by Ross Laidlaw
‘What happened to those Spartans?’
‘Another time, sir — listen!’
A faint susurration, like wind in a cornfield, could just be heard in the distance. This grew steadily to a pattering, then to a muted, rumbling roar. While the van of their army was yet invisible, a small advance party of Persian infantry preceded by a mounted herald came into sight round a bend in the canyon, some five hundred yards ahead. The foremost soldiers held aloft the Drafsh-i-Kavyan — the huge gold and silver Sassanian royal flag, stretched on crossed timbers. The herald cantered up, drawing rein before Roderic and Victor. Unfurling a scroll, he proceeded to read (in passable Greek) its contents in loud and contemptuous tones: ‘Tamshapur — most noble and illustrious of all the servants of the King of Kings, Protector of the Sacred Flame, and terror to all enemies of the Empire of Iran, out of the great goodness of his heart deigns to show mercy to the Romans who, in their deluded obduracy, have dared to come out in arms against him. Lay down your weapons as a token of surrender, and your lives will be spared. What answer shall I take back to the all-merciful, the ever-victorious Tamshapur?’
‘You may tell your master this,’ responded Roderic in mild tones. ‘Provided he undertakes to remove himself and his troops from the Diocese of Oriens and return forthwith beyond the Euphrates, then Rome is prepared, this once, to overlook such unwarranted and unprovoked invasion of her territory. If not, we will find ourselves compelled to deal with him severely.’
For a few moments, the herald stared at Roderic. Then, finding his voice, he snarled, ‘On your head be it, Roman. Learn then, the fate of any of your men unlucky enough to survive the coming battle — a reckoning you will have brought upon yourselves.’ And, wheeling his mount, he spurred back to his party.
Carried by several soldiers, a large wooden cross, to which was bound the Roman prisoner taken earlier, was swiftly erected before the Persian group, its base slotting into a massive timber support. Bundless of brush-wood were piled around the shaft, and — before any of the horrified Romans could intervene, ignited. Laughing, the Persians withdrew, while Roderic, Victor, and a detachment of his comrades raced to rescue the victim. Too late. A roaring column of fire shot upwards, enveloping the prisoner, who shrieked and writhed against his bonds — before a well-aimed arrow mercifully cut short his agony. As the Romans returned to their position, Victor noted that fury and grim determination had replaced earlier expressions of apprehension on the men’s faces. ‘If that was supposed to be an object lesson intended to intimidate us,’ he observed to Roderic, ‘I rather think it may have backfired.’
The ground began to tremble as, round the bend in the defile, the Persian van appeared, fronted by a dense mass of elephants — enormous beasts, with wrinkled grey hides and formidable-looking tusks.
‘Africans, I’m afraid, sir,’ said the vicarius to his commander. ‘Note the huge ears and saddle backs; Indian elephants have smaller ears and are round-backed. They’re also more docile than their African cousins, who tend to be exceedingly ferocious in attack.’
‘Thank you, Victor; just what I wanted to hear. Well, we can only hope that our men keep their nerve and remember the drill we’ve tried to teach them.’ Aware that horses were panicked by the smell of elephants, the two men dismounted and had their steeds taken behind the lines.
A brazen clang of trumpets rang out and the elephants advanced, gradually picking up speed. Faster and faster they moved, trumpeting wildly, huge ears spread like sails, as they rolled towards the Romans like a vast grey billow. Surmounting each animal, and secured by chains, was a squat crenellated turret in which stood two mahouts. ‘That Polybius fellow had better be right,’ muttered Roderic grimly, then gave a sharp nod to Victor. The vicarius raised a whistle to a mouth gone suddenly dry, and blew a loud blast. (He had found that, in the din and confusion of battle, a whistle’s shrill note was more easily distinguished than a trumpet call.)
Striding among the men, the campidoctores or drill-sergeants shouted orders, and — just when it seemed that nothing could prevent the Numerus Euphratensis from being overwhelmed and smashed to bloody pulp — in a twinkling blur of movement the three ranks of Romans suddenly transformed themselves into several long files with wide avenues between. Each column bristled with outward-pointing pikes.
Elephants, like horses, are motivated by self-preservation. Unwilling to face those screens of wicked blades, they thundered down the escape routes provided by the corridors between the files, and out into the empty gorge beyond. Archers, positioned on the canyon’s lips or on ledges in its walls, now loosed off a deadly sleet of shafts — skewering the mahouts in their turrets, thus annulling any attempt to reverse the elephants’ headlong charge. To make sure they kept moving, groups of soldiers followed, shouting and banging pots and pans from the field kitchen. Returning, as an extra precaution they sowed the ground with caltrops* in accordance with orders from the vicarius (orders which the vicarius had, however, refrained from divulging to his commanding officer).
Once more the Persian trumpets sounded. The cataphractarii formed up and began to trot forward — a glittering wall of iron, the bodies of both men and horses invisible beneath carapaces of armour. The huge steeds were covered in trappers of scale or chain mail, their chests and faces further protected by moulded plates. Their riders’ limbs were encased in laminated bands, their bodies by articulated plates, while their globular or cylindrical helmets — stippled with holes to permit breathing and vision — gave them an unhuman appearance. The trot changed to a canter, the canter to a gallop, and down swung a row of lances, presenting a terrifying sight to the waiting Romans. For a second time that day, it seemed impossible that they could avoid being swept to destruction.
Then, at a signal from Roderic, Victor again blew his whistle; the campidoctores bellowed orders and the Romans thrust forward those long, long pikes, butt-spikes firmly anchored in the ground, to form an impenetrable thicket of points.
A charge by massed cataphracts should have proved irresistible. Protected by stout armour, both horses and riders were invulnerable to spears, and the massive weight of a cataphract formation was virtually guaranteed to smash through any line of infantry rash enough to stand against it. However, borrowing a tactic employed with tremendous success by Alexander in his Persian campaigns — the phalanx — the Romans had hit upon the one stratagem that could provide an effective counter.
Like a wave breaking against a cliff face, the cataphracts crashed against the wall of pikes — a wall in which the weapon of every man in the triple line was brought to bear. The Roman infantry, each soldier gripping his pike-shaft several yards behind the point of impact, experienced a collective jarring shock, but to their enormous relief (not unmixed with surprise) their ranks held firm. If presented as separated units, the pikes would have shattered, but opposed to the enemy as a solid mass, their effect was to diffuse the force of impact by spreading it over a wide area. Again and again the cataphracts re-formed, to hurl themselves against the hedge of blades — to no avail. At last a trumpet blew recall and the cataphracts withdrew to make way for the Persian infantry.
Where heavy shock troops had proved unable to break the Roman front, it was hardly likely that foot-soldiers — lightly armed, whose only protection was a wicker shield — would fare better. And so it proved. Constricted by the narrow gorge, they were unable to bring their overwhelming numbers to bear. Pushed forward by the momentum of those behind, the foremost ranks perished on the pikes to form a growing heap of dead, over which the living were forced to clamber. As the Persian advance began to stall, the two Roman leaders sprung the surprise they had prepared in advance.
Concealed till this moment in a side canyon, and now alerted by signals from soldiers posted on the edge of the defile, a detachment of Roman cavalry swept into the ravine and smashed into the Persians’ undefended rear. Taken unawares, with no time or opportunity to take up a defensive position, the Persian foot-soldiers fell like corn before the sc
ythe, cut down by lethal swipes from the horsemen’s spathae — the long, Roman cutting swords, edged with razor-sharp steel. Now, as the Roman phalanx began to advance, morale among the Persian army, its men jammed helplessly together, began to crumble. Their discipline imposed by fear rather than inspired by patriotism, panic began to spread throughout the Persian rank-and-file, resulting in a fatal loss of cohesion. With shocking suddenness, what had been an organized force atomized into a rabble of terrified individuals, each motivated by just one thought — escape.
In disbelief, Tamshapur watched his army disintegrate around him. Screaming imprecations and threats of dire punishment for desertion (the mildest being live burial), he urged his captains to restore order. In vain the officers — from a caste fanatically adherent to a rigid code of loyalty and honour — threatened and pleaded; they were unable to stop the rot. Sensing that the right moment had arrived, Roderic and Victor called off the cavalry, allowing the Persians, now reduced to a huddled, fleeing mob, to escape from the death-trap that the canyon had become. His reputation in tatters, Tamshapur began the withdrawal of his mauled and demoralized force back beyond the Euphrates. East Rome could breathe again; the Diocese of Oriens was safe.
Feeling distinctly awkward and intimidated by the splendour of his surroundings, Roderic entered the vast colonnaded reception hall in Constantinople’s Great Palace, and made his way towards the elderly figure swathed in purple, who sat enthroned at the far end of the chamber.
‘Majesty — your humble servant is honoured to obey your summons,’ mumbled Roderic, clumsily dropping to one knee and bowing his head. Despite his rank, this was the first time that Roderic had been in the imperial presence, and he was uncomfortably aware that his ignorance of court ritual could be causing him to commit gaffes regarding etiquette. Too late, he recalled with a hot flush of shame, that the correct form of address was ‘Serenity’, not ‘Majesty’.
‘“Well done, thou good and faithful servant,” as Saint Mathew says,’ declared Anastasius, a smile lighting up his mild and kindly features. He waved the other to a nearby chair — an unheard-of honour, Roderic sensed, complying. ‘We are greatly in your debt,’ the emperor went on. ‘Thanks to your courage and initiative, a great danger threatening the safety of our realm has been avoided. It is only fitting you should be suitably rewarded. Accordingly, we hereby appoint you Magister Scholarum, together with, as a member of our Senate, the rank of Vir Clarissimus.’
Commander of the imperial guards and a senator to boot! Roderic’s brain whirled. At a stroke his status and circumstances had been transformed. From being a middle-ranking general who had often struggled to make ends meet, he was now holder of the army’s most prestigious post, with a seat in the august assembly of those who, in theory at least, made the Empire’s laws. And with these honours came wealth. Now, he could at last fulfil the promise he had made his sister in Dardania. He would send for Uprauda — his nephew and her son — and provide the boy with the finest education that Constantinople had to offer.
* AD 496 (See Notes.)
* Three-pronged spikes, one of which would always point upwards.
ONE
The coward calls himself cautious
Publilius Syrus, Sententiae, c. 50 BC
‘Baptiso te in Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,’ quavered the priest — an ancient Goth, dipping the week-old infant in the font then making the sign of the cross upon its forehead. Then, as a special favour granted only to a very few parents (who, through gifts or service to the church given over many years, had earned the privilege), he proceeded to inscribe the child’s names and date of birth in the church’s Bible — its greatest treasure. This was a precious copy of the Holy Book translated into the Gothic tongue by Ulfilas, the missionary who had brought the Word of God to his own people, the Goths, nearly a century and a half before. Though originally Arians,* those Goths who had settled in the Roman Empire had been compelled by an edict of Emperor Theodosius to adopt the Catholic faith — the Empire’s official creed. Hence the Service of Baptism had been carried out according to the rites of Rome.
‘Uprauda Ystock,’ the cleric wrote in one of the blank vellum pages at the end of the book, his arthritic fingers guiding the pen with difficulty, ‘natus pridie Kalendas Septembris Trocundo et Severino consulibus.’**
‘At last, Bigleniza, we have a son,’ the child’s father, Valaris Ystock, declared proudly to his wife when the couple had returned with their baby to their home. This was a thatched hut in the village of Tauresium, a scatter of mean dwellings in a clearing hemmed in by dark woods. ‘A son who will work our plot when I grow too old to manage it alone.’
‘There will be other sons for that, my dear,’ murmured Bigleniza, gazing adoringly at her sleeping infant. ‘For this, our firstborn, life holds other ends than tilling the soil.’
Bigleniza, a strong-willed woman of some education, was, so she claimed, partly of ancient Thracian stock, with links to the same family that had produced Spartacus. Valaris — a Goth and former field slave belonging to a wealthy Roman — had been granted his manumission, plus a sum sufficient to buy a peasant holding, after bravely rescuing his master’s wife and child from a house fire. An ill-matched couple, many thought, unaware of the strong bond of love and mutual regard that united the pair.
Beyond the confines of Dardania, impinging not at all upon the lives of its inhabitants, the tides of history rolled on: Julius Nepos, the last claimant to the West’s imperial throne, died, finally legitimizing the German Odovacar as king of Italy; between East Rome and Persia, a current truce was ratified, and held, precariously; the Visigoths, soon to be challenged by the Franks, secured their hold in Gaul and Spain; within the Empire, a formidable leader, Theoderic, united the two great branches of the Ostrogoths, then, as vicegerent of Emperor Zeno, led them into Italy, there to depose and murder Odovacar; Zeno died (interred alive by accident according to the rumours, his cries within the tomb ignored on account of his being a hated Isaurian), to be succeeded by the elderly Anastasius; in Africa, the harsh barbarity of Vandal rule began to soften, as a hot climate and Roman luxury slowly sapped the original tough fibre of the conquerors.
Meanwhile, Uprauda grew into a tall, strong lad, strikingly good-looking, with large grey eyes and golden curling hair (‘my beautiful angel,’ Bigleniza never tired of saying), quietly self-contained, but pleasant and polite to all. Though chafing against the grinding monotony of peasant life, Uprauda proved a dutiful son, helping his parents on their little plot, at first minding the livestock, then, as soon as he could manage implements, joining his father in the back-breaking labour of raising crops of wheat and millet. It broke Bigleniza’s heart to see her boy trudge back at sunset from the fields, his hands all cracked and blistered from the plough or scythe. True to her original vow, despite the fact that she bore no further sons, she remained unwavering in her resolve that Uprauda’s life should follow a more fulfilling path. ‘If nurtured, upright stock* will make its way,’ she affirmed. To this end, she maintained contact (via letters carried by obliging travellers or traders en route to Constantinople) with her brother Roderic, a rising soldier based frequently in the imperial capital, entreating him to help provide the boy with a sound education, with a view to entering a career — in the civil service or perhaps the army.
‘Flamin’ heat,’ grumbled Crispus, as the squad marched in open order along the narrow roadway, hewn out of the mountainside by Trajan’s engineers four centuries before. Crispus was one of the pedites in a detachment from the Legio Quinta Macedonica — the Fifth Macedonians — sent to investigate a remote region of northern Dardania, following complaints by local villagers of raids by Sarmatian brigands. Untying the laces securing the cheek-pieces of his helmet beneath his chin, Crispus removed the headpiece and tied it to his belt. ‘That feels better,’ he sighed, as his sweat-soaked scalp began to cool — ‘a whole lot better.’
‘Put it on, you idiot,’ cautioned the man next to him. ‘We’re
supposed to be in a combat zone, remember? The biarchus’ll have your guts for garters if he finds out.’
‘And how’ll he do that?’ sneered the other. ‘You gonna report me? Oh Christ!’ he exclaimed suddenly, as his helmet — carelessly secured, detached itself from his belt and tumbled free. Dropping his spear, Crispus made a frantic grab for the helmet as it rolled to the side of the road. Too late; it toppled over the edge and bounced a hundred feet, before coming to rest in the branches of a shrub sprouting from a crevice in the near-vertical slope.
Delighted by the unscheduled break, the column halted, while the biarchus or corporal strode up the line from the rear to find out what was causing the hiatus.
‘Well, well — Pedes Crispus; who’d have thought it?’ murmured the biarchus silkily, shaking his head in mock surprise. He peered over the edge. ‘Oh dear — lost your helmet, I see. Well now, Pedes,’ he continued, looking round at the ring of grinning faces which had formed at the scene, ‘we’d all be interested to learn what you propose to do about it. Suggestions?’
‘Well, we could form a human chain I suppose, Biarchus,’ mumbled Crispus.
‘A human chain,’ repeated the biarchus, nodding sagaciously. ‘Congratulations, Pedes. But if you think,’ he added, his voice changing to a sarcastic snarl, ‘that I’d risk the necks of any of your mates to save your worthless skin, you must be even stupider than I thought. If you get your brains knocked out by a Sarmatian sling-shot because you’ve got no helmet, it’ll serve you damn well right.’ He thrust his face to within an inch of the other’s. ‘You horrible little man!’ he shouted. ‘What are you?’