Rome's Lost Son

by Robert Fabbri

  ‘Stay here,’ Vespasian ordered the auxiliaries to his left, satisfied that they should be able to hold the position. ‘Magnus, with me!’ They hurtled along the walkway, past a dozen or so private combats where the defenders were hurling the conscripts back through the crenels – or at least preventing them progressing forward – and came to the outer edge of the ever-expanding melee as it abutted the parapet through and over which the conscripts flowed. Arrows hissed higher overhead as the horse archers’ commanders realised that progress, which should not be impeded by slaughtering the cattle making it, was being made on this section of the wall and they had their men raise their aim into the city beyond.

  ‘Pull back!’ Vespasian shouted at the auxiliaries and tugging on a couple of shoulders. ‘Pull back four paces and give them space.’

  The auxiliaries obeyed his command, even though it ran contrary to their martial instincts to press forward onto the enemy, and stepped backwards. The sudden release of pressure freed the lolling corpses jammed up against the shield wall and they slithered to the ground leaving blood smears marking their passage down the emblazoning of combined moons and stars. The conscripts revealed by them cheered at their enemy’s retreat and then were pushed forward to trip over their slaughtered comrades, landing at the auxiliaries’ feet and falling prey immediately to the razor points of spathae that ripped necks and backs, slicing through vertebrae and muscle with sprays and slops of blood and agonised screams.

  ‘Now forward!’ Vespasian yelled, barging into the front rank, his eyes slitted and his lips drawn back in a bloodied-lipped snarl. ‘Magnus, follow us up with as many men as you can get and stop the gaps!’

  Vespasian and his small command stepped over the dead and, with nothing between their blades and the living flesh of their foe penned as they were like the beasts they resembled, began to slaughter; this time taking care not to press forward so hard as to form an upright cadaver-barricade. Vespasian felt the joy once more of working his blade; reaping lives with every combined thrust, twist and pull, stamping his feet forward and punching with his shield boss as liquids and semi-solids splattered down his legs and onto his feet, warm and glutinous between his toes, emanating foul stenches and creating a dangerously slimy surface underfoot. On they pressed, forcing many of the Parthians to jump from the walkway and take their chances with fractured limbs in the street below rather than face the four blades that leapt, at groin height or at chest or belly, from between the solid, short wall of shields, blood-slicked and deadly. Magnus and the auxiliaries following up dealt with each of the crenels as they were cleared, throwing men back with ripped throats and eyeless sockets, howling their last down to a shattered death on the growing mounds of mortally wounded and lifeless bodies.

  From the opposing direction the other auxiliaries took heart from the progress of their comrades and held their shields firm, eviscerated corpses pressed hard against them, making a solid barrier through which there was no retreat for the doomed conscripts who screamed to gods deaf to their plight as their lives were ripped from slashed bodies.

  Vespasian’s breaths became ragged with exertion but he forced his muscles to power on, unwilling to forgo the joy of slaughter that had not been felt for so long as he had wallowed through the mire of imperial politics populated by men who could never live as intensely as he did at this moment. Iron-tanged blood, urine, faeces, sweat and fear cloyed his nose and the clash of weapons, the cries of the wounded and dying of both the victors and the vanquished alike rang shrill in his ears. But then a new odour penetrated his focused mind and a different sound accompanied it: acrid fumes and shattering impacts. Vespasian stepped back to let a second ranker take his place and glanced above to see an earthenware pot trailing fire and black smoke flash across the sky. He followed its trajectory and watched it smash onto the corner of a roof in the second level of the city, exploding into a maelstrom of flames that stuck to the tiles and walls as if they themselves were burning. He turned to see an auxiliary stare, transfixed in horror at the sky for an instant before the man’s head disintegrated with a puff of blood, flesh, brain and splintered bone, leaving his body standing, rigid, for a couple of gore-spouting heartbeats before crumpling to the ground still disgorging its contents.

  The Parthian artillery had entered the fray and they were hurling both fire and stone.

  ‘What the fuck is that?’ Magnus puffed as yet another burning streak hissed overhead.

  ‘Naphtha!’ Vespasian shouted back, slamming the tip of his sword into the face of one of the last wounded conscripts left alive on the walkway; in each direction along the wall the fight to keep the cattle out continued in a brutal fashion that now seemed commonplace to Vespasian after so much violence. ‘Tryphaena warned me about it; she said it’s the spawn of an eastern god of fresh water.’

  ‘Bollocks, spawn can’t burn; it’s laid in water.’ Magnus ducked involuntarily as the wind of a solid shot passed overhead.

  Vespasian finally saw the sight that he had been waiting for and turned to his friend; a grin split his blood-splattered face. ‘It’s a fire god that lives in water which doesn’t quench his flames so of course his spawn can burn.’

  ‘Oh, River-god fire,’ Magnus said, watching another smoking missile shoot by. ‘I know it; useful stuff it is too.’

  Vespasian’s surprise at Magnus having heard of this weapon was tempered by a welcome sight. ‘But we’re now going to fight their fire with heat of our own.’ As he spoke, teams of auxiliaries from Fregallanus’ cohort, led by a centurion, jogged down the street with iron cauldrons on solid wooden stretchers insulated by soaked leather. They double-timed up the steps and the centurion saluted.

  Vespasian did not wait for his report. ‘Is this all?’ he asked, counting a dozen pots.

  ‘No, sir, just the first batch; there’re at least six more batches of this size to come.’

  ‘Very good, centurion; we’ll start on this section.’ He pointed to a crenel at which two auxiliaries were crouching taking it in turns to repel a seemingly endless stream of conscripts; all along the wall similar scenarios were being played out as the defenders kept low through fear of losing their heads to well-aimed solid artillery shots. ‘Take that crenel, then every fifth one; that should give them pause for thought.’

  With a perfunctory salute the centurion led his men off at a crouching lope as streaks of flame and black smoke passed overhead to explode as fireballs in the city beyond; heavy stones crashed into the parapet and skimmed through crenels with eruptions of human meat, of both attackers and defenders alike, spattering over the walkway.

  Wishing to set an example, Vespasian stood erect, open to the artillery, and watched the first team lay down its stretcher; with dampened leather gloves two of them lifted the cauldron by a chain, attached to either side, onto the crenel as the auxiliaries defending it fell back after a flurry of lightning sword thrusts. They pushed the iron cauldron across the stone, steam issuing from their gloves, until it reached the lip and then the other two men lifted a wooden pole from the stretcher, placed it on the cauldron’s rim and pushed, tipping it forward as their comrades held the chains fast. The heated oil within it began to dribble down and then pour slowly out as the cauldron toppled forward until, with a sudden surge as it crashed onto its side, the oil gushed down onto the skin and into the eyes of those unfortunate enough to be on the ladder below.

  The screams of freshly blinded men pierced the battle’s rage as the sirens’ calls cut through the wrath of a storm. The cauldron was dragged back and an auxiliary leant through the crenel to pull in the vacated ladder; below, the enemy were too intent on scraping the searing gelatinous fluid from their melting skin to notice. A torch was then flung down to ignite the oil; it flashed in an instant, raging with an intensity that almost matched the Naphtha conflagrations blazing within the city, but outdid them for murderous effect in the cramped conditions beneath the wall as men, already in torment, burst into flame. Another clutch of desolate shrieks tore th
rough the din and then more and more as the rest of the cauldrons were emptied of their oil or superheated sand whose scalding grains inveigled their way into clothing and orifices to agonising effect. One cauldron, struck by a direct hit from a fist-sized stone projectile that shattered it, exploded its contents backwards, spattering the auxiliaries around it so that they shared the fate that was being meted out to so many of the human cattle threatening the southern wall.

  And then the second load of steaming cauldrons arrived, followed by a third and then a fourth. With each delivery of broiling agony the pressure on Vespasian’s section of the wall eased as ladders were drawn up and not replaced from below, so that the defenders could concentrate on fewer escalade points with more brutal efficiency.

  With the sixth and penultimate downpouring of blistering death the will of the Parthians snapped and their terror of immolation exceeded that for their tormentors behind them. They turned and ran, as if by common consent, leaving their dead and dying stacked and smouldering against the base of the wall and littered across the field as they tried to break through the formation of cataphract cavalry, four deep, knee to knee, that hemmed them in.

  The auxiliaries, too exhausted to do much more than give a cursory cheer, hunkered back down behind the parapet as the artillery continued shooting stone at the walls and lobbing fire into the city.

  But that too was soon to cease as, from the north, a new threat appeared; horns blared in the Parthian ranks and cornu repeated the four-note refrain warning of approaching troops.

  Both sides paused as they tried to ascertain to whose aid this new force had come.

  ‘They’re the Parthians who followed the tributary north,’ Magnus opined, surveying the long column of cavalry tracing the line of the eastern bank of the Kentrites a mile or so north of its meeting with the Tigris. Dust partially obscured them so that their number was impossible to tell, but, through the cloud roused up by hundreds of hoofs, the banners and the dress of the vanguard could be discerned.

  ‘Babak must have recalled them once he’d witnessed the strength of our defence,’ Mannius reasoned, pride in his men’s performance registering in his voice.

  Vespasian shook his head and leant forward through the crenel, at the junction of the southern and eastern walls, as if the extra couple of feet would make a difference in his ability to identify the newcomers. If Queen Tryphaena had kept her promise then he knew who they were; but he needed to be sure. As his eyes penetrated the dust he allowed himself a small smile; these cavalry were slightly different. ‘No, it can’t be them; look at the colour of the clothes their light cavalry are wearing: the Parthian cavalry were all garish tunics and trousers and fancy headdresses, but these light horse are dull by comparison, undyed wool and linen, poor stuff.’

  Magnus squinted his one good eye and rubbed his neck. ‘I suppose you’re right; but then whoever that is must have passed the Parthians.’ He turned to Vespasian and Mannius, raising his brows. All three of them were crusted in dried gore as if they had spent the day sacrificing to every conceivable god who demanded blood but none of them affected to notice. ‘There ain’t enough room in that valley for two forces to pass each other without at least saying good morning.’

  Mannius pointed to a group of horsemen traversing the bridge to the northern bank of the Tigris. ‘There’s movement over there.’

  Vespasian watched the dozen or so Parthian light cavalry; having crossed the second bridge to the eastern bank of the Kentrites, they approached the column under a branch of truce. ‘This should confirm who I think they are.’

  ‘Confirm?’ Mannius asked.

  ‘Yes, prefect; I’m hoping that they’re who I’ve been waiting for.’ He looked around at the conscript infantry, dug in, surrounding the city and then focused on the three or four thousand manning the siege lines to the north, opposite the only other gate. The Tigris came to within a hundred paces of their rear with the bridge spanning it before it made its curve to the south.

  Vespasian turned his attention back to the approaching cavalry. They had now halted at the confluence of the Tigris and its tributary, with the Parthian emissaries a little distance ahead of them; what was being negotiated and how those talks were going was impossible to tell from this distance. He watched the parley for another hundred or so heartbeats, each one feeling quicker than the last, until finally the Parthians turned their mounts and pelted back the way they came without a messenger from the newcomers accompanying them. ‘Good, it is them.’

  Magnus looked confused. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘They, Magnus, are the rest of our army and all that stands between them linking up with us are three or four thousand conscripts, so we need to get the north gate open and herd some cattle into the river.’ He turned to Mannius’ primus pilus waiting at a respectful distance from his superiors. ‘Get messages to all the other prefects and have them stand by to leave the city through the north gate; Cotta’s cohort will lead and will break through the siege lines; Fregallanus and Mannius’ cohorts will follow up and form up to the west and east respectively to protect the rest of the force and the baggage while they cross the Tigris.’

  The centurion gave a crisp salute and turned to relay the orders to a series of runners and Vespasian grinned at Mannius. ‘Time to get your lads off the wall, prefect.’

  Vespasian and Magnus strode purposefully around the narrow streets that circled the great hill of the city past many Naphtha fires being tackled by citizens, old and young, too busy to notice the Roman troops pulling back from the battlements and the baggage train assembling in the agora near the north gate.

  ‘You travel with Hormus,’ Vespasian ordered Magnus as they pushed through the chaos of the wagons and mules gathering at short notice. Hormus was close to the front, seeing to his team’s harness; Vespasian was unsurprised to see the young muleteer he had noticed smile so enticingly at his slave just behind him. He was sure that was no coincidence. ‘And find out the name of that lad and where he comes from; Hormus seems to have taken a fancy to him. We should make sure that his motives are purely financial.’

  ‘You mean make sure that he’s not pumping your slave for information, if you take my meaning?’

  ‘I’m sure I do,’ Vespasian said with a smile as he pushed on to Cotta’s cohort forming up in a column at the north gate. Now all he had to do was clear the way for the new arrivals to link up with the Romans, then together they would abandon Tigranocerta and stage a fighting retreat, leading the Parthians further and further into the Roman client kingdom of Armenia and creating a just cause for war between the two empires. This was the war that Tryphaena had planned. A war that would secure her nephew the Armenian crown, a war that could be used to destabilise the drunken, drooling fool ruling in Rome and ensure that Nero, the son of her kinswoman Agrippina, would take the Purple before Claudius’ natural son, Britannicus, came of age. And this is what Vespasian now considered to be the best course of events for him and his family: he had seen Nero and he had seen Britannicus and of the two of them it was obvious, even surely to a drooling fool, that Britannicus was the better choice. But it was not the better choice that would suit Vespasian’s purposes if the destiny that he suspected had been laid out for him really was to come to pass; that better choice would stabilise the Julio-Claudians and perhaps secure their line for decades to come. No, it was the weaker, vainer, more arrogant candidate that Vespasian needed to succeed Claudius: Nero, whose suitability to rule was only superficial. The dazzling Prince of the Youth in the image of a young god; but underneath that appealing exterior lay what Vespasian believed could be the madness that would make Tiberius’ behaviour in his latter years seem like mild eccentricity. He had recognised it in the moment he had seen Nero resting his head on Agrippina’s breast and then had had it confirmed by Narcissus: an incestuous relationship with his mother. Giving absolute power to a man who saw nothing wrong in bedding his own mother was, to Vespasian’s mind, a sure way to release within him the madness of unr
estrainable self-indulgence. A madness that would exceed Caligula’s and make his public sexual displays with his sister Drusilla be remembered as a mere foible. A madness that, in conjunction with the dominating presence of his mother and lover, Agrippina, insisting on recognition never before given to a woman, would be capable of bringing down the Julio-Claudian line because neither the Senate, the people nor even the Praetorian Guard would be able to countenance another emperor from that family that had deteriorated so dismally. And if the Julio-Claudians were to fail, who could guess what would follow? Perhaps it would be the time of New Men. Perhaps.

  But that was still a long way off and first he had to help implement Tryphaena’s plan; the initial stage had been accomplished: he had a Parthian army on Armenian soil. Now the second phase was coming to fruition because, as Tryphaena had promised he would, the usurper had come to fight alongside Rome.