The Caspian Gates

by Harry Sidebottom

  Ballista could remember only a little of the arguments with which Favorinus considered he had vanquished these opponents. Love of possessions and repute seemed the least troubling to Ballista. Yes, it was good when people made way for you, stood up when you arrived, called you Kyrios. He had twice known imperial disfavour when living in Antioch. They had been unpleasant months. But Ballista had always claimed, and he hoped with some truth, that worldly success meant little to him. As long as he had enough to live comfortably, he believed he would be happy to be left alone to farm some land in quiet obscurity. He had not asked to be trained as a killer, had not sought the acclaim that came with being skilled at it.

  The threat of losing your fatherland meant next to nothing to a man who had lost it many years before. More than half a lifetime, and Ballista, for all his imperial sponsored education, knew he had not become a Greek or Roman. Here, he remembered, he differed from Favorinus, who had boasted that culture had transformed him from a Gaul to a true Hellene. Ballista’s time in the imperium had made him neither one thing nor the other. He suspected he would no longer feel totally at home if the emperor, for some reason of State, decreed he should return to Germania.

  As for liberty, it all depended what was meant. If it was freedom to go where you wanted, do what you wished, Ballista could not see that he had had it either as the son of a war leader of the Angles or as a hostage and officer of Rome. Although, if liberty was free speech, he had had more of it as a youth in the north.

  Loss of family and friends was the killer. Ballista recalled that Favorinus had concentrated on friends. An accident of nature had made that easy for him. In his speech, Favorinus had admitted that his mother and sister were dead. Born a eunuch, Favorinus was given no opportunity to make another family. Ballista had his two closest friends with him, but being away from his family, being away from his boys, that was the hardest thing.

  Maximus touched his arm, and pointed ahead. A squall was blowing in from the north-west, from Chios, a line of dark clouds trailing tendrils of rain, flicking up white caps in front. The oarsmen would earn their money pulling through that to a safe haven. But it would be as nothing to the storms in the Black Sea, the Kindly Sea, as, strangely, it was often called, before Ballista reached Phasis.

  To Phasis, where for ships is the furthermost run.

  Ballista could still not remember from which tragedy the line came.

  XV

  Byzantium was the last place in the world that Hippothous wanted to find himself. Even his home town of Perinthus would not have been as bad. It had been many years before, but some Byzantines would remember the murder of their fellow citizen Aristomachus the rhetorician, and they would not have forgotten his killer.

  When the imperial mandata had reached Ephesus, Hippothous had seriously considered leaving the familia of Ballista. But somehow he felt he still had work to do as accensus to the northerner, and the role suited his predilections.

  Even the journey to the Bosphorus had been painful. It had not been the two squalls. The first had hit them almost as soon as they left Ephesus. They had had to run north to a bay under Mount Korakion. The second had come on them in the Propontis, when they were rounding the peninsula of Arctonnesos. They had had to ride that one out in the open water, a thing for which no galley cared.

  Hippothous had been no more scared of shipwreck than was to be expected in a man who had experienced that horror. What had troubled him much more was cruising past Lesbos on a calm spring morning. Virtually all the time the island had been in sight, he had remained in the prow. He had ceaselessly scanned the water, searching for the place where his original ship, all those years before, had foundered, for where Hyperanthes’s life had slipped away in the churning black waters, for the spot where he himself eventually had crawled ashore, as close to death as life, and for the headland where he had buried his beloved boy under a simple stone with a makeshift epigram.

  A tomb unworthy of the death of a sacred citizen,

  The famous flower some evil daemon once plucked from the land to the deep,

  On the sea it plucked him as a great storm wind blew.

  Standing there, Hippothous recognized none of it. Admittedly, it had been dark then, and in the teeth of a gale, but it was as if it had happened to someone else. This had profoundly shaken Hippothous, in a way he could not explain.

  Immediately Ballista had announced that they were bound for Byzantium, Hippothous had begun to alter his appearance. There had not been time to grow a full beard, but he had achieved a commendable short one of sandy stubble. He had had his head shaved. Old Calgacus had done it. By the time they reached Byzantium, the nicks had mostly healed.

  Hippothous had wondered if he should affect a limp or a stoop. He had decided against it, as it was liable actually to draw attention to him. It was a long time since he had left. For twenty-four years he had lived among the latrones. That length of time, roaming from Cappadocia to Aethiopia with groups of bandits, must have altered his walk and manners.

  At least there was no need to change his name. He had done that – it seemed a lifetime ago – when he had first come to Cilicia and taken up banditry as a profession.

  One thing beyond his control was that Ballista, Maximus and Calgacus knew his true story. He had told it to them the year before, for really nothing more than to pass the time as they had waited offshore on a trireme, for events to unfold at the town of Corycus. They had promised not to reveal his true identity while in Byzantium, but it was a worry.

  The liburnian, like most shipping going north, had pursued a course against the sun as it negotiated the Propontis. This left a tricky pull from east to west across the mouth of the Bosphorus, across the current, to finally make port in Byzantium. As the rowers toiled, Hippothous had studied the city. The acropolis on its bluff, sticking like a dagger into swirling waters; the low sea walls and the high land ones; the roofs of the temples. It all might have brought back strong emotions, if Hippothous had let it.

  Even though time and his own ingenuity had inscribed a new form on his body and movements, Hippothous had kept to the centre of Ballista’s small familia, eyes down, as they walked from the northern military docks through the bustling commercial harbour – livestock, slaves, grain, saltfish from the north, olive oil and wine from the south – up into the city.

  They were staying in one of the houses of a leading member of the Boule called Cleodamus. The house was a new acquisition. Until recently, it had been the home of one of the councillors executed by Gallienus. Cleodamus did not reside there himself. That was good: Hippothous knew Cleodamus had been a young junior magistrate when Aristomachus the rhetorician had been killed. Despite Cleodamus’s absence, Hippothous had feigned illness and remained shut up in his room until today.

  This morning’s meeting could not be avoided. All the four men who constituted the mission to the Caucasus were arrived in Byzantium. The imperial eunuchs sent by Gallienus to act as interpreters and advisors were to brief them. The room was quite bare. Presumably, the condemned councillor’s household possessions had been sold separately from the building, and Cleodamus had yet to instruct his servants to complete the furnishing of his new property.

  At one end was a portable altar, its fire lit. Arranged in a row along one side were four chairs. On the one nearest to the altar sat the elderly senator Felix. Next to him was Ballista. Then, in descending order of rank, came the other equestrians, Rutilus and Castricius. During Ballista’s few days wearing the purple, Rutilus had served as his Praetorian Prefect, Castricius as his Prefect of Cavalry. Before that, together with Ballista, they had served the pretender Quietus. Hippothous knew the equestrians from that time. Behind each seated man stood his secretary. As his accensus, Hippothous was behind Ballista.

  Opposite stood the four eunuchs. The two sides of the room presented a strong contrast. Each of the four seated men, including the ex-consul Felix, was dressed as a soldier: white tunic, dark trousers and cloak, practical boots, ela
borate sword belts, with long spatha on left hip, short pugio on right. Their accensi had followed their sartorial lead. Felix, Hippothous and one of the other secretaries sported a beard. All except Ballista had cropped hair.

  The court eunuchs were more exotic figures. Their snow-white tunics were unbelted. They had slippers on their feet, and from their shoulders red cloaks fringed with gold fell to the floor. Their unnaturally smooth faces were framed by the ringlets of their artfully curled long hair.

  Felix got up and went to the altar. He pulled a fold of his cloak over his head. Throwing a pinch of incense into the flames, he delivered a prayer for the gods and the genius of the Augustus to guide their deliberations. Moving lightly for his age and stature, he walked back to the chair and sat down again.

  Hippothous detected no obvious insincerity in the old nobleman’s words. Indeed, a couple of times, Felix had tapped his boot on the floor to emphasize his seriousness. Hippothous decided to practise physiognomy. Felix had a full head of silver hair and a beard, both groomed but not too elaborate. His nose was large, and deep lines ran down from it to below his mouth. His gaze was dry, with the eyes quite close set. Although he moved easily, his breathing was heavy.

  Hippothous observed Felix closely out of the corner of his eye. The consular rubbed one of his palms on the other. That was the sign which, to a skilled physiognomist, brought the others into focus, gave significance to the whole. Felix had the soul of a hypocrite.

  For a time, the conclusion, arrived at so scientifically as to be inescapable, puzzled Hippothous. Nothing he knew of the life of the elderly nobleman particularly suggested hypocrisy. Felix had had a successful career. He had been consul many years before. An intimate of the emperor Valerian, he had set himself up as the embodiment of senatorial dignitas and tradition. Under Gallienus, he had commanded with distinction the infantry in the centre of the line at the battle of Mediolanum. Before this meeting, he had talked at some length of this and of his pleasure at being back in Byzantium, the city he had successfully saved from the Goths some five years before.

  Hippothous turned it all over in his mind. The moment of revelation was exquisite. At Mediolanum, the infantry had really taken orders not from Felix but from the Praetorian Prefect Volusianus. Felix’s actions in the defence of Byzantium might not have been everything he claimed. Felix was a liar. And what was a hypocrite, if not a liar? The highest knowledge physiognomy brought was not just revelations of what would happen in the future but what falsehoods were told of the past.

  Eusebius, the chief eunuch, the one who would accompany Felix, took the floor. In a high but melodious voice he began to speak.

  ‘The Caspian Gates is the name given to the passes which run north–south through the Caucasus mountains. To the north live the Alani and the other savage nomads they rule. There are many of them; all very warlike. The passes must be held to keep them at bay.’

  Eusebius’s eyes were wide, hard and bright like marble.

  ‘There are two great passes. To the east is a plain between the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea. This pass sometimes is called the Caspian Gates, sometimes the Gates of the Alani. Herodotus tells us it was the route taken by the Scythians when they defeated the Medes and brought destruction and misery to the whole of Asia. It is in the country of Cosis, king of the Albanians.’

  The head eunuch bowed in the direction of Castricius. ‘It is to Albania that the Vir Perfectissimus Gaius Aurelius Castricius will travel with my colleague Amantius.’

  Eusebius now turned his unsettling eyes on Ballista. ‘The other famous pass, to the west, high in the heart of the mountains, also is often called the Caspian Gates, but is more properly the Caucasian Gates. Through it erupted the Alani, in the time of the Divine Hadrian, when they set upon the province of Cappadocia, and were only driven back by the valour of the historian Arrian. Now the pass is held by Polemo, king of Suania. It is here that the Vir Ementissimus Marcus Clodius Ballista, with my colleague Mastabates, will advise the king and rebuild the fortifications.’

  Interesting, thought Hippothous, that this eunuch from the palace calls Ballista Vir Ementissimus, as if he were still one of the great equestrian prefects of the empire.

  With a flaccid sweep of his hand, Eusebius continued. ‘Although it is less well known, between the two great passes are several others. They are harder going, but usable. They debouch into the territory of Hamazasp, king of Iberia. The Vir Perfectissimus Marcus Aurelius Rutilus has mandata to go to him. He will be accompanied by my friend Gallicanus.’

  Finally, Eusebius gave his attention to Felix. ‘To the west of the main Caspian or Caucasian Gates are several more tracks across the mountains. They lead down to the Black Sea at the cities of Pityous, Sebastopolis and Cygnus. The most powerful rulers here are Rhesmagus and Spadagas, the kings of the western and eastern Abasgi. They have established a certain loose hegemony over such tribes as the Macropogones and the Phtheirophagi in the mountains, as well as the minor chiefs of the lowland Colchis behind the coastal city of Phasis.’

  Eusebius bowed deeply. ‘A situation of such complexity calls for the political acumen, and possibly the military skills, of such a man as Spurius Aemilius Felix, the hero of Byzantium and Mediolanum.’

  Hippothous only smiled inwardly; for a physiognomist is not to be caught out himself. No matter how Eusebius dressed it up, the self-regarding consular Felix was unlikely to welcome a commission which would see him struggling up goat tracks at the end of the world to mountain tribes such as the Macropogones and Phtheirophagi. There was something pleasurable in contemplating the Vir Clarissimus Spurius Aemilius Felix in the huts of the chiefs of the ‘longbeards’ and the ‘lice-eaters’.

  The eunuch seemed to be moving to the close of his oration with the sort of courtly platitudes and gestures he thought suitable to the occasion. Hippothous found it hard to watch. The too smooth cheeks, the broad mouth, the long, thin neck, the fleshy arms and wrists, the womanly breasts and even hips: the complete repulsiveness of a man who is not like other men.

  ‘Of course, men of understanding, such as yourselves, will long ago have unveiled the other reason for this mission; the one not to be spoken of with any outside this room.’

  A neat rhetorical turn, thought Hippothous, whose mind had been elsewhere.

  ‘Of course, it is important to keep the hordes of the Alani north of the Caucasus. But there is no especial reason to think they are intending to try to force the Caspian Gates now.’

  The eunuch had all Hippothous’s attention.

  ‘Many reports, some casually received from merchants, others sent by frumentarii, indicate that, since the capture of the emperor Valerian, the minions of the Persian king have been assiduous in their courting of the rulers to whom you are being sent. There is hardly a petty chieftain south of the Caucasus that is not eating off a silver dinner service embossed with images of Shapur hunting lions or carrying out some other kingly pursuit. There is a Sassanid army, commanded by Shapur’s son Prince Narseh, south-west of the Caspian Sea. It is there on the pretence of crushing a revolt among their subject tribes of the Mardi and the Cadusii, but it is poised to move up through Albania and Iberia. Unless we can restore our client kings in the region to their rightful loyalty to Rome, the imperium will find it has lost the whole Caucasian region as far as Colchis. Unless we succeed, next year, Sassanid horsemen will be riding west along the shores of the Black Sea.’

  XVI

  The trireme waiting for them at Byzantium that had orders to convey them the length of the Kindly Sea to the Caucasus was named the Armata. Its trierarch was called Bruteddius Niger. Ballista liked the look of both immediately. The big galley was taut, well run. Its captain was square set, the epitome of a grizzled seaman.

  Yet not all was ideal. The Armata was not from the Classis Pontica which operated out of Trapezus in the Black Sea. Instead, she had been one of the squadron of Venerianus that had followed the Gothic pirates as far as Byzantium. When the rest of the flotilla s
ailed south, it had been seconded to remain. The Armata was an Italian ship based out of Ravenna. Neither it nor Bruteddius had ever been into the daunting Black Sea. Somehow that was typical of imperial bureaucracy.

  Bruteddius had hired a local pilot to negotiate the Bosphorus. It had been a wise step. The current in the middle of the channel ran down from the Black Sea like a mill race. To proceed north with any ease, a galley, even one with nearly two hundred oarsmen, had to catch the counter-currents close to either shore, several times pulling across the rush of water from one side to the other.

  Nevertheless, in a few hours, they passed the clashing rocks. These marked the entrance to the Black Sea. Once, they had floated, dashing together and crushing any vessel that attempted the passage. After Jason and the Argonauts had got through, the gods had fixed the dreadful obstacles in place. The pilot pointed them out with parochial pride. Ballista and the others were less than impressed. The dirty stubs of charcoal-green stone did not look the stuff of myth.

  They had all heard terrible things about the Black Sea. Storms blew up out of nowhere. The southern coast was notorious for a wave pattern like no other: triple waves which could put even the most seaworthy craft on its beam ends. But the first day, the Kindly Sea was calm. The only thing that surprised the seamen used to the clear waters of the Mediterranean was its opaque quality. However, while they could not see into its depths, a helpful and strong current ran to the east.

  The Armata raced along, leaving a long, straight wake like a path through a green meadow. Bruteddius wanted to push for a long day’s row all the way to Heraclea. But Felix, true to the interests of his class, managed to turn the trip into a voyage of antiquarian sight-seeing. First, at lunch time, he insisted they delay at Calpe. Through the eyes of the cultured, the promontory was just as Xenophon had described it in the Anabasis: the harbour under the steep cliff, its beach facing west; close by, the spring of plentiful fresh water; the broad headland with the narrow, defensible neck connecting it to the mainland; the abundance of good, shipbuilding timber; to the south, before the mountains, the villages set on the rich soil. No wonder, Felix opined, Xenophon had wanted to settle the ten thousand there. Only the short-sightedness of the mercenaries had prevented the foundation of a magnificent Greek polis.