After that it was easy. While the Fimbriani roistered their way through winter in Tigranocerta, Publius Clodius whispered in the ears of their centurions, and their centurions whispered in the ears of the rankers, and the rankers whispered in the ears of the Galatian troopers. Some of the men had left women behind in Amisus, and when the two Cilician legions under Sornatius and Fabius Hadrianus marched from Amisus to Zela, the women trailed behind as soldiers’ women always do. Hardly anyone could write, and yet the word spread all the way from Tigranocerta to Pontus that Lucullus had consistently cheated the army of its proper share in the booty. Nor did anyone bother to check Clodius’s arithmetic. It was preferable to believe they had been cheated when the reward for thinking so was ten times what Lucullus said they were to get. Besides which, Clodius was so brilliant! He was incapable of making an arithmetical or statistical mistake! What Clodius said was sure to be right! Clever Clodius. He had learned the secret of demagoguery: tell people what they want most to hear, never tell them what they don’t want to hear.
*
In the meantime Lucullus had not been idle, despite voyages into rare manuscripts and underaged girls. He had made quick trips to Syria, and sent all the displaced Greeks back to their homes. The southern empire of Tigranes was disintegrating, and Lucullus intended to be sure that Rome inherited. For there was a third eastern king who represented a threat to Rome, King Phraates of the Parthians. Sulla had concluded a treaty with his father giving everything west of the Euphrates to Rome, and everything east of the Euphrates to the Kingdom of the Parthians.
When Lucullus sold the thirty million medimni of wheat he found in Tigranocerta to the Parthians, he had done so to prevent its filling Armenian bellies. But as barge after barge sped down the Tigris toward Mesopotamia and the Kingdom of the Parthians, King Phraates sent him a message asking for a fresh treaty with Rome along the same lines: everything west of the Euphrates to be Rome’s, everything east to belong to King Phraates. Then Lucullus learned that Phraates was also treating with the refugee Tigranes, who was promising to hand back those seventy valleys in Media Atropatene in return for Parthian aid against Rome. They were devious, these eastern kings, and never to be trusted; they owned eastern values, and eastern values shifted about like sand.
At which point visions of wealth beyond any Roman dream suddenly popped into Lucullus’s mind. Imagine what would be found in Seleuceia-on-Tigris, in Ctesiphon, in Babylonia, in Susa! If two Roman legions and fewer than three thousand Galatian cavalrymen could virtually eliminate an Armenian grand army, four Roman legions and the Galatian horse could conquer all the way down Mesopotamia to the Mare Erythraeum! What could the Parthians offer by way of resistance that Tigranes had not? From cataphracts to Zoroastrian fire, the army of Lucullus had dealt with everything. All he needed to do was fetch the two Cilician legions from Pontus.
Lucullus made up his mind within moments. In the spring he would invade Mesopotamia and crush the Kingdom of the Parthians. What a shock that would be for the knights of the Ordo Equester and their senatorial partisans! Lucius Licinius Lucullus would show them. And show the entire world.
Off went a summons to Sornatius in Zela: bring the Cilician legions to Tigranocerta immediately. We march for Babylonia and Elymais. We will be immortal. We will drag the whole of the East into the province of Rome and eliminate the last of her enemies.
Naturally Publius Clodius heard all about these plans when he visited the wing of the main palace wherein Lucullus had set up his residence. In fact, Lucullus was feeling more kindly disposed toward his young brother-in-law these days, for Clodius had kept out of his way and hadn’t tried to make mischief among the junior military tribunes, a habit he had fallen into on the march from Pontus the year before.
“I’ll make Rome richer than she’s ever been,” said Lucullus happily, his long face softer these days. “Marcus Crassus prates on about the wealth to be had for the taking in Egypt, but the Kingdom of the Parthians makes Egypt look impoverished. From the Indus to the Euphrates, King Phraates exacts tribute. But after I’m done with Phraates, all that tribute will flow into our dear Rome. We’ll have to build a new Treasury to hold it!”
Clodius hastened to see Silius and Cornificius.
“What do you think of his idea?” asked Clodius prettily.
The two centurions thought very little of it, as they made clear through Silius.
“You don’t know the plains,” he said to Clodius, “but we do. We’ve been everywhere. A summer campaign working down the Tigris all the way to Elymais? In that kind of heat and humidity? Parthians grow up in heat and humidity. Whereas we’ll die.”
Clodius’s mind had been on plunder, not climate, but he thought of climate now. A march into sunstroke and sweat cramps under Lucullus? Worse than anything he had endured so far!
“All right,” he said briskly, “then we had better make sure the campaign never happens.”
“The Cilician legions!” said Silius instantly. “Without them we can’t march into country as flat as a board. Lucullus knows that. Four legions to form a perfect defensive square.”
“He’s sent off to Sornatius already,” said Clodius, frowning.
“His messenger will travel like the wind, but Sornatius won’t muster for a march in under a month,” said Cornificius confidently. “He’s on his own in Zela, Fabius Hadrianus went off to Pergamum.”
“How do you know that?” asked Clodius, curious.
“We got our sources,” said Silius grinning. “What we have to do is send someone of our own to Zela.”
“To do what?”
“To tell the Cilicians to stay where they are. Once they hear where the army’s going, they’ll down tools and refuse to budge. If Lucullus was there he’d manage to shift them, but Sornatius don’t have the clout or the gumption to deal with mutiny.”
Clodius pretended to look horrified. “Mutiny?” he squeaked.
“Not really proper mutiny,” soothed Silius. “Those chaps will be happy to fight for Rome—provided they does it in Pontus. So how can it be classified as a proper mutiny?”
“True,” said Clodius, appearing relieved. “Whom can you send to Zela?” he asked.
“My own batman,” said Cornificius, rising to his feet. “No time to waste, I’ll get him started now.”
Which left Clodius and Silius alone.
“You’ve been a terrific help to us,” said Silius gratefully. “We’re real glad to know you, Publius Clodius.”
“Not as glad as I am to know you, Marcus Silius.”
“Knew another young patrician real well once,” said Silius, reflectively turning his golden goblet between his hands.
“Did you?’’ asked Clodius, genuinely interested; one never knew where such conversations led, what might emerge to become grist in a Clodian mill. “Who? When?”
“Mitylene, a good eleven or twelve years ago.” Silius spat on the marble floor. “Another Lucullus campaign! Never seem to get rid of him. We was herded together into one cohort, the chaps Lucullus decided were too dangerous to be reliable—we still thought a lot about Fimbria in those days. So Lucullus decided to throw us to the arrows, and put this pretty baby in command. Twenty, I think he was. Gaius Julius Caesar.”
“Caesar?” Clodius sat up alertly. “I know him—well, I know of him, anyway. Lucullus hates him.”
“Did then too. That’s why he was thrown to the arrows along with us. But it didn’t work out that way. Talk about cool! He was like ice. And fight? Jupiter, he could fight! Never stopped thinking, that was what made him so good. Saved my life in that battle, not to mention everyone else’s. But mine was personal. Still don’t know how he managed to do it. I thought I was ashes on the fire, Publius Clodius, ashes on the fire.”
“He won a Civic Crown,” said Clodius. “That’s how I remember him so well. There aren’t too many advocates appear in a court wearing a crown of oak leaves on their heads. Sulla’s nephew.”
“And Gaius Marius’s nephew,
” said Silius. “Told us that at the start of the battle.”
“That’s right, one of his aunts married Marius and the other one married Sulla.” Clodius looked pleased. “Well, he’s some sort of cousin of mine, Marcus Silius, so that accounts for it.”
“Accounts for what?”
“His bravery and the fact you liked him!”
“Did like him too. Was sorry when he went back to Rome with Thermus and the Asian soldiers.”
“And the poor old Fimbriani had to stay behind as always,” said Clodius softly. “Well, be of good cheer! I’m writing to everyone I know in Rome to get that senatorial decree lifted!”
“You,” said Silius, his eyes filling with tears, “are the Soldiers’ Friend, Publius Clodius. We won’t forget.”
Clodius looked thrilled. “The Soldiers’ Friend? Is that what you call me?”
“That’s what we call you.”
“I won’t forget either, Marcus Silius.”
*
Halfway through March a frostbitten and exhausted messenger arrived from Pontus to inform Lucullus that the Cilician legions had refused to move from Zela. Sornatius and Fabius Hadrianus had done everything they could think of, but the Cilicians would not budge, even after Governor Dolabella sent a stern warning. Nor was that the only unsettling news from Zela. Somehow, wrote Sornatius, the troops of the two Cilician legions had been led to believe that Lucullus had cheated them of their fair share in all booty divided since Lucullus had returned to the East six years earlier. It was undoubtedly the prospect of the heat along the Tigris had caused the mutiny, but the myth that Lucullus was a cheat and a liar had not helped.
The window at which Lucullus sat looked out across the city in the direction of Mesopotamia; Lucullus stared blindly toward the distant horizon of low mountains and tried to cope with the dissolution of what had become a possible, tangible dream. The fools, the idiots! He, a Licinius Lucullus, to exact petty sums from men under his command? He, a Licinius Lucullus, to descend to the level of those grasping get-rich-quick publicani in Rome? Who had done that? Who had spread a rumor like that? And why hadn’t they been able to see for themselves that it was untrue? A few simple calculations, that was all it would have taken.
His dream of conquering the Kingdom of the Parthians was over. To take fewer than four legions into absolutely flat country would be suicide, and Lucullus was not suicidal. Sighing, he rose to his feet, went to find Sextilius and Fannius, the most senior legates with him in Tigranocerta.
“What will you do, then?” asked Sextilius, stunned.
“I’ll do what lies in my power with the forces I have,” said Lucullus, the stiffness growing in every moment. “I’ll go north after Tigranes and Mithridates. I’ll force them to retreat ahead of me, pen them into Artaxata, and break them into little pieces.”
“It’s too early in the year to go so far north,” said Lucius Fannius, looking worried. “We won’t be able to leave until—oh, Sextilis by the calendar. Then all we’ll have is four months. They say there’s no land under five thousand feet, and the growing season lasts a bare summer. Nor will we be able to take much with us in supplies—I believe the terrain is solid mountain. But you will go west of Lake Thospitis, of course.”
“No, I will go east of Lake Thospitis,” Lucullus answered, now fully encased in his icy campaigning shell. “If four months is all we have, we can’t afford to detour two hundred miles just because the going is a trifle easier.”
His legates looked upset, but neither argued. Long accustomed to that look on Lucullus’s face, they didn’t think any argument would sway him. “In the meantime what will you do?” asked Fannius.
“Leave the Fimbriani here to wallow,” said Lucullus with contempt. “They’ll be pleased enough at that news!”
*
Thus it was that early in the month of Sextilis the army of Lucullus finally left Tigranocerta, but not to march south into the heat. This new direction (as Clodius learned from Silius and Cornificius) did not precisely please the Fimbriani, who would have preferred to loiter in Tigranocerta pretending to be on garrison duty. But at least the weather would be bearable, and there wasn’t a mountain in all of Asia could daunt a Fimbrianus! They had climbed them all, said Silius complacently. Besides which, four months meant a nice short campaign. They’d be back in snug Tigranocerta by winter.
Lucullus himself led the march in stony silence, for he had discovered on a visit to Antioch that he was removed from his governorship of Cilicia; the province was to be given to Quintus Marcius Rex, senior consul of the year, and Rex was anxious to leave for the East during his consulship. With, Lucullus was outraged to hear, three brand-new legions accompanying him! Yet he, Lucullus, couldn’t prise a legion out of Rome when his very life had depended on it!
“All right for me,” said Publius Clodius smugly. “Rex is my brother-in-law too, don’t forget. I’m just like a cat—land on my feet every time! If you don’t want me, Lucullus, I’ll take myself off to join Rex in Tarsus.”
“Don’t hurry!” snarled Lucullus. “What I failed to tell you is that Rex can’t start for the East as early as he planned. The junior consul died, then the suffect consul died; Rex is glued to Rome until his consulship is over.”
“Oh!” said Clodius, and took himself off.
Once the march began it had become impossible for Clodius to seek out Silius or Cornificius without being noticed; during this initial stage he lay low among the military tribunes, said and did nothing. He had a feeling that as time went on opportunity would arrive, for his bones said Lucullus had lost his luck. Nor was he alone in thinking this; the tribunes and even the legates were also beginning to mutter about Lucullus’s bad luck.
His guides had advised that he march up the Canirites, the branch of the Tigris which ran close to Tigranocerta and rose in the massif southeast of Lake Thospitis. But his guides were all Arabs from the lowlands; search as he would, Lucullus had found no one in the region of Tigranocerta who hailed from that massif southeast of Lake Thospitis. Which should have told him something about the country he was venturing into, but didn’t because his spirit was so bruised by the failure of the Cilician legions that he wasn’t capable of detachment. He did, however, retain enough coolness of mind to send some of his Galatian horsemen ahead. They returned within a market interval to inform him that the Canirites had a short course which ended in a sheer wall of alp no army could possibly cross, even on foot.
“We did see one nomad shepherd,” said the leader of the patrol, “and he suggested we march for the Lycus, the next big Tigris tributary south. Its course is long, and winds between the same mountain wall. He thinks its source is kinder, that we should be able to cross to some of the lower land around Lake Thospitis. And from there, he says, the going will be easier.”
Lucullus frowned direfully at the delay, and sent his Arabs packing. When he asked to see the shepherd with a view to making him the guide, his Galatians informed him sadly that the rascal had slipped away with his sheep and could not be found.
“Very well, we march for the Lycus,” said the General.
“We’ve lost eighteen days,” said Sextilius timidly.
“I am aware of that.”
And so, having found the Lycus, the Fimbriani and the cavalry began to follow it into ever-increasing heights, an ever-decreasing valley. None of them had been with Pompey when he blazed a new route across the western Alps, but if one had been, he could have told the rest that Pompey’s path was infant’s work compared to this. And the army was climbing, struggling between great boulders thrown out by the river, now a roaring torrent impossible to ford, growing narrower, deeper, wilder.
They rounded a corner and emerged onto a fairly grassy shoulder which sat like a park, not quite a bowl but at least offering some grazing for the horses, growing thin and hungry. But it couldn’t cheer them, for its far end—it was apparently the watershed—was appalling. Nor would Lucullus permit them to tarry longer than three days; they had bee
n over a month on their way, and were actually very little further north than Tigranocerta.
The mountain on their right as they started out into this frightful wilderness was a sixteen-thousand-foot giant, and they were ten thousand feet up its side, gasping at the weight of their packs, wondering why their heads ached, why they could never seem to fill their chests with precious air. A new little stream was their only way out, and the walls rose on either side of it so sheer even snow could not find a foothold. Sometimes it took a whole day to negotiate less than a mile, scrambling up and over rocks, clinging to the edge of the boiling cataract they followed, trying desperately not to fall in to be bashed and mashed to pulp.
No one saw the beauty; the going was too dreadful. And it never seemed to grow less dreadful as the days dragged on and the cataract never calmed, just widened and deepened. At night it was perishing, though full summer was here, and during the day they never felt the sun, so enormous were the mountain walls which hemmed them in. Nothing could be worse, nothing.
Until they saw the bloodstained snow, just when the gorge they had been traversing started to widen a trifle, and the horses managed to nibble at a little grass. Less vertical now, if almost as tall, the mountains held sheets and rivers of snow in their crevices. Snow which looked exactly as snow did on a battlefield after the slaughter was over, brownish pink with blood.
Clodius bolted for Cornificius, whose legion preceded the senior legion under Silius.
“What does it mean?” cried Clodius, terrified.
“It means we’re going to certain death,” said Cornificius.
“Have you never seen it before?”
“How could we have seen it before, when it’s here as an omen for the lot of us?’’
“We must turn back!” shivered Clodius.
“Too late for that,” said Cornificius.
So they struggled on, a little more easily now because the river had managed to carve two verges for itself, and the altitude was decreasing. But Lucullus announced they were too far east, so the army, still staring at the bloodstained snow all around them on the heights, turned to climb once more. Nowhere had they found evidence of life, though everyone had been ordered to capture any nomad who might appear. How could anyone live looking at bloodstained snow?
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