Gods and Legions

'Don't let them get away!' I heard someone cry, and looking up I saw an officer in full dress armor bearing a crimson cloak – General Barbatio. 'Seize those criminals!'

But the Alemanni had seen us coming. With white smiles glowing eerily in the moonlight from their blackened faces, they pried and slashed at the ropes until just before the lead Roman carpenters, wielding wood-cutting tools, had reached their position. Then, each one pausing only long enough to seize a loosened plank, they leaped back into the water – this time
downstream
of the bridge – lay with their bellies flat on the broad boards beneath them, and serenely paddled off with the current, the moonlight reflecting for a long while on their glistening backs, as the Romans raged impotently on their now broken and wandering bridge.

Michael Ford has an MPA degree in Economics from Princeton University, speaks several languages and is an avid reader of the Classics. He lives in Salem, Oregon, where he and his wife educate their two children at home.

By Michael Curtis Ford

The Ten Thousand: a novel of Ancient Greece

Gods & Legions: a novel of the Roman Empire

GODS &
LEGIONS

A NOVEL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Michael Curtis Ford

An Orion paperback

First published in Great Britain in 2002
by Orion

This paperback edition published in 2003
by Orion Books Ltd,
Orion House, 5 Upper St Martin's Lane,
London WC2H 9EA

Copyright © Michael Curtis Ford 2002
Map design © Jackie Aher

The right of Michael Curtis Ford to be identified as the
author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the copyright owner.

All the characters in this book are fictitious,
and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library.

ISBN 0 75284 976 X

Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

For Eamon, Isabel, and Marie

HISTORICAL NOTE

Of all the great figures of antiquity, few are so compelling yet enigmatic, few so admired yet vilified, as Flavius Claudius Julianus Augustus, the man known to history as Julian the Apostate. A Roman emperor who never set foot in Rome and spoke Latin only with difficulty, a brilliant and ruthless general who never picked up a sword until well into his adulthood, the richest and most powerful man in the world, yet a celibate who ate only vegetables and slept on the floor – he was a man of profound convictions and contrasts, and one whose beliefs were deeply disturbing to friend and enemy alike. In almost any other period of the Roman Empire his crusades and eccentricities might have been tolerated, perhaps even expected of an emperor; but this was no ordinary time.

The fourth century A.D. was one of the most wrenching periods in European history. After a series of weak leaders, barbarian invasions, and brutal religious persecutions, Rome suddenly produced an emperor – Julian's uncle, Constantine – who, astonishingly, became a Christian. Until that time Christianity had been a sect primarily of slaves and the poor, alternately derided and ignored, yet now it became the state religion. Ancient pagan temples were restored as churches, many men and women of the upper classes converted to the religion of their Emperor, and a new culture began to take root, but an empire as vast as Rome's could not change in a day. The Germans and Goths continued to wreak havoc in the West, the Persians in the East, and the Roman army, especially its powerful Eastern legions, remained largely pagan, faithful to such deities as the bloody and wrathful bull-god Mithras.

It was within this context of upheaval, religious fervor, and terrible wars for Rome's borders, indeed for its very soul, that Julian came to power, by some accounts reluctantly, by others through his own cunning. It was a time when the Empire stood poised on a balance – a determined, sustained push by a strong leader could take it in either of two directions. Julian was such a leader, a man of action and resolve, the shrewdest and most strong-willed emperor since Constantine or perhaps long before, a man with an agenda to fulfill.

And in the world of ancient Rome, there were precious few checks and balances to hinder a powerful ruler – where walked the Emperor, there followed the world.

From Gregory of Nazianzus, a devoted servant of the Church, To the Holy Pontiff, Pope Siricius, beloved of God and condemner of heretics, defender of the True Faith and heir to the throne of the blessed Saint Peter in Rome: Grace and mercy be upon you.

As you are aware, my late brother Caesarius, a physician of skill and renown in the court of the late Emperor Constantius, had, as a young man, transferred his professional services to the Emperor's rival and eventual successor, the damnable pagan and apostate Julian. This he did not out of sympathy for Julian's unholy cause (for Caesarius was unwavering in his Christian belief), but out of aspiration for professional advancement, and a desire to convert the pagan from his efforts to suppress the faith; I leave it to you, Your Eminence, to consider the evidence of his motives.

I bring to your attention a journal my brother kept at the end of his life, employing it as a confessional of sorts, concealing it out of fear should its words fall into indiscreet or unfaithful hands. This journal treats of many aspects of his dealings with the rogue Julian, about which Your Worship may not be aware. Such document I enclose herewith, entreating only that you guard it as carefully as its contents merit.

Whether my brother's soul be punished or rewarded for his actions I leave to God to pronounce. It is He, and He alone, who was privy to the hidden thoughts and motives of my sibling, a man who was dear to me in life yet who, since my discovery of this document, has been a source of unending consternation to me. I commend it into your hands that I may be free of its burden, whether of sin or saintliness, as described herein and as judged by the Everlasting God.

I remain,

Ever yours in Christ,

Gregory of Nazianzus, Bishop of Constantinople

BOOK ONE

GENESIS

Beware that thou not be made a Caesar, that thou not be dyed with such dye...

– MARCUS AURELIUS

I

I write of warfare and of a man, and of a man at war, though he was not always such a man. For the world made him one, fashioned him thus from weak and unpromising materials, like a sublime sculpture made of humble river clay – and then the world recoiled at what it had made, though it would be many years before it would know to do so. A man's destiny is forged by events, surely, for we cannot help bearing the crowns and the scars that random fate has bequeathed to us in our lives. But more than events, it is a man's own free will that shapes him – that reflection and echo within him of the very God who created him. Free will, like God, can rise above any circumstances or obstacles one may face; like God it can make the humble great, make a weak boy into a strong man, make a timorous student into the Emperor of the world. And like God's own rival, Lucifer, it can cause him to flail his fists fruitlessly against the breast of his very Creator, if by his free will he so chooses.

On a moonless night a thousand miles from home, an exhausted army slept in a desolate wasteland of dust and black ashes. None of the myriad sounds a resting army makes – the snuffling of horses, the moans of the wounded, the shouts from the guards calling the watch – none of these had disturbed my dreams, so accustomed to them was I that I found them almost comforting. Something, however, perhaps some soft breath of air suddenly entering the tent, had summoned me, though I remained motionless, slumped in the hard, high-backed camp chair where I had slipped into a restless doze. Only my eyes stirred beneath half-hooded lids as I peered past the flickering light of the tiny oil lamp.

She was a goddess, otherworldly in her beauty, her skin and hair shimmering with a dim aura as she passed through the silent awnings, winding her way smoothly and effortlessly through the assorted maps and volumes scattered about the floor. Like a spirit, she scarcely moved her feet, not deigning even to glance down to discern their placement, her luminous eyes ignoring me and the others resting fitfully in their corners, her gaze fixed only on him; and I saw that Julian, too, was awake and alert, sitting up in his cot, his body tense and motionless, staring back at her unblinkingly and without fear.

In her profile, in the welling of her eyes, there was a depth of sadness impossible to describe, an ineffable sorrow that illumined her beauty like moonlight on the white limestone facade of a temple. The gown floated featherlike around her, swirling at her feet, though the heavy desert air offered not a breath of wind to relieve us of the stifling heat. The veil over her head and face, fastened in the manner of one in mourning, was gossamer, transparent as a spider's web, enhancing, rather than obscuring, the smoothness of her neck and face. Her braids, wound in the ancient style beneath the veil, were scented with the biting fragrance of the myrrh that had been suffused into the dressing. I sat stone still, my nails cutting into the palms of my hands, as she approached, soft as a psalm, silent as a prayer.

Stopping just short of the foot of his bed, she stood motionless for a long moment. A glistening tear coursed slowly down her cheek, disappearing into the darkness at her feet as it dropped. Julian looked on in wonder as she held her arms out toward him, cradling in them a burden, what I at first took to be an infant, but what I later realized was not a living being. She showed it to him and his face clouded – in disappointment? fear? – and as she turned away her gaze lingered on him for a brief moment longer, as if she were reluctant to leave.

Passing back across the floor with a measured cadence, her head bowed in sorrow, she paused before slipping out the door, and to my astonishment she then turned slowly and deliberately toward me, lifting the veil from her face with one hand and raising her downcast eyes. As she focused directly on me, her serene, sorrowful expression twisted suddenly into a snarl of such utter malevolence and loathing that I gasped and leaped up, toppling the chair on which I had been sitting with a loud clatter. The veiled woman then vanished through the tent hangings, as silently as she had appeared.

Dawn came impossibly early, bringing on a sickly light for ill mankind, a pallid harbinger of toil and distress. A pale yellowish desert fog had sprung up, as it often did on those early summer mornings, a moistness not refreshing like the cool mists of Gaul I had so loved, but rather stinking and malignant, clammy in the heat that was already starting to build though the sun had scarcely risen. The dampness lent an oily stickiness to the skin, which combined with the smoke from the smoldering fires and the grit in the air to coat one's face with an irritating film. Gnats and flies swarmed everywhere, seeking moisture at the corners of one's eyes and lips, driving the pack animals mad with their incessant buzzing and stinging, and gathering in lethal clouds on the bare asses of the men squatting in the fetid latrines, cursing the leisurely pace of their bowels. The troops broke camp in a resentful silence, and before the sun was half exposed above the horizon the cavalry scouts had thundered off beyond the army's flanks in a blinding cloud of heavy dust. The vanguard cohorts and the rest of the legions were not far behind, shouldering their packs and marching forward at a brisk pace, the men still gagging down their dry breakfast of rock biscuit.

As we marched, the Persians, who had learned from their previous defeats at the hands of Julian's troops to avoid pitched battles, adopted a strategy of piecemeal harassment, dogging our steps at every turn without ever committing to a full-scale assault. From various vantage points we could see King Sapor's army, divided into two parts, each half marching a route parallel to our own on the high hills on either side of us. Outlined against the hazy, whitish-blue sky were the ranks of thousands upon thousands of his heavy infantry, fierce warriors from Media with their fish-scale armor reflecting blindingly in the sunlight, passing in and out of the swirling dust raised by the huge forces of Persian cavalry trotting in close formation before them.

On the left ridge marched the swaying corps of Indian elephants, wrinkled gray monsters of enormous height, their dreadful bulk dwarfing the lines of soldiers marching before and behind. The beasts plodded heavily, bearing large platforms on their backs, 'towers' of wood-framed leather walls, each containing four archers and spearmen. The animals were painted in horrifying colors, circles and spirals around their eyes, flapping ears blood-red and rimmed with black. Plates of gleaming bronze fitted closely across their foreheads were adorned with stiff, plumed crests dyed a bloody crimson. A large lance, like a third tusk, had been fitted by stout leather straps to each monster's chest, and leather bands, studded with glistening spikes, encircled their legs. They bore gleaming armor and bangles on their heads and shoulders, and blinders on their eyes, forcing them to look relentlessly forward, to prevent them from being distracted by activities to the side. The animals were led by a huge bull, his yellowish eight-foot tusks tipped with lustrous bronze spear points. The wind shifted in our direction, wafting toward us the beasts' rank odor, rendered even more foul by the rancid tallow the Persians had smeared on their hides to prevent cracking and chafing in the dry desert heat. Our horses visibly shuddered and shied.

I cantered up to the Emperor where he rode hollow-eyed and stoop-shouldered, lost in silent thought.

'Julian,' I said. 'Our men haven't fought against elephants. The Gauls have never even seen them before, except from a distance.'

He roused himself as if with a great effort, and glanced warily up the ridge where the lumbering column seemed to hover over us, their long shadows reaching almost to our own line of march. He then looked back at me, a faint smile showing through his wiry, dust-laden beard.

'Caesarius – always worrying, always planning, eh? If only my generals were as concerned about my welfare as is my physician. How long have we been friends now – eight years, ten? With your help I conquered Gaul and Germany, with you beside me I was raised to Emperor! We have sacked every Persian fortress on the Euphrates, and have defeated King Sapor's garrison under the very walls of his palace. The men are at their prime, Caesarius, they are like hounds, baying for Persian blood! Sacrifices to the gods were made this morning, three oxen. The omens were favorable this time, the livers healthy – the gods are with us now! Caesarius, I saw the livers, this time the gods are with us...'

He was rambling again, and I moved quickly to calm him, not as a subject to his Emperor but as a friend to a friend, as a physician to his patient – as a concerned soldier to his mad general.

'Eight years we have been together, Julian,' I said, 'ever since we met in Athens. God has been good to us. Nevertheless... the elephants.'

Julian stared at me, his eyes focusing with difficulty, his lips moving as if he were about to say something. I continued before he could interrupt.

'The men are nervous and the horses skittish. The army has no experience with such beasts. We need a plan.'

He glanced again up to the ridge. 'No experience,' he muttered, then lifted his head sharply. 'But they are only animals! I have read of them, Caesarius.' He paused for a moment, recollecting the lessons in military strategy and tactics he had absorbed years before, under Sallustius' tutelage. 'The Persians used elephants against Roman troops at Nisibis thirteen years ago. They killed many of our men, but then they began running amok among their own, devastating the Persian lines. Look – you see the drivers? King Sapor has learned his lesson well.'

I peered up through the haze. Each elephant in the column was guided by a slightly built, armored driver perched precariously on the back of the beast's head. I nodded.

'Indians,' Julian continued. 'They know best how to control them. Each one ties a long, stout spike to his left wrist. If the elephant loses control the driver thrusts it into the animal's neck at the base of the skull, severing the vertebrae and killing the animal. They carry wooden mallets to pound the spikes in deeper.'

'But that would topple all the men in the tower as well. Falling from such a height...'

Julian shrugged. 'Just so. They are crushed or killed. Better them, the king reasons, than a whole line of his own troops in the middle of a battle.'

'So how do we fight them?'

He rode in thoughtful silence for a moment before turning again to me.

'Pigs.'

'Pigs, Julian?'

'They say that elephants are terrified of squealing pigs. You smear them with fat and set them on fire, and then send them to run squealing amongst the elephants' legs.'

I paused to consider this extraordinary suggestion – whether it was based on fact or the product of madness.

'We don't have any more pigs,' I said cautiously, and not without some relief.

Julian sighed. 'Then we'll just have to hope Sapor keeps to his truce.'

Five hours we marched that morning through the desolate valley known locally as Maranga, in full armor and battle formation, along a trackless route visible only to our Arab scouts. The earth had been scorched by Sapor's advance guard to prevent us from obtaining grain or game, and the landscape was nightmarish – lacking in all color but shades of gray, ashy dust that settled on every object, softening the stark blackness of the charred stumps and brush that still smoldered here and there along our path. A haze rose up from every man as he marched, every step producing a burst of fine, black ash that settled between the toes and mingled with the sweat flowing in rivulets down his face and neck. The men were parched and flagging under the relentless heat and the tension of constantly monitoring the king's armies on the ridges above us, who in their cooler and lighter gear and their acclimation to the heat appeared distressingly fresh and energetic. Our flanks were strongly guarded by the cavalry and heavy infantry, but the roughness of the terrain had rendered our formation somewhat ragged, and the line of march had now stretched to beyond three miles from van to rear.

Suddenly, we heard a commotion far behind us, the faint blare of trumpets and the high-pitched, womanlike screams of wounded horses. Julian, riding beside Sallustius and several other advisers just ahead of me in the vanguard, galloped out of the line of march and wheeled his horse, peering to the rear through the haze.

Shouts passed up along the line by heralds brought the news to our ears within seconds.

'Persian attack on the rear! Cavalry and light-armed infantry!'

Julian had expected more warning from the normally heavy-handed Persians. Contrary to his own orders, he had earlier removed his armor against the heat, and he paused now only to pull down his helmet, which hung from his shoulders, and to seize a shield from a cavalry officer standing nearby. He set heels to flanks and sprinted back along the line of march in the direction of the tumult, shouting as he did so for the rest of the army to continue its march forward but to remain alert.

I broke rank and raced along with his guards and generals, weaving half blinded through the thick dust they raised, and within moments we approached the rear. Judging from the terrifying clamor and roiling cloud of dust ahead of us, full-scale battle had already been joined. We were surrounded by surging masses of grim-faced men, their skin black and shiny as they raced to the rear in confusion to assist their comrades. Julian craned his neck, peering through the dust in search of an officer who could tell him what was happening, when we were suddenly startled by another trumpet blast, this time from behind us, toward the column's front.

'What in Hades...?' Julian muttered, as Sallustius wheeled and galloped back toward where we had just ridden. He was met by the officer who had lent his shield. Sallustius conferred with him briefly, then raced his mount back to Julian, who was still struggling to force his way through the throng of men to the rear.

'My lord!' Sallustius called out. 'Sapor is attacking the front as well!'

Julian stopped short and wheeled his own horse, his grimy face twisted in rage.

'By the gods!' he shouted. 'Sallustius, you lead, return to the front! We are still under a truce with the Persians – Sapor will pay for his treachery!'