Empire of Dragons

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  Then he curled up next to a dry tamarisk trunk, covered his legs and arms with a little sand, and tried to rest. But every time he or any of the men moved, the rattling of their chains made him doubly restless and agitated, because the noise robbed him of his sleep and reminded him that he was a prisoner and a slave. Although he tried to call up all his strength of character, Clelia’s expression as she was dying, the face of the son he’d never see again, filled his heart with infinite bitterness.

  He prayed to his ancestors to send a sign of their benevolence, he prayed to Jupiter Optimus Maximus to succour the emperor, his representative upon the earth and his highest priest, but he was answered only by the long howl of the jackals that roamed the steppe in search of carrion.

  In the end, fatigue won out over his anguish and pain and he fell into a deep sleep.

  HE WAS KICKED AWAKE by one of the guards. A servant distributed a handful of dates and their march resumed.

  They were heading east, following the southern slopes of the Taurus chain, clearly going towards the interior of the Persian empire, through the harshest and most inhospitable of regions. Water was distributed first to the horses and camels and then to the prisoners, if there was any left. They marched without resting, and anyone who lagged behind was immediately whipped by the guards. It was obvious that no one was concerned about their survival and that their lives had no value. They did not even seem to be worth their price as slaves.

  On the second day of their journey, they were joined by another group of prisoners who probably came from the south: they had dark skin and tight curls and wore simple raw-linen tunics. At the centre of the caravan were the camels with the supplies and water bags; the prisoners marched at their sides and were flanked on the outside by guards on horseback. Behind them was a squad of about a hundred warriors, among whom Metellus thought he could make out the mysterious person with the slanted eyes whom he had seen on the day of the battle. He seemed to be free to move along the column as he liked, but Metellus noticed that the Persian soldiers never lost sight of him.

  On the third day, the guards took the chains off their feet and this was a great relief, making it much easier to walk and easing the pain of the sores that had formed on their ankles, attracting swarms of gnats and horseflies.

  ‘This is a good sign,’ said Metellus to his comrades. ‘It means we’re worth something to them. They must have plans to put us to work somewhere, and so they’re interested in keeping us alive.’

  ‘Look!’ cried Septimius at the same time. ‘Our gear!’ He pointed at the only mule-drawn cart advancing with the column.

  ‘Good blades and good breastplates,’ commented Aemilius. ‘Why should they throw them away?’

  ‘They’re trophies for them. There’s the emperor’s armour as well,’ observed Quadratus.

  ‘If only we could get our hands on them,’ said Lucianus, who was half Roman and half Greek, from Nicomedia. ‘We could still give these bastards a lesson.’

  ‘Save your breath,’ Balbus shushed him, ‘for when we get to our destination. Nothing good will be waiting for us there – if we even get there alive, that is.’

  The emperor maintained an air of great dignity, despite the privations of the long march. His back was straight, his gaze firm, his brow high. His pure-white hair contrasted with his sun-darkened skin and his proud bearing won him a certain respect from even the guards, who almost certainly knew his identity. He had withdrawn into silence, into a kind of austere inner solitude.

  He showed no signs of hunger or thirst, even after hours of fasting, and would wait until food or drink was offered to him; his men never failed him in this respect, trying to honour him in every way possible and to alleviate the hardships of that inhuman journey.

  If the guards struck him with a whip or with the shafts of their spears, he bore the pain stoically, without showing signs of weakness or crying out. It seemed that his only goal was to maintain his honour and dignity, more so even than his life.

  They walked for over a month, crossing the Tigris on pontoon bridges. The hills of eastern Mesopotamia began to loom before them, and then the pinnacles of a great mountain chain.

  ‘They’re taking us to Persia,’ said Metellus.

  ‘How do you know, Commander?’ asked Quadratus.

  ‘Those are the Elam mountains,’ replied Metellus. ‘They mark the limits of the Persian plateau which extends for one thousand five hundred miles to the border with Bactriana.’

  ‘Have you been here before?’

  ‘No, of course not, but I’ve studied the expeditions of Crassus in Mesopotamia, of Mark Antony in Armenia, and most of all, of Alexander.’

  Valerian turned. ‘They’re bringing us to the heart of their empire, from where we’re unlikely to escape.’

  ‘You’re right,’ replied Metellus. ‘But I’m sure that your son Gallienus will already be negotiating a ransom. It won’t be long now before we’re taking this route in the other direction. At least you, Caesar.’

  Valerian shot him a glance of proud, aching intensity and said, ‘You know that’s not true. And, in any case, I would never agree to return on my own.’

  For fifteen days they clambered up steep paths. Through the gullies and gorges of the Zagros mountains, through the desolate, stony heights inhabited by a handful of wild nomads who watched from a distance as the column slowly filed past, amid the scuttling of the horses’ hoofs and the jangling of the prisoners’ chains.

  As they ascended, the air became cleaner and clearer and the Mesopotamian plain behind them seemed a yellowish expanse veiled by milky vapours. The vegetation changed at nearly every bend in the road: the palms became smaller and sparser, until they were completely replaced by oleander, tamarisk and broom, and then by majestic cedars and pines. Water roared through the rocky ravines, between walls of black basalt and white limestone, its gurgling further teasing and tormenting the parched prisoners, disoriented by the scorching sun that burned their skin, their eyes, their minds.

  Then the plateau appeared before them: endless, blinding, arid and inhospitable, swept by a constant wind that cracked their lips, made their noses bleed and reddened their eyes. They stopped to rest only when a rare oasis permitted it; verdant spots in humid little hollows where dwarf pines, carob trees and every sort of thorny plant grew. The grasses were quite dry and hard and released an intense aroma when the horses and mules trod upon them.

  In the evenings, when the guards ordered them to stop at an oasis, there were a few moments of relief for the prisoners, almost of pleasure. The sun descended to the horizon like an immense blazing ball, setting the sky on fire and cloaking the tamarisk and acacia fronds in golden light. The wind ceased or calmed to a tepid breeze, the air filled with the intense fragrance of exotic plants, the spring waters were rippled by gusts of wind, and the long cries of the jackals as they hailed the rising moon sounded like melancholy pleas.

  At that hour of dusk, each of them remembered what they had left behind: their comrades, their wives and children, the girls they had made promises to, the elderly parents who would await them in vain. Little by little, as night fell and the sky filled with a myriad stars, that brief moment of solace turned into a stinging sense of anguish and impotence, into dark foreboding.

  They would try to react then, imagining the future in scenes which inevitably involved escaping and returning. Or they would repeat the old stories they’d heard tell so many times by old centurions who seemed born wearing armour and a helmet.

  ‘Have you ever heard about the Lost Legion?’ Publius, a soldier from the Second Augusta who was born in Spoletum, said one night.

  ‘I have,’ replied Rufus, his reddish-haired comrade, a crack javelin-thrower, renowned for his skill in both battle and athletic contests. ‘But I’ve always thought it was just a legend. When an entire division is annihilated, they always have to make up something or say it vanished who knows where, so as not to frighten the troops.’

  ‘No, you’re wron
g this time,’ broke in Quadratus. ‘The Lost Legion really does exist – or, that is, it did exist – but no one knows what happened to it.’

  ‘It that so, Commander?’ Aemilius asked Metellus, seeking credible support for such a fantastic tale.

  ‘It does seem so,’ replied Metellus. ‘They say that when Triumvir Crassus was trapped at Carrhae by an army of Parthians from Surena, one of his legions managed to break out at night and avoid being destroyed at the hands of the enemy like all the others. It’s said that they succeeded in making it to safety, with their eagle and everything.’

  ‘And then?’ prompted Antoninus.

  ‘And then the legion disappeared, as if swallowed up into nothingness. Not a single man ever returned to his homeland.’

  Silence fell and for a little while all they could hear was the light breeze rustling the leafy carob branches.

  ‘Well, what do you think became of them?’ asked Aemilius.

  Metellus shrugged. ‘Anything could have happened to them. They may have ended up in one of the deserted stretches that they say exist in central Asia – arid, salt-covered lands that extend for hundreds and hundreds of miles. It’s easy to lose your bearings in such a place, what with the blinding light and the salt dust that envelops everything.

  ‘They may have wandered into the territory of savages and been hacked to pieces. Or perhaps they were put to work garrisoning border lines so remote that they were never able to make their way back. But the truth is . . . the truth is . . . we’ll never know, I believe. Try to sleep now, men. The march will be even tougher tomorrow.’

  The emperor would sometimes assemble his officers: Legate Marcus Metellus Aquila, the two centurions, Sergius Balbus and Aelius Quadratus, and even optio Antoninus Salustius, as if to call a session of his general staff. But the order of the day was always the same: the treatment of their injuries, the hunger and thirst they suffered, the disheartenment spreading among the men, the possible escape attempts that must be discouraged since they could only end in capture and atrocious torture.

  This was confirmed one day at the height of summer when a Nabataean prisoner who had only recently joined the caravan managed to get away in the middle of a sandstorm. He was recaptured after just three days.

  The guards stripped him naked, tied him to four stakes stuck into the ground, then cut his eyelids and urinated on his defenceless eyes. They left him there for the ants and scorpions.

  They heard his screams of pain for hours and hours, until the wind carried them away.

  Once Metellus had the impression that the mysterious youth he had first seen in Edessa had tried to escape, but it seemed he had only taken a ride on horseback. He made his way up to a mountain ridge, where he was soon joined by a couple of horsemen from their guard. All three remained there to enjoy the sunset, apparently, before returning to their tents.

  They arrived at their destination after three long months of marching, all of them, without losses. They were very thin and exhausted by their ordeal, but they were all alive and this seemed like a miracle in itself.

  Their destination was a turquoise mine in the heart of Persia, a hellish place called Aus Daiwa. There they would live for as long as possible. And there they would die, one after another, unless a miracle changed the course of their destiny.

  3

  SHAPUR RAISED THE SIEGE at Edessa, apparently satisfied with the enormous results he had obtained.

  In the entire millennium-long history of Rome, the only event comparable to this defeat was the Carthaginian capture of consul Attilius Regulus during the First Punic War five hundred years earlier. But Regulus was no more than a magistrate – albeit a very high-ranking one – of the Republican order, who had a one-year term and could be replaced. Licinius Valerian was the emperor, the father of the nation: his humiliation and his imprisonment were a catastrophe with unimaginable consequences.

  Gallienus entered the city a month later and was greeted by Cassius Silva with full honours, although the circumstances made any kind of celebration unthinkable. The new sovereign was nonetheless hailed by the troops drawn up in formal array and he reviewed them dressed in purple and wearing the imperial diadem. With his top lip folded over the bottom in the piqued expression of a public functionary, his demeanour contrasted greatly with the sumptuous robes he wore and the martial atmosphere that surrounded him. He went to the podium to deliver his first public address.

  ‘Soldiers!’ he said. ‘What has happened has caused me great consternation and deep pain. The imprisonment of my father is the consequence of the deceitfulness and betrayal of our enemy. You are not to be held responsible in any way, nor are your commanders. I know that many of your comrades were treacherously murdered, and I know that others, including Legate Marcus Metellus Aquila, fell in combat or were taken prisoner along with my father. Their fate pains us no less than Caesar’s misfortune. We pray that the gods may protect and preserve them. I have also learned that the legate’s wife, noble Clelia, was killed by Persian arrows as she sought to reach her husband . . .’

  ‘Roman arrows!’ yelled out an anonymous voice.

  Gallienus continued unperturbed: ‘. . . an example of heroism worthy of the best tradition of Roman women. Their son will be entrusted to the imperial house, instructed and raised at state expense. I shall immediately commence with negotiations to ransom my father. No sum will be too high for achieving his freedom . . .’

  A voice rang out in the vast courtyard: ‘It is not with gold but with iron that the honour of Rome must be redeemed, Gallienus!’

  A stunned silence followed. The phrase that had rained down from nowhere, the phrase that they’d all known since childhood, learned at their school desks, pronounced by a Republican hero seven centuries earlier, deeply shocked all those present. Gallienus stared wordlessly at Silva, who was craning his head to see where the voice had come from.

  Another man cried out from the ranks, ‘Free Lucius Domitius Aurelian!’

  More voices joined in, and more still, until the cry swelled into a rhythmic, imperious demand that it was impossible to deny an answer to. Gallienus said something to Silva, who whispered back into his ear. He who aspired to be the new Caesar raised his arm then to request silence, and the shouts slowly died down.

  ‘Legate Lucius Domitius Aurelian was merely temporarily relieved of his duties in order to avoid conflict within the command structure at a moment of great emergency. On the other hand, that moment – with its unhappy result – is behind us now, and there is no longer any reason to keep such a measure in force. Lucius Domitius will thus be reinstated in his rank and his role as commander of the Tenth Gemina Legion.’

  Loud cheers rose from the assembled troops. Domitius soon arrived, accompanied by twelve praetorians, and Gallienus himself presented him with his sword. Without saying a word, the legate fastened it to his belt, made a slight bow, then gave Cassius Silva a withering look and descended among his legionaries, taking his place in the ranks like a simple soldier.

  GALLIENUS REMAINED in the city for ten days, during which he called a meeting of the commanders in charge of the line of defence on the eastern front. Among them was Septimius Odenatus, a renowned officer who commanded the garrison of Palmyra, a large city on the caravan route east of Damascus. He was also in charge of the auxiliary Osroenian and Syrian troops stationed at the Dura Europus fortress on the Euphrates river.

  Lucius Domitius was summoned as well. He had made no secret of his implacable hatred for Cassius Silva, but his huge popularity among the troops made it impossible to marginalize him. Best to find a more prudent method of getting him out of the way, and so Gallienus appointed him to deal with the Sarmatian invasion on the border at the Danube: a dangerous task, and very difficult, given the disproportionate strength of the barbarian troops to his own.

  More than a few of those present imagined that the destination had been suggested by Silva himself, who was soon thereafter named prefect of the praetorian guard, an appointment that ma
de him the most powerful person in the empire after the emperor himself. Domitius accepted the charge without batting an eye: Sword-in-Hand would certainly never refuse a call to arms.

  Before leaving, he asked to be received by Gallienus. Others were present in the audience chamber: Septimius Odenatus, commander of the Euphrates forces, and his wife, Zainab, famous throughout the East for her extraordinary beauty. Odenatus was so jealous of her that he took her with him wherever he went. Domitius looked into her eyes for a moment and she met his gaze. Then he turned to Gallienus.

  ‘I want you to know,’ he began, ‘that I consider you regent pro tempore while your father is a prisoner, and it is only in this capacity that I recognize your right to give me orders. I will not call you “Caesar”, a title which has no significance in your father’s absence. I will simply call you by name.’

  Gallienus said nothing, but the expression on his face left no doubt about the disappointment and rage that that open challenge had provoked in him. Rage even worse for being impotent: touching Lucius Domitius Aurelian could mean mutiny or worse.

  And he went on: ‘I will fight as I always have and carry out your orders as best I can. There is only one thing I ask of you: assign me the care of Metellus’s son, little Titus. He has lost both of his parents and his mother died a violent death. I will raise him as if he were my own son, and I will remind him every day of his father’s bravery and of his mother’s intelligence and courage. I will protect him even at the cost of my own life.’

  Gallienus frowned. ‘Unfortunately I cannot satisfy your request, Lucius Domitius. The line of combat is not a suitable place to raise a child. Your mission is dangerous, and that’s precisely why I have chosen you: I know you are one of the best officers of the entire army. That boy needs to be educated and cared for. He will study with the best pedagogues and receive the care that the valour of his father and the sacrifice of his mother have earned for him. I thank you for offering, your request does you honour, but do not hold it against me if I cannot grant your wish.’