by Gore Vidal
I sat between Maximus and the Etruscan Mastara. Anatolius was not with us, for he had bravely chosen to fight beside Julian that day, even though court marshals are not expected to be warriors. We teased him a good deal as he got ready for battle, his tiny mouth a firm military circle in his hopelessly soft face.
"Many years with the cavalry," he said casually. His round stomach jiggled beneath ill-fitting armour as he motioned imperiously for the groom to bring him his horse. With a flourish, Anatolius mounted the horse and fell off the other side. I'm afraid we clerks laughed at our impetuous brother. But Anatolius had his way; he followed his Emperor into battle.
At first we saw everything plain. The Persians were spread out in an arc between the walls of Ctesiphon and the river. Cavalry first; then infantry; then against the wall, like a range of mud hills, a hundred elephants each with an iron tower on its back, containing archers.
The Persian cavalry wear an extraordinary form of armour which consists of hundreds of small iron plates sewn together in such a way that not only is the soldier completely covered by armour but he is able to move easily, the iron fitting the contours of his body like cloth. Their horses are protected by leather blankets. In the hands of a capable general, the Persian cavalry is a remarkable weapon. Fortunately for us, there were at this time no Persian generals of any distinction. Also, the Persian army is not a permanent institution like ours but a haphazard collection of conscripts, mercenaries, noblemen and slaves. At times of national crisis every able-bodied man is impressed into service, hardly the best of systems.
Behind the cavalry, the Persian infantry advanced in close order, protected by oblong wicker shields covered with rawhide. Among the elephants at the rear was the Grand Vizier, while on the walls of Ctesiphon the Great King and his court observed the battle in much the same way we philosophers watched it in our folding chairs on the river bank. We were too far away to recognize Sapor, though Maximus, as usual, claimed he saw him quite clearly.
"I am extraordinarily far-sighted, you know. Sapor is to the left of that tower by the gate. You see the blue canopy? Well, he is just under it, wearing scarlet. Those must be his sons with him. They look quite young…" And on he babbled. Actually, all any of us could see was a faint blur of colour on the battlements. But Julian was most visible, riding restlessly along the front line as our army advanced. He was easily identified not only by his white horse and purple cloak but by the dragon standard which always accompanied him.
Our trumpets sounded the advance. The infantry then began its curious stylized march, based on that of ancient Sparta's artfly: two short steps, a pause, two short steps, a pause, all in perfect unison while the drums beat the tattoo. It is ominous both to hear and to see. Even Maximus was silent as the Roman army advanced. Then with a shout, our skirmishers in the front rank threw their javelins into the Persian cavalry. And the two armies vanished. For an instant I almost believed in Maximus's magic. Where a hundred and thirty thousand men had been perfectly visible to us in the bright sun, there was now nothing but an oppressive cloud of dust. We could see nothing. But from the heart of the cloud we heard trumpets, drums, war cries, metal striking metal, the hiss of arrows.
The battle began at sunrise and continued until sundown. After an hour or two of watching dust, the Etruscans grew bored, and withdrew "to pray for victory". Instead, they settled down in a near-by grove of date palms for a drinking party. They were prodigious drinkers. One of my few happy memories of the Persian campaign was the night when all five Etruscans were dead drunk during an important religious ceremony, It was a splendid debacle. They kept dropping sacred vessels and books, while Mastara solemnly assured the furious Julian that "the god has possessed us". Maximus and I watched the wall of dust all day. The only sign we had of how the battle was going was the position of the dust cloud as, hour by hour, it shifted closer to the walls of Ctesiphon. The Persians were giving ground.
"On 15 June we shall return to Tarsus," said Maximus suddenly; he had been making signs in the dust at our feet with his magician's staff.
"In three weeks?"
"Three weeks? Is that three weeks?" He looked at me blankly.
"Why so it is! Amazing to think we shall conquer Persia in such a short time. Alexander hardly did as well. Perhaps I've made a mistake." He studied the dust at his feet. I wanted to break his stick over his foolish head.
"No. The calculation is correct. 15 June. Plain as day. We must tell Julian. He'll be so pleased." He looked vaguely towards the battlefield.
"How do you know that the Emperor…" I emphasized the title. No one but Maximus ever referred to Julian by name. "… is still alive?"
"He has to be. 15 June. I just showed you. Look, in the Sun's Fourth House…"
"And how do you know we shall win this battle?"
"Sometimes you amaze me, Priscus. It is all so plain. Sapor is about to fall, and we shall go home victorious. It is pre-ordained. And frankly I look forward to a return to private life. I'm here only because Julian insisted…"
While Maximus chattered, I stared at the walls of Ctesiphon, waiting for the battle's end. Shortly before sunset, a soft breeze thinned the cloud of dust until we were again able to see the two armies, now in a hopeless tangle at the city's gate. The elephants were running amok, trunks curled, tusks flashing. I am told the Persians use them to intimidate their own men quite as much as the enemy's. Persians as well as Romans were trampled by those hideous beasts.
As the red sun set, the gates of the city opened to receive the Persian army. Our men pursued them. In a matter of seconds, the Persian army ceased to be an army and became a mob of frightened men, all trying to get within the gates. Then it was dark.
Julian Augustus 27 May
I cannot sleep. Within my tent, I walk up and down. I am exhausted from twelve hours of fighting—but too excited to sleep, to do anything. I can barely write these lines. My hand shakes with tension.
I have defeated the Great King's army! Twenty-five hundred Persians dead, and only seventy-five Romans! We could have taken Ctesiphon. Our infantry could have entered when the Persians did but Victor stopped them. He was afraid they might be outnumbered inside a strange city. I am not sure that he was right. Had I been at the gate, I would have ordered the men to go through. We should have taken the chance. The Persian army was in flight. That was our opportunity. But Victor is cautious. He was also wounded—an arrow in the right shoulder, not serious. Now we shall have to lay siege to the city. A long business. I saw the Great King today, and he saw me. Sapor was seated on the wall, beneath a canopy. I was only a few yards away. Though nearly seventy, Sapor looks much younger. He is lean and black-bearded (Ormisda says that his hair is dyed: Sapor is vain about his appearance, also his potency… no one knows how many children he has). Sapor wore a gold crown with a scarlet plume. As a gesture of disdain, he wore court dress! He looked like a peacock, glaring down at me.
I waved my sword arm. "Come down!" I shouted, but in that tumult I doubt if he heard me. But he saw me and he knew who I was. The Great King saw the Emperor of Rome at the gate to his city! The courtiers around him looked terrified. No one made a move. Then I was distracted by the battle around me. The next time I looked at the wall, Sapor was gone.
Before we returned to camp, we buried our dead and stripped the Persian corpses. Many nobles were killed and their amour is much prized by us. Unfortunately, none of the Gauls and Germans can wear Persian armour. It is too small for them. So the best armour in the world goes to our worst soldiers, the Asiatics!
We had a victory dinner in my tent. The generals got drunk. But I could eat and drink nothing. I am too tense. Maximus says the war will be over in three weeks. Soldiers have been serenading me all night. Many of them are drunk but I do not scold them. I go outside and embrace them and call them by name, telling them what fine fellows they are, and they tell me the same thing. Tomorrow I give out war crowns to those who showed unusual valour. I shall also sacrifice to the war god Ares.
Why didn't Victor go into the city?
Priscus: The next day was marred only by the sacrifice. After the men had been given their decorations, Julian tried to sacrifice a bull to Ares on a newly built altar. But for one reason or another, nine bulls were found wanting by the Etruscans. The tenth bull, acceptable, bolted at the last minute. When it was finally caught and sacrificed, the liver indicated disaster. To everyone's amazement, Julian threw down the sacrificial knife and shouted to the sky, "Never again will I sacrifice to you!" Maximus looked quite alarmed and even I was taken aback. Flushed and sweating from the hot sun, Julian disappeared into his tent. I can only attribute his strange action to the fact that he had not slept in two days.
The same day Anatolius took me on a tour of the battlefield. He was very soldierly. "Here the Herculani made a flanking movement to allow for the light-armed cohorts of Petulantes to break through…" That sort of thing. Anatolius was so pleased with his own military expertise that I did not have the heart to laugh at him as he led me over the dusty ground, still littered with Persian dead. I noticed one interesting phenomenon. Persians do not putrefy in the hot sun the way Europeans do. After two days of this climate, a dead European is in an advanced state of decay. But not the Persians. They simply dry up and become hard as leather. I once asked Oribasius about this and he said it was due to diet. According to him, we drink too much wine and eat too much grain while the Persians eat sparingly, preferring dates and lentils to our rich fare. Yet I have observed the dead bodies of lean Gauls—yes, there are some—and though their owners lived austere lives, they decayed as swiftly as their corpulent brothers. It is very puzzling.
The Persians had been stripped of their armour and valuables, except for one who still wore a gold ring. I decided to take it as a souvenir. Even now I can remember the feel of that cold, hard hand as, wifh great effort, I bent straight the fingers which had been drawn into a brown fist. I stared at the dead man's face. He was young; he wore no beard. I looked at him. He looked at me, eyes glazed as though with fever. Flies buzzed about his head.
"Spoils of war," said Anatolius comfortably.
"Spoils of war," I said to the dead Persian, letting him drop back on the ground with a thump. He seemed unconvinced. The flies settled on his face. I wore the ring until a few months ago when I lost it at the baths. I have become thin lately and the ring fell off in the hot room. Naturally, the attendants never return anything they find.
Two days later, on 29 May, Julian moved the army to Abuzatha, a Persian fort on the Tigris three miles from Ctesiphon. Here we made camp. For several days none of Julian's friends saw him. He was closeted with his military staff. There was disagreement among the generals. Some wanted to lay siege to Ctesiphon. Others preferred to isolate the city and continue the conquest of Persia. A few advised returning to Roman territory. None of us knew what Julian's plan was or even if he had a plan. Nor did any of us know that while we were in camp, he had received a secret embassy from Sapor. I confess that even if I had known, I would not have cared much. Like half the camp, I was ill with dysentery.
Julian Augustus 30 May.
The Persian envoys have just left. Ormisda is with them. I sit alone in my tent. Outside, Callistus is singing a mournful song. It is very hot. I am waiting for Maximus. If I withdraw from Persia, the Great King has promised to cede me all of Mesopotamia north of Anatha; also, at his own expense, he will rebuild our city of Amida, and pay in gold or kind whatever we ask to defray the cost of this war. Persia is defeated.
The ambassadors came to me secretly. They wanted it that way. So did I. They were brought to me as though they were officers taken captive in a Saracen raid. No one except Ormisda and myself knows that this was an embassy. The chief ambassador is a brother of the Grand Vizier. He maintained a perfect dignity while proposing a treaty which, if I accept it, will mean that I have gained more of the East for Rome than any general since Pompey. Realizing this, the ambassador felt impelled to indulge himself in Persian rhetoric. "Never forget, Augustus, that our army is more numerous than the desert's sand. One word from the Great King and you and all your host are lost. But Sapor is merciful."
"Sapor is frightened," said Ormisda, to my irritation. I prefer to seem indifferent while envoys talk, to give them no clue as to what I intend to do. But Ormisda has been unusually tense the last few days. Despite his age, he fought like a youth at Ctesiphon. Now he sees the crown of Persia almost in his hands. He is terrified it will slip away. I am sympathetic. Yet my policy is not necessarily his policy.
Ormisda taunted the ambassadors. "I know what happens in the palace at Ctesiphon. I know what is whispered in the long halls, behind the ivory doors. Nothing that happens among you is kept from me."
This was not entirely bluff. Ormisda's spies are indeed well placed at the Persian court and he learns astonishing things. Also, as we conquer more and more of Persia, there is a tendency among the nervous courtiers to shift from the old king to what may be the new. But the ambassador was not one of those whom Ormisda could win.
"There are traitors in every palace, Prefect." He used Ormisda's Roman title. Then he turned to me. "And in every army, Augustus."
I did not acknowledge this dangerous truth. "But the Great King is merciful. He loves peace…"
Ormisda laughed theatrically. "Sapor wears rags, taken from a beggar. His beard and hair are full of ashes. He dines off the floor like an animal. He weeps, knowing his day is ended." Ormisda was not exaggerating. During the last few hours we have had several harrowing descriptions of Sapor's grief at my victory. He has every reason to be in mourning. Few monarchs have been so thoroughly humiliated.
The ambassador read me the draft of the treaty. I thanked him. Then I told Ormisda to take the embassy to Anatolius's tent, which is next to mine. They will wait there until I have prepared an answer. Ormisda wanted to stay behind and talk to me but I made him go. He is not Great King yet.
I now sit on the bed. The treaty is before me: two scrolls, one in Greek, one in Persian. I have placed them side by side on the lion skin. What to do? If I accept Sapor's terms, it will be a triumph for me. If I stay, I am not entirely certain that a siege of Ctesiphon would be successful. It will certainly take a long time; perhaps a year, and I cannot be away from Constantinople that long. Today the Persian army is no threat, but who knows what sort of army Sapor might put in the field next week, next month?
Everything depends, finally, on Procopius. He is in the north, at Bezabde in Corduene. Or so I hear. There has been no direct word from him.
• • •
Maximus was brilliant just now. As always, he went straight to the heart of things.
"This treaty is a triumph; a province gained, peace assured for at least…"
"… a decade."
"Perhaps longer. Amida rebuilt. A fortune in gold. Few emperors have accomplished so much. But then…" He looked at me thoughtfully. "Was it just for this we have come so far, to gain half a province? or to conquer half a world?"
He paused. I waited. Like a true philosopher, he then turned the matter round, first to one side, then to another. "There is no denying this is an excellent treaty, better than anyone would have dreamed… except us, who know what no one else knows. Cybele herself promised you victory. You are Alexander, born again, set on earth to conquer Asia. You have no choice."
Maximus is right. The gods have not brought me this far simply to have me turn back as though I were some Saracen chief raiding the border. I shall reject Sapor's treaty and begin the siege of Ctesiphon. Once Procopius arrives, I shall be free to order a march straight into the morning sun. Yes, to the house of Helios himself, the father from whom I came and to whom I must return, in glory.
Priscus: Have you ever read such nonsense? If only I had known! But none of us knew what Maximus was up to, even though he was for ever dropping hints about "our plans". But since those plans were never revealed, we were all equally in the dark. When the rumour that Sapor had sued for peace sw
ept the camp, Julian firmly denied that there had been an embassy, and we believed him. I am certain that if the generals had known the terms of the treaty, they would have forced Julian to accept. But Julian and Maximus lied, as did Ormisda, who was not about to end his last hope of reigning in Persia. All three wanted the war to continue. From the moment of this decision, I trace the rapid decline of Julian. Nothing went right again. In retrospect his actions are those of a madman. But since he seemed so entirely normal at the time, none of us seriously questioned his orders or thought anything he did unusual. We merely assumed that he had information we did not. Also, up until the last day of May, everything he had attempted had proven successful. Even so, the generals were becoming critical. And treason was in the air.
XXII
Julian Augustus 31 May
Midnight. The deaf-mute sits cross-legged at my feet, playing a Persian instrument much like a lute. The melody is unfamiliar but pleasing. Callistus is arranging my armour on the stand beside the bed. Ormisda has just left. He is pleased at my decision, but I am somewhat uneasy. For the first time I find myself in complete disagreement with my officers. What is worse, I cannot tell them why I know that the course I have embarked upon is the right one. At this evening's staff meeting, Victor challenged me openly.
"We have not the force, Augustus, to attempt a long siege. Nor the supplies. We also have many wounded." He touched his own bandaged shoulder.
"And no hope of reinforcements." Arintheus automatically follows Victor's lead.
"There is the army of Procopius and Sebastian," said Ormisda. He sat on my right at the conference table, on which our only map of this part of Persia was unrolled. so far, the map has proved completely unreliable.