Last Seen in Massilia: A Novel of Ancient Rome

by Steven Saylor

  Trebonius’s flat tone and the steely look in his eyes betrayed no double meaning. As far as I could tell, when he spoke of Meto’s betrayal, he spoke what he believed to be the truth. But was he only doing so because he thought I was ignorant of the facts? Were we playing a game of shadow puppets, each aware of the truth but wary of revealing it to the other?

  I tried to draw him out. “Trebonius, before Meto left Rome, I saw him, spoke to him. Despite appearances, I don’t believe he’s a traitor to Caesar. I know he’s not. And surely, knowing Meto as you do—knowing Caesar—you must know that as well. Don’t you?”

  He shook his head curtly. His expression grew sterner. “Listen, Gordianus, your son was my friend. His defection was a knife, not just in Caesar’s back, but in mine—and in the back of every man who’s fought with Caesar. Even so, strangely enough, I can’t say I bear a grudge against him. These are terrible times. Families are torn apart—brother against brother, husband against wife, even son against father. It’s a wretched business. Meto made a choice—the wrong choice—but for all I know, there was honor behind it. He’s my enemy now, but I don’t hate him. As for you, I don’t blame you for what your son has done. You’re free to go. But if you’ve come here to collude with Meto against Caesar, I’ll deal with you as harshly as I would with any traitor. I’ll see you crucified.”

  So much for trying to draw him out. If Trebonius knew the truth, he was not going to reveal himself to me.

  He attacked the few scraps of flesh that still remained on the pork shank, then went on. “My advice to you, Gordianus, is to get a good night’s sleep, then turn around and head straight back to Rome. If you hear from Meto, tell him that Caesar will have his head. If you hear nothing, wait for news. The waiting is hard, I know, but you’ll learn of Meto’s fate sooner or later. You know the Etruscan saying: ‘Once grieving starts it never ends, so there’s no point in grieving an hour earlier than you must.’”

  I cleared my throat. “That’s the problem, you see. The day before I left Rome I received a message from someone inside Massilia. The message said…that Meto had been killed. That’s why I’ve come all this way, to find out—whether my son is still alive…or not.”

  Trebonius sat back. “Who sent you this message?”

  “It was unsigned.”

  “How did it come to you?”

  “It was left on the doorstep of my house on the Palatine.”

  “Did you bring it with you?”

  “Yes.” I reached into the pouch that hung from my belt and pulled out a small wooden cylinder. With my little finger I extracted a rolled scrap of parchment. Trebonius snatched it from me as he might a dispatch from a messenger.

  He read aloud. “‘Gordianus: I send you sad news from Massilia. Your son Meto is dead. Forgive my bluntness. I write in haste. Know that Meto died loyal to his cause, in the service of Rome. His was a hero’s death. He was a brave young man, and, though not in battle, he died bravely here in Massilia.’” Trebonius handed the message back to me. “This arrived anonymously, you say?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you don’t even know that it came from Massilia. It might be a hoax perpetrated on you by someone in Rome.”

  “Perhaps. But is it possible that the message could have come from Massilia?”

  “Could a Massilian ship have slipped through our blockade, you mean? Officially, no.”

  “But in reality?”

  “There may have been a few…occurrences…especially at night. The Massilians are expert sailors, and the local winds favor sailing out of the harbor by night. Caesar’s ships are moored behind the big islands just outside the harbor, but a small ship might have slipped by them in the dark. But what of it? What if the message did come from Massilia? Why is it unsigned if the writer tells the truth?”

  “I don’t know. Since the day Caesar crossed the Rubicon, everyone wears a mask. Intrigues and deceptions…secrecy for secrecy’s sake…”

  “If Meto is dead, the writer should have sent you some tangible memento—Meto’s citizen’s ring, at least.”

  “Perhaps Meto drowned and his body was lost. Perhaps he died by—” In my imagination I pictured flames and blanched at the thought. “Don’t you think I’ve gone over this a thousand times in my own mind, Trebonius? It’s the first thing I think of when I wake, the last thing I think of before I sleep. Who sent this message, why, from where, and is it true or not? What’s become of my son?” I stared at Trebonius, letting the misery show on my face. Surely, if he knew whether Meto was alive or dead, he would tell me at least that much to alleviate a father’s suffering. But his grim countenance was as changeless as a statue’s.

  “I see your dilemma,” he said. “A nasty business—uncertainty. I sympathize. But I can’t help you. On the one hand, if Meto is alive and in Massilia, he’s cast his lot with Domitius and become a traitor to Caesar. You can’t get into the city to see him, and I wouldn’t allow it if you could. You’ll have to wait until the Massilians surrender, or until we pull the walls down. Then, if we find Meto…do you really want to be here when that happens, to witness his fate as a traitor? On the other hand, if Meto is already dead, there’s still no way you can get into Massilia and find out how it happened or who sent that message. Look, I’ll promise you this: When we take Massilia, if there’s news of Meto, I’ll let you know what I find out. If Meto himself is taken, I’ll let you know what Caesar decides to do with him. I can promise no more than that. There, your task is accomplished. You can go back to Rome now, knowing that you’ve done all that any father could. I’ll see that you have a place to sleep tonight. You’ll leave in the morning.” These last words had the unmistakable ring of an order.

  He studied the fleshless bone in his fist. “But where are my manners? You must be starving, Gordianus. Go, join your son-in-law in the officers’ mess. The stew’s not as bad as it looks, really.”

  I left the tent and followed my nose to the mess. Despite the growling in my belly, I had lost my appetite.

  III

  We were given cots in an officers’ tent not far from the commander’s own. If Trebonius truly believed Meto to be a traitor, he was a generous man to give such hospitality to a traitor’s father. More likely, he preferred to keep me close at hand so that he could be sure I left camp the next day.

  Long after the others in the tent were sleeping, with Davus gently snoring nearby, I remained awake. I may have dozed once or twice, but it was hard to tell whether the images in my head were dreams or waking fantasies. I saw the canyon where we had lost our way that afternoon, the fence made of bones, the dark temple and the squat, primeval skystone of Artemis, the razed forest, the soothsayer who knew my reason for coming….

  What sort of place had I come to? The next day, if Trebonius had his way, we would be off again before I had a chance to find out.

  Finally I threw off my coverlet and quietly stepped out of the tent. The full moon had begun to set, casting long, black shadows. The torches that lit the pathways between tents burned low. I paced aimlessly, moving gradually uphill, until I found myself in a clearing close by Trebonius’s tent. This was the crest of the hill, with a view of the city.

  In the darkness, I imagined Massilia to be a great dorsal-finned behemoth that had pulled herself out of the sea and collapsed face down, then been ringed about by walls of limestone. The jagged crest along her spine was a ridge of hills. The encircling walls gleamed blue in the moonlight. Impenetrable shadows lurked in the bends of the towers. Torches, mere dots of orange flame, flickered at regular intervals along the battlements. On either side of the city, outside her walls, two bays opened into the sea beyond; the larger inlet on the left was the main harbor. The still face of the water was black, except where moonlight burnished it silver. The islands beyond the city, behind which Caesar’s ships lay moored, were lumpy gray silhouettes.

  Between the high place where I stood and the nearest stretch of wall lay a valley lost in shadows. Across the gulf of air, that
stretch of wall seemed disconcertingly close; I could clearly see two Massilian sentries patrolling the battlements, torchlight causing their helmets to flicker. Behind them reared a dark hill, the crested head of my imagined sea monster.

  Somewhere in the darkness encircled by those moonlit walls my son had died, swallowed up in the belly of that recumbent behemoth. Or else he still lived, pursuing a fate as shadowy as the night.

  I heard footsteps and sensed a presence behind me. A sentry, I thought, come to send me back to my bed; but when I turned I saw that the man wore a sleeping tunic. He was quite short and had a neatly trimmed beard.

  He stepped up to a spot on the crest of the hill not far off, crossed his arms, and studied the view. “Can’t sleep either?” he remarked, not really looking at me.

  “No.”

  “Neither can I. Too excited about tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  He turned his head, studied me for a moment, then frowned. “Do I know you?”

  “I’m a visitor from Rome. Arrived earlier tonight.”

  “Ah. I thought you were one of Trebonius’s officers. My mistake.”

  I studied him in return. I smiled. “But I know you.”

  “Do you?” He peered at me. “It’s the darkness. I can’t—”

  “We met at Brundisium a few months ago, in circumstances not dissimilar to this. Caesar was laying siege. Pompey was trapped in the city, desperate to sail away. Caesar was building extraordinary earthworks and breakwaters at the mouth of the harbor, trying to close it off and trap Pompey’s ships inside. You pointed out the structures and explained the strategy to me, Engineer Vitruvius.”

  He clicked his teeth, furrowed his brow, then opened his eyes wide. “Of course! You arrived with Marc Antony, just before all Hades broke loose.” He nodded. “Gordianus, isn’t it? Yes, I remember. And you’re—you’re that fellow Meto’s father.”

  “Yes.”

  There was a silence, uncomfortable on my part. Together we stared at the moonlit view.

  “What do you know about my son?” I finally asked.

  He shrugged. “Never had occasion to meet him. As an engineer, I’ve always dealt with others among Caesar’s officers. Know him by sight, of course. Seen him riding alongside the imperator, taking notes while Caesar dictates. That’s his function, I understand, assisting Caesar with letters and memoirs.”

  “What else do you know about Meto? There must be rumors.”

  He snorted. “I never listen to camp gossip. I’m an engineer and a builder. I believe in what I can see and measure. You can’t build bridges by hearsay.”

  I nodded thoughtfully.

  “Is he in camp, then—your son?” asked Vitruvius. “Come to visit him, have you, all the way from Rome? But then, you traveled all the way from Rome to Brundisium to see him there, didn’t you? The gods must have given you a harder backside for traveling than I’ve got!”

  I kept my face a blank. Vitruvius didn’t know, then. The tale of Meto’s betrayal was confined to those higher up or closer to Caesar’s immediate circle. I took a deep breath. “Trebonius tells me there’s no way into Massilia,” I said, casually dropping the siege commander’s name.

  The engineer raised an eyebrow. “It’s a well-fortified city. The walls extend all the way around, one continuous circuit along the land, along the sea, and also along the sandy beach that fronts the harbor. The walls are made of massive limestone blocks, strengthened at intervals by bastion towers. Extremely well constructed; the blocks appear to be perfectly fitted and stacked, without cement or metal clamps. The lower courses have slits for shooting arrows. The upper battlements have platforms for machine-bows and torsion artillery. This isn’t like laying siege to some Gaulish fort thrown together with logs, I can tell you that! We’ll never ram our way in, never bring down the wall with catapults.”

  “But the walls can be breached, nonetheless?”

  Vitruvius smiled. “How much do you know about laying sieges, Gordianus? That son of yours must have learned a thing or two campaigning with Caesar up north and editing his memoirs.”

  “My son and I usually talk of other things when we meet.”

  He nodded. “I’ll tell you about sieges then. The main virtues of the besieger are patience and perseverance. If you can’t crash or burn your way in, you must burrow like a termite. The sappers will have all the glory in this siege. They’re the ones who dig, burrowing under the walls. Burrow far enough, and you’ve got a tunnel into the city. Burrow deep and wide enough, and a section of wall comes crashing down under its own weight.”

  “It sounds almost too simple.”

  “Far from it! It takes as much thoughtful engineering and hard labor to bring down a city as it does to build one. Take our situation here. Caesar chose this spot for a camp because it’s high up. Not only can you see the city and the sea beyond, but you have a clear view of the siegeworks going on in the valley just below us. That’s where the real action is. Right now it’s too dark, the valley’s all in shadow, but come dawn you’ll be able to see what we’ve accomplished down there.

  “The first step in any siege is to dig a contravallation—that’s a deep trench parallel to the city walls protected by screens. That allows you to run men and equipment back and forth. Our contravallation runs all along that valley down there, from the harbor to our left, all the way over to the smaller inlet to our right, on the other side of the city. The contravallation also protects the camp from the city; prevents the enemy from pouring out of the gates and mounting a counterassault against us. At the same time, it hinders anyone beyond the camp from running fresh supplies into the city. That’s important. Hunger is every man’s weakness.” He ticked his fingers, reciting a list. “Isolation, deprivation, desperation, starvation: no battering-ram can match the power of those.

  “But to mount an assault, you need to wheel your towers and siege engines right up to the walls. If the ground isn’t level—and it’s certainly not level in that valley down there—you’ve got to make it so. That’s why Caesar ordered the building of a massive embankment at a right angle to the wall, a sort of elevated causeway. It took a lot of leveling before we could lay the foundation; you’d think we were building an Egyptian pyramid from the amount of earth we’ve moved. The embankment is made mostly of logs, stacked up and up and up, each level perpendicular to the one below, with earth and rubble packed into the interstices to make it solid. Where it cuts across the deepest part of the valley, the embankment’s eighty feet from top to bottom.

  “All the time this digging and building has been going on, the Massilians have kept firing on us from the walls, of course. Caesar’s men are used to fighting Gauls, who’ve got nothing bigger than spears and arrows and slingshots. It’s another game altogether with these Massilians. The hard fact is, though I hate to admit it, their artillery is superior to ours. Their catapults and ballistic engines shoot farther and shoot bigger. I’m talking about twelve-foot feathered javelins raining down on the men while they’re trying to stack heavy logs! Our usual protections—movable shields and mantlets—were totally inadequate. We had to build lean-tos all along the embankment to protect the workers, stronger than any such structures we’d built before. That’s what I love about military engineering—always a new problem to solve! We built the lean-tos from the stoutest wood we could find, armored them with pieces of timber a foot thick, and covered everything with fire-proof clay. Boulders roll off like hailstones. Giant javelins bounce back as if they’d struck solid iron. Still, the racket inside those lean-tos, with missiles and stones crashing down, can certainly set your teeth on edge! I know; I spent my share of time down there overseeing the work.

  “Once the embankment was almost done, we set about building a siege tower mounted on rollers, with a battering-ram built into the lower platform. It’s down there now, at this end of the embankment. Tomorrow it will sally forth across the causeway, and there’s no way the Massilians will be able to stop it. The men on the upper pl
atforms of the siege tower are protected by screens of hempen mats too thick for any missile to penetrate. Once the tower is flush against the wall, the men on the upper platforms can fire down on any Massilians who venture out of the city to try to stop the operation, while the men on the lower platform can swing the battering-ram at will. Do you know what sort of panic that causes in a besieged city—the boom, boom, boom of a battering-ram striking the walls? You’ll be able to hear it for miles.”

  I peered down into the valley. Amid shades of gray and black I could make out the straight line of the embankment traversing the valley from a point just below us to the base of the city walls. I could also make out the hulking mass of the siege tower at the nearer end. “But I thought you said that catapults and battering-rams would never bring down the walls of Massilia.”

  “So I did.” Vitruvius grinned. “I really should say no more.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “The battering-ram is only a diversion?”

  He was too proud of the scheme to deny it. “As I said, the sappers will have all the glory. They’ve been furiously tunneling since the first day we made camp. They’ve created a whole network of tunnels, running all up and down the walls. The longest is over that way.” He pointed to the left, in the general direction of the main city gate and the harbor beyond. “By all our calculations, the diggers will break through tomorrow. In the blink of an eye, we shall have an opening inside the city walls. Just behind the diggers, troops will be packed inside the tunnel, waiting to pour out of that hole in the ground like ants from a stirred anthill. From inside Massilia, they’ll rush the main gate. The Massilians will have concentrated all the men they can muster elsewhere, at the point where the siege tower and the battering-ram are assaulting the wall. An attack on the gate, from inside the city, will take them completely by surprise. The gate will be ours; and once our men have opened it, Trebonius himself will lead the charge into the city. The siege will be over. The Massilians will have no choice but to surrender and plead for mercy.”