Ballista thought back to another arrival at another town, years earlier. He had been sent to defend Arete on the Euphrates. He had told the Boule what had to be done, told them of the necessary destruction and impositions as sympathetically as he could. They had not liked it. Cries of outrage – some of them shouting that it would be no worse being captured. Maybe in some ways they were right. Had he thought that then, or was it something fitting he now added? Memory was a slippery thing.
As the boat glided in, there was a stir on the quayside. A telones – something about them always betrayed them as customs officials – led a group of auxiliary soldiers to the edge of the water. There were no more than half a dozen soldiers; useful for arresting smugglers, less good for a hansa of Goths.
The old man docked the boat. The telones shouted – something peremptory befitting the nature of his calling. Ballista ignored him, let Hippothous browbeat the official with the sonorous titles of Ballista’s exalted Roman status. The soldiers saluted smartly enough. The telones managed to appear both fawning and vaguely aggrieved.
Ballista stepped ashore. As the others tied up the boat, he asked the telones to summon the Boule of Miletus.
The official bridled. ‘ Kyrios, it is late. The councillors will be asleep.’
‘Then wake them.’
‘They are men of influence.’ The telones sounded outraged. ‘It would be unseemly.’
Ballista turned and spoke in Latin to one of the soldiers. ‘Go to the curia. There should be public slaves in the council house.’
‘ Kyrios, the councillors must not be disturbed,’ the telones interrupted, still in Greek. ‘They will be angry.’
Ballista continued addressing the soldier. ‘Send the public slaves to rouse the councillors.’
‘No, Kyrios, you must leave this until tomorrow. You have no authority over these troops.’
Ballista looked at Maximus, nodded his head at the telones, and continued giving orders. ‘If there are no slaves in the curia, find out where a prominent councillor lives.’
Maximus approached the telones, put a fraternal arm around his shoulders and, pulling him close, drove his knee into the man’s crotch. The official crumpled, clutching his balls. Maximus took a step back and effortlessly kicked him to the ground.
‘Hammer on the councillor’s door until someone answers.’
Maximus had lined up to bring the heel of his boot down on the telones’ ear, when Hippothous restrained him. The accensus handed over his walking stick. Maximus thanked him.
‘When you have woken the councillor’s familia, send his slaves to summon the rest of the curia.’
There was a swish as Maximus swung the walking stick through the air, a solid crunch as it landed. The telones yelped.
‘Is that clear, Miles?’
‘Perfectly, Dominus.’
Swish – crunch, swish – crunch; Maximus was going about his work with skill and commitment.
‘Take two of your boys with you.’
‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’
The soldiers had done well: barely a smile. There were few things soldiers enjoyed as much as watching a civilian getting a good beating.
‘Enough,’ Ballista said. Maximus handed the stick back to Hippothous.
‘Thank you,’ said Hippothous. ‘Done most philosophically. One day, when we have time, I will tell you how the great doctor Galen recommends one beats people.’
The three remaining soldiers began to help unload the baggage from the boat. The telones got to his feet and limped off. Maximus sang as he caught and stacked things. Hippothous, such manual labour being beneath a free-born accensus, polished his walking stick.
Ballista set his back to the sea and surveyed the harbour. Off to the right was a large monument on a stepped circular base. It boasted several ships’ rams in marble. There was a colonnade behind it that turned and ran across in front of him. Its shops and warehouses were all shuttered bar one – probably a drinking den. Where the colonnade stopped to the left was a tall gate, the sort of elaborate, impractical thing commissioned in civic pride in the days when peace seemed immutable. Beyond that, running back towards the water, was the plain wall of a sacred enclosure. It was pierced by just one ornamental gateway. Behind it rose the round roof of the actual temple. It had to be the home of Apollo Delphinios, the patron god of sailors.
Ballista strolled over to the monument on the round base. An inscription recorded its erection to honour Pompey the Great for ridding the sea of pirates.
‘All done,’ Hippothous said.
Maximus, the slave and one of the soldiers shouldered the various bags and shields. The mail coats and everything else were both bulky and heavy.
Through the Harbour Gate was a broad paved road, now empty. The men’s footsteps echoed back from the colonnades on both sides. There was always something unnatural about a city at night.
A walk of a few moments and the roadway opened out into an agora. The soldier pointed to an imposing building to the right. Miletus was, and had always been, a more important polis than Priene. Its Bouleuterion was correspondingly grander. The outer gate through the propylon was open.
Inside was a wide courtyard, porticos with Doric columns on three sides, a tomb or shrine in the middle. On the fourth side the several doors of the actual council house were hermetically shut, although lights could be seen through the high windows. The soldiers who had gone ahead sauntered out of the shadows under the columns. Public slaves had been sent to find the councillors. There was nothing to do but wait.
Overhead, the moon rode across the sky, putting the stars to shame. In the mundane sphere, ox skulls sculpted on the tomb threw back its light. Ballista slipped into an elegiac mood. He thought about defending Miletus, his reasons for coming to this polis, about the Goths. It would not be the first time he had faced them. That had been many years before. He had been a Roman officer when the general Gallus had thrown the Goths back from the walls of Novae up near the Danube. Gaius Vibius Trebonianus Gallus – what a general he had been; what an emperor he would have made, if the fates had not struck him down so soon after he reached the purple.
The night was not having such a melancholy effect on the others. ‘You may well like this town,’ Hippothous said to Maximus. ‘It is a sink of depravity.’
‘I can but hope.’
‘And your hopes may be rewarded. The divine philosopher Apollonius of Tyana tried to bring the Milesians to virtue. He sent them a letter: “Your children lack fathers, your youths old men, your wives husbands, your…”’
‘Well, if their wives are lacking husbands, I am their man.’
‘“… husbands rulers, your rulers laws, your…”’
‘And I am sure you will be looking after the youths.’
Hippothous sighed an exaggerated sigh. ‘I am far from sure Thales was right. It might be better to be born an animal rather than a barbarian.’
‘Maybe some of the husbands too.’
‘Of course, you will not know that this town has given its name to a whole type of erotic story. Would you like to hear a Milesian tale?’
‘That depends,’ Maximus said suspiciously.
‘“There was once a boy of Miletus, the first blush of down on his cheeks-”’
‘No, I really do not think I would enjoy that.’
‘Then how about this? “Once there was a woman of Miletus-”’
‘Better already, much more my end of the agora.’
Hippothous spun the tale, a depraved Penelope weaving an obscene account: a virtuous widow starving herself to death in her husband’s tomb; outside, a soldier guarding a crucified corpse; his blandishments; her acquiescence; the unspoken horror of their lovemaking by her husband’s decaying remains.
Maximus was listening intently, although with lines of suspicion on his face.
The disappearance of the corpse from the cross, the widow volunteering her husband’s cadaver to take its place, t
he discovery of the substitution, the laughter of the townsfolk, the unresolved ambiguities of the tale’s ending… What happened to them? Was he punished? Was she? Was the laughter enough to save them?
‘You Greeks are all fucking liars,’ Maximus exclaimed.
‘I think you will find that is just Cretans,’ Hippothous replied suavely.
‘You stole that story from Petronius’s Satyricon, and it happened in Ephesus.’
‘No, it is likely he took it from Aristides’ Milesian Tales.’
‘The Romans are right about you – thieves and liars, every fucking one of you.’
The acrimonious literary debate was cut short.
‘Health and great joy.’ The man appeared like an apparition conjured out of nothing. He was in middle age, respectable, right arm wrapped in his himation. ‘I am Marcus Aurelius Macarius, stephanephor of Miletus, and asiarch of the imperial cult in this polis.’
‘Health and great joy,’ Ballista replied formally.
Macarius smiled. He was good-looking, with a cleanshaven face reminiscent of a polished artefact of considerable value. ‘It is an honour to welcome Marcus Clodius Ballista, Vir Ementissimus, victor of Circesium, Soli and Sebaste, to Miletus.’
‘It is an honour to be here.’
‘If it is convenient, the Boule wishes to have your advice.’
Inside, the Bouleuterion was the shape and scale of a theatre. Curved tiers of seats banded up to the shadows of the tall beamed ceiling, upon them some two hundred men. There was room for six or seven times that number. Ballista noted the two doors high up in the back wall. That was how the councillors had got in unseen.
Macarius offered a little wine and a pinch of incense to the gods, and then made the proposal.
The men of Miletus had done well. Seven years ago, when the Goths had sacked Nicomedia and the other cities in Bithynia, the Boule and Demos of the Milesians had begun the repair of the walls. The number of men chosen for the watch had been doubled. Proper military training had been reintroduced to the instruction of the ephebes. Three days ago, when the news had come from Ephesus, they began stockpiling food. The men of Miletus had done well, but one thing had been lacking, a thing now made good by the providence of the gods. The city had lacked a man of proven military skill and experience to command the defence. Now, in answer to their prayers, the gods had sent such a man. Macarius called on the Boule of Miletus to appoint Marcus Clodius Ballista, the hero of Circesium, of Soli, of Sebaste, to be strategos , to save the city from the fury of Scythian Ares.
The councillors shook back their cloaks and applauded. The proposal was passed without debate, unanimously. Macarius called on the Vir Ementissimus Ballista to take the floor.
Ballista had been thinking about what he would say, but he had not prepared a speech. No stranger to what was expected, he would let the words come.
‘Once, long ago, they were brave, the men of Miletus.’
Unease ran through the Bouleuterion. No one knew the proverb better than the honourable men assembled. Who was this barbarian to insult them?
‘Once, long ago, they were brave, the men of Miletus, and they are brave still.’
Recognizing the rhetorical ploy, the councillors were mollified. They settled to listen.
‘What makes a people brave? We should believe Herodotus: it is geography, the nature of their land. The Maeander Plain may have grown, but the mountains and the sea do not change. The backbreaking limestone mountains, and the deep, widow-making sea remain. While they endure, the Milesians do not change.’
A murmur of approval came from the councillors. This general from the north spoke their language.
‘For twelve years, the Milesians defied the Lydian kings. It took the might of Persia and the genius of Alexander to take the walls of Miletus. There is no shame in going down fighting against overwhelming odds. Men do not speak ill of Leonidas and the three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae. Athens fell to the Persians, Rome to the Gauls. There is no shame in it. Where would Rome have been if the Milesians had not avenged Julius Caesar and crucified the pirates? The Goths who will come are not a host led by a Darius or Alexander. They are no more than the pirates your forefathers routed on Pharmakousa.’
Again the cloaks were shaken back and applause rang to the gloomy rafters.
‘I cannot tell yet what measures may be necessary but, be warned, they will be a bitter medicine. But we have time. The Goths will not be here for several days.’
As soon as Ballista finished, before the sounds of approbation had died, Macarius was on his feet. ‘How do you know the Goths will not arrive for days?’
Ballista smiled. ‘I know too much about Goths.’
IX
Ballista looked at the lights on Lade. They were clustered down on the shoreline, some few straggling up the three low mounds of the island. They were the camp fires of the Goths.
From the roof of a tall house on the hill up above the theatre of Miletus, Ballista had a good vantage point. Lade was in full view, not much more than a mile away. To his left was the Theatre Harbour and to his right the Lion Harbour. Their waters were as still and dark as those of a well. It was a calm night, even on this high place on the peninsula. There was just the merest hint of an offshore breeze. It was different up above. Lines of clouds from the west marched across the face of the moon, like the tattered ranks of a disordered legion. The moon was still big. Counting inclusively, as almost everyone did, it was four nights since it had been full.
Ballista knew the ways of the Goths. When he had spoken to the Boule of Miletus, he had known the city had a few days’ grace. It had been the night before the full moon. The Goths marked the full moon with their festival of Dulths: animals were sacrificed, great and terrible oaths taken, a feast consumed and vast amounts of drink downed. The next day, they were always hung over. Sure enough, their sails had appeared before Miletus late on the day following that. The rest of that day and today they had remained quiet by their boats on Lade.
All in all, Ballista had had four days as strategos to organize the defence. First, he had learnt all he could about Miletus. Surprisingly, the Boule had produced a well-drawn, detailed map. Miletus was a planned city made up of neat, Hippodamian squares. Possibly that accounted for the existence of the map. Ballista had not contented himself with that. He had taken a small boat, and had himself rowed all around. On foot, he had surveyed the walls and tramped up and down the streets and open spaces.
Miletus, the ornament of Ionia, occupied a broad but tapering peninsula running towards the north-east. The Aegean lay to the west, the gulf of Latmos to the east. Gratifyingly, in the north and north-west, the land dipped sharply down to the sea. There were just six places where it would be practical to land a sizable force, such as a hansa of Goths. On the west was the long inlet of the Lion Harbour, the broader and deeper Theatre Harbour and, outside the land walls, a wide beach at the foot of a hill topped with suburban villas and temples. On the east there were two small bays with a few jetties used by local fishermen, and another open beach beyond the walls. It could have been a great deal worse.
What had already been accomplished by the Boule pleased Ballista. The walls were in good condition, and the stocks of food ample for several weeks. Best of all, they had persuaded the prefect of an auxiliary unit of Dacian spearmen in transit to the east to remain with his men in the city. The unit was less under strength than some, having three hundred soldiers with its standards.
Ballista had been busy – more than busy: he had worked himself to exhaustion. He had ordered the hasty construction of a wall along the quayside to close the inner end of the Lion Harbour. Stakes had been driven into the bed of that harbour and the one below the theatre. Large stones had been dragged up on to all the wall walks, ready to be dropped on approaching Goths. Acquiring the stones, as well as the need to provide construction material for the new wall, had involved the knocking down and smashing of quite a few monuments and many statues. As soldiers would, th
e Dacian auxiliaries had gone to it with a will. Any number of large metal pots and cauldrons capable of being placed on a fire had been requisitioned. Together with the combustibles and the sand to be heated, they also now waited on the battlements. Arrows with tar-soaked rags tied around their heads were stacked nearby. The aqueduct which entered the city through the south-eastern wall was blocked. At this, the members of the Boule had protested: the waters would not run in the famous nymphaeum; the Baths must be shut. Hippothous had intervened: they could still drink; were not the Milesians justly proud of the sweet water from the deep Well of Achilles?
Physical resources were one thing, manpower was another. Ballista had set about augmenting the three hundred auxiliaries. A sweep of the town, mainly the bars and brothels, turned up regular soldiers detached from their units. These stationarii – on special assignments, on leave or overstaying it – added another ninety trained men. There were one hundred men chosen for the watch of Miletus, and another hundred young men being trained as ephebes. To these Ballista added three thousand citizens, volunteers for the most part, some of whom had in their day received a little military instruction when ephebes. Lastly, there were fifteen hundred slaves, who were provisionally offered their freedom, depending on their performance.
The raggle-taggle defence force had to be armed. The stocks of the few weapons dealers were confiscated. Spears, swords, shields and armour long dedicated in the temples were brought forth, although many of these turned out to be useless with age. Arms kept in private homes, as heirlooms or for hunting, were collected in the agora. All over the city, carpenters and leather-workers were put to making shields. Night and day, the streets were loud with the clangour of blacksmiths beating out javelin and spear heads.
The Caspian Gates wor-4 Page 10
