Chapter LI
The Gothic war came to an end on its sixth year. That was the official version the victorious generals would deliver to the emperor and the people of Rome. But reality always was different than what pompous announcements were willing to admit. Rumors on local Gothic warlords leading a last desperate resistance from their powerbase were to be silenced and forgotten, their names unworthy of the attention of the emperor and of later historians. In time lesser Roman commanders would take care of them as the heroes of the war were expected to return to Italia in a short time. Still there was time, before their final departure, to settle their affairs in the region and ensure that the result of their efforts would endure the test of time. On many aspects the reorganization of Pannonia mirrored the one that took place in Africa some years before, with some noticeable differences. The most important one was that the administrative apparatus was already there and only needed to be extended from the already existing Illyrian Diocese. The other important difference was the critical situation of the four Pannonian provinces and its inhabitants: news from the few surviving city councils and other related civil authorities reported a dire situation, with Pannonians and Goths alike either starving or fleeing towards safer and more prosperous provinces. 6 years of military campaign and raids on Pannonian soils had brought devastation and ruination to the fields, something that would take its tool for many years to come.
Amongst the measure taken by Agricola and the Illyrian administration was a partial tax exemption for many of the cities most affected by this situation. A tax exemption that would concerned mainly taxes paid in goods. Another measure was the opening of the military supply of food and the distribution of its surplus to the people of Pannonia. A small commission of 20 men appointed by Agricola among local Pannonian notables and directly responsible to the Vicarius were tasked to ensure its effective distribution to their countrymen and that the whole thing would not degenerate into a speculation affair. To complete the list of initiatives undertaken by Agricola there was a distribution of frontier land to allied barbarian soldiers, especially Gepids, in return for their military service in the new Pannonian border units and their help to return Pannonia to a well populated and well farmed land, a proclamation of tolerance for the local established Arian community and finally the return of displaced communities to their depopulated place of origins. Military workforce and prisoners of war would also be employed, once an area was cleared from local resistance, to repair and restore to their full usefulness local infrastructure and defensive works.
During the last years of war Valens had entertained an extensive correspondence with Anicia Eudoxia were the empress mother exposed her worries about the current power holder behind her son and put forward the veiled idea of Valens taking that place. As the mother of the emperor and member of an incredibly prestigious senatorial family, Eudoxia naturally wielded an incredible amount of power and influence in the West. A position now rivaled and almost overshadowed by that of Eleutherius, who had built for himself and equally incredible powerbase based on two pillars: his position as Praepositum Sacri Cubiculi and his relation to the emperor through his niece marriage to Theodosius. Empress Eusebia was Eleutherius’ way to undermine and erode the empress mother’s position at court. Therefore Eudoxia needed her own “champion”, someone whose successes and links to the imperial family could represent an equal threat to Eleutherius’s power itself. Together, Eudoxia believed, the two of them could have ousted Eleutherius from the palace and silence the empress, all of this for the good of the empire and to ensure that behind her son were people who could rightly guide him in the delicate matters of imperial politics.
Valens, who had come to see the empress mother as his closest ally inside the palace, still struggled to see how Eleutherius and his niece represented such a threat for Rome and how a new power struggle would benefit the empire. Of course he had his own ambitious, to make for himself a name like his father and grandfather before him did, yet he was sure that this ambition didn’t necessarily need to clash with Eleutherius, a man whose name nowadays was in the lips of everyone wielding a ounce of power yet he had never met before. Let the emperor have the comfort of the palace and Eleutherius his eunuchs and sycophants, he would content himself of the command of the armies. But perspectives tend to change the closer you get to men of great power, as Valens had the chance to witness. Back to Mediolanum, the many officers who left the Illyrian army that year were welcomed by the usual celebrations that followed a great victorious war. Except that this time the role of the officers and soldiers in the last war was entirely disregarded in favour of the benevolence of God and the divinely guided decisions of the emperor. How curious, he had seen none of them on the battle. The following days were spent on banquets and occasional official meetings with the emperor on the throne hall, traditionally reserved for the usual distribution of rewards, titles and praises. Few were noticed by his ears and eyes, something that irked him even more when the same dismissive attitude was lavished on him.
It was only a few days after the official end of the celebrations that he was summoned again to the palace, where he was bestowed the title of Patricius in a very simple ceremony with few witnesses including Eudoxia and the now ever present Eleutherius. Later on the attention shifted to another matter of more importance to him: Serena. Since his return to Italia he had been worried about this, since he had expected that her political situation would quickly catch the attention of the imperial court. The protection previously offered by the distance was no longer there and Valens had already prepared himself for the inevitable long struggle that would ensue, even by trying to win the support of those whose voices could sway the emperor towards his position. He was surprise to discover that the whole matter took a single day to be resolved since a decision had already been taken, but also that the court fully knew the extent of his “involvement” in the whole matter, something that worried him. Not only Serena was allowed to live, while her brother Paulus was granted a minor position as assistant of the Consularis of Sicilia and a place where to live when in Rome, but he also had the imperial permission to marry her, if he wished so, despite the political significance and weight both of them had, a member of the imperial family and the relative of two usurpers. After the end of the ceremony he would find out Eudoxia’s role in ensuring this outcome, even though he had previously rejected her attempts to recruit him in her intrigues.
But what would baffle Valens and his fellow commanders Iovinus and Athalaricus was the fate of a man all of them had served under. Despite having had some disagreements in the past with him over the conduct of the war, the three young officers had grown to respect the old experienced Magister Militum. Alas this respect Agricola had built around himself during the many years, especially among the senators, and his illustrious lineage was too much for a man like Eleutherius to have outside his pay book. If he couldn’t have Agricola with him no one else would. Besides his vast estates would have made a fine addition to his ever growing wealth. Accused by Eleutherius’s lackeys of many crimes, including misappropriation of a larger than usual part of the Gothic treasury, misconduct of the war, exceeding his power with his own reorganization of Pannonia and even being allegedly in contact with some conspirators, Agricola would find out his reward for the many years at the service of the emperors to be an exile to a minor forgotten Dalmatian island, the same one where the usurper Glycerius died, his family forbidden from reaching him in any way and half of his assets stripped from his family and put to auction, an auction that would see Eleutherius and those close too him becoming even richer than they already were.
An horrified Valens quickly realized the truth in those missives, what Eudoxia had told him was true after all and with Theodosius under is influence few were the restraints placed upon him. Yet he wasn’t sure what kind of threat this Eleutherius was to him or those close to him and even though deep inside him he felt the urge to disembowel the conniving eunuch, he couldn’t afford the take on such enemy so easily. Furthermore Serena, the only other person fully aware of his own thoughts, urged him not to undertake the same path her father, for his own ambition, pursued. Nothing positive ever came out of it. In the end, influenced by this, Valens resolved to follow the more cautious approach and not openly join the empress mother in her schemes. However he would heed her advice to keep his eyes open and occasionally banquet with some of her like-minded friends.
Note
Yep I’m back, time to get this going on. I thought that a recap update with all the political consequences of the past updates would be a good way to resume this timeline. But now it’s time to move our gaze elsewhere for (unless I have one of my usual change of mind) it’s time to see how things are going in Africa for Belisarius. Anyway let me know what you think of these longer, albeit less frequent, updates.