Rome's Lost Son

by Robert Fabbri

  Paelignus glared at Vespasian, his eyes bulging even more, his chest heaving and his tongue hanging out like a dog’s, as he drew a series of quick, ragged breaths. ‘Seize him!’ he eventually managed to ejaculate, his throat evidently constricted with rage. A trembling, hooked finger was levelled at Vespasian to help the guards identify the miscreant deserving of arrest. Once again they did nothing. ‘Seize him! I order you!’

  ‘Whatever is the matter, procurator?’ Vespasian asked in the tone of one trying to ascertain the cause of a recalcitrant child’s unruly behaviour.

  ‘You’ve been plotting behind my back, all of you; now that I’ve relieved you of your commands I shall have you all executed.’

  ‘Will you? Perhaps you would like to tell us why you feel such an extreme move to be necessary?’

  ‘You’re going to take my soldiers away.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘I know; you had a meeting in your tent earlier this evening, Vespasian. The prefects agreed to follow you back to Cappadocia and desert me, your rightful commander.’

  Vespasian looked at the prefects, who all seemed equally as puzzled by the ravings of their slavering procurator as he was. ‘Do any of you recall such a meeting, gentlemen?’

  Fregallanus looked at Paelignus in disgust. ‘I don’t recall such a meeting, Paelignus, because there wasn’t one. We are men of honour and would consider conspiring against our commander, whatever we may think of him, as a conspiracy against the Emperor himself.’

  Mannius spat on the ground. ‘If there had been such a meeting I would not have agreed to disobey your orders and take my cohort back to Cappadocia, despite my personal feelings about your military ability and even though you were planning to risk all our lives in the morning in an ill-advised attack. But now? I resent being called a coward by a man who I didn’t see once on the wall whilst we were under attack yesterday. I have never served under a man who is so unfit to command; a man who, given a choice, will invariably make the wrong decision. You have relieved us all of our commands, runt; now we reinstate ourselves. Guards, seize him!’

  This time the men responded to the order and strode forward.

  Paelignus yelped and darted away from the desk. Vespasian watched in fascinated disbelief, as the little man ducked and dived, dodged and weaved around the tent while the two guards attempted to apprehend him as if it were a chase in a theatrical comedy; despite his abnormality he was as quick as a lithe rodent and soon outsmarted his pursuers and nipped out of the tent.

  ‘Let him go!’ Vespasian ordered the two embarrassed guards; he turned to the prefects. ‘He’ll no doubt run to Radamistus.’

  ‘That arrogant piece of eastern shit is welcome to him,’ Cotta said, speaking for all present judging by the murmurs of agreement. ‘So what do we do now?’

  The question was directed at his fellow prefects but it was to Vespasian that they all looked for an answer.

  ‘It seems that you have a choice between withdrawing to Cappadocia or withdrawing north into Armenia with Radamistus; unless, of course, you would rather fight a battle here that you can’t win.’

  Mannius asked the question that they were all wondering about: ‘So why did we come in the first place? You can’t possibly hold a country like Armenia with five auxiliary cohorts.’

  Vespasian shrugged. ‘You’ll have to ask Paelignus that; it was his idea. I just came along to offer suggestions if they were needed.’ It was not a nice lie but a convincing one in the light of the procurator’s behaviour. However, now that the auxiliary cohorts had served their purpose he was anxious that they should return to their bases without further loss of life. ‘Personally, I think that you’re well out of it now that your former commander has revealed himself to be an unstable imbecile. If you’re going to have to withdraw in the face of a superior force, then, rather than go north into unknown territory, I would return home and send a message to the Governor of Syria and hope that he comes with one or two of his legions to help remove the Parthians.’

  As the prefects began to talk amongst themselves, discussing their options, the bucinae began a fresh bout of blaring; again it was the alarm. Vespasian headed out of the tent with the prefects following. ‘What is it, Magnus?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, sir; but if it really is trouble it’s just as well that the lads are all up and dressed and standing in those lovely ranks and files that the centurions are so keen on.’

  Vespasian looked up and down the Via Praetoria, lined with soldiery, no doubt all wondering, as he was, what was going on. A horseman appeared galloping fast completely against the standing orders in any camp; in fact, riding horses in a camp was frowned upon as unlucky.

  ‘Where’s the procurator?’ the man shouted as he pulled his mount up to a skidding halt.

  ‘Disappeared,’ Vespasian said. ‘What’s the alarm for?’

  ‘The Parthians have surprised the garrison on the bridge. They’re now in control of it and are crossing in force.’

  ‘That’s impossible, there was half a cohort guarding it.’

  ‘Not our bridge, sir; the other one guarded by the Armenians. They made the broken bridge passable again and crossed the river to come behind Radamistus’ army.’

  Vespasian struggled to contain the shock on his face and looked at the assembled prefects. ‘Well, gentlemen, I suggest that you deploy a holding force to the east, in case the Parthians break through Radamistus, to protect us whilst we strike camp as quickly as possible. It looks like the decision has been made for you; the route north is now blocked.’

  Vespasian pushed his horse as fast as he dared in the growing dawn half-light; ahead, Radamistus’ unfortified encampment was in uproar, drowning out the sound of the auxiliaries striking their camp and the horns of the cohort deploying as a screen. But although there were hundreds or thousands of raised voices, as yet he had not heard the clash of arms or the screams of the maimed and the dying.

  He was unchallenged as he passed through the perimeter of the Armenian camp, which was a mess of cavalrymen mounting and forming up without any clear sense of order. He negotiated his way through the chaos as fast as possible without causing injury to one of the many who seemed to be running about in circles for no good reason other than just to be seen to be doing something. He eventually came to Radamistus’ tent to find the King, resplendent in the tall crown of Armenia and a tunic of scale armour, stepping into a ceremonial four-horse chariot.

  ‘What are you doing, Radamistus?’ Vespasian shouted, pulling up next to the usurper.

  Radamistus ignored the question as his mounted guards closed around him pushing Vespasian away. Then Radamistus paused for a moment and looked at Vespasian, frowning as if in thought; he called out in his own language into the shadows and received a reply that sounded affirmative to Vespasian. The chariot’s driver cracked his whip over the team’s withers and the vehicle moved off, surrounded by bodyguards, towards the bridge that Radamistus’ army had been supposed to hold.

  ‘The King is going to negotiate,’ Paelignus said, stepping from the shadows leading a horse and accompanied by half a dozen royal bodyguards. ‘Now that my men have deserted me we only have half the numbers that we thought we had and we’re surrounded.’

  Vespasian looked down at the procurator. ‘What’s he going to do? Surrender?’

  Paelignus scoffed. ‘The King of Armenia surrenders to no man; he’ll fight if necessary.’

  ‘He’s not the King.’

  ‘He is; you may have noticed that crown he was wearing on his head. I placed it there in Rome’s name just now to confirm him in his position. That’ll give him authority in his negotiations with the barbarians.’

  ‘You little idiot. He needs to earn that from us, not be given it without conditions attached.’

  One of Paelignus’ guards knitted his hands; the procurator stepped on them and struggled up into the saddle in an ungainly manner. He looked at Vespasian as his guards mounted. ‘Come and join me to see the resu
lt of the negotiations; in fact, Radamistus has asked that you should come. I think you’ll be impressed by the wording of his oath of loyalty to Parthia. Of course, the King of Armenia is under no compunction to keep his oath to a man as lowly as the satrap of Nineveh. Parthia will retire, Radamistus will renounce the oath and stay on the throne with a crown presented by Rome, and I will have scored the greatest diplomatic and military victory since Augustus negotiated the return of the Eagles lost by Crassus at Carrhae. I look forward to being amply rewarded by a grateful emperor.’

  ‘Parthia will never tolerate the breaking of that oath; they’ll be back within a month of Radamistus repudiating it,’ Vespasian replied and turned his horse, happy in the knowledge that if Radamistus were to swear loyalty to Parthia and break the oath then war would be unavoidable and his mission complete. ‘But no thank you; I won’t join you despite Radamistus’ kind invitation. I’m going back to Cappadocia; I’ve seen enough of how things are done in the East.’

  ‘Oh, but you haven’t, Vespasian; there’s one more thing that you should see.’ Paelignus pulled his gaunt face into what was meant to be a pleasant smile but looked to Vespasian as if he was in an advanced stage of rigor mortis. ‘It wasn’t an invitation from the King to come with me.’ He signalled to his guards. ‘It was an order.’

  Six spear heads immediately pointed at him; he was surrounded.

  ‘Take his sword,’ Paelignus ordered, riding off after Radamistus, ‘and tie his hands.’

  *

  Vespasian sat on his mount, his wrists bound tight and then secured to the horns of his saddle so that he had no possibility of riding off. Paelignus took regular gloating, sidelong glances at him as if he were anticipating a sweet moment. Ten paces ahead of them, Radamistus stood in his chariot, facing Babak, having a long conversation which had been punctuated with many polite gestures, in what Vespasian assumed was very flowery language as each sentence in the unintelligible tongue seemed to go on for an age. Although Paelignus too had no idea of what was being discussed, Vespasian saw him nodding in agreement occasionally and then noticed that the bodyguard to his other side was whispering a translation into his ear. Behind him the Armenian army had formed up for battle, while behind Babak a small force of dismounted Parthian cavalry held the bridge. They were not enough to attack and defeat the Armenian host but were certainly enough to impede their passage.

  Vespasian felt confident that Babak would cede to Radamistus’ terms and let him pass so that he could head north. Babak would remain in Tigranocerta until news of Radamistus’ treachery travelled down to him; then he would lead his army into the heart of Armenia and Tryphaena would have her war.

  The negotiations seemed to be coming to some conclusion; Vespasian pulled on his bindings. ‘Untie me, Paelignus.’

  ‘You’ll be released soon enough.’

  As the procurator finished speaking, Radamistus turned around and signalled to the guard holding Vespasian’s horse’s reins; he led the beast forward. However, he did not stop when he was level with his master, but, rather, carried on to Babak who signalled to one of his entourage to take the reins.

  ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ Vespasian demanded.

  Babak signalled to his men on the bridge who began pulling back to let the Armenian army cross.

  As he crossed the bridge with Babak at his side, Vespasian repeated the question.

  ‘It’s custom to conclude business with a surety in my country,’ Babak informed him. ‘And you are just such a thing. If Radamistus breaks his word and Rome sends her armies in to support him, then, until they are removed, you will spend the rest of your life in the darkest dungeon in Adiabene.’

  ‘But you know that he’ll break his word.’

  ‘Do I? He swore on Ahura Mazda; for him there is no more powerful a god.’

  ‘But he swore to you and he considers you to be too far below him in status to be able to hold him to his oath.’

  Babak bridled at the implied insult. ‘Then it would seem that things are not going to go well for you as a hostage of Parthia.’

  PART III

  THE PARTHIAN EMPIRE, AD 52

  CHAPTER XII

  ‘WHAT WOULD YOU recommend that I do with him, Ananias?’

  Vespasian knelt on the floor with his hands tied behind his back. The iron tang of blood filled his battered mouth; blood dripped onto the marble from a cut above his swollen, closed right eye. His tormentor, a massively muscled, bearded mute, wearing only a loincloth, stood before him, massaging his knuckles, raw from the beating he had just administered.

  ‘He seems to turn the other cheek.’

  If it would not have hurt so much, Vespasian would have smiled at this description of the way he had dealt with the punishment that had been meted out to him. He looked up at the speaker; he was seated on a wooden throne with gold and silver inlays of strangely foreign animalistic design. In his early fifties, with a long grey beard, his hair wrapped in a white cloth headdress wound around his head, and with a black and white patterned mantle over his shoulders, he did not look as if he was the King of Adiabene. Yet he was; and more than that, as Vespasian now knew only too well, he was a Jewish convert. But it was not to the mainstream religion that the King adhered, but rather to the new cult promoted by Paulus’ rivals in Jerusalem.

  ‘King Izates, our master Yeshua,’ the man named Ananias replied, ‘did indeed preach that to be righteous we should turn the other cheek; but this man is not a Jew and Yeshua’s teachings apply only to Jews, not Gentile dogs like this faithless scum.’ Ananias consulted a scroll, his rheumy eyes squinting and his age-spotted hands shaking as they unfurled the parchment. ‘I have a record of much of what he said here, left by his disciple, Thomas, on his way to preach to the Jews and god-fearers of the East; and it is clear that the Righteous are only those who fear God, whether as full Jews or as god-fearers who adhere to much of the religion. This man, Vespasian, cannot be one of the Righteous.’

  ‘Very well, if you say so.’ King Izates studied Vespasian for a few moments before turning to a woman sitting on a lesser throne next to his own. ‘Tell me, with the heart of a woman, Symacho, my love: what would you do with this hostage to the honour of Radamistus, King of Armenia? Now that that Iberian liar has foresworn his oath of loyalty to my master, the Great King Vologases, the first of that name, and also now that Ummidius Quadratus, the Governor of Roman Syria, has sent a legion into Armenia, this man’s life should be forfeit.’ He pointed at Vespasian. ‘And yet Babak told him that he would only be cast into the deepest dungeon for the rest of his life should the treaty be broken.’

  ‘Then do that, my King.’ She looked at Vespasian and smiled. In the two months that he had been held hostage in Arbela, the royal capital of Adiabene, Vespasian had shared many meals with the royal couple and had found the ageing Queen’s company far more entertaining than that of her religion-obsessed husband or any of his twenty-four children from sundry wives. Izates showed all the tunnel-visioned fanaticism of a convert, always pontificating about his new religion and trying to apply it in all aspects of his rule, much to the obvious displeasure, Vespasian had noticed, of a fair number of his courtiers who clung, like Babak, to the old gods of Assyria. Symacho, on the other hand, did not flaunt her new beliefs and consequently was far more relaxed and convivial because of it. Vespasian almost forgave her for encouraging her husband to incarcerate him for the rest of his life; he would have preferred a quick death.

  Another blow to the head stunned him momentarily; Izates had evidently ordered the beating to continue while he contemplated the issue from a religious angle.

  This was a situation far removed from what he had encountered upon his arrival in Arbela; then he had been not exactly welcomed, but treated with a reasonable amount of courtesy.

  ‘I’m pleased that the Lord has sent you to me,’ Izates had said to him on the day of Vespasian’s arrival.

  They were standing on the immense battlements that crowned the oval hill of fou
r hundred and fifty by three hundred and fifty paces upon which Arbela stood and had been standing for over six thousand years. The hill rose steeply, one hundred feet on all sides, to an almost flat top so that it stood like a huge base waiting for a mighty column to be raised upon it by the gods; a column that would reach the heavens and prop up the sky.

  For longer than memory Arbela had dominated the Assyrian plain that stretched out in all directions, irrigated and fertile, a farmland that had given power to the ancient Assyrian Kings before they had been subjugated by first the Medes and then the Persians and then by Alexander. His victory over Darius III at Guagamela, just eighty miles away, had heralded almost three hundred years of Hellenic rule during which time Adiabene had managed to become an autonomous kingdom. Now this city, one of the oldest on earth, was subject to Parthia and it was over Parthia that Vespasian had been gazing, only half-listening to his royal host who seemed to have very little conversation other than theological.

  ‘He has presented me with a way to solve a problem,’ Izates had carried on.

  ‘If I can be of service then I’d be only too pleased,’ Vespasian had replied absently. He had been led to think that his status was somewhat more than a hostage by the way that he had been greeted after his month-long journey south with the main force of Babak’s army. He had not been confined nor had he been guarded and the King had invited him on a tour of the battlements. Very soon he had bored Vespasian rigid with his talk of the Jewish god and rambling on about the prophet he had sent to save the Jews and those who feared their god by freeing them from the priests and all vestiges of human control on the most pure of religions – or something like that. Vespasian had not quite got to grips with the detail.

  ‘You can, Vespasian, by God’s grace you can.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Do you think that Radamistus will keep his word? After all, he swore his oath by Ahura Mazda who obviously does not exist.’

  Vespasian had carried on gazing at the vastness of the Parthian Empire. ‘What makes you say that?’