by R. W. Peake
“Under Orodes, none of the royal bodyguards ever worried about money,” he had said after several cups of wine during what turned out to be the last meeting the two men had before the 28th departed. “Now,” he had added with a heavy chuckle, “I do not mean to say that we were wealthy men. All of us were either third or even fourth sons of one of the minor houses, because only men of the nobility are…” his face shadowed as he corrected himself, “…or were allowed to be in the royal bodyguard. But we also lived off the…” he searched for the proper word, settling on, “…generosity of the king we served. Which was never a problem with Orodes. But then,” his face twisted into a sneer of contempt, “Pacorus was killed, and that dog Phraates became king, and suddenly, we were expected to pay for the ‘privilege’ of serving our king!”
He had glowered at Carfulenus, in that slightly inebriated manner that made it clear he was expecting the Roman to share in his outrage, which Carfulenus did to a level that satisfied the man. And, after exhausting all the other reasons with Bagadates that, while Agrippa could see had tempted the Parthian, finally he simply offered what, to Bagadates was an extraordinary amount of money. Not, Agrippa assured him, as a one-time payment, but as a yearly salary, not counting the bonuses that Caesar was now famous for paying, even with those who hadn’t been in his ranks long. Artaxerxes had quickly affirmed this to be the case, quietly informing Bagadates that he had already received more in gold than his own satrapy produced in five years. This had been the superficial solution to recruiting Bagadates, but Carfulenus’ shrewd insights into the man were what mattered, and which found him spitting out globs of dirt on the plain a short distance from Susa’s walls.
As they waited for the men to guide their horses back to their starting position, Agrippa observed, “They’ve improved a great deal in a short period of time, Bagadates. You should be proud.”
Bagadates, who was still struggling with the strangeness of sitting a horse next to a man that, less than a full year before, he would have gladly killed, gave a noncommittal grunt, then realizing more was expected, he said, “Thank you, lord, I…”
“Don’t call me ‘lord,’ Bagadates,” Agrippa replied quietly. “I am not your lord; I am your commander.”
This wasn’t the first time Agrippa had told him this, but old habits die hard.
That the Roman Octavian had said this as well on their first, and so far only, meeting was just one of many moments that Bagadates still puzzled over, but realizing that Agrippa expected more than a simple thank you, he offered what he was sure Agrippa really wanted to know, acknowledging, “They have, but we are still not ready.” Before Agrippa could follow up, he went on, “I believe that another week should suffice.”
“You have three days,” Agrippa answered, not unkindly, but Bagadates knew an order when he heard one. Turning his horse away to return to Susa, Agrippa added, “Octavian intends to send these men out from Susa to find those…” realizing he was about to use a term that Bagadates might not appreciate, Agrippa chose, “…men who we know are out there, somewhere.”
Then he was gone at a trot, leaving Bagadates to continue making these men capable of defeating his own countrymen, which was something that he chose not to think about.
It was actually Octavian himself who led his newly minted cavalry force out of the gates of Susa, a day short of two months after his announcement of its formation. Now numbering more than two thousand strong, even by the standards of Caesar’s cavalry, it was a polyglot collection of men, reflecting both its de facto nature and the composition of an army that, seven years later, would be unrecognizable to any Roman. That it was Octavian leading the way was against both Agrippa’s and Maecenas’ strong opposition, but the young acting Praetor of Parthia Inferior, as the lower part of the country was now being called, wouldn’t be dissuaded. Publicly, he gave his reason as one of expediency, feeling that time would be wasted by relaying messages back and forth between the command in the field and Susa about decisions that only the Praetor could make. And, he pointed out, since he was the man who had deemed these unknown and missing Parthians to be enough of a threat for raising this force, it was only right that he led it.
Privately, he was blunter, admitting to his two friends, “If I don’t get out of Susa, I’m afraid that I’m going to do something stupid with that bitch.”
Naturally, they needed no further elucidation on the identity of “that bitch,” and both of them acknowledged, to each other and to Octavian, that Cleopatra had been even more insufferable than normal, taking it upon herself to insist on being involved in the administration of not just the city, but the entire province. What was infuriating, to Octavian in particular, was that she had been proven correct in pointing out that dealing with people who had lived under an autocratic ruler their entire lives required a special skill. Making it even worse, she had been right about the handling of an event in Ctesiphon when, against her advice, Octavian had acted with clemency in the case of seven Parthians of the merchant class who had been found stockpiling weapons. Taking his generosity as a sign of weakness, the same seven men were caught in an attempt to fire the warehouses that served as a transshipment point for the grain that fed not just the army, but the people as well. When Octavian acknowledged this desire to remove himself from Cleopatra, neither Agrippa nor Maecenas could find an argument persuasive enough, and honestly, they didn’t try that hard, if only because so much of their day was spent listening to Octavian’s diatribes against the Egyptian queen. However, there was also another, deeper reason for Octavian’s decision, one that he only acknowledged to himself, and that was the memory of his performance during his first time with the cavalry, when he had lingered in the rear of their attack on the Parthians at the ridge. It was true that he had redeemed himself, at least in the eyes of the man who mattered most, by remaining with Ventidius during that period of time when they had been surrounding Susa while Caesar and the army were occupied besieging Ctesiphon and Seleucia, but he also knew that there were other men who still considered him a coward. In order to fulfill the ambitions that only he knew about, he had to erase that stain, which was why he led the way, followed by Cornuficius, Arctosages, and Bagadates, heading for the towering peaks to the north, searching for an enemy that, in all truth, he hoped wasn’t actually out there.
While not entirely unexpected, Octavian’ efforts to locate a force of Parthians large enough to engage with and blood his force had proven fruitless. Part of the problem, at least as far as Agrippa was concerned, though he kept his thoughts to himself, was that Octavian had been moving cautiously, too cautiously, methodically exploring every possible route known to the Parthian Dadarshi, who had served Asinius Pollio during that Legate’s time with the cavalry. The Parthian had remained behind in Susa and been promoted to a semi-official position as the primary scout because of his familiarity with the area, with nineteen men under his command divided into four groups. By process of elimination, Dadarshi and his scouts had reduced the number of routes that a sizable body of men and equipment could take down to four possibilities. Nonetheless, despite his usual systematic approach, Octavian’s force could not come to grips with any Parthians, over and above the couple dozen roving bandits that they had managed to capture. And, even under torture, none of those Parthians revealed any knowledge of either a force of any size or plans to marshal such a force at the behest of any remaining Parthian noble. Returning emptyhanded to Susa was a particularly frustrating moment for Octavian, although he consoled himself with the thought that the area for which he was responsible was pacified. By three months later, however, it was a different story; now the young Roman Praetor was on the brink of despair and desperately close to sending a message to Caesar that he wasn’t up to the task his uncle had set for him. As usually happened, it was Agrippa who confronted Octavian with what he considered to be the reality of their current situation, however harsh it may have been.
“Octavian, I understand why you’re ordering these reprisals,
” Agrippa had broached the subject carefully, knowing how sensitive it was, but he also was convinced that he had to do something to keep Octavian from making a bad situation worse, “but surely you can see that this is almost begging someone like Valash to act. And,” he hesitated, certain this would sting the most, “whatever goodwill we managed to build with the Parthian peasants has been lost, at least in this area.”
Despite his careful wording, Octavian whirled about, two spots of color on his cheeks and his lips thinned down in what Agrippa knew was the most potent sign of his anger. For a long moment, he was certain that Octavian would lash out, but then his friend let out an explosive breath and the tension fled from his body.
“I know,” Octavian answered, and there was a plaintive quality that communicated more to Agrippa than anything his friend could have said. Then, Octavian looked at Agrippa beseechingly as he added, “But, Marcus, surely you can see I had to do something. We can’t allow these people to continue all these plots against us! Against Rome!” As he spoke, the indignation and anger Octavian was experiencing returned, and he reminded Agrippa, “Especially considering that most of the grain that they’re stealing to give to the gods only know who came from Egypt! From us!”
That, Agrippa understood perfectly well, was all true, and if he was being completely honest, his objection to what Octavian had done had less to do with the principle than it did that, for the first time, Octavian had actually listened to Cleopatra, who had been become increasingly strident in her insistence that the people of the remote villages who had been requesting more grain than their population required be punished. And, to a queen of the Ptolemies, no half-measures would suffice; nothing short of executions, preceded by torture, of course, would make an impression on these people, she had insisted. Well, Agrippa thought with grim amusement, it had certainly made an impression, but only Cleopatra had seemed surprised that, instead of bringing the people to heel, it had made a bad situation even worse. However, Agrippa, again privately, had always believed that Caesar’s policy of not just clemency but surpassing the previous ruler’s munificence would ultimately cause problems. Despite his seemingly simple exterior, Marcus Agrippa was extremely shrewd, and far more than Octavian, possessed more insight into how common people thought, and some minor customs and quirks aside, he did not view Parthian peasants as being much different from the Head Count. That was why he had not been surprised when it became clear that the requisitions for grain and other foodstuffs had been grossly inflated; it was where that excess was going now that concerned him. At first, he had been certain that these people, who had lived their entire lives at the whim and under the heavy burden of the Arsacid kings, were simply stockpiling supplies against the day when some other catastrophe befell them. That this was no longer the case, that the patrols Octavian had sent out to the villages to the north had returned with the news that the extra grain was nowhere to be found, was what had begun the reprisals. Simple logic dictated that if the people were not hoarding it, then it had to be going somewhere, and when totaled all together, the amount of missing grain was what it would take to supply an army of perhaps five thousand men.
“I don’t disagree that we couldn’t ignore it, Gaius,” Agrippa responded gently, “but flaying children, in front of their parents?” He shook his head, but he was being careful in his admonishment. “That’s not something we Romans do.”
“I know that now!” Octavian cried out, and there were real tears in his eyes, yet Marcus Agrippa knew Gaius Octavian very well, so he understood that those tears weren’t for some Parthian children, but for Octavian himself, because he was now facing the unpalatable choice of letting Caesar know that a Legion and his scratch cavalry force wasn’t proving to be enough, not now that several villages had risen in rebellion. “I should have never listened to that bitch!” Octavian punctuated this last by hurling a cup against the wall, the clay shattering into thousands of pieces while splattering its contents against the plaster in a pattern that reminded Agrippa of a bloodstain. Taking a breath to compose himself, Octavian turned his attention back to Agrippa and asked, “Do you have any suggestions?”
Agrippa did, which brought him to his real purpose in coming to the Praetor’s office, as the throne room was being referred to now, and he held up a scroll.
“I actually do, because I have some news that just arrived from Ctesiphon,” he said, then before Octavian could ask, he explained, “and it’s good news, considering.” Agrippa consulted the scroll, which he had opened as part of his duties, and read from it. “We’re to expect the arrival of reinforcements, in the form of two new Legions.” Before Octavian’ gasp of surprise died out, he hurried on to add, holding up a cautioning hand, “But just like the 25th and the 30th, they’re supposed to just pass through Susa on their way to Caesarea and join Caesar…wherever he is.”
After Octavian’s initial reaction, his face grew still as he listened to Agrippa finish, but his mind was racing as he thought through the implications, both in the near-term and the more far-reaching considerations, one of the things that his uncle had seen his nephew was capable of doing with a speed that, perhaps, rivaled Caesar himself.
“Which Legions?”
Agrippa consulted the scroll, answering, “The 14th and the 21st.”
“The 14th is already on this side of our sea,” Octavian mused, “but the 21st is in…” He shrugged. “…actually, I don’t remember where exactly, other than they’re on the other side of Our Sea, so the 14th will be here first.” He gave Agrippa a searching glance, but before his friend said a word, Octavian saw in his expression the answer, and he said dismally, “And, of course, my uncle has been as thorough as usual and explicit in ordering them to not tarry anywhere, even here. So,” he sighed, “the only way I could use even one of those Legions is to disobey my uncle and keep one of them here until this business is finished.”
Octavian’s expression was so dismal that Agrippa felt compelled to try and wring something positive from this, pointing out, “That’s true, but it should solve our problem, Gaius. With another Legion, we’ll be able to cover enough territory and still leave Susa protected.”
This, Octavian understood, was certainly true, but he wasn’t in the mood to be appeased, and he voiced the most obvious objection. “And when will that be? How long will it take for the 14th to get here? And,” he finished pointedly, “what am I supposed to do about this business until then?”
One of the traits Octavian did value in his friend was his direct, sometimes brutal honesty, which he received from Agrippa then, who answered, “We hang on and not make matters worse, Gaius. That’s all we can do. And,” he finished grimly, “remember, if it is this Valash who decides to cause us trouble, we have his family here.”
Even as he said it, Agrippa fervently hoped that it was not too late, that whatever was happening could be quelled before his friend had to disobey Caesar; it would turn out to be in vain.
If there’s ever been a more reluctant leader of a rebellion, Valash thought glumly, I’ve never heard of him. This thought came to him as he sat listening to the three satraps who, as far as he was concerned, had forced him into this position argued about what came next. While it was true that he was sitting in the seat in the main audience room of the palace once occupied by his father, at what was effectively the capital of his satrapy in Ecbatana, he was under no illusions about his position. More crucially, he understood that his choices were limited in the extreme, something that had been made abundantly clear by the lord he considered to be the leader of what Romans would call this triumvirate. The man’s name was Tiridates, and only now was Valash aware of how badly he had underestimated this noble’s level of cunning ruthlessness, and more importantly, his ambition. It was the former characteristic that Tiridates had used by surreptitiously forcing the villages in the swathe of land between Ecbatana and Susa, along with those relatively few north of Ecbatana, to send in supply requisitions to the new Roman administration in Susa that were
vastly inflated. Although he took small comfort in it, Valash had at least confronted Tiridates the moment he had learned what the noble was doing, and this was when the man’s ruthless streak made itself known, because Tiridates had already taken steps to cover his tracks, and more importantly to Valash, if the Romans ever investigated the matter, made it so that all signs would point directly to Valash himself. It was true that the deception was done in only a superficial manner, and that if the Romans chose to probe further that it would become clear that Valash was innocent, but as Tiridates calmly pointed out, and Valash knew as well, how likely was that to happen? After all, Caesar had forced Valash to give up hostages who were now living in comfortable confinement in Susa, so he was already under suspicion by the Romans. The irony, which was not lost on him, was that he was viewed in this light of being a possible threat by the Romans simply by virtue of his social standing in the old hierarchy, and not because he harbored any ambitions whatsoever to usurp Roman control. The Roman general Caesar had been exceedingly generous in his payment in exchange for Valash’s vow not to create any trouble, which Valash had given freely, and while he knew the Romans were not likely to believe him, sincerely. And yet, here he was, helplessly listening as Tiridates laid out the next step of his plan to his two subordinates, with Valash sitting there pretending that he was not only supportive of what he viewed as madness, but was in fact leading what the Romans would rightly view as a rebellion. He was nothing more than a figurehead, but Tiridates was adamant that it be this way, and he also knew Valash better than the Romans did, something that he demonstrated when he confronted Valash with his ultimatum.