Scourge of Rome

by Douglas Jackson

  ‘You have been a spy, I think, Ariston?’ The dark eyes came up and speared him, the frown replaced by a scowl.

  ‘You must remember where you are, lord,’ the Syrian warned. ‘This is not Rome. From Antioch to Alexandria every man is a spy and today’s friend is tomorrow’s deadly enemy. Loyalties shift like the desert sands in the Khamseen and the right information is as valuable as the gold that decorates this palace. You have asked me for information, and I have given it. Now you mock me, perhaps because in the gathering of it I spoke too freely?’ He raised an eyebrow and Valerius smiled.

  ‘She is not our enemy, Ariston, of that I am certain.’

  ‘Not today.’

  Valerius shrugged, but it was acknowledgement of the possibility rather than a dismissal. ‘Tell me what you have discovered of our mysterious companion.’

  The scowl disappeared and Ariston laughed. ‘From what the palace servants were whispering when I fetched your wine, you would know more than I.’ He saw the dangerous glint in Valerius’s eye and hurried on. ‘Her bloodline has given her royal connections all over Syria and Judaea. Sometime handmaiden to a queen. Sometime courier and plenipotentiary for Sohaemus. Seductress or spy, no one is sure. Loved by most, but hated by an influential few. She grew up in the king’s court in Emesa, from which stems her learning and her manners … and the waywardness that would have been beaten out of any other woman long ago. The only mystery is why, despite her evident beauty, she has never married.’

  ‘Perhaps she is more use to Sohaemus unmarried?’ Valerius suggested. ‘While she flutters her eyelashes at you she is stealing your secrets.’

  Ariston sniffed, not pleased to be reminded of his indiscretions. ‘She was in Sohaemus’s service when she was attacked, but was that why she was attacked?’

  ‘You can ask her on the way to Jerusalem.’

  The Syrian gave him a sour look. ‘The gods keep me from wilful women, especially beautiful ones. There is one other thing you should know. Sohaemus fears none of his rivals, but he does fear Rome.’

  ‘But Rome seeks stability, you said so yourself.’

  ‘Only Rome has the power to remove him from the throne. Why should Rome do so? Because Palmyra is not the only power that covets the wealth of the Sun God. Sohaemus visited Rome a dozen years ago and befriended Nero. The years since the Emperor’s death have left him confused and insecure. When Cestius Gallus passed this way with the Twelfth legion to put down the original Judaean revolt he insisted Sohaemus pay tribute of a year’s pay for the legion. They say that when he entered the treasury his eyes shone like beacons at the sight. Only the fact that the Twelfth was smashed at Beit Horan by Eleazar ben Simon deterred him from coming back for more. Now Vespasian is Emperor and Sohaemus hears that Rome’s coffers are empty.’

  ‘Vespasian would never be so foolish as to antagonize an ally.’

  ‘Not when he’s fighting a war,’ Ariston agreed.

  ‘But when the war is over …’

  ‘So you would not be surprised if Sohaemus was arming the Judaeans as well as reinforcing Titus. It is only a rumour, and that from a single source, but …’

  ‘But a long war would be in Emesa’s favour if Sohaemus thinks his wealth or position is in danger.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Ariston nodded gravely. ‘Is it any wonder the king wishes to keep close this mysterious Roman who has just wandered into his territory? A man of obvious rank, and a soldier, well equipped to assess his true strength. He can’t afford to have you killed because he believes you have been sent on Titus’s orders, so he must court you – and spy on you. And who better than …’

  ‘Our encounter with Tabitha could never have been staged,’ Valerius insisted. ‘Those men were definitely going to kill her.’

  ‘No,’ Ariston agreed, ‘but it presents the king with an opportunity. And now she travels with us to Jerusalem where Titus gathers his forces. No doubt on the way she will flutter her eyelashes at you and steal more of our secrets. I am reminded of a spider of the Tigris valley where the female of the species devours her mate after she has done with him.’

  Valerius laughed. ‘I fear there are more dangerous enemies.’

  ‘You are right,’ the Syrian said earnestly. ‘The place is filled with them. You are a Roman and there are Emesans who resent the king for doing Rome’s bidding. There are Judaean slaves who are undoubtedly spies for whom any Roman is an enemy.’ He drew himself up to his full height. ‘I will sleep by the doorway tonight to ensure none passes but those who have the right.’

  He waited for some recognition of this sacrifice, but Valerius only looked thoughtful. After a time, the Roman said: ‘Ariston?’

  ‘Yes, lord.’

  ‘It comes to me that your most diligent efforts to gather information on my behalf will have confirmed the king’s suspicions about my presence here.’

  ‘Yes, lord,’ more warily.

  ‘And while I have the king’s protection …’

  ‘Perhaps, on further consideration, I will sleep by the window.’

  Valerius smiled. ‘I appreciate your offer, but no doubt Serpentius will be back soon and I’m sure someone will be able to provide you with more suitable accommodation.’

  IX

  Northern Judaea

  The man was dressed in rags and lay in the dust on his right side with his legs splayed at an awkward angle. A dark stain surrounded his head and closer inspection revealed the cause. A terrible wound split his features from brow to chin in a way that almost gave him two separate identities. The eye that was visible looked oddly serene in the ruin of his features and ivory fragments of teeth surrounded his head like a diadem of stars. Back cut, Titus decided, admiring the deadly efficiency of the strike. His killer would have been level with him, the heavy cavalry spatha already falling as his mount swept past, the force of the blow knocking the man backwards in a spray of red mist.

  ‘Another we don’t have to worry about.’ The words were innocuous enough, but Tiberius Alexander’s tone questioned why the commander of Rome’s Army of the East was wasting time over one dead rebel among the hundreds scattered along the road from Gadara.

  ‘Placidus knows his business.’ Titus ignored one minor provocation among many.

  ‘So he should,’ the chief of staff said. ‘He and his Phrygian barbarians have been slaughtering these vermin for close on five years.’

  ‘Who commands the infantry?’

  ‘Longinus. He has a cohort of Spaniards and another of Gauls with orders to press hard and keep them moving. I’ve ordered the flanking cohorts to force march until they reach the river. Our scouts report that the waters are high and continue to rise.’ The olive features split into a savage grin. ‘Don’t worry, lord, they won’t escape. It’s like herding sheep.’

  Titus turned in the saddle to face the older man. It was difficult to conceal his resentment at his father’s imposition of the Alexandrian – could one be a former Jew? – with twice his own military experience, who understood Judaea and the Judaeans better than any Roman. He felt his anger growing. Mentor or wet nurse, it didn’t matter. He was old enough to make his own decisions. He had commanded legions and he could command an army. ‘I don’t want any mistakes, Tiberius.’ He saw the other man flinch at the hardening of his tone. ‘This is one of the last rebel forces of any strength outside Jerusalem. I can’t afford to have them causing trouble at my rear while we’re taking the city. I want them destroyed.’

  The sound of a trumpet alerted him and he urged his horse to the top of a mound beside the road. Alexander and the rest of his staff rode in his wake to share the vantage point.

  As always, auxiliary light infantry made up the van of the marching column – a cohort each of Thracian spearmen and archers, ready to deploy into a skirmish line at the first enemy contact. In the far distance, Titus could see the dust of the legion’s cavalry contingent, scouting the vulnerable flanks and the route ahead. In the wake of the auxiliaries came the camp prefect, responsible for
march discipline and accompanied by junior tribunes who weren’t much good for anything but carrying messages. Behind them followed the signallers with their curved trumpets.

  Titus’s heart beat a little faster as the eagle came into sight – the eagle of the Fifteenth Apollinaris – the golden wings raised and beak open in a scream of defiance. The eagle was a legion’s pride and a legion’s soul, presented personally by the Emperor and every man was oath-sworn to protect it. It was borne by the aquilifer, a veteran of twenty years’ service, sweating in the heat beneath his leopard skin, the face a snarling mask over his helmet. Eight men accompanied him, the eagle’s personal guard, the phalerae that proclaimed their valour on their breasts. A legion could experience no greater shame than to lose its eagle. Titus reflected that in a way it was the loss of an eagle that had brought him to this place and to this command.

  The revolt, now in its fifth year, had been sparked by Flacus’s foolish decision to loot the temple at Jerusalem in revenge for attacks on Roman citizens. Judaeans led by the fanatical Zealots responded by butchering the small Roman garrison in the city before the insurrection spread across the country. The growing threat forced Cestius Gallus, Syria’s legate, to march on Judaea with the Twelfth Fulminata, a highly experienced unit which had fought with success against the Parthians under Corbulo. The campaign had begun well, but Gallus became convinced that the enemy forces were too strong to be defeated by a single legion and retreated towards the coast and reinforcements. Instead, the idiot had walked into a trap. The Twelfth was ambushed on the march, outnumbered and outfought by a rabble of Jews. The victors carried off the Twelfth’s eagle and brought eternal shame to the legion and its commander. There could only be one reaction. Nero looked to his commanders for one experienced enough not to repeat Gallus’s mistakes, ruthless enough to pursue the rebels to destruction however long it took, and astute enough to win over those other fractious states in the region who might become a threat. Only two men fitted that description. One was Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, who had thwarted the ambitions of the Parthian king, Vologases, in Armenia, but was suspected of ambitions of his own closer to home. The other was Titus Flavius Vespasian. Vespasian had commanded legions in Germania and Britannia, but was a man of humble birth who did not pose any sort of threat.

  Titus had sailed with his father from Athens, taken command of the Fifteenth Apollinaris in Alexandria and marched north. Meanwhile, Vespasian continued to Syria where the Fifth and Tenth had been tasked with the subjugation of the Jews. What followed was a campaign of destruction and terror, carried out with merciless efficiency by the cheering men who now marched before him. The elite First cohort led, their uniforms and armour coated with gritty Judaean dust. Eight hundred legionaries followed the standard-bearer, five double-strength centuries of a hundred and sixty men each. These were the legion’s bravest and best troops, soldiers who could be relied on to break the enemy line, or hold their own under any pressure. Every man wore a polished iron helmet with a neck protector, cheek guards and a reinforced brow. Lorica segmentata armour protected his torso, a complex arrangement of case-hardened iron bands that covered the chest, shoulders and back. He carried a pair of pila, weighted spears designed to punch through shields and light armour, and on his hip he wore a twenty-two inch gladius, the short sword that had almost literally carved out the Roman empire. On his back, he bore the brightly painted scutum, the big shield that was cursed on the march for its weight, but would save his life in the battle line. It was prone to chafe the shoulders, back and legs, but it was the work of a moment to unsling it and face the enemy ready for battle. They were short, wiry men, with uncouth habits and a soldier’s tendency to complain, but – the Twelfth, those dozy bastards, notwithstanding – they knew that if they kept their discipline they were invincible. Titus had learned to love them like recalcitrant children who required regular beatings to keep them honest.

  Nine normal-sized cohorts followed the First, each with six centuries of eighty men and each century in turn identified by its standard. Of course, these were the nominal complements. The last roster Titus had seen showed that sickness, battle injury and troops needed for security details had left the Fifteenth with a strength of four thousand two hundred men. Still, it should be more than enough.

  Vespasian initially targeted the rebel stronghold of Galilee, where the enemy had turned the region’s towns and cities into what they believed were impregnable strongholds. Instead of attacking the Judaeans’ strengths the Roman commander ravaged the Galilean countryside, bringing fire and death to villages and farms. The carnage forced the survivors to flee to the towns where they became a drain on the enemy resources and spread tales of terror and unspeakable savagery. Titus had linked up with his father just as Judaean morale weakened enough for him to invest their cities. At Japha, the Tenth and Fifteenth combined to take the walls, driving the defenders back into the narrow streets where women had pelted the legionaries with whatever household missiles came to hand. Every male – fifteen thousand of them – had been slaughtered in revenge for the insult done to the Twelfth, and every woman and child sold into slavery. At Jotapata, the Judaean butcher’s bill numbered forty thousand after a siege of forty-seven days, and most of the women killed their children and themselves rather than be taken away in chains. Then Joppa, where the population tried to flee in ships, but were dashed upon the shore by a great storm and massacred by the auxiliaries who met them there.

  Ambush, betrayal, confusion and slaughter.

  Tarichaeae. The name brought a cynical smile to Titus’s features as he reviewed his troops. ‘Your opportunity for glory,’ his father predicted. Opportunity for an early grave, more like.

  Strong walls on three sides and the fourth facing the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The Judaeans kept a strong force outside the walls to maintain contact with a fleet waiting offshore, covered by archers and slingers from the ships. Vespasian had ordered him to sweep them away with a reinforced cohort. When Titus’s men refused to charge against such odds he’d been forced to take the lead. So many arrows smacked into his shield that it looked like a porcupine, while slingshots spanged off armour and helmet, leaving his head ringing and his body bruised. Six hundred Romans against four times their number. He remembered the stink of sweat and fear and torn entrails thick in his nostrils and the leaden taste of blood in his mouth. Wielding his blade until the muscles of his arm screamed and the shield felt as heavy as a cart wheel, cursing bearded faces shrieking defiance and invoking their god even as the gladii took their lives. Surrounded and knowing the awful shame of failure he’d felt the bowel-liquefying fear of approaching death. He was too young. He had so much to do.

  ‘Are you well, general?’ The concerned voice of Genialis, the camp prefect of the Fifteenth. The man who had saved his life by sending archers to overwhelm the storm of arrows from the ships and cavalry to drive the Zealots back.

  Titus felt the sweat streaming down his cheeks, but managed a smile. ‘Chasing rebels is hot work. Your men are up for a fight?’ he said to change the subject.

  ‘They’d rather fight than march,’ Genialis snorted. ‘If there’s a foot of this gods-forsaken dustbowl they haven’t covered, I’d like to know where it is.’

  Tarichaeae. Flames and screams in the night after Vespasian commanded that the ships be destroyed along with the thousands who had fled to take refuge on them. A soft, breathless morning when the charred corpses of men, women and children bobbed and dipped in the waves along the shore. Another morning watching a long column of non-combatants stream from the city after being urged to throw themselves on the mercy of Rome and guaranteed free passage as far as Tiberias. Rome – in the shape of his father – showing the true meaning of Roman mercy. Twelve hundred of the old and sick slaughtered in the stadium at Tiberias, the rest, almost forty thousand, sold into slavery to be worked to death at their masters’ pleasure. Vespasian justified the decision by the fact that as the story spread all but three of Galilee’s fortress
es surrendered. Meanwhile, Tarichaeae’s gates hung open, the only occupants the dead or the soon to be dead beneath a giant pall of smoke that stank of roasting flesh.

  And after Tarichaeae, more of the same at Gamala and Gischala, Jamnia and Azotus, Gersa and Jericho.

  The long pause to draw breath after Nero’s death, waiting to see what would unfold. The day in Caesarea when the impossible happened and three legions declared a ‘new man’ Emperor of Rome. Hail, Caesar! His father’s dry, self-deprecating humour as he offered his son either a death sentence or an opportunity for his name to live on through history.

  ‘Whatever my legions say, I am not the Emperor until I am made so by the Senate and people of Rome. The day that happens I will appoint you my heir. For the moment I must ask you to command my armies in Judaea, though you may feel a cup of hemlock laced with honey would be a more attractive proposition.’

  For weeks afterwards Titus had no time to dwell on his new status because of the huge amount of preparation needed for the next phase of the campaign. Three legions must be manoeuvred into position to destroy the last surviving pockets of rebel resistance. Yet they’d still have to rely on supplies of fodder in country stripped bare by the rebels and along roads always vulnerable to ambush by the insurgents. The critical shortage of cavalry and archers concerned him and he had to endure interminable negotiations with the jumped-up rulers of the city states of Syria, Armenia and Cappadocia. He commanded three legionary legates, each of whom demanded their unit should have the place of honour and the final glory. Well, he was resolved there would be glory enough for all when the time came. In the meantime they could obey orders with good grace. And always at his shoulder, Tiberius Alexander; mentor, wet nurse or spy?

  Yet at least once a day came a moment of startling clarity as he realized who and what he was. One step away, at the age of thirty, from being the ruler of the greatest empire the world had ever known. Yes, a war must be fought and won before that was certain, though let no man believe it was a war either he or his father had wanted. But it had to be fought, and now it was won. Vitellius was dead. In a few months Titus Flavius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus would be hailed Emperor of Rome and on the same day he would declare Titus his heir. Did he deserve this honour? Of course not. He was but a simple soldier, who, he prayed, had risen to his present position by his abilities and not by hanging on to the laurels won by his father. Yet what else could he do but stand by Vespasian and accept the responsibilities placed upon him? What son would do otherwise? Of course, he had doubts. He’d felt the entire weight of the Empire looming over him like a collapsing insula the moment his father announced his intentions; all the breath knocked from his lungs as if he’d been punched by a boxer. Yet there’d been excitement, too, and a growing inside, an expanding of the mind as he understood that he, Titus Flavius Vespasian the younger, was capable of greatness. He had already shown courage and leadership; he must learn wisdom and statesmanship and how to wield authority.