled. 'If you return to your senses, you can obtain the pardon of the emperor. A pinch of incense in the fire on the altar, a small libation of wine and swear by the genius of our lord the emperor.'
'I do not recognize the empire of this world.' The man spoke out clearly, although his eyes never stopped moving.
'You are a presbyter?'
'Yes, I am.'
'You were.' Slightly irritated with himself for the cheap joke, Ballista turned to consult with his consilium of local worthies. The opinion of course was unanimous – death. Flavius Damianus recommended burning alive. The eirenarch Corvus pointed out that, as a freeborn citizen, the man should die by the sword. No, Flavius Damianus was adamant, an example must be made. The other worthies agreed. Ballista gestured to one of his staff, the scribe from North Africa, who handed him a scroll. Turning back to the prisoner, Ballista unrolled the papyrus.
'Appian, son of Aristides' – Ballista looked in the man's face, then down to read from the scroll – 'you have persisted in your sacrilegious views and have joined to yourself many other vicious men in a conspiracy. You have set yourself up as an enemy of the gods of Rome and of our religious practices, and the pious and most sacred emperors Valerian and Gallienus Augusti and Valerian the most noble Caesar have not been able to bring you back to the observance of their sacred rites. Thus, since you have been caught as one of the instigators of a most atrocious crime, you will be an example to all those whom, in your wickedness, you have gathered to yourself. Discipline shall have its sanction in your blood.'
The man's eyes had stopped sliding around the court. Trembling, he stared at Ballista.
'Appian, son of Aristides, in the consulship of Tuscus and Bassus, six days before the kalends of September, you are sentenced to death. You will burn.'
The man's mouth opened and closed. Nothing audible emerged. Ballista signed for the soldiers to take him away.
The morning was devoted to the priests of the cult. Much to the disappointment of Flavius Damianus, no bishops had been caught in the round-up, but there were another five presbyters, no fewer than ten deacons, servants to the presbyters, and two slavewomen ministrae. Ballista never really ascertained the role of the latter in the cult. As slaves, they had been routinely tortured and, most probably, repeatedly raped. It seemed to have driven out what wits they may once have had. The only intelligible answers that were extracted from them were affirmations that they were Christians. Ballista's court condemned to them to the beasts.
In the course of the whole morning, only two of the accused denied their faith. One presbyter hotly denied that he was a Christian. He claimed he had been falsely denounced by his neighbour, who was having an adulterous affair with his wife. He was eager to offer sacrifice to the imperial images and, unprompted, cursed the name of Christ. Ballista ordered him to be set free and the neighbour arrested on suspicion of a malicious accusation. One deacon hesitantly admitted that he had been a Christian, but he said that it had been a long time ago – it was years since he had returned to the rites of his ancestors. He too made sacrifice and went free.