The viewpoint character of this chapter is consistently Mark Findelmann, one of the five American time travellers. When a paragraph ends:
"He peered gratefully in that direction." (p. 229)
- the pronoun that is the subject of this sentence refers unequivocally to Mark. However, next, because of an interruption to my reading and also because of my misreading of pronouns, I went completely wrong. The text continues:
"Marcus Aurelius was - of course - on horseback, with a number of mounted men around him. His Imperial Horse Guards, of course: and a number of bigwigs...including Tribune Artorius.
"He suppressed an impulse to wave; gravitas forbade.
"Also around him were several centuries of Praetorians..." (ibid.)
Returning to the text after a brief interruption, I mistook the sentence beginning "Marcus Aurelius was..." to be the start of a new narrative passage that should really have been preceded by a double space between paragraphs and therefore that Marcus Aurelius was the new viewpoint character, thus that it was he, the Emperor, who suppressed an impulse to wave, presumably at the watching crowd...
Of course, what the paragraph means is that, when Mark peered in a certain direction, he saw that Marcus Aurelius was on horseback. It was Mark who had an impulse to wave at Artorius or even at the Emperor.
However, the third person singular pronoun has to do a lot of work. Thus:
"[Mark] suppressed an impulse to wave...
"Also around [Marcus Aurelius] were several centuries..."
Having gone wrong, I went further wrong but I have got it straight now. Probably no other reader made this set of errors.
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