Caesar

by Colleen McCullough

  How can I possibly know all this? I hear you ask. I will come to that in due time, but here I will simply say that I learned of it from a fascinating prince at the Jewish court, Antipater, whose spies and sources of information are absolutely everywhere.

  There is a crossroads on the Bilechas where the caravan route from Palmyra and Nicephorium meets the caravan route to the upper Euphrates at Samosata and the one which goes through Carrhae to Edessa and Amida. It was for this junction that the army set out to march across the desert.

  We had thirty-five thousand Roman foot, one thousand Aeduan horse and three thousand Galatian horse. They were terrified before they so much as started into the wilderness, and grew more terrified with each day that passed. All I had to do to ascertain this was to ride among them and listen with half an ear: Crassus was cursed, they were all going to die. Mutiny was never a risk, for mutinous troops are, to say the least, energetic. Our men were devoid of hope.

  They simply shuffled on to meet their doom like captives going to the slave markets. The Aeduan cavalry were worst. Never in their lives had they seen a waterless waste, a dun drear landscape without shelter or beauty. They turned their eyes inward and ceased to care about anything.

  Two days out, heading southeast for the Bilechas, we began to see small bands of Parthians, usually horse archers, sometimes cataphracti. Not that they bothered us. They would ride in fairly close, then spur off again. I know now that they were liaising with Abgarus and reporting back about us to the Pahlavi Surenas, who was camped outside Nicephorium, at the confluence of the Bilechas and the Euphrates.

  On the fourth day before the Ides of June we reached the Bilechas, where I begged Marcus Crassus to build a strongly fortified camp and put the troops into it for long enough to enable the legates and tribunes to try to put some stiffening into them. But Crassus wouldn't hear of it. He was fretful because we'd been on the march so long already; he wanted to reach the canals where the Euphrates and the Tigris almost marry before summer clamped down, and he was beginning to wonder if he was going to succeed. So he ordered the troops to take a quick meal and march on down the Bilechas. It was still early in the afternoon.

  Suddenly I became aware that King Abgarus and his four thousand men had literally disappeared. Gone! Some Galatian scouts came galloping up, shouting that the countryside was swarming with Parthians, but they had barely managed to attract anyone's attention when a storm of arrows came thrumming from every direction and the soldiers began falling like leaves, like stones—I have never seen anything as fast or as vicious as that hail of arrows.

  Crassus didn't do anything. He simply let it happen.

  "It'll be over in a moment," he shouted from beneath a shelter of shields; "they'll run out of arrows."

  They did not run out of arrows. There were Roman soldiers fleeing all over the place, and falling. Falling. Finally Crassus had the buglers blow "form square," but it was far too late. The cataphracti moved in for the kill, huge men on huge horses dark with chain mail. I discovered that when they advance at a trot—they are too big and ponderous to move at a canter—they jingle like a million coins in a thousand purses. I wonder did Crassus find it music to his ears? The earth shakes as they pound along. The dust rises in a huge column, and they turn and tread it up around them so that they come out of it rather than ride ahead of it.

  Publius Crassus gathered the Aeduan cavalry, who seemed suddenly to come to their senses. Perhaps a battle was the only familiar thing they had to cling to. The Galatians followed, and four thousand of our horsemen charged into the cataphracti like bulls with pepper up their nostrils. The cataphracti broke and fled, Publius Crassus and his horsemen behind them, into the dust fog. During this respite, Crassus managed to form his square. Then we waited for the Aeduans and the Galatians to reappear, praying to every God we knew. But it was the cataphracti who returned. They had Publius Crassus's head on a spear. Instead of attacking our square, they trotted back and forth along its sides brandishing that awful head. Publius Crassus seemed to look at us; we could see his eyes flash, and his face was quite unmarred.

  His father was devastated—there are no words to tell that story. But it seemed to give him something I had not seen him display since the campaign began. Up and down the square he went, cheering the men on, encouraging them to hold fast, telling them that his own son had purchased the precious moments they had needed with his life, but that the grief was Crassus's alone.

  "Stand!" he cried, over and over. "Stand!"

  We stood, hideously thinned by the never-ending rain of arrows, until darkness fell and the Parthians drew off. They do not seem to fight at night.

  Having built no camp, we had nothing to keep us there. Crassus elected to retreat at once to Carrhae, about forty miles away to the north. By dawn we began to arrive, straggling, perhaps half the infantry and a handful of horse troopers. Futile! Impossible. Carrhae owned a small fortress, but nothing capable of protecting so many men, so much disorder.

  I daresay that Carrhae has stood there at the junction of the caravan routes to Edessa and Amida for two thousand years, and I daresay it hasn't changed in those two thousand years. A pathetic little collection of beehive-shaped mud brick houses in the midst of a stony, desolate wilderness—dirty sheep, dirty goats, dirty women, dirty children, dirty river—great wheels of dried dung the only source of warmth in the bitter cold, the only glory the night skies.

  The prefect Coponius was in command of the garrison, a scant cohort strong. As we dribbled in, more and more, he was horrified. We had no food because the Parthians had captured our baggage train; most of the men and horses were wounded. We couldn't stay in Carrhae, so much was obvious.

  Crassus held a council, and it was decided to retreat at nightfall to Sinnaca, as far away again northeast in the direction of Amida. It was much better fortified and had at least several granaries. The wrong direction entirely! I wanted to yell. But Coponius had brought a man of Carrhae to the council with him. Andromachus. And Andromachus swore huge oaths that the Parthians were lying in wait between Carrhae and Edessa, Carrhae and Samosata, Carrhae and anywhere along the Euphrates. Andromachus then offered to guide us to Sinnaca, and from there to Amida. Bent over with grief for Publius, Crassus accepted the offer. Oh, he was cursed! Whatever decision he made was the wrong one. Andromachus was the local Parthian spy.

  I knew. I knew, I knew, I knew. As the day dragged on I became ever more firmly convinced that to go to Sinnaca under the guidance of Andromachus was to die. So I called my own council. Invited Crassus. He didn't come. The others did—Censorinus, Megabocchus, Octavius, Vargunteius, Coponius, Egnatius. Plus a disgustingly dirty, tattered group of local soothsayers and magi; Coponius had been in this unspeakable anus of the world for long enough to have gathered them to him as flies gather on a putrescent carcass. I told those who came that they could do whatever they liked, but that as soon as night fell I was riding southwest for Syria, not northeast for Sinnaca. If the Parthians were lying in wait, I'd take my chances. But, I said, I refused to believe they were. No more Skenite guides for me!

  Coponius demurred. So did the others. It was not fit or proper for the General's legates, tribunes and prefects to abandon him. Nor for the General's quaestor to abandon him. The only one who agreed with me was the prefect Egnatius.

  No, they said, they would stand by Marcus Crassus.

  I lost my temper—a Cassian flaw, I admit. "Then stay to die!" I shouted. "Those who would rather live had better find a horse in a hurry, because I'm riding for Syria and trusting to none but my own star!"

  The soothsayers squawked and fluttered. "No, Gaius Cassius!" wheezed the most ancient of them, hung with amulets and rodent backbones and horrible agate eyes. "Go, yes, but not yet! The Moon is still in Scorpio! Wait for it to enter Sagittarius!"

  I looked at them. Couldn't help laughing. "Thank you for the advice," I said, "but this is desert. I'd far rather have the Scorpion than the Archer!"

  About five hundred of u
s rode off at a gallop and spent the night between a walk, a trot, a canter and another gallop. By dawn we reached Europus, which the locals call Carchemish. There were no Parthians lying in wait, and the Euphrates was calm enough to boat across, horses and all. We didn't stop until we reached Antioch.

  Later I learned that the Pahlavi Surenas got everyone who elected to stay with the General. At dawn on the second day before the Ides, as we rode into Europus, Crassus and the army were wandering in circles, getting not one mile closer to Sinnaca, thanks to Andromachus. The Parthians attacked again. It was a rout. A debacle. In a disastrous series of retreats and attempted stands, the Parthians cut them down. Those legates who remained with Crassus died—Censorinus, Vargunteius, Megabocchus, Octavius, Coponius.

  The Pahlavi Surenas had his orders. Marcus Crassus was captured alive. He was to be saved to stand before King Orodes. How it happened no one knows, even Antipater, but shortly after Crassus was taken into custody a fight broke out. Marcus Crassus died.

  Seven silver Eagles passed into the hands of the Pahlavi Surenas at Carrhae. We will never see them again. They have gone with King Orodes to Ecbatana.

  Thus did I find myself the most senior Roman in Syria, and in charge of a province on the verge of panic. Everyone was convinced the Parthians were coming, and there was no army. I spent the next two months fortifying Antioch to withstand anything, and organized a system of watches, lookouts and beacons which would give the entire populace of the Orontes Valley time to take shelter inside the city. Then—would you believe it?—soldiers started to trickle in. Not everyone had died at Carrhae. I collected about ten thousand of them, all told. Enough to make two good legions. And according to my invaluable informant Antipater, ten thousand more who survived the first fight further down the Bilechas were rounded up by the Pahlavi Surenas and sent to the frontier of Bactria beyond the Caspian Sea, where they are to be used to keep the Massagetae from raiding. Arrows do wound, but few men die of them.

  By November I felt secure enough to tour my province. Well, it is mine. The Senate has made no move to relieve me. At the age of thirty, Gaius Cassius Longinus is governor of Syria. An extraordinary responsibility, but not one which is beyond my talents.

  I went to Damascus first, and then to Tyre. Because Tyrian purple is so beautiful, we tend to think that Tyre must be too. But it is a ghastly place. Stinking to the point of constant nausea with dead shellfish. There are huge hills of boiled-down murex remains all around the landward side of Tyre, taller than the buildings, which seem to kiss the sky. How the Tyrians live there on that island of festering death and fabulous incomes I do not know. However, Fortune favors the governor of Syria. I was housed in the villa of the chief ethnarch, Demetrius, a luxurious residence on the seaward side of the city, where the breezes blow down the length of Our Sea and the rotting shellfish are but a memory.

  Here I met the man whose name I have already mentioned: Antipater. About forty-eight years old, and very powerful in the Kingdom of the Jews. Religiously he says he is a Jew, but by blood he is an Idumaean, apparently not quite the same thing as a Judaean. He offended the synod, which is the governing religious body, by marrying a Nabataean princess named Cypros. Since the Jews count citizenship in the mother's line, it means Antipater's three sons and daughter are not Jews. All of which in essence means that Antipater, a very ambitious man, cannot become King of the Jews. Nor can his sons. However, nothing will part Antipater from Cypros, who travels everywhere with him. A devoted couple. Their three sons, still adolescent, are formidable for their age. The eldest, Phasael, is impressive enough, but the second boy, Herod, is extraordinary. You might call him a perfect fusion of tortuous cunning and ferocious ruthlessness. I want to govern Syria again ten years from now just to see how Herod has turned out.

  Antipater regaled me with the Parthian side of poor Marcus Crassus's fatal expedition, and then gave me more interesting news still. The Pahlavi Surenas of Mesopotamia, having done so brilliantly on the Bilechas, was summoned to the summer court at Ecbatana. Do not, if you are a subject of the King of the Parthians, fare better than your king. Orodes was delighted at the defeat of Crassus, but not at all pleased at the innovative generalship of the Pahlavi Surenas, his blood nephew. Orodes put the Pahlavi Surenas to death. In Rome, you triumph following a victory. In Ecbatana, you lose your head following a victory.

  By the time I met Antipater in Tyre, I had two good legions under arms, but no campaign whereby to blood them. That changed very rapidly. The Jews were stirring now that the Parthian menace was gone. Though Aristobulus and his son Antigonus were returned to Rome by Gabinius after their revolt, another son of Aristobulus's named Alexander decided the time was right to throw Hyrcanus off the Jewish throne Gabinius had put him on. Thanks to Antipater's work, I add. Well, all Syria knew the governor was a mere quaestor. What an opportunity. Two other high-ranking Jews, Malichus and Peitholaus, conspired to help Alexander.

  So I marched for Hierosolyma, or Jerusalem if you like that name better. Though I didn't get that far before I met the rebel Jewish army, over thirty thousand strong. The battle took place where the Jordanus River emerges from Lake Gennesarus. Yes, I was outnumbered badly, but Peitholaus, who was in command, had simply herded together an untrained mob of upcountry Galilaeans, put pots on their heads and swords in their hands, and told them to go out and beat two trained, disciplined (and, after Carrhae, chastened) Roman legions. I trounced them, and my troops have regained much of their confidence. They hailed me imperator on the field, though I doubt the Senate will award a mere quaestor a triumph. Antipater advised me to put Peitholaus to death. I followed his advice. Antipater is no Skenite traitor, though it seems many of the Jews would not agree with my evaluation. They want to rule their own little corner of the world without Rome looking over their shoulders. It is Antipater, however, who is the realist. Rome will not be going away.

  Not many of the Galilaeans perished. I sent thirty thousand of them to the slave markets in Antioch, and have thus made my first personal profit from commanding an army. Tertulla is going to marry a much richer man!

  Antipater is a good man. Sensible, subtle and very keen both to please Rome and keep the Jews from killing each other. They seem to suffer enormous internecine conflicts unless an outsider comes along to take their minds off their troubles, like Romans or (in the old days) Egyptians.

  Hyrcanus still has his throne and his high priesthood. The surviving rebels, Malichus and Alexander, came to heel without a murmur.

  And now I come to the last few pages in the book of Marcus Crassus's remarkable career. He died after Carrhae in that place, yes, but he had yet to make a journey. The Pahlavi Surenas cut off his head and his right hand, and sent them in the midst of an outlandish parade from Carrhae to Artaxata, the capital of Armenia far to the north amid the towering snowy mountains where the Araxes flows down to the Caspian Sea. Here King Orodes and King Artavasdes, having met, decided to be brothers rather than enemies, and to seal their pact with a marriage. Pacorus, the son of Orodes, married Laodice, the daughter of Artavasdes. Some things are the same as in Rome.

  While the festivities were going on in Ataxata, the outlandish parade wended its way north. The Parthians had captured and kept alive a centurion named Gaius Paccianus because he bore a striking physical resemblance to Marcus Crassus—tall, yet so thickset that he seemed short, with that same bovine look to him. They dressed Paccianus in Crassus's toga praetexta, and before him they put capering clowns dressed as lictors bearing bundles of rods tied together with Roman entrails, adorned with money purses and the heads of his legates. Behind the mock Marcus Crassus pranced dancing girls and whores, musicians singing filthy songs, and some men displaying pornographic books found in the baggage of the tribune Roscius. Crassus's head and hand came next and, bringing up the rear, our seven Eagles.

  Apparently King Artavasdes of Armenia is a fanatical lover of Greek drama. Orodes also speaks Greek, so several of the most famous Greek plays were staged as part
of the entertainment celebrating the wedding of Pacorus and Laodice. The evening on which the parade arrived in Artaxata saw a performance of The Bacchae of Euripides. Well, you know that play. The part of Queen Agave was portrayed by a locally famous actor, Jason of Tralles. But Jason of Tralles is more famous for his hatred of Romans than even for his brilliant interpretation of female roles.

  In the last scene, Agave comes in bearing the head of her son, King Pentheus, upon a platter, having torn his head off herself in a Bacchic frenzy.

  When the time came, in walked Queen Agave. On her platter she bore the head of Marcus Crassus. Jason of Tralles put the platter down, pulled off his mask, and picked up Crassus's head, an easy thing to do because, like so many bald men, Crassus had grown the hair on the back of his head very long so he could comb it forward. Grinning triumphantly, the actor swung the head back and forth as if it were a lamp.

  "Blessed is the prey I bear, new shorn from the trunk!" he cried out.

  "Who slew him?" chanted the Chorus.

  "Mine was that honor!" shrieked Pomaxarthres, a senior officer in the army of the Pahlavi Surenas.

  They say the scene went down very well.

  The head and the right hand were displayed, and as far as I know are still displayed, on the battlements of Artaxata's walls. Crassus's body was left exactly where it had fallen near Carrhae, to be picked clean by the vultures.

  Oh, Marcus! That it should have come to this. Could you not see where it would all end, and how? Ateius Capito cursed you. The Jews cursed you. Your own army believed those curses, and you did nothing to disabuse them. Fifteen thousand good Roman soldiers are dead, ten thousand more sentenced to life on an alien frontier, my Aeduan cavalry are gone, most of the Galatians are gone, and Syria is being governed by an enterprising, insufferably arrogant and conceited young man whose contemptuous words about you are the words which will follow you for all time. The Parthians may have assassinated your person, but Gaius Cassius has assassinated your character. I know which fate I would prefer.