'Caesarius.' His voice was soft but penetrating, his gaze piercing.
I turned warily. He was my friend, but, yes, I feared. 'Julian?'
'When you underestimate me, you underestimate Rome itself.'
The following summer, Julian was told by his scouts that Illyricum, the province above Italy and just to the east of Gaul, had been practically depleted of legions by the call-ups to the East, and that there remained only small garrisons to defend the major cities and military facilities. With his negotiations with Constantius at a dead end, and with the Emperor's forces on the verge of routing King Sapor in Persia, Julian felt that now was the time to act, before his rival was again able to return his full attention to the problem of Gaul. He made his move.
He resolved boldly, and his advisers said foolishly, to take all of Illyricum in a single pass, which would then give him a powerful springboard to control Italy to the south and even take Constantinople itself while the rival Emperor was still absent. Like a stage magician, his task was to pull vast amounts of material out of a seemingly empty sleeve, and I do not exaggerate when I claim his sleeves were empty: after subtracting the troops needed to be left behind to garrison the border towns along the Rhine against the Alemanni, his total forces amounted to scarcely over twenty-three thousand men — a laughable army compared with the resources at Constantius' command, and frightening to consider that with it he intended to conquer all the territories from Gaul to Constantinople and then swipe the most powerful city on earth from under the Emperor's nose.
In an attempt to give the illusion of a wide-ranging, sweeping attack across Europe by a crushing force, he divided his troops into three commands. Two each were of ten thousand men under his generals Nevitta and Jovinus. The third, a mere three thousand troops, the cream of his cavalry, the swiftest horse the Gallic forces could muster, he kept for himself. The three armies he assigned to three principal routes: Nevitta was to cross through Raetia and Noricum and descend along the course of the Danube into Pannonia. Jovinus' troops were to storm across northern Italy and then up to meet with Nevitta at the Danube. Julian himself would strike out across still barely charted territory, on the longest and most difficult trek of the three, through the heart of the Black Forest, which concealed the source of the Danube and in its northern reaches still harbored Germanic tribes hostile to Roman rule.
Of the three routes into which the army was split, not only was Julian's the most challenging, it was also the most frightening, for the Black Forest was a region into which Roman armies rarely ventured. It is said that there is no one who has even reached to the extremity of that forest, though men have journeyed through for weeks, to the point of madness, and in fact it is uncertain where the forest even begins. By so dispersing his forces, Julian was emulating a strategy employed to great effect by Alexander the Great, giving the impression of vast numbers of troops and spreading terror everywhere. The three armies were to meet at Sirmium, the capital of Lower Pannonia, a rustic, provincial city on a small tributary of the Danube.
It was determined, with much discussion and considerable regret on my part, that I would not accompany him in his attack through the Black Forest. There would be no occasion for medical treatment on his lightning thrust through Germany, he said — if wounded, he would either ignore the injury or die of it. Rather, it was decided that because of my own administrative and strategic skills, I would be attached to Nevitta's unit as a senior adviser. My role was to maintain the courier contacts and communications with the home base in Gaul, and coordinate the three armies' joint arrival in Sirmium, which we had scheduled for the ides of October.
Before departing, I took the time to visit fat Oribasius, whom I had not seen for several weeks. Though we were as unalike in as many ways as two men can be — of different generations, different schools of professional practice, different religions — still, I had always found his company enjoyable and his conversation stimulating, and I wished to bid him farewell. With the exception of the days leading up to the acclamation, when Julian had summoned Oribasius for a series of private consultations, I had almost completely supplanted my colleague in his physician's services to the Caesar. This was ostensibly because I was more fit to travel on the forced marches, though Julian had often told me privately that he also mistrusted Oribasius' skills because of his antiquated theories, and that he kept him in his court merely for the sake of old friendship. Still, Oribasius seemed not to mind the diminishment of his duties in the least, and always had a friendly word for me.
Knocking on the door of the field hut he maintained as a small camp clinic for treating the garrison once or twice a week, I poked my head in.
'Oribasius? I understand you're remaining in Paris. I came to wish you well. I leave today.'
He stood up, red-faced and startled, from the table at which he was sitting, which was stacked high with dozens of sheets of identical large-lettered texts. These he was systematically folding one by one and laying in the roaring fire he had built in the small fireplace. The room was heated to a stifling temperature. He limped over to me, his pink, fat face perspiring, but wreathed in smiles.
'Good for you, Caesarius!' he said. 'The adventure is only beginning. Would that I myself could complete what I started!'
What he had started? I paused in puzzlement and looked over to the table where he had been sitting, with the piles of broadsheets, all upside down to me so I could not read them from where I stood. It occurred to me that I had never actually seen Oribasius read or write anything — in fact, I had often wondered if he was illiterate, and his talk of compiling a vast medical encyclopedia merely a sham. The stacks of sheets were strange to find in the camp hut, and it was even stranger to find him burning valuable parchment, but a light was slowly dawning.
'Oribasius,' I said, pointing to the stacks of texts on his table, 'what have you been burning in here so diligently?'
He smiled mysteriously, but shifted his considerable bulk slightly so as to hide my view of the texts. Though upside down, their letters, I saw, were large and crudely written, and it would be easy for me to make them out if I could just stand a little closer…
'Nothing important,' he chuckled, attempting to disguise the slight wince of alarm as he saw where my attention was directed. 'A few medical texts of your misguided Hippocratics,' he joked.
I shouldered past him, attempting to mask my sudden suspicion with a lame joke of my own: 'Oribasius, I didn't even know you could write! And here you are practicing your ABC's.'
Moving to the side of the table I stopped short as I saw the top sheet on the stack, and the crude Latin words instantly jumped out at my eyes: We are to be driven to the ends of the earth like common criminals, and our dear families, whom we have set free from their earlier bondage only through murderous fighting, will once again become the slaves of the Alemanni…
'Oribasius!' I hissed, barely containing the fury in my voice at finally identifying the author of the anonymous missive that had caused such an uproar. 'You didn't… This is your work?'
His cunning smile never faltered, even as he shrugged his shoulders self-deprecatingly.
'My work — yes. And Julian's as well, of course.' He sighed dramatically. 'Though truth be told, the original idea was certainly mine. And the text of the broadsheet as well. Ah well — the secret would be out sooner or later. The crudity of the Latin was a nice touch, though, don't you think?'
'Do you realize this may be the death of Julian and of all of us?' I shouted.
Oribasius shook his head, his smile fading as his small, piggish eyes took on a look of dead seriousness. 'Do not cross me, Caesarius,' he intoned, though his voice was not threatening but rather that of a father scolding a dense son, 'for by crossing me in this, you cross Julian himself, and through Julian your destiny is made. You are young, and your adventure is just beginning. I am fat and lame, I have now completed my duty to the Emperor, and I expect nothing from my actions, except…'
He paused.
/> 'Except what, you fool?' I pressed angrily, seeing his focus wander off as if he were deep in thought. He looked back at me.
'Just this,' he said, 'and you are the only man to whom I have told it: the fact is, I take great satisfaction in knowing that it was not the crowds, not the generals, not even the gods themselves, but rather fat, jolly Oribasius with his clever pen and ambitious mind — I, Oribasius — who made Julian Emperor. Oh, Julian knew of my actions, of course, for I proposed them shortly after the arrival of that buffoon Decentius — but the execution was all mine. History may forget me as a physician, Caesarius, it may even deride me as an encyclopedist; but as a king-maker, I rank among the best.'
II
Of our march, Brother, I have hardly a word to say, for although we and Jovinus' unit constituted the first hostile armies in generations to pass those ancient Roman cobbled roads through the Alps, to Italy and beyond, we met not a single enemy, none of the ambushes and other obstructions we had anticipated, not so much as a stone thrown by a mischievous boy. You may doubt whether such a short description as the one that follows can adequately cover the story of a secret march of nearly eight hundred miles through hostile territory. Yet I truly cannot recall any events I have omitted that might swell this brief recounting to something more substantial. The troops were force-marched twenty miles a day and more, and the speed of the army's sweep and its surprise tactics created the intended effect, without need for us to strike a single blow. Panic ensued in the lands around us. Days before our arrival word had already been spread by Constantius' scouts, and cities were emptied, their garrisons scattered or force-marched farther south and east. The praetorian prefect for Italy, the most powerful civil official in the province, fled before Jovinus, taking with him the prefect of Illyricum as well. The speed and smoothness of our approach to the Danube was breathtaking, almost worrisome in its lack of impediment, as if Constantius were reserving his forces for some massive attack upon our arrival.
Smooth and speedy, I say, except for my own duties. As master of the couriers I worked day and night coordinating the messages and dispatches between Jovinus and Nevitta, as well as all the myriad details unrelated to official correspondence with the three armies — arranging advance supplies, resolving administrative issues back in Gaul, and promotions and transfers within the legions, but in one area, the most important of my duties, I failed miserably, and this I was sick about. For during the long, uneventful weeks of our march, not a single contact did I make with Julian — not a single order received from him, not a single progress report successfully sent to him. Every one of my post-riders returned to me weeks after having been sent off, unable or unwilling to enter far into the Black Forest in search of him, stymied in their attempts to obtain news of his whereabouts. The forest is big, I mused, huge — but large enough to swallow an Emperor and three thousand men without a trace?
At first I attributed the loss of Julian simply to my post-riders' incompetence, or to mine in giving them faulty instructions or incentive. Week after week of silence from one's commander, however, gives one pause. Nevitta was outraged, terrified at having committed his life and promising career to the insane venture of rebelling against Constantius with a meager force of ten thousand men, and with his leader consumed by wild beasts or tribes in the wilderness. All we could do, I told him, was to arrive at Sirmium ourselves to wait for him, pray, and hope for the best.
Limping sore-footed into Sirmium on the appointed day, with Jovinus' troops still two weeks' march behind us in their arrival, we were astonished to see the city gates wide open in welcome. Cheers erupted from the town walls and battlements as the population gathered to throw flowers down on our weary troops. We were met at the entry by fresh and rested Gallic troops, who escorted us to the central forum, where we were greeted smilingly by — who else? — Julian, who had, unbelievably, arrived two days earlier, having outrun every single one of my messengers along the way with his three thousand cavalry, and arranged the welcoming party for us upon our arrival. Our jaws dropped upon seeing him thus, and I wager that the only person more surprised than we was one Lucillianus, the Roman commander in charge of Pannonia before our arrival, whose story is worth a slight diversion to make up for the lack of events to recount to you of our own march.
Count Lucillianus was a veteran soldier who had fought bravely against the Persians and had recently been promoted to his present position. Several days before, he had received vague intelligence of Julian's approach, which, to give the man credit, was more than I myself had been able to arrange. Thinking, however, that he had several days or a week by which to arrange his defenses successfully and thereby garner great favor from Constantius, he went to bed that night content in the thought of his upcoming victory. He slept soundly until he was rudely awakened in the dim hours of the morning by the point of a sword against his throat and a crowd of evilly grinning men gathered about his bed. No answer was given to his shouts of protest, but he was bound, gagged, placed on the first available beast they were able to find in the barracks outside, which happened to be a donkey, and driven like a wretched prisoner past his own personal guard, themselves gagged and trussed like chickens, to the military quarters in the center of town. Upon being frog-marched into his office, Lucillian found Julian calmly sitting in his own chair, reading Marcus Aurelius.
It seemed that the Caesar had encountered an unexpected bit of luck in his journey. They say that as a harsh taskmaster, Alexander the Great was unexcelled — his idea of breakfast was a long march, and of supper, a light breakfast. Julian was typically somewhat more generous with his own breakfast, treating himself to an entire glass of water, when available, but in all other respects he followed Alexander's example in driving his troops and their horses mercilessly in their nonstop charge through the forest, fortunately having not met with any unicorns or other such creatures that might have slowed their progress. When they gained the Danube they captured a sufficient quantity of small boats to transport his entire force straight down the current, which was fast that fall, and which they augmented even further by steady rowing. The superhuman labors of his men at the oars, as well as a week of favorable winds, had carried his fleet over seven hundred miles in a mere eleven days. Landing nineteen miles above Sirmium, Julian had taken advantage of the moonless night to thunder his troops straight to the city in a matter of two hours, silently overwhelming the guards before they had even known they were under attack, and capturing the commander.
Lucillianus nearly died of fright, but upon recognizing the Caesar, who was wearing the imperial purple and who promised him clemency in return for an oath of fealty, he decided to make the best of his situation, and even attempted to show his gratitude for the reprieve by offering some timely advice.
'It is rash and reckless of you, Emperor, to invade another's territory with so few men,' the Count proffered cautiously.
Julian answered with a bitter smile. 'Save your wise words for Constantius, soldier. You may kiss the imperial purple not because I need your advice, but to calm your own nerves.'
Lucillianus did, immediately swore fealty to his new Emperor, and was given a position of command in Julian's legions.
III
In Sirmium, Julian spent but three days, for time was of the essence and momentum was on his side. Thus far he had moved with his entire army faster than Constantius' couriers and spies would be able to report his movements back. Conversely the Emperor, unaware of the speed of Julian's march, had been content to lumber slowly along on his return from Syria, stopping in each major city along the way to receive the acclamations of his subjects.
Julian paused only long enough to restock his supplies, stage a chariot race as a reward to the city for the favorable reception its people had given him upon his arrival, and secure the outlying garrisons. Reinforced now by Nevitta's troops, he resumed his rapid march on Constantinople. Advancing down the Danube, he entered Moesia, which was bordered on the south by Thrace. Thrace, in turn, was bound
ed on its southern coast by the Sea of Marmara, on which Constantinople, his goal, was located. He had therefore already accomplished almost half his journey without the loss of a single soldier or the death of a single Roman citizen.
The road ahead of him, however, was by far the most hazardous, for the region of Thrace was well fortified with strongly walled cities such as Philippopolis and Adrianopolis. These would have to be taken and passed before the capital could be reached, and the sentiments of the garrisons and citizens of those cities were anything but certain. What is more, like an eel trap with its spikes of sharpened reeds pointing inward to prevent its quarry from escaping once it had entered to take the bait, Thrace was an easy region to access, but almost impossible from which to withdraw under hostile conditions. The approach was a vast range of mountains running from east to west, with only a single pass across it, through the valley of Soucis. Although the valley was an easy march to anyone descending from Moesia, as Julian and his army would do upon their approach, it offered considerable obstacles to negotiate on a retreat north out of Thrace, even if there were no enemy troops defending it. And if a sizable garrison of the enemy were posted there, retreat would be virtually impossible. Recall, Brother, that eels are a delicacy to be flayed and fried while still alive, twitching and quivering in the pan.
After scouting the pass for himself, Julian concluded that with his meager forces it would be foolhardy to march further without first attempting diplomatic entreaties with the fortified cities below. He occupied the pass with a sizable garrison under Nevitta's command, and withdrew to the nearby city of Naissus, a well-stocked town in which he and his troops could comfortably pass some time.
Gods and Legions Page 27
