The Risen

by David Anthony Durham

  Dolmos attempts to greet them each by grasping their forearms, asking their names. Philon is good at that, but only because he talks and smiles and goes through the motions no matter how the people respond. Dolmos finds that hard to do. He’s taller than any of these short, leathery-skinned men. He’s awkward with his size, and they seem to want to make it clear that they’re not cowed by it. He gets only halfway through the introductions before the effort falters. They watch him, silent, shifting where they stand.

  “You’ll want to know why—” Dolmos begins, but finds his throat constricts. He inhales through his mouth to open it. He remembers what Spartacus told him, to think of what he has to say as a boulder being rolled down a riverbed in a strong current. The current is like his thoughts, wild and fast, but the boulder is steady as it rolls, conquering the contours of the riverbed. He tries again. “You’ll want to know why I’ve come to speak with you. I was sent by…by Spartacus himself. The words in my mouth are his. Will you…give him your ears for a moment?”

  The farmers don’t answer, but they wouldn’t be here, doing this dangerous thing, if they didn’t want his words. He imagines Spartacus is there with them, unable to speak, waiting for him to do so in his place. He starts with the things he knows well. He recounts how Spartacus, chosen by a goddess called Kotys through her priestess, Astera, led them to break the bonds of their captivity. To slay their master and set their prison ablaze. He walks them down the Via Annia, free in the night and exultant. He tells about their early victories and ploys, the various manners in which Roman armies fell to them, how villas were raided and slaves let free and booty carried away.

  He tells of how the Roman general Publius Varinius arrived unexpectedly while they were still inside Nola. He took the field with his entire army and offered battle. Some inside would’ve marched out that very day, but Spartacus had a different idea. He let the Romans hurl taunts at them. He turned his ear from the velites, who would run within javelin distance of the city’s walls and snap twigs in their hands to insult the gladiators’ manhoods. It was no easy thing keeping Crixus and his Allobroges from rushing out to avenge the insult. Gannicus, the new leader of the Germani, would’ve done the same. But Spartacus grabbed them both by the ear and bent them to listen to him.

  “You see,” Dolmos says, “the goddess blessed him with cunning so that, through patience and careful action, he could reap the greatest vengeance possible. Do you wish to know how we escaped that place and are still free today?”

  They do wish to know. Several nod. One moves closer and sits on a milking stool, looking up at the Thracian. Dolmos describes how they propped up dead bodies at various points on the city walls. That night they built up fires and made a great ruckus as if they were drunk and enjoying plundering the city. At the same time, in the dark, they drained out of the city by a gate on the far side from where the Romans camped. All who wished to go with them—many just then freed from Nola—ran out into the hills and trees and moved unseen. They followed an old woman who knew a route to the south.

  “An old woman?” one of the farmers asks.

  Dolmos nods.

  That was what the bulk of the Risen did. But not all. Spartacus and Gannicus chose the best of their men and horses. To these they added all with bows and arrows and strong arms to draw and youths with slings. Fewer than five hundred all told. They broke off from the others. They circled wide and came in behind the Romans. Just before dawn—with most of the legion just starting to rouse and the Roman sentries with eyes turned toward the city they thought filled with drunken fools—they attacked. They were quick about it. Spartacus challenged each man to kill two Romans. That was it. Two Romans and then flee. They slipped away before the Romans fully made sense of what had happened.

  It took the Romans all day to figure out that Nola was empty, and still another after that to understand the route by which the bulk of their numbers had fled. They marched in pursuit. And just behind them the five hundred followed. They pestered the army day and night. They shot arrows out of the dark into their camp, picking off men working the cook fires. They slung whirling stones at men using the latrines at the edge of the camp. They caught and slaughtered patrols. The Romans tried to force a decisive fight, but Spartacus refused. Instead, they just plucked Roman lives away one by one. Taking many lives but losing few.

  There was only one time when they agreed to meet them on an open field. It was just before the legion was to march into a hilly, wooded landscape. They must’ve thought them fools, the few hundred of them coming out into the open to face their many thousands. Varinius must have thanked his gods for his good fortune.

  Dolmos smiles. “But we knew something he didn’t.”

  And that was that Crixus and his Allobroges and the rest of the warriors hid in the wooded hills the Romans put their backs to. As soon as the battle began, they rushed from cover. The Romans, turning, beheld barbarians falling on them. Maybe, if the Romans had kept their discipline and if Varinius had held them in order, they would yet have prevailed. But neither thing happened. The Romans broke. A whole flank tore away and fled.

  Dolmos jabs two fingers toward his eyes. “With these right here I saw Varinius fall. I watched the legion’s standard drop to the ground and get picked up again by a howling Celt who stuck the pole between his legs and pretended it was his great erection. He was surprised to find a golden eagle blooming from the tip of it! We killed as many as we could and laughed when the others ran from us. You should’ve been there, friends. It was glorious. Such things will come again.”

  He goes on, describing how they moved south in the autumn. They broke into columns, taking different routes and then meeting again, using Roman roads here and the natural contours there, slipping in and out of sight of the Romans. This way they covered more ground, touched more people. They arrived suddenly when they wished to, as when they took the town of Metapontum, rich in grain and food stores.

  Dolmos asks if they understand what Spartacus was doing. He was preparing for the winter by moving them south, where it would be milder. South, away from Rome so the Senate would give them a reprieve. South, so that they could spend the winter training, improving, gathering supplies, and welcoming new arrivals. The Risen are unified behind him now. Everyone—even the strongest clans of the Celts and the Germani—have sworn allegiance to him.

  A man with a prominent harelip points a finger at Dolmos. “You tell a fine story.” He makes it sound more like an accusation than a statement.

  Dolmos hesitates a moment, unsure how to respond. He decides not to and continues with the work Spartacus set him on. As he talks, Philon and the boy named Rabbit arrive. Dolmos has no idea how long he’s been at this, but seeing Philon makes him tired. He realizes his head hurts. The Greek catches his eye and indicates with his fingers that they should ride soon. Dolmos nods but has more to say still.

  It was due in part to a Roman soldier that the city council in Thurii reached terms with the Risen instead of doing full battle with them. The Roman—whom they called the Persian because such had been his gladiatorial name—intermediated, attesting that any agreement would be made in good faith by the Risen. In return for heavy payments, contributions of ore and grain and resources, smithies and the skilled ironmongers, housing and the use of the city’s civic facilities, the place was spared ravishment. A hard price, but they were not destroyed. Instead, they were promised the return of their city when the season turned to spring and the army went on the move again.

  “You see? Spartacus is fair and just. His cause is good, and only those who oppose it need fear him. Join us. Come now if you wish. We own the hills and towns of Bruttium. Go there. We will know you by the brands burned in your skin or by the injuries of slavery. If you lack these, just say the name Spartacus. Say that you wish to join the Risen and bind yourself to Spartacus and to the fortune bestowed on him. Say, All of us, and we will welcome you. Bring your chains with you. We will melt them and forge them into weapons. Next year we wi
ll continue to defeat the Romans.”

  “No,” the man with the harelip lisps, “next year you will all die.” He says it like a prophet sure of himself. Dolmos feels a knot appear in his stomach. The man presses forward. “You are gladiators, right? You’re ones who were condemned to death. You still are. Death is where this ends. If you think otherwise, you’re a fool. Tell me what other way Spartacus says it can end.”

  This time Dolmos doesn’t have a quick retort. Spartacus hasn’t placed the answer inside him. He stands trying to find the right words, but they don’t come.

  “See?” the harelipped man asks scornfully. “You have no answer because there is no answer but death. You have it easy. Fight. Rape. Kill. Until you die when Rome sends a true army against you next summer. I want no part of it.” With that the man departs, moving briskly, as if he’s realized there’s work to be done.

  The others start to mill. It’s clear that, unless Dolmos finds the words to stop them, the others will leave the meeting with the man’s words loud in their minds.

  The Greek speaks up. “Friends, good Dolmos here can’t tell you all that’s in Spartacus’s mind,” he says, stepping forward to be better seen. “Neither can I. Nobody can. What we can both say is that everything we have seen Spartacus attempt, he has triumphed at. Each time he’s been tested, he has prevailed. Whenever we wondered if the gods favored him and said, If this happens, I’ll believe he is chosen—every time that thing happened. He is not a man like you or me. We don’t have his greatness. But if you are smart, you will join his cause, aid him in it, and share in his greatness. How often has life offered you such opportunities? Think carefully before you let it slip from your grasp. Think carefully before you take heed of a man like that.” He indicates the recently departed skeptic. “He curdles milk, that one.”

  —

  Did that convince any of them? Dolmos can’t say. They leave just after, wary lest the harelipped man run to his master and reveal them. Philon says several were convinced. He could see it in their faces. He tells Dolmos that he did a better job than Philon himself did with the Greeks. They just listened long enough to begin to deride him for the company he kept. City people, they were harder to bring to the cause.

  They turn for the south, having been away the number of days Spartacus specified. They ride that night and the next and several after that. They travel fast when they can, or as slow as they need to. In stealth if it’s required, dashing through the open when they can, as on one beautifully chilly night beneath a full moon with the road a glistening silver serpent before them. They have several times to contend with bands of men armed against them. But they escape unscathed. There is no Roman army hunting them now. Not until the spring, Spartacus says. And in the spring the Romans will find the Risen have become an army, not just a motley band of runaways. But what, Dolmos wonders, will the Risen do with that army? It can’t be an army meant only to die, as the harelipped man claimed. But what then?

  In Thurii they learn that Spartacus has left the city to the Allobroges. He camps with the Germani and the new troops, training and hunting in the Sila hills. The two men carry on. They pass checkpoints manned here by a Celt, there by a Thracian, next by an Ethiopian, and still further by a mixed gang of youths. They ride through a town taken over by people with stigmas and brands naming them property, but their every action denies the claim. All of them promise to see this through to the end, to whatever fate awaits the Risen.

  Later, as the day chills with the vanishing sun, they crest a rise that gives them a view of the high valley spread below them, in it a great camp of hundreds of tents and thousands of people. Campfires already glow against the coming night and cold. Horsemen run cavalry maneuvers. Blocks of infantry march, and men train with sword and spear and javelin. Dolmos hears the repetitive clang of heavy mallets working iron, and he knows it as the sound of bonds being turned into weapons. In the distance the white peaks of great mountains rise toward the sky, reminding him of the Rhodopes in winter. Surely, that’s why Spartacus has camped in the sight of them. He hears someone chopping wood. To him, it’s a melancholy sound. It reminds him of his boyhood, as chopping wood for the long winter was one of his earliest tasks.

  “If I were a more prudent man,” Philon says, “I would slip away and try to gain Sicily again and hide there among friends. I might live out my life that way and not be enslaved again.”

  Dolmos is quiet for a bit. He waits through the amount of time it would take him to say that, in truth, all he wants is to leave this place and return to Thrace. He wants to see if his mother is still alive, if his sisters have married well. He wants to feast in Muccula’s hall again. This time, he thinks, he would enjoy it more than he had as a nervous youth. He’s not said any of these things before. He doesn’t now. He waits until he’s thought them, then says, “But that’s not what you’ve done.”

  “No,” Philon says. “I can’t turn from this moment. From this”—he sweeps his arm to take in the entire valley—“that is being done here. I wish the eyes of the world could see this. This seems…large. It seems a thing with weight. I don’t know where it ends, but I can’t look away. I have to see what this becomes. And don’t worry, Dolmos, that you didn’t have the words to answer that man’s questions in Barium. You’ll have the answers soon. We all will.”

  Philon clucks his tongue to get his horse in motion. Dolmos follows. The two of them ride, content with the silence, down into the moment that Spartacus has created.

  Spartacus

  They meet on a gray day, a chill rain falling from a low sky. The Roman tent—booty from the rout of Varinius’s army—is large, the air smoky from the lamps that light it. Spartacus, flanked by Gaidres and Skaris, enters once the others are seated and have had time to warm themselves, to drink and eat if they’re so inclined. Gannicus and his Germani are encamped nearby, but Crixus had a longer ride out from Thurii. Kastor is there as well, having met both parties and welcomed them. There are few Galatians among their numbers, but he has earned a place in deciding things that matter.

  Spartacus greets both chieftains as equals, clasping arms with them and leaning in to press cheek to cheek, roughly, in the way of men to other men. He praises Gannicus on being voted leader of his people, saying he deserves the honor, though he bemoans the way things ended with Oenomaus. A warrior he was, one that Spartacus says he wishes were still among them. This is a lie. Oenomaus was impossible to reason with. Spartacus took no joy in killing him, but has no sorrow that he’s gone from this world. He much prefers the new chieftain of the Germani.

  Speaking to their seconds by name—Castus and Goban, Bricca and Ullio—Spartacus honors them as well, and then he sits, with Gaidres and Skaris on either side of him. He thanks the men for coming and asks how things have been with them these last few months. Gannicus, always easy with his smile, says the weather has been so mild, he refuses to call it winter. His men have trained. New Germani still arrive daily, but many are fighting men already. Crixus complains that his men have drunk Thurii dry some weeks back. They’re growing surly because of it, anxious to be in the field again. Thurii has entertained them, but they’ve used her enough that they’ve grown tired.

  None of this is news to Spartacus. He knows more about their winters than they tell. He knows Gannicus waits to follow his lead. He hopes under his example the Germani will be the allies they weren’t under Oenomaus’s leadership. Crixus and his Allobroges? Crixus isn’t openly hostile, but he always wants it to be clear that he’s not under Spartacus. He does as he desires. An example being the gluttony of his winter in Thurii. It was a hard one for the people of the city, the toll on them out of proportion to what they agreed to with Spartacus. He’s argued about this with Crixus before, said they must be true to their word in each instance if they want any other cities to work with them. Crixus pointed out that he is always true to his word. He had not promised Thurii anything. Spartacus had. If Thurii wanted protection from the Allobroges, they should have sought th
at from him, not from Spartacus. Crixus is a man of blunt logic.

  “And training?” Spartacus asks.

  Crixus holds a pitcher of wine in his battle-scarred fist, making it his personal drinking cup. He gives no sign he realizes this might put the others out. He drinks deeply, spilling a little into the bushy curls of his beard. Pulling the pitcher away, he says, “My men are ready. Rest has been good for them. Some have paunches now, but they’ll lose those soon enough. When we march, I will order them to leave behind their women. That way they will be eager to fight, to get new ones.”

  “A sound tactic, I’m sure,” Kastor says, letting a touch of sarcasm tinge his voice.

  “Hah!” Crixus exclaims. “Have you heard? We built chariots! We raced them in the fields outside of Thurii. You should come see them run, Spartacus. Allobroges know how to build chariots. Romans copy us, but…” Again his lips express his disdain. “If we find the right terrain, I’ll mow Romans down in the coming season. You should come and race before we leave.”

  “Maybe I will. If circumstances allow.”

  Crixus grunts. “Circumstances…What have you done up here in the hills all winter?”

  Skaris answers, “Prepared.” Though new to them since his rescue from Nola, Skaris has become the left hand that Drenis was not quite prepared to be. “We prepared for the things to come. Drilled. Instructed. Forged weapons. Taught the use of them.”

  He talks on for some time, describing the use they’ve put everyone who joins them to. Blacksmiths forged weapons nonstop, making swords and spear points from chains and shovels and farm tools. They constructed breastplates and scaled armor, helmets and greaves. Those who suited heavy infantry were singled out for it, trained in Roman tactics by the traitor Baebia, called the Persian. They scoured the surrounding farms for decent mounts and caught wild horses where the hills tilted into mountains. Having broken and trained many, they will have a cavalry—light and heavy—they didn’t have last summer. Youths and shepherds have thrown javelins until their arms were dead, day after day. And even they will have protections they didn’t before. Gaidres, skilled with weaving reeds, taught whole troops of them how to make Thracian wicker shields.