'There is more. On my way back I came across Romulus, or what was left of him. Nasty – he had been mutilated, hopefully after he was dead.'
The ever-changing stories spread out far beyond the city of Arete. Ten days after the reality had played out in darkness and fear by the Euphrates, a messenger prostrated himself in the magnificent throne room in the Persian capital of Cetisiphon and told a version of the story to Shapur, the Sassanid King of Kings. Twenty-six days after that, a messenger prostrated himself in the palace high on the Palatine Hill and told the first of several versions of the story that Valerian Imperator of the Romans would hear. Another three days elapsed before a messenger tracked down Gallienus, Valerian's son and fellow Augustus, by the cold banks of the Danube. By then, many more things had happened at the city of Arete and, for most there, the events at Castellum Arabum were a fading memory.
From the walls of Arete, for a long time the only sign of the approach of the Sassanid horde was the thick black cloud looming up from the south. On the morning of the fourteenth of April, the day after the ides of the month – always an unlucky day – Ballista, accompanied by his senior officers, staff and familia, took his stand on the battlements above the Palmyrene Gate. There was the cloud downriver, coming up from the realms of Shapur. Dark and thick, it was still some way off, at least as far as the disused caravanserai, if not as far as Castellum Arabum. No one needed to ask what caused it. It was impossible to escape the thought of the tens of thousands of marching men, horses and other, terrifying beasts kicking up the dust, of the smoke writhing up oily from the innumerable fires consuming everything in the path of the horde from the east.
At twilight a line of campfires could be seen burning no more than a couple of miles from the city. The Sassanid scouts were settling in for the night. Later, in the depth of the night, more fires flickered into life, stretching round in an arc along the hills to the west. After midnight a terrible orange glow lit the sky to the north-west as the Persian outriders reached the villages. By cock crow smudges of fire and smoke had appeared on the other side of the river to the east. Everyone within the walls of the town of Arete knew they were surrounded, cut off by land from help or flight. And yet, so far, they had not seen a single one of the warriors of Shapur.
At dawn the Dux Ripae and his men were still at their post. Most had left to try and rest for an hour or two but, to Ballista, sleep seemed impossible on a night so obviously momentous. Wrapped in a sheepskin, he leant against one of the two pieces of artillery on the roof of the gatehouse, a huge twenty-pounder ballista. His eyes ached with fatigue as he peered out on to the western plain. He thought he saw movement but, unsure his tired eyes weren't playing tricks on him in the grey light, he waited until one of the others shouted and pointed. There they were. About where the necropolis used to end, dark shapes were moving fast through the early morning mist. The small amorphous groups of mounted scouts, dividing, reuniting, crossing each other's tracks, reminded Ballista of animals running before a forest fire, until the inappositeness of the image struck him. These animals were not fleeing anything, they were hunting, hunting for a means to attack the northerner himself and all those it was his duty to protect. They were wolves looking for a way into the sheepfold.
The sun was well clear of the horizon and it was towards the end of the third hour of daylight when the vanguard of the Sassanid army finally came into view. Ballista could make out two long dark columns which seemed, like enormous snakes, to crawl towards him infinitesimally slowly across the face of the land. Above each hung a dense isolated cloud of dust. The base of a third cloud had not yet come into sight. The northerner could make out that the nearer column was composed of cavalry, the further of infantry. He thought back to his training in fieldcraft: this meant that the columns must be within about 1,300 paces. But, as he could not yet make out any individuals, they must still be more than 1,000 paces away. If he had not known of their advance toward him, the rays of sunlight flashing perpendicular off spear points and burnished armour would have told him.
Time passed slowly as the columns continued to crawl towards the city. When they were about 700 paces away (the distance at which a man's head can be made out as a round ball) they began to incline away to the north. Ballista moved to the parapet and called Bagoas to his side. By the time the columns reached the beginning of the wasteland where the furthest tower tombs had once stood, they were moving parallel to the western wall. The third column was now revealed as the baggage and siege train. The nearest column, the cavalry, was close enough for Ballista to be able to see the lighter-coloured spots of the men's faces, their costumes and weapons, the bright trappings of their mounts, the banners above their heads: about 500 paces away, just out of artillery range.
Speaking in Greek, Ballista asked Bagoas if he could identify the units of the Sassanid horde and their leaders.
'Excellent, how very cultured our siege will be. We can begin with our very own View from the Wall.' Although Acilius Glabrio had interrupted in Latin, he used the Greek word teichoskopia' for the View from the Wall. To any educated person in the imperium, the word instantly summoned up the famous scene in the Hiad of Homer where Helen looked down from the walls of Troy and identified each of the bronze-armoured Achaeans come to tear her from her lover Paris and take her home to her rightful husband, the broad-shouldered Menelaus. 'And who better than this delightful Persian boy to play the Queen of Sparta?' Acilius Glabrio smiled at Ballista. 'I do hope our Helen does not feel the need to criticize the manliness of her Paris.'
Bagoas's grasp of Latin might still be rudimentary, and Ballista had no idea if the boy knew anything of the Iliad, but it was obvious that he realized he was being mocked, that his masculinity was being questioned. The boy's eyes were furious. Before he could do anything, Mamurra spoke to Acilius Glabrio.
'That is enough, Tribune. This is not a time for dissension. We all know what happened to Troy. May the gods grant that these words of ill omen fall only on the man who utters them.'
The young nobleman spun around looking dangerous. He brought his well-groomed face inches from that of the praefectus fabrum. Then he mastered himself. Clearly it was beneath one of the Acilii Glabriones to bandy words with sordid plebeians like Mamurra. 'The men of my family have always had broad shoulders.' With patrician disdain, he brushed an imaginary piece of dirt from his immaculate sleeve.
Ballista pointed to the enemy and indicated to Bagoas to start talking.
'First ride some of the non-Aryan people subject to my lord Shapur. See the fur cloaks and long hanging sleeves of the Georgians, then the half-naked Arabs, the turbaned Indians and the wild nomadic Sakas. From all the corners of the world, when the King of Kings calls, they obey.' The boy shone with pride. 'And there… there are the noble Aryan warriors, the warriors of Mazda, the armoured knights, the clibanarii.'
All the men on the gate tower fell silent as they regarded the serried ranks of the Sassanid heavy cavalry, the elite of Shapur's army. Five deep, the column seemed to stretch for miles across the plain. As far as could be seen were armoured men on armoured horses. Some looked like living statues, horse and man clad in iron scales, iron masks covering any humanity. The mounts of others were armoured in red leather or green-blue horn. Many wore gaudy surcoats and caparisoned their horses similarly – green, yellow, scarlet and blue. Often man and beast wore abstract heraldic symbols – crescents, circles and bars – which proclaimed their clan. Above their heads their banners writhed and snapped – wolves, serpents, fierce beasts or abstract designs invoking Mazda.
'Can you tell who leads each contingent from their banners?' Ballista had had this moment in mind when he purchased the Persian youth.
'Of course,' Bagoas replied. 'In the van of the clibanarii ride the lords from the houses of Suren and Karen.'
'I thought that those were great noble houses under the previous regime. I assumed they would have fallen with the Parthian dynasty.'
'They came to see the holiness o
f Mazda.' Bagoas beamed. 'The King of Kings Shapur in his infinite kindness restored their lands and titles to them. The path of righteousness is open to all.'
'And the horsemen behind them?'
'Are the truly blessed. They are the children of the house of Sasan – Prince Valash the joy of Shapur, Prince Sasan the hunter, Dinak Queen of Mesene, Ardashir King of Adiabene.' Pride radiated from the boy. 'And look… there, next in the array, the guards. First the Immortals, at their head Peroz of the Long Sword. Then the Jan-avasper, those who sacrifice themselves. And see… see who leads them – none other than Mariades, the rightful emperor of Rome.' The boy laughed, careless of the effect his words were having, the punishments they might bring. 'The path of righteousness is open to all, even to Romans.'
Out of the swirling dust kicked up by many thousand horses, enormous grey shapes loomed. One, two, three… Ballista counted ten of them. Bagoas literally jumped for joy, clapping his hands. 'The earth-shaking elephants of Shapur. Who could think to stand against such beasts?'
Ballista had seen elephants fight in the arena but had never himself faced them in battle. Certainly they looked terrifying, not altogether of this world. They had to be at least ten foot high at the shoulder, and the turrets on their backs added yet more height. Each turret was packed with armed fighting men. At the bidding of an Indian who sat astride behind their ears, the elephants moved their great heads from side to side. Their huge tusks, sheathed in metal, dipped and swung from side to side.
'Frightening, but inefficient.' The experience in Turpio's voice was reassuring. 'Hamstring them, or madden them with missiles. Kill their drivers, their mahouts, and they will run amok. They are as likely to trample their own side as us.'
The Sassanid army had halted and turned to face the city. A trumpet rang out, clear across the plain.
From the left a small group of five unarmed horsemen appeared, moving at an easy canter. In their midst an enormous rectangular banner embroidered in yellow, red and violet and embedded with jewels that flashed as they caught the sunlight hung from a tall crossbar. The banner was topped by a golden ball, and bright strips of material streamed out behind it.
'The Drafsh-i-Kavyan, the royal battle flag of the house of Sasan.' Bagoas almost whispered. 'It was made before the dawn of time. Carried by five of the holiest of mobads, priests, it goes before the King of Kings into battle.'
A lone horseman appeared from the left. He rode a magnificent white horse. His clothes were purple and on his head was a golden domed crown. White and purple streamers floated out behind him.
'Shapur, the Mazda-worshipping divine King of Kings of Aryans and Non-Aryans, of the race of the gods.' Bagoas prostrated himself on the battlements.
When Shapur reached the Drafsh-i-Kavyan standard at its station in front of the centre of his army, he reined his horse to a halt. He dismounted, seemingly using a kneeling man as a step. A golden throne was produced and Shapur sat on it. A large number of other men ran about.
'Enemy numbers?' Ballista threw the question open to his consilium gathered on the roof of the gate tower.
'I estimate about 20,000 infantry,' Acilius Glabrio answered promptly. 'Then about 10,000 heavy cavalry, 8,000 of them Sassanid clibanarii and 1,000 or so each from the Georgians and Sakas. There seem to be roughly 6,000 barbarian light cavalry at the front of the column, maybe 2,000 each from the Arabs and Indians and 1,000 each from the Georgians and Sakas.' Whatever one thought of the young patrician, it could not be denied that he was an extremely competent army officer. The estimates mapped almost exactly on to those Ballista had made.
'The Sassanids' own light cavalry?' The northerner kept the question short, business-like.
'Impossible to say,' answered Mamurra. 'They are scattered all over the countryside burning and plundering. There is no way for us to estimate their strength. However many there are, the majority will be on our side of the river. There will be just a few across the river – the nearest ford is about 100 miles downstream and we have commandeered every boat for miles. They will not have committed many men across the river.'
'What the praefectus fabrum says is true,' said Turpio. 'We cannot know their numbers. At Barbalissos there were somewhere between five and ten light cavalrymen to every clibariarius, but at other times their numbers have been said to be about equal.'
'Thank you,' said Ballista. 'So it seems the enemy have somewhere between 40,000 and 130,000 men to our 4,000. At best we are outnumbered ten to one.' He smiled broadly. 'It is very lucky for us that it is a bunch of effeminate easterners who get scared at the sound of a noisy dinner party let alone a battle. We would not want to fight anyone with any bollocks at these odds.' The army officers all laughed. Demetrius tried to join in.
Ballista noted that the baggage train had caught up with the other columns, and that its first task was to erect a spacious purple tent just behind the centre of the army. The tent, which could be none other than Shapur's, was being set up directly along the western road out of Arete, about 600 paces from the Palmyrene Gate.
Men continued to rush around Shapur.
'What is going on?' Ballista asked Bagoas, who was still prostrate.
'The King of Kings will make sacrifice of a kid to ensure that Mazda smiles on his works here, to ensure that this town of unbelievers falls to the army of the righteous.'
'Get up off your belly, and mind what you say. You might push our patience too far,' snapped Ballista.
Despite his tone, the northerner was actually pleased with his Persian slave. Just as he had hoped, he was learning a lot about his enemy from the boy. There was the voluble religious fervour, linked to the awe of the king, and the fact that Bagoas had not considered the Sassanid infantry even worth mentioning. So, an army of fanatics of whom only the cavalry were any good at fighting. Ballista just had to hope that this individual Persian was not totally unrepresentative of his countrymen.
As the boy got up, he briefly put his arms behind his back as if they were bound. Ballista knew that this was the Persian gesture of supplication – possibly the boy was begging Shapur not to blame him for being a slave of the King's enemies.
The sacrifice having been made, Shapur could be seen issuing orders to the nobleman known as the Suren. On being asked to explain, Bagoas said that the King of Kings would now send the Suren to Ballista. If Ballista and his men submitted and converted to the most righteous path of Mazda, their lives would be spared.
As he watched the Suren walk his horse along the road towards him, Ballista's thoughts were racing. While the horseman was still about 200 paces away, Ballista quickly issued orders to two of his messengers. All the ballistae on the western wall were to prepare to shoot at the enemy army. They were to take maximum elevation as if going for their greatest range but their crews were to loosen the torsion springs by two turns of the washers so that their missiles fell well short of their maximum range. Hopefully it would deceive the enemy about the true range of the ballistae. The messengers ran off along the wall walk; one south, the other, the one with the heavy accent from the Subura, north. With the Suren about a hundred paces away, Ballista told Mamurra to go below to the first floor of the tower and train one of the bolt-throwers on the approaching messenger. On Ballista's command, a bolt was to be shot just over the head of the Suren.
He was riding a beautiful Nisean stallion. It was jet-black, deepchested, no less than sixteen hands tall. Good job it was light cavalry that ambushed us, Ballista thought. Pale Horse would never knock a beast like that back on its hocks.
The Suren reined in his horse. He had stopped about thirty paces from the gate. Ballista was relieved. The enemy nobleman would have detected two of the traps that Ballista had set. He had crossed over two pits in the road, one at a hundred and one at fifty paces from the gate. The pits were concealed from view, boarded over with sand thickly spread on top, but the hollow ring of his stallion's hooves would have warned the Persian. Yet so far he should know nothing of the final pit, the crucial
one, just twenty paces from the gate.
The Suren took his time taking off a tall helmet in the shape of a predatory bird, possibly an eagle. His own features, once revealed, did not look greatly different. With the assurance of a man whose ancestors have owned broad pastures for generations without number, he looked up at the men on the battlements.
'Who is in command here?' The Suren spoke in almost unaccented Greek. His voice carried well.
'I am Marcus Clodius Ballista, son of Isangrim, Dux Ripae. I command here.'
The Suren tipped his head slightly to one side, as if better to study this blond barbarian with a Roman name and title. 'The King of Kings Shapur bids me tell you to heat the water and prepare his food. He would bathe and eat in his town of Arete tonight.'
Ballista tipped his head back and laughed.
'I am sure that the bum-boy who passes for your kyrios would love to get in the bath and offer his arse to anyone interested, but I fear that the water would be too hot and my soldiers much too rough for his delicate constitution.'
Seemingly unmoved by the obscenity, the Suren methodically began to undo the top of the quiver that hung by his right thigh.
'What the hell is he doing?' Ballista demanded of Bagoas in a whisper.
'He is preparing formally to declare war. He will shoot the cane reed that symbolizes war.'
'Like fuck he will. Quietly pass the word for Mamurra to shoot.'
The order was muttered from man to man across the gate-house roof and down the stairs.
Having extracted presumably the correct symbolic arrow, the Suren pulled his bow from its case. He was just notching the arrow when came the terrifying loud twang, slide, thump of a ballista being released. To his credit, the Suren barely flinched as the bolt shot a few feet above his head. Composing himself, he drew his bow and sent his arrow high over the walls of the town. Then he made his horse rear. The glossy coat of the stallion shimmered as it turned on its hind legs. The Suren called over his shoulder.
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