by Gore Vidal
"Anatha island: Luc 1000?" refers to the first Persian stronghold we came to, a heavily fortified island in the middle of the river, four days' march from Dura. Julian sent Lucillianus with a thousand light-armed troops to make a night landing under the walls of the fortress. As there was also a heavy mist that evening, Julian hoped to take the island by surprise. But at dawn the mist suddenly lifted and a Persian soldier sent out to draw water, seeing Lucillianus's men, shouted a warning and that was the end of Julian's surprise attack.
A few hours later, Julian crossed over to the island. One look at those huge walls decided him against a siege. He would have to take the fort by other means. Incidentally, this was to be his policy during the whole campaign. Between the Roman border and Ctesiphon—a distance of more than three hundred miles—there were a dozen fortresses and walled cities. Julian had the power to take any one of them but at the cost of weeks' or even months' delay. He could not afford this. So he chose to isolate the fortresses, knowing that once the Great King fell all the cities would be his. Julian sent word to the governor of Anatha that he would spare the lives of the garrison if they surrendered. The governor asked for a parley with Ormisda. Julian describes this in the next entry.
"Waiting." These notes were made late in the night of the fourteenth when Lucillianus was still hidden on the island.
"Cyb. Mith. Her." A prayer: Cybele, Mithras, Hermes.
Julian Augustus 15 April
Anatha has surrendered! Our first victory on Persian soil. At noon the governor of the island, Pusaeus, asked me to send him Ormisda to work out the details of the surrender. I confess I was nervous while awaiting the outcome of the conference. Pusaeus could so easily murder Ormisda. But less than an hour after Ormisda entered the fortress, the gates swung open and a garlanded ox was led forth by a Persian priest as sign of peace. There was a great cheer from our legions. Then Ormisda and the governor appeared Pusaeus is a dark intense man, reputedly a good soldier (why else would he have been entrusted with this important fort?). He saluted me as he would have saluted the Great King, flat on his belly. Then, face full of dust, he asked me what I intended to do with the inhabitants of the town.
I motioned to Anatolius and his notaries to join us. Then I said,
"Governor, since you have shown yourself friendly to us and honourable in your dealings, we shall, at our own expense, move your people to Syria, to the city of Chalcis, where they will be able to live as they have lived here."
He thanked me warmly, his head rolling about in the dirt until I told him to get up. Pusaeus then asked me if I would take him into the Roman army. I turned to Ormisda. "Should I?"
Ormisda's face is a sea of delicate responses; by the slightest quiver of a brow or the flaring of a nostril he is able to communicate without words. The face said: beware! The voice said, "Yes, but perhaps not here, perhaps with a garrison in Spain or Egypt."
So I made Pusaeus a tribune and posted him to Egypt.
All this took place in the main square of Anatha, a town of wood and thatch and mud brick, exactly like every other town, Persian or Roman, in this part of the world. While we talked, the people passed by us. The women balanced rolls of bedding and clothing on their heads while the men carfled weapons and cooking utensils. Suddenly a frail old man, supported by two women, approached us. He gave me the Roman salute and said in soldierLatin: "Maximanus, foot soldier with the Ziannis, reporting for duty." He stood shakily at attention. I looked at him with wonder.
"Where are you from? Who are you?"
"A Roman soldier, General. In the army of Galerius Augustus."
Salutius said flatly, "That's impossible. It's a hundred years since Galerius died."
"No, Prefect," said the old man (he still knew a praetorian prefect when he saw one), "Galerius was here sixty-six years ago. And I was with him. I was eighteen years old. I'd enlisted at Philippopolis in Thrace. We won great victories here."
"But why are you still here?" Easily the most fatuous question one could ask a man in his eighties. But I was quite overwhelmed by this relic of another age.
"I fell ill with the fever. My tribune, Decius—never got on with him—thought I was going to die. So he left me here with a family who said they'd bury me properly when the time came. Then the army left." He laughed, an old rooster cackling. "Well, they haven't buried me yet. You can see that, I guess! And they're all gone: Galerius, Decius, Marius… he was a good friend, but got the pox… he's gone, too. So the family here that was willing to bury me took me in and I married two of their daughters. Both good girls. Dead now. These are later wives." He indicated the women who stood, ready to support him should he stumble.
"General, I beg one fayour."
"Whatever I can grant," I said.
"I have sworn that I would die on Roman soil and be buried in Roman earth. Send me back to Thrace."
"So be it, soldier." I motioned for Anatolius to arrange the matter. The old man then kissed my hand and I looked 'down with wonder at the back of his shrivelled neck, lined as old parchment and burned dark by the fierce suns of nearly a century. What must it be like to have lived so long? With some difficulty, his wives got him to his feet. He was breathing hard from the exertion. He looked at me curiously.
"You are the Emperor of Rome, aren't you?"
I nodded. "Do you doubt it?"
"No, no, Lord. They told me that the Roman general was also the Emperor and that's when I advised the town council to surrender. 'You haven't a chance,' I said, 'not when there's an Emperor on the loose and the Great King out there, hidden in the desert, frightened out of his wits. Better surrender,' I said. Didn't I, Pusaeus?"
"Yes, Augustus, he did say so."
"This Pusaeus is married to a grandchild of mine, which makes him part-way to being Roman. They're a good people, you know, the Persians. I hate to see them hurt."
"We shall be as merciful as we can."
"I've had a good life here." He looked about him vaguely. Then his eye caught on the standard of the Ziannis. "There's my legion! I must talk to those boys. I knew their fathers, grandfathers anyway. Yes…" He started to walk off but then, recalling me, he stopped. "Thank you, General."
"Thank you, soldier, for remaining loyal to Rome all these years."
"You know, General… Lord, I don't follow too much what happens in the world outside of the province here because there's so little news and what there is makes no sense because they're capital liars, the Persians. They can't help it, you know, they don't mean any harm by it. It's just their way. But I did hear word of a great emperor who they call Constantine. That's not you, is it?"
"No, but there was such an emperor and he was my uncle."
"Yes, yes." The old man was not listening. He frowned, trying to recall something. "There was also this young officer who was with us in 297… well-connected, he was, his name was Constantine, too. I often wondered if it was the same fellow. Do you know if he was?"
Constantine had indeed served one year with Galerius in Persia. I nodded. "It could have been the same," I said.
"He looked a bit like you, only he was clean-shaven. A nice enough young chap, though we none of us thought he'd ever make a soldier, liked the girls and the soft life too much, but who doesn't?" He sighed contentedly. "So now I've seen three emperors, and I'll die on Roman soil. And where's the tribune Decius, I ask you? who used to give me such a hard time and left me here to die? Where is he? who remembers him, after all these years? But I'm alive and I've been talking to the Emperor, to Julius himself! Now that's a great thing, isn't it? So if you'll excuse me, General, I want to go chat with those Thracian lads; maybe one is a grandchild to Marius, though they say when they get the pox it makes the children stillborn or worse. He was a lovely friend, Marius."
The old man saluted me and, helped by the two old wives, he slowly crossed the square to the place where the standard of the Ziannis had been set up. I was much moved by this encounter, even though I had been called Julius!
W
hen all the inhabitants had left Anatha, we set fire to the town. Then I returned to our camp on the river bank to be greeted by the Saracens, who had just captured a number of Persian guerrilla fighters in the act of raiding our supplies. I gave the Saracens money to show my pleasure, and told them to continue to be on the alert. I also asked if the Saracen princes were safe. Yes. It is late at night. I am pleasantly drowsy. Our first encounter with the enemy has been all that I could have wished it. If it were not for the rain which is falling and turning the floor of my tent to mud, I would be perfectly content.
Priscus: The rain that night was accompanied by winds. The next day, 16 April, at about the third hour, we were struck by a hurricane from the north. Tents were tipped by the wind, while the river, already swollen from spring rains, overflowed and several grain barges were wrecked. The dikes which control the flow of river water into irrigation ditches broke and some suspected the Persians of deliberately shutting the sluice gates in order to flood our camp. We shall never know if they did or not. Anyway, after two wet wretched days, we moved on.
Julian was in good spirits. We all were. The first Persian stronghold was ours and the Great King's army had vanished. It was too good to be true.
Our army was stretched out over ten miles, much the same trick Julian used when he came from Gaul, to give the impression of a mighty host. Julian rode either at the head or at the rear of the army, the two places most apt to be harassed by guerrillas, But we did not come up against the Persians for some days. They kept to the opposite side of the river, watching us. Whenever we made as though to cross, they would disappear in the thickets of wormwood. Yet they were very much on the alert. When one of the Gauls—for reasons of his own—crossed over, he was butchered and his head placed on a long pole in full view of our army.
Incidentally, I lost my tent in the storm and for three nights I was forced to share quarters with Maximus. We were not happy with one another. Among other bad habits, he talked in his sleep. The first night we slept together, I found his mumbling so unbearable that I woke him up.
"I? Talking in my sleep?" He looked at me blearily, silver beard tangled like fleece wool before carding, face stupid with sleep. Then he remembered himself. "But of course I was talking. It is in sleep I converse with the gods."
"Then could you perhaps whisper to them? You're keeping me awake."
"I shall do my best." He later complained to Julian that my coughing had kept him awake! But I coughed hardly at all considering that I had caught a very bad cold as a result of being soaked in the storm. Julian was much amused at the thought of our sharing the same quarters.
Julian Augustus 22 April
17 April, Thilutha, Achaiachalca. 18 April, abandoned fort burned. 20 April, Baraxmalcha, cross river 7 miles to Diacira. Temple. grain. salt. bitumen springs. deserted. burned. to Ozogardana. deserted. burned. monument to Trajan. two days in camp. 22 April, attempt to ambush Ormisda. Warning. Persian army gathering tonight.
Priscus: Between 17 April and 20 April we passed three island fortresses. The first was Thilutha, a mountain peak jutting out of the water with a stronghold on the top of it. Julian sent a messenger demanding surrender. The commandant sent back a most courteous answer. He would not surrender, but he swore to abide by the outcome of the Emperor's war with the Great King. Since we could not waste time in a siege, we accepted the commandant's reply. In return, the garrison saluted our fleet as it passed beneath the walls of the island. The same thing happened at Achaiachalca, another island fortress.
On 20 April we came to a deserted village called Baraxmalcha. At Ormisda's suggestion we then crossed the river and marched seven miles inland to Diacira, a rich market centre. The city was odeserted when we arrived. Fortunately, the warehouses were filled with grain and, most important, salt. Outside the town wall, Nevitta's soldiers found several women and put them to death. This did not sit well with me. I don't know if Julian knew about these murders or not. He was ruthless when it came to punishing disobedience and treachery, but he was not cruel, unlike Nevitta and the Gauls, who liked blood for its own sake.
Diacira was burned, as was the near-by town of Ozogardana where, incidentally, we found the remains of a tribunal of Trajan. Julian made this relic centre to the camp that was pitched. We remained there for two days while the grain and salt taken from Diacira was loaded on to barges. During this time, Julian was busy with his generals and I did not see him at all.
I contented myself with the company of Anatolius (who was quite amusing, particularly about his failures as marshal of the court), the admirable Phosphorius, and Ammianus Marcellinus, whom I had met earlier at your house in Antioch. I liked him very much. He told me that we had first met at Rheims where he'd been on duty with one of Ursicinus's legions, though I'm afraid I don't recall that meeting. As you know, Ammianus is writing a history of Rome which he plans to bring up to date. Brave man! Some years ago he sent me an inscribed copy of the first ten books of his history, in Latin! Why he has chosen to write in that language, I don't know. After all, he comes from Antioch, doesn't he? And I seem to have got the impression that he was of good Greek family. But looking back, I can see that he was always something of a Romanophile. He used to spend most of his time with the European officers, and he rather disliked the Asiatics. As a historian, he has deliberately put himself in the line of Livy and Tacitus .rather than that of Herodotus and Thucydides, showing that there is no accounting for taste. He wrote me recently to say that he is living at Rome where, though he finds the literary world incredibly arid and pretentious, he means to make his mark. I wish him well. I haven't read much of his history but he seems to write Latin easily, so perhaps he has made the right choice. But what a curious old-fashioned thing to want to be, a Roman historian! He tells me that he is in regular correspondence with you. So I dare say the two of you will join forces when the time comes to publish the memoir.
The night of 22 April Ormisda was about to go reconnoitring when he was nearly ambushed by a cohort of the Persian army. Nobody knows how the Persians knew the exact hour he was to leave the camp, but they did. Ormisda was saved by the unexpected deepness of the river at that point. The enemy could not ford it owing to the rains.
"Warning." I don't know what Julian means by this. Perhaps a counterspy warned Ormisda at the last moment. Or someone warned Julian of a plot against his life.
"Persian army gathering tonight." The next morning (23 April) we finally saw the Persian army. Several thousand horsemen and archers were assembled a mile from our encampment. In the morning's light their glittering chain mail made our eyes water. They were under the command of the Grand Vizier, who is second only to the Great King himself, a position somewhere between that of a Caesar and a praetorian prefect. Associated with the Vizier's army was a large band of Assanatic Saracens, a tribe renowned for cruelty.
At the second hour, Julian engaged the enemy. After much manceuvring, he got his infantry into position some yards from the Persian archers. Then before they could fire, he gave the order for an infantry charge at quick march. This manceuvre startled the Persians just long enough for our men to neutralize their archers. Infantry shields were thrust against archers in such a way that the Persians could not take aim to fire. They broke and ran. The field was ours.
Julian was delighted. "Now our soldiers know the Persians are men just like ourselves!" He looked the perfect war god: face flushed, purple cloak stained with the blood of others, eyes bright with excitement. "Come along," he shouted to Maximus and the philosophers who were now coming up to what had been the front line. "Let's see the walls of Macepracta!"
None of us knew what Julian meant until he led us to a deserted village near the battlefield. Here we saw the remains of an ancient wall. Julian consulted a book. "This," he said, "is part of the original Assyrian wall. Xenophon saw it when he was here 764 years ago." Happily, our victorious general clambered over the stones, reading at the top of his voice from Xenophon's March Upcountry. We all looked dutifull
y on what had been a ruin even then, so long ago, but I'm afraid that after the stimulus (and terror) of battle, no one was in a mood for sightseeing. Finally, Julian led us back to the river.
On the outskirts of the encampment, a legion of household troops were gathered around a rock on which stood their tribune, haranguing them. He was tall, thickly muscled, with fair hair. "… you fear the Persians! You say they are not men like us but demons! Don't deny it! I've heard you whispering at night, like children afraid of the dark."
The tribune's voice was strong. His face was ruddy and his eyes were -what else? blue. We dark-eyed people have lost the world to those with eyes like winter ice. He spoke with a slight German accent. "But now you've seen these demons close to. You beat them in battle. Were they so fierce? So huge? So terrible?"
There was a low murmur from the men about him: no, the Persians had not been superhuman. The tribune was a splendid demagogue. I looked at Julian, who had bundled his cloak about his face as momentary disguise. He was watching the man with the alert interest of an actor or rhetorician studying a rival's performance.
"No. They are men like us. But inferior men. Look!" The tribune motioned for one of his officers to step forward. The man was holding what looked at first to be a bundle of rags. But it was a dead Persian. The officer tossed the body to the tribune. He caught it easily. The men gasped, impressed at the strength of these two men who handled a corpse as though it were a doll.
The tribune with one hand held up the body by the neck. The dead Persian was slight, with a thin black moustache and a fierce display of teeth. His armour had been stripped away and the remains were clad only in a bloody tunic. "There he is! The Persian devil! This is what you were afraid of?" With his free hand, the tribune tore the tunic away, revealing a slight, almost childlike body with a black crescent beneath the breast-bone where a lance had entered.
The tribune shook the body, as a hunting dog will shake a hare.
