Gods and Legions

by Michael Curtis Ford

Julian stopped and glared at me for a moment, but then ignored my argument as he continued his angry pacing.

  '"The ultimate sacrifice," they call it, and this old blind man, their leader, they call him "the sainted hermit." The hypocrisy of it all!' he raged. 'The old fool sleeps on the ground in a bare room and eats lentils and calls it a sacrifice! By the gods, I do the same thing! Yet at least I work for a living. His is not a sacrifice, it is the ultimate extravagance, for he relies completely on the service of these others. They are in his employ! They prepare all his food to be hauled up in buckets and his waste is let down the same way, and in some ill-begotten sense of holy sacrifice or just plain ignorance of basic sanitation, they use the same bucket for both tasks! What kind of a religion is this, Caesarius? Are they lunatics?'

  I stood by in a silent rage, furiously clenching and unclenching my fists in an attempt to control the emotions I felt at that moment. The sullen guards carefully roped and carried the silent old man out of the room from which he had not set foot in thirty years, accompanied by the moaning and hymn singing of his distraught companions. Never again, I swore, would Julian commit such an atrocity.

  This event, Brother, was unremarkable — though I can almost see your eyes widening in fury as you read that word. 'Unremarkable!?' you bellow. 'That a community of Christian ascetics be driven like dogs from their home by this… this Antichrist?!' Allow me to explain. Of course, Brother, it was remarkable as a single act, but when accrued to the sum total of all such remarkable outrages that Julian committed, which are too numerous to be recounted here, it was but a drop of water in the sea. In that sense, as the Sophists might put it, it was unremarkable in its very remarkability. And like a small wound that festers and suppurates for a time, but in the end reluctantly heals, the event would have remained small in my mind too, had it been small in Julian's — but such was not the case.

  That night, still furious, I strode uninvited into his tent to reclaim some papers I had left there the day before. I found him slumped over his table asleep, yet dreaming fitfully and talking loudly and incoherently enough to make the guards restless as they paced outside.

  'Demons!' he moaned. The events of the day were clearly tormenting him as much, in their own way, as they were me. 'Demons, the Christians! Devils!'

  Further such epithets sprang from his lips, but I ignored them, transfixed as I was by those initial words, and by the sight of him sprawled sweating and twitching across his table, his face grimacing in the imagined fears and torments reserved only for lunatics and the possessed.

  God help me, Brother, murder came to mind, murder! And what is worse, the notion came in such a powerful rush, with such an infernal roaring, that I was unable to control the path down which my thoughts led me. I could not simply banish the notion as I have trained myself to do with other unworthy thoughts, by uttering a quick paternoster or a prayer to the Virgin. No, murder came to mind and murder stayed, and I froze as much in fascination at the sight of the Emperor of Rome spewing mad obscenities in his sleep, as in horror at the thought of what I might do, and at the pleasure I took in thinking it. How simple it would be to pick up a leather sandal thong, step over to the man and throttle him silently till he lay still. With a mere rag for a cushion around his neck it could even be done without bruising or abrasion — the Emperor would be found in the morning and thought to have swallowed his tongue in a fit of epilepsy! Or with only slightly more risk to my being caught as an assassin, I could, within seconds, crush his head with a quick blow from a brass candlestick, or simply slip his own dagger from his belt and thrust it into his heart, carefully placing his hands around the shaft to feign self-infliction. So easy it would be, mere seconds, and the course of this campaign, the entire future of Rome and Christianity, could be changed!

  Has any man ever held so much power in his hands, so much unchallenged, world-cracking, empire-toppling power as I held for those few brief moments in the tent? Had Christ himself wielded such concentrated potential on that fortieth day in the desert, when Lucifer offered Him all the kingdoms of the earth in return for a mere act of homage? Was Lucifer tendering the same offer to me, here in my own desert — and if so, would it be more of a sin to accept the Evil One on his terms, or to place myself on the same level as Christ by refusing them, knowing that the man before me may have been Satan's own representative on earth? When Lucifer appeared to Christ as a man, would Christ Himself have been justified in murdering him? My entire life I had sought only to serve God, by serving and healing man — is this what it all came down to, a sordid decision as to whether to use a leather thong on the neck or a candlestick on the skull?

  My mind swam, and the canvas walls seemed to close in on me, and, stiffly, like one benumbed with cold or with horror, I took two shuffling steps forward, my hand reaching out for the candlestick — and then stopped. Julian still lay awkwardly across the table, head to the side facing me, but now, and perhaps for some time, though I hadn't noticed from the effect of my own burning brain, he was silent and still. In the dim light I saw that his one visible eye was fixed steadily on me, wide and unblinking. How long he had been watching me, and whether he suspected the thoughts that had been racing through my mind, I did not know.

  He slowly lifted his head and shoulders, sat back in his chair, and ran his fingers through his hair, reviving himself from his nap as I had seen him do so many times in the past. His expression was now calm, like that of the Julian I remembered from Gaul, and a faint smile was even visible on his lips from his embarrassment at having been caught napping. I stared at him, at my friend and companion for the past eight years, and a wave of nausea passed over me, of disgust that I could have so easily acted upon the terrible thought I had been contemplating. It is not for nothing that the name Lucifer may be translated as 'light bearer,' though the light he sheds is one that blinds rather than illuminates. Shaking my head in confusion, as if it were I who had just woken up, I stepped to the table to retrieve my papers and left the tent wordlessly, while Julian stared after me in puzzlement.

  The next day, as we marched past the cliffs, I was told by the sentries that the bitter ascetics had left their community and dispersed into the desert in the night, God only knows where. May He keep them safe.

  Continuing our descent down the Euphrates, we accepted the surrender of Anatha, a small, well-fortified island in the middle of the river. During the inspection of the prisoners, we were astonished to find an elderly Roman man, a century or more in age, who could barely speak Latin for having lived in these parts so many years. Doddering rheumatically up to the Emperor and his astonished advisers, he threw back his shoulders, peered as best he could through his cataract-thickened eyes, and barked out an order in a surprisingly clear and authoritative voice: 'Take me to your general, tribune!'

  Julian, taken aback at first, quickly recovered his poise, and solemnly placed his hand on the old man's shoulder. 'I am the local commander,' he said evenly. 'How may I be of service?'

  The ancient one stared long at him, then took a shaky step back and raised his arm in a creaky military salute. 'Hail, tribune. Infantryman Cassius Rufinus reporting for duty, sir!'

  With a faint smile appearing through the dusty tangle of his beard, Julian ordered the man to stand at ease, then after nodding respectfully to the crowd of overawed family members who had begun to gather, he invited the old soldier to accompany him to his field tent for a cup of wine. Cassius Rufinus assented to this with great dignity, and had I more time and papyrus than have been allotted to me, Brother, I could write an entire book of the old scoundrel's adventures, for over the next two hours his rambling story was allowed to spill out uninterrupted, a veritable living history of Rome's long-forgotten wars. He recounted how he had participated in the Emperor Galerius' campaigns in Persia seventy years earlier, had been abandoned by the legions in Anatha to die of fever from a wound, but had later recovered. There he ended up making his home, became prosperous, took several wives, and had many children and gra
ndchildren, several of whom were called to the tent to witness a most extraordinary fact: that for decades Cassius Rufinus had predicted that he would be buried on Roman soil in his hundredth year.

  Julian treated him gently and with great honor, attaching him and his huge family, laden with gold representing seventy years of back wages and pension, to a dispatch caravan being sent to the Roman governor of Syria. I was later told that the old man did, in fact, die there quite peacefully. This was a blessing, for as soon as the patriarch and his family had departed, Julian destroyed the town.

  Following the river further we passed by the impregnable fortresses of Achaiachala and Thilutha without stopping, judging that speed of approach to Ctesiphon was of greater value than the destruction of these two minor strongholds. This was a wise decision, for the Persian garrisons stationed therein were so small as to be of little danger to our troops as we passed by them, yet it would have been enormously costly in terms of treasure and men to subdue them. At Baraxamalcha we crossed to the right bank of the Euphrates on a hastily assembled pontoon bridge, which, as before, Julian destroyed after its use. Seven miles farther downstream we encountered the large, beautiful city of Diacira, which like others we had passed had been largely abandoned, though this one more recently. In it we found large stores of grain and powdery white salt, which our quartermasters eagerly seized. A few women were discovered hiding here as well, but were found to be mad, and so put to death. We then continued our march along the dryer right bank of the Euphrates, passing a spring bubbling not with water, but with a strange, black, bitumenlike substance which we found to burn foully and unendingly with a thick black smoke when ignited. After much wonder at the strangeness and seeming lack of utility of some of the substances with which God finds fit to bless us, we finally arrived at the town of Ozogardane, a beautiful city of spas and pleasure facilities which was, again, deserted. Here we stopped for a much-needed rest and reorganization, though the troops could hardly relax: on every hill and rise around us, Persian cavalry scouts stood in silhouette, carefully observing our movements. The reason? This spot was a mere three days' march from Ctesiphon itself.

  From here, the approach to Ctesiphon was guarded by a string of fortified cities, each more strongly garrisoned than the next. Unlike the fortresses earlier on our march, it could not be ignored. And though we were a mere fifty miles distant from our ultimate goal, the mere act of marching became an ordeal, for the Persians had summoned the rivers themselves to their aid. They opened the sluice gates to their massive irrigation canals, destroying their own lands and villages in a huge wash of water and mud, yet at the same time flooding all the fields and plains over which we were required to advance. The roads were covered with water, and our camp was inundated. Sloshing through the marshes for two days, the men assisting the oxen to drag the supply carts through the mire, we arrived finally at Pirisabora, the city whose name means 'Victorious Sapor' and whose walls of baked brick laid in bitumen were bronzelike in strength. Julian's military engineers stared up at the battlements in dismay, but their complaints were useless; the city had to be taken.

  Our missiles, large flaming rocks and ironclad bolts fired from close at hand by the ballistae and catapults the troops had painstakingly dragged all the way from Antioch, were of no avail. The besieged, whose courage even Julian's normally disdainful Gauls grudgingly acknowledged, had rigged curtains of soaked goat hides, awnings, and even family quilts and bed linens in front of the walls to cushion and dispel the impact of our weapons. Prince Ormizda, Sapor's exiled brother who accompanied us as a guide and who was sent to the front lines to negotiate the defenders' surrender in their own language, was greeted by them with jeers and abuse. Much to Julian's dismay, the taking of this minor city had degenerated into a drawn-out siege; yet time was of the essence. According to our scouts, King Sapor, who weeks before had marched up the Tigris in a fruitless search for our forces from that direction, had now realized his error and was marching rapidly back to defend his city.

  The entire night Julian spent conferring with his generals as to the best means of achieving a quick victory. Ultimately, however, his strategy was decided not on the basis of military counsel, but from his reading of history. At dawn, bleary-eyed but excited at the solution he had devised, he summoned Sallustius, who entered the tent with his usual dignity and calm.

  'This is the key to our victory!' Julian exclaimed enthusiastically. 'This will have us in the gates by tomorrow without further bloodshed.' They conferred quickly in low tones, the older man shaking his head slowly at first, and then forcefully, his face reddening in anger when he saw that Julian was refusing to listen.

  'Madness!' Sallustius muttered as he stormed out of the tent a few moments later.

  Julian smiled at me wearily. 'He's no longer schooling a boy soldier,' he said, a touch of defensiveness in his tone. 'You would think that an Emperor's word would have counted for something in that old fool's mind.'

  Within an hour he had put his plan into play. He ordered the artillery and archers to provide a withering cover fire on the city's battlements, forcing the defenders to dodge behind their motley protective curtains for safety. He then stationed himself in the middle of a phalanx of a hundred handpicked troops, their tightly packed shields arranged over his head and to the sides of the wedge like an enormous tortoise, to protect him from arrow shots and other missiles. In this formation they awkwardly stormed the city's main gate, which consisted of a huge wooden structure reinforced with iron bars and fittings. Instead of weapons, the men bore only crowbars, chisels, and carpentry tools.

  The army held its collective breath, praying to all its gods for the safety of the Emperor. The enemy, quickly realizing the identity of the daring raid's commander, in turn focused all its efforts on destroying the squad of makeshift locksmiths cowering under the shields below them. A deadly hail of arrows, bricks, and stones poured down upon Julian and his men, clattering upon the raised shields and staggering the soldiers beneath with the force of their impact. Several fell as their shields buckled from the weight of the rocks dropped from above, and when other men stepped in to fill the gap they too stumbled and swayed. Even to us standing in safety in the lines fifty yards away, Julian's voice was audible under the tenuous roof of shields, bellowing at his men. 'Put your backs into it!' he cried as they worked to pry off the door's iron bars. 'Burst the hinges, men, saw the boards!' To no avail. Try as the Roman artillery might to repel the defenders above the main gate, all the Persians' resources were being focused on the small Roman squad, for the winnings at stake were too great for them to ignore.

  The effort was doomed. Several moments more, and the defenders began hauling up to their tower enormous rectangular building blocks, the kind that would crush a man's foot even if gently set down upon it — the effect they would have being dropped from fifty feet would be too horrible to contemplate. A shout rose up from the Roman army, urging the small squad to return before disaster ensued, and this time Julian heeded. Carefully retaining their formation, still sheltered beneath their dented and splintered shields, the wedge of men stumbled back to their lines, out of the defenders' stone-throwing range, dragging with them those who had been wounded in the ill-fated foray. The army cheered as if it had won a great victory, while the Persians on the battlements matched the shouting with their own hoots and obscene gestures.

  Sallustius was furious as he strode back into the tent that afternoon, but Julian silenced him with a baleful stare before he had a chance to say a word.

  'Are you going to dispute the wisdom of Scipio, Rome's greatest general?' Julian asked, pushing forward a battered scroll containing Polybius' history of the Carthaginian War.

  Sallustius eyed the volume suspiciously, then looked coldly at Julian.

  'Read it!' Julian ordered.

  Sallustius remained immobile, still staring at Julian, coolly, calculatingly, as if seeking to assess what might be passing through his mind, to determine how far he might be pushed.
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  'READ IT!' Julian screamed, his voice cracking and his eyes bulging. The guards stopped their pacing outside and one of them peered cautiously in through the door.

  Still Sallustius held his stare until Julian glanced away; then slowly and deliberately he stepped forward and picked up the volume with the thumb and forefinger of his hand, as if handling a bit of rotten carrion with tongs. He scanned the passage that had been marked in the margin with a bit of charcoal.

  'I read here,' said Sallustius dryly, 'that the gate Scipio attacked was sheltered by a stone arch, and that he and his men were able to work on the door at their leisure while the barbarians above them were helpless to repel them, since their missiles could not strike. Scipio was indeed a wise general.'

  With that he turned on his heels and stalked out, leaving Julian glaring after him in silent rage.

  In the end, the city Pirisabora posed no further hardship to us, once the proper resources were applied. Sallustius walked straight from Julian's tent to the quarters of the engineering brigades, and ordered that a machine the Greeks know as a helepolis, a 'city taker,' be constructed with all possible speed. Few in the army had ever seen or even imagined such a device, though Sallustius' own encyclopedic knowledge of military history allowed him to easily rattle off a description of the machines Poliorcetes had developed in Macedonia centuries before: an enormous tower constructed of strong wooden beams and covered with hides, green wicker, mud, and other noncombustible materials. Within two days it was complete, standing six stories tall, towering over even the city's ramparts. Twenty archers armed with flaming arrows and soot pots manned the topmost level, while ten feet below them a ramp was suspended by chains, to be dropped down onto the top of the battlements as soon as the device had been rolled close to the base of the walls. Fifty soldiers were picked to lead the rush from the tower into the city, and the entire army would follow close behind, either up the five flights of wooden stairs and over the ramparts, or through the city gates themselves if the attackers from the tower were able to open them from the inside.