The Kingdom That Rome Forgot

by Gavin Chappell

  ‘I never knew you were a rich man, Uncle Gaius,’ Amasis said thoughtfully, coming to sit beside him. ‘But if you’ve got such doubts about Claudius Mercator, aren’t you risking losing a lot of money?’

  Before he had to answer this surprisingly perceptive question, Flaminius glanced in the direction of the city gates. His face darkened a little.

  ‘Here they come now,’ he said.

  A cavalcade of beasts and men issued from the gates, causing the two spear-bearing auxiliaries on guard to press themselves back against the walls, cursing. At their head, sitting inelegantly on the back of a large, foul visaged dromedary, was Claudius Mercator. Walking alongside him was his Ethiopian slave Menander, who spoke so seldom Flaminius wondered if he spoke Latin at all. At their back was a mixed herd of camels, horses and asses, and a flock of mangy creatures Flaminius thought were sheep, although they could have been goats for all he knew. They stank almost as much as the camels. Presumably they were intended to provide food along the journey rather than to function as beasts of burden, unlike the camels, most of which were overladen with the baggage and wares Claudius Mercator deemed necessary for the journey. A few nondescript slaves completed the assembly, which lurched to a halt beside Flaminius and Amasis.

  ‘Ho, there, friend!’ cried Claudius Mercator, and he half fell, half jumped off his steed before waddling over. Over his shoulder he shouted orders to the sullen slaves, who began loading the spare camels with Flaminius’ luggage: some of it was very important, containing as it did drachmas and obols and other local currency to pay their way.

  ‘By Mercury, it’s good to see you could make it.’ He gripped Flaminius’ hand enthusiastically. ‘And who’s this? This the lad you want me to take on as apprentice?’ He shook Amasis’ hand too, then slapped him on the back so the boy almost fell in the gutter. He looked about him. ‘Where are my other backers? The Gate of the Sun at moonrise, that’s what we agreed upon.’

  ‘This is the Gate of the Moon,’ said Amasis pertly. ‘And it’s sunrise.’

  ‘Be quiet, lad,’ said Flaminius. Claudius Mercator often got in a muddle, but it was no use contradicting him: if you did, he’d get into a rage and say all manner of things. Then he’d show remorse, and that was even worse. ‘I’m sure they’re just delayed,’ he told the merchant.

  They had come a long way since the public meeting in the Museum. At first, Flaminius’ offer to finance the caravan had not been taken at all seriously. That was understandable. The part he had been playing was of a young blade, a man about town, a dilettante doubtless mired in debt.

  Vabalathus treated him with contempt, clearly considering him a liability. However, the Arab was too stingy to provide all the money Claudius Mercator needed, and was unwilling to risk his entire fortune on the venture. The Greek scholar, Demetrius, had inherited wide estates upcountry in the Oxyrhyncite Nome, and although he was too unworldly to truly appreciate his riches, he was willing to finance the caravan in exchange for a chance to broaden his knowledge of geography. Flaminius’ own involvement had been minimal at first, but he had eventually won their respect due to his munificence. Luckily he had the finances of the legion to draw upon, and as commissary officer this wasn’t too difficult.

  At last both the Arab and the Greek appeared with their own coteries and the entire caravan set off west along the coast.

  For several days they travelled through the fertile countryside surrounding Alexandria. Flaminius rode up at the front, sitting uncomfortably on a camel accompanied by Amasis. He knew that the others, particularly Vabalathus, suspected the lad was his catamite. He knew that they considered him a fool, and so he would be if he had voluntarily involved himself in this ramshackle venture. But he knew that this wasn’t the case.

  By the end of the first week of travel, the countryside was becoming increasingly arid. They left the coastal route at the port of Paraetonium and headed south into the Libyan Desert. Some of the landscape still bore the scars from the Judaean revolt a few years back: burnt out houses and overgrown fields were visible on either side of the wide track. But even in times of unalloyed peace the country was dry for much of the year, even November.

  Mimosas and baobabs and spiny acacias grew upon the dusty plains. Forts and outposts were seen from time to time, on the skyline or sometimes beside the road. Patrols of auxiliaries galloped from station to station, sometimes pausing to question travellers, including Claudius Mercator’s caravan, or to levy impromptu road taxes.

  There was no one who recognised Flaminius with these patrols, to his relief, but it was a reminder that they were nearing the borders of empire. They were no longer in the Nile Delta, kept green and fertile by the annual floods, but instead out on the frayed edges of civilisation. From the desert raiders might come at any time, and they would be worse thieves than these auxiliaries. To Flaminius’ amusement, even the worldly wise Arab Vabalathus accepted these demands for bribes without any fuss.

  They camped one evening beside a well in a grove of date palms. It grew bitterly cold as the night drew on. Several other groups of travellers were also staying the night here, including wiry, dark men with black hair and brown skins who wore little but loincloths of leopard skin despite the chill of the desert night. Claudius Mercator identified them to Flaminius as Nasamoneans.

  ‘The people of the sand, they’re called,’ he said, shivering beside their campfire and drinking against the cold from a small amphora. ‘They came under Roman sway not long after Cornelius Balbus’ days, and at that time lived by herding cattle on the coast in winter but travelled inland into the desert for the date harvest at Augila.

  ‘In the days of Domitian, however, they rose up against the publicans and even defeated the governor of Numidia, Suellius Flaccus. But he struck back when they were drunk from their celebrations and massacred them to a man while they slept. Now, the remnant of the tribe live as robbers or caravan guards. The riders who have agreed to protect us on our journey into the Garamantian kingdom are of Nasamonean stock for the most part.’

  ‘Are they safe?’ said Demetrius of Oxyrhynchus.

  The sun had set over the arid land and now all that was visible were the flickering flames of the campfires in the grove. From the fire of the Nasamoneans came whooping cries and from time to time dark, dancing figures were visible against its ruddy light. It was probably a good idea to keep active and stay warm, but Flaminius wasn’t going to make that much of a fool of himself.

  ‘They look like utter barbarians.’ Demetrius tapped his lips thoughtfully, his head jiggling unconsciously. ‘Nasamoneans… I’m sure I’ve read that name somewhere.’

  Vabalathus laughed. ‘Everyone is a barbarian to you, old bookworm, aren’t they?’ he said. ‘Oh, I know such folk of old. The Saracens of the Arabian Desert are the same. Thieves, throat slitters, willing to fight for anyone who will pay them; first in the fray and first to flee. Such people are born to a life where survival is paramount, but they can be ruled, if you show no fear and only strength.’

  Demetrius did not seem to have had his worries assuaged, but he busied himself making notes on a waxen tablet he kept with him.

  ‘You say these riders are Nasamoneans “for the most part”, merchant,’ said Flaminius inquiringly. ‘What about the others?’

  Claudius Mercator laughed. ‘I never asked them what city they hailed from. But their leader, though a veritable Libyan Amazon, sports a Carthaginian name: Dido.’

  ‘Dido?’ Flaminius stirred, troubled.

  ‘You say she’s an Amazon?’ asked Amasis excitedly. ‘A woman who fights like a man? I’ve heard stories in the marketplace. Didn’t Alexander the Great defeat the Amazons?’

  ‘The Libyan Amazons were an earlier breed,’ said Demetrius, not looking up from his note making. ‘Dionysius of Halicarnassus asserts that they flourished in Libya long before the Trojan War, and had no connection with the Amazons who Theseus and even, according to some authorities, Alexander, encountered.’

  ‘Amaz
ons!’ Vabalathus spat. ‘No woman could fight. They’re all too weak. Your Greek myths are idle nonsense.’

  ‘I’ve known woman warriors,’ Flaminius told the group in general.

  ‘Gladiatrixes in the arena, you mean,’ Vabalathus said scornfully. ‘That’s just for the crowd. No woman could fight in a real fight. It’s just for show, a fantasy, pandering to the lusts of the Roman mob. Perverts, all of them.’ He gave Flaminius a look that suggested he included him in this sweeping statement.

  Flaminius smiled coldly and said no more. He’d known a gladiatrix in his time, sadly now with the shades. But he’d also known a real warrior woman; a woman of Britain, Drustica of the Carvettians. But reminiscences of adventures in the back of beyond wouldn’t go with the role he was playing, his cover. This foppish man about town with his possible catamite would never have gone anywhere so unfashionable as the other end of the empire.

  ‘Do you really know some Amazons, Uncle Gaius?’ Amasis asked, wide eyed.

  ‘The Arab’s right,’ said Flaminius. ‘I’ve only met gladiatrixes. Not real Amazons.’

  Amasis looked disappointed.

  Claudius Mercator shrugged. ‘Dido is a woman,’ he said. ‘And she can fight.’ He nodded vigorously. ‘I’ve seen her fight off other nomads, she and her band. She was as skilled with a blade as any of her men.’

  Vabalathus sneered in his beard.

  That night, Flaminius fell asleep thinking of Drustica.

  Some day he would return to Britain. He would see her again. He would resign from his work as an imperial agent and they could live peacefully in her tribal lands.

  But when he slept, it was the name “Dido” that echoed through his dreams.

  They rode on in the morning after a hasty breakfast of ground locust porridge with fresh sheep milk. Onwards they went, on into the west. Amasis told Flaminius endless stories of his hero, Alexander the Great: how he was somehow both the son of the last pharaoh, Nectanebo, and also of Jupiter Ammon, whose famous desert temple lay ahead of them.

  He wasn’t the only one with funny ideas. Pilgrims became a more and more regular sight on the roads, people on their way to the temple to have dreams explained, or to sleep within the precincts in hopes of receiving prophetic dreams from the god. Flaminius, who found it hard to believe that any god worth the name would trouble himself with such an insignificant speck as this world, found the enthusiasms of these people amusing.

  The land grew drier and drier. At night their sleep was sometimes broken by the coughing roars of hunting lions, and on one occasion in late morning Flaminius saw a tawny shape trotting alongside them some way from the roadway. He hated lions, had done ever since that unfortunate incident in the emperor’s private amphitheatre[2]. To his relief, the lioness seemed to think better of attacking this strange herd and soon vanished into the brush.

  Soon there was no vegetation to speak of, only rock and sand and vast salt pans worked over by small groups of slaves guarded by overseers. Demetrius had read that these were the source of the famous sal-ammoniac, or Ammonian salt, used to cure complications of micturition.

  Still the road led on in the direction of the setting sun. On either hand swept the great ocean of sand that was the Libyan Desert. Flaminius stared at the distant shimmering horizon, wondering how much they would have to endure before they reached the lost city.

  Next day, the ninth out from the coast, the temple of Jupiter Ammon appeared in the distance. The sands gave way to trees and bushes that surrounded a broad blue lake, and another lake was visible beyond it. In the midst of this oasis stood a complex of buildings and avenues, surrounding a monumental edifice, pillars, portico and colonnades of gleaming stone, white, red and blue, with Egyptian frescoes. It seemed incongruous in this desert wilderness. Or did it represent the last outpost of civilisation? Certainly the empire ended here. Beyond it extended the Libyan Desert, seemingly to the edge of the world.

  Amasis was bouncing up and down in the saddle with excitement. He turned to Flaminius, eyes bright. ‘He came here, you know, he came here,’ he gushed. ‘Alexander! He came here, he did.’

  ‘I heard you,’ said Flaminius wearily.

  Amasis gave him a scowl, then called over to Demetrius, who was trotting alongside them on an ass. ‘He came here, you know. Alexander! Alexander the Great.’

  The scholar nodded. ‘So I have read,’ he said. ‘It was here that he came after vanquishing Darius at Issus. The priests proclaimed him to be son of the god.’

  ‘They were wise men, those priests,’ commented Vabalathus cynically. Amasis nodded, not realising what the Arab was implying.

  ‘He was a god and the son of a god,’ the boy declared.

  They did not enter the temple at once, but instead camped in a grove of date palms on the side of the nearest lake. Once camp had been made, and the animals penned, Claudius Mercator gathered his three financiers to his side.

  ‘I agreed to meet Dido and her warriors in the temple forecourt at noon of this day,’ he said. ‘We’re luckily making good time. I want you good people to come with me, gentlemen. Dido expressed some doubt as to my ability to raise the necessary funds, and…’ He paused to mop the sweat from his brow. ‘She is a ferocious woman,’ he added.

  Vabalathus slapped him on the shoulder and grinned wolfishly. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘we’ll protect you from this so-called Amazon.’

  Claudius Mercator led them through the trees towards the temple. Soon they were out in the open walking among large crowds. Traders were everywhere, selling dates and spiced meats and rough wine, and statuettes of the god. Flaminius wondered how all these ardent enthusiasts financed their own journey here through these abysmal wastelands. And he was intending to travel even further.

  The temple forecourt, at the top of the temple steps at the end of a long avenue of ram-headed sphinxes, was equally crowded. People were gathered around the steps, some seeking the shade of the colonnades, others talking and laughing in the open. Flaminius could see no semi naked, spear wielding desert warriors, but he supposed these Nasamoneans would not come in warlike array.

  ‘Where is the woman Dido, merchant?’ asked Demetrius a little testily after they had waited some time. ‘She could be anywhere in this throng.’

  ‘Patience, gentlemen, patience,’ Claudius Mercator urged. ‘She is a woman of her word. She…. And here she is!’

  Flaminius turned. Three figures were swaggering towards them through the crowd. Two were dark skinned, lean, hawk faced men with leopard skin loincloths and lion’s tooth necklaces. They flanked a third figure, equally sparsely clad but slimmer and more curvaceous, though still very tall. He caught her face, what he could see of it. He gasped. So did she.

  ‘But… it can’t be,’ he said.

  —4—

  Ammonium, Libyan Desert, 17th November 124 AD

  ‘Who is she, uncle?’ Amasis asked.

  Flaminius tore his eyes from the tall woman talking with her warriors on the far side of the campfire, and came to sit beside the boy.

  ‘I’ll tell you who I’m not,’ he said sternly. ‘And that’s your uncle.’ He took a swig from an amphora of sour wine.

  ‘Everyone in my family is my uncle,’ Amasis said dismissively, ‘unless they’re my aunt. But who is that tall woman? You were looking like you had seen a ghost when you all came back.’

  ‘She reminded me of someone I used to know, that’s all,’ said Flaminius. ‘But she can’t be.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Amasis irrepressibly.

  Flaminius looked again, seeing a woman with long, lustrous hair, massive in build, who would have been very attractive if it wasn’t for her broken nose. The resemblance was uncanny.

  He returned his attention to Amasis. ‘Because Camilla is dead,’ he said. ‘Don’t you have work to be getting on with? You’re here to learn a trade, I seem to recall, not ask me awkward questions. Go on, be off with you; go and see if Claudius Mercator needs any help with something.’ Obediently Am
asis vanished, possibly even in the direction indicated.

  Flaminius drank deep. He’d never wanted to be responsible for a growing lad, he’d always made diligent use of prophylactics to avoid the exigency. Somehow or other, sleeping with your friend’s wife led you to the fate you’d avoided all these years. He couldn’t understand it. But it wasn’t the incorrigible young Egyptian who troubled him.

  Dido looked the image of the gladiatrix he had met that summer. If he hadn’t seen Camilla mortally wounded, on the verge of death, he would have been positive that this leader of the Nasamoneans was the same woman. Surely they must be twins.

  The shock of seeing someone seemingly returned from the grave had quite unmanned him, and he had barely heard the discussion between her and Claudius Mercator. The merchant had introduced his backers and Dido had greeted them politely, showing no sign of recognising Flaminius. Except—there had been something at the start, something in her eyes that could have been recognition. Flaminius had said nothing very apposite in reply to her greetings, and shortly after they had returned to the camp to seal the deal with wine.

  Camilla had told him that her real name was Dido. She had not been a Carthaginian, but a Cyrenian of Punic stock. But he had seen her on the edge of death, in that river pirate village in the Nile Delta[3].

  He rose to his feet. He must talk to her. To this Dido. Whoever she was.

  ‘The dead have been known to walk,’ said Demetrius, looking up shakily from the scroll he had been reading. ‘I can cite you any number of authorities to prove that life after death is a documented fact, both in spiritual form across the Styx, or in bodily form in this world: spirits reincarnated in other bodies, witches reanimating deceased cadavers, or vengeful corpses rising from the grave to wreak revenge against those who did them wrong in life…’

  Flaminius had not realised that the man had heard what he was saying. ‘Thank you,’ he said through gritted his teeth. The old fool meant well, but he wasn’t helping. ‘If I want to learn more about your researches, I’ll let you know.’