Domina Victrix

Chapter 3: 19 AD, Rome and Capri

Lucius Aelius Sejanus, Prefect of the Praetorian Guard, pulled another stack of tablets toward himself and sifted through them to find the ones with priority. Maps were available but not necessary to comprehend the hodge-podge that was the Roman Empire. Its provinces ringed the Mediterranean Sea, Mare Nostrum-our sea. On the fringes of the provinces were a series of dependent kingdoms, from Mauretania in North Africa to Pontus on the Black Sea.

He opened a report from the Imperial Legate of Egypt, based in Alexandria. Next to Rome itself, Alexandria and Antioch were the anchor cities of the Empire. Assignment to either was the apex of a man's career in the cursus honorum, the expected track for ambitious Romans. Right now, both governorships were vacant. The Legate in Egypt reminded him of that fact and went on to a report about the sometime governorship of Piso.

Piso was from an old Senatorial family. His aunt Calpurnia was Julius Caesar's fourth wife. He had been Consul in Rome before being made Proconsul in Hispania and later Egypt. Everywhere he went, accusations of misappropriated funds, bribes, and interference with military matters followed. His last posting had been Syria where Germanicus, fed up with his meddling, ordered him removed and sent home. Within weeks after Piso left, Germanicus caught a fever while riding out in a rainstorm and died. Piso remained in Rome while the investigation into his actions and the death of Germanicus continued in Antioch. Putting Piso aside for a moment, Sejanus picked up a letter from Ptolemy, King of Numidia and Mauretania and de facto heir to Egypt through his grandmother Cleopatra VII.

"Another damn Antony spawn," Sejanus muttered.

"Ptolemy wants Egypt for his brother Juba," Sejanus' second in command, Quintus Servius Macro said.

Sejanus pursed his lips in disgust.

"Fat chance," he said. "The August One would never see a Ptolemy back in Egypt. A clutch of vipers, all of them."

Neither man had to utter Mark Antony's name. A half century after his death, he was as he had always been, everywhere complicating everything. In the weeks after his death, the Senate moved quickly to remove his name, statues, and coins. They had stopped short of a full damnation of memory, instead forbidding his family, gens Antonii, from using the first name Marcus or the honorific Creticus, referring to an ancestral posting in Crete. The repressive measures were intended to keep Antony's remaining family from trying to get above themselves, but no.

The Senate had reckoned without Antony's posthumous popularity with the army, particularly those legions stationed in Syria, the bulwark against the Parthian Empire. They had also failed to take into account Antony's patronage of the Herods of Judea, or his eldest daughter's marriage to the heir of the Pontic Kingdom. But Augustus Caesar had seen that angle all along and found a way to give back some of the Antony family's luster to placate the army, recognizing Antony's long-lost baseborn son and reinstating the family estates in the Orontes Valley near Antioch. Augustus then married Antony's youngest daughter, Cleopatra II Selene, to King Juba II, the father of King Ptolemy and Prince Juba of Mauretania.

"And therein lies the mess," Macro said as though he had read his commander's thoughts. "Ptolemy and Juba are both married and no son old enough for the Antony girl. Antiochus of Commagene wants her for one of his sons. Thrace and Emesa also have eligible princes."

Sejanus nodded. The Antony family were plebeians in Rome, but they had a bad habit of marrying royalty everywhere else. Marcus, Jr., had married Princess Glaecerys of Chalcis, a Herod by birth, and named his three sons Marcus, Gaius, and Lucius, after his father and uncles. All of them made it a point to use their cognomen, the honorific Creticus. And they all married well. Marcus, Legate of Legio XII Fulminata, married a Pontic princess. Gaius had married Sejanus' own niece, Sejana. And Lucius had married into Macro's family. At least Sejana understood why she had married Old Marcus' second son, Tribune Gaius Antonius. Sejanus picked up her letter next.