available. I was unconcerned here, however, for there was no mud.
He had invited me for a short ride to watch a detachment of Scythian slingers and archers at their target practice, and I had gladly joined him, eager for the excuse to leave the confines of the camp. On the way, however, Julian's usual stallion pulled a shoulder, and he borrowed a horse from one of the groomsmen accompanying us. We watched the practice for perhaps an hour, and were just mounting our horses to leave, when suddenly an errant stone from a slipped sling slammed into the side of the borrowed horse's face.
The weapon was not one of the deadly, lead, acorn-shaped missiles that the slingers use in actual battle, but rather simply a round, hard river stone that had been casually picked up by the slinger from the ground where he was practicing. Nevertheless, the speed of its impact knocked the poor beast's head to the side with a spurt of blood that bespattered the surprised Julian, as the stone penetrated its cheek and shattered the molars on that side of its face. The horse fell in agony to the ground, throwing its rider clear, but writhing and rolling in the dirt, its hooves flying in all directions, scattering its priceless silken trappings trimmed with gems and gold.
Julian was red-faced with fury. 'Where is he?' he shouted, stalking toward the dumbfounded centurion who had been training the slingers, the crowd of confused soldiers clustering behind him in terror. 'Where is the ass who felled my horse, and who damn near killed me?'
The centurion looked behind himself in consternation at his squad, wondering what he should do, as the groom and I rushed behind Julian to calm him before any damage was done. Rarely had I seen Julian in such a fury — even when his son had been killed he had been able to control his emotions, but his moods of late, swinging from utter apathy at the death of fifty soldiers, to sputtering rage at a mere injury to his borrowed horse, confounded me. I seized his shoulder to hold him back from launching himself at the centurion. Suddenly one young Scythian, scarcely a boy, stepped out from the crowd of slingers and made his way shakily toward the Emperor.
Julian watched, trembling with rage, and when he had approached near, roared, 'Do you realize what you have done, boy? With your clumsiness, the horse is as good as dead, and it is only by the grace of the gods that I am not too! A fine horse, this… this… damn it all, groom, what was the name of the horse?' he said, whirling around to where I stood next to the trembling stable hand.
'Babylon,' the groom croaked, and as Julian turned back to the boy to continue his tongue-lashing, he suddenly stopped.
'Babylon?' he repeated, in wonder. 'Babylon… Boy, Babylon has fallen!' and a broad grin suddenly wreathing his face, he threw his arm around the astonished slinger's shoulders and turned to stare calmly at the trembling, moaning horse struggling to stand to its feet, its rich trappings torn and hanging off its sides. 'It has fallen, boy, stripped of all its wealth! You have killed Babylon!' And so saying he rushed to the horse, ripped off a strand of decorative gold chain that had been partially torn from its position on the saddle, and thrust it into the dumbfounded boy's hands. 'May your aim never improve beyond today!' he shouted, and the wonderstruck archers and slingers cheered, though more with relief and surprise than in true support.
I returned to camp shaking my head in amazement that a man who professed such belief in the gods could ignore the signs given by disasters that had killed dozens of men in recent weeks, yet continue his campaign on the basis of a misguided sling stone.
III
Having split off Procopius' forces, the army continued its march to the south and east, reaching the fortified Euphrates city of Callinicum a mere three weeks after our departure from Antioch. Here Julian received homage from the chieftains of several groups of nomadic Saracens, who vowed obeisance to the Emperor on bended knee and offered him a golden crown. He received them graciously and accepted the military assistance they offered, since these tribesmen were known to harbor an abiding hatred for the Persians, and were considered to be excellent at guerrilla warfare. Here, too, we reunited with the fleet that had been slowly making its way downriver, and from this point on, the massive river and land forces advanced together into the heart of ancient Mesopotamia.
Over the next week the force covered ninety miles before arriving at Cercusium, a stronghold at the junction of the Chaboras and Euphrates rivers that Diocletian had fortified years before, because of its critical location in defending Syria from Persian invasions. Julian rotated and reinforced the local garrison, assigning four thousand troops from his own army, and ordered the construction of a pontoon bridge to cross the tributary. The fifty engineering barges, bearing precut beams and pilings and stacked with miles of lashings, swung into action, to the astonishment of the sleepy local inhabitants, and within two days a magnificent bridge had been constructed across the half-mile-wide mouth of the Chaboras, over which the entire army, including supply wagons, camels, horses, and provisions, crossed in a matter of a few hours. The army cheered as the last of the ox teams bearing fodder and siege equipment lumbered over the solid timbers of the bridge, and the men stood by, aghast, as Julian gave orders to pour pitch on the timbers of the very bridge he had just built, and to fire it behind us. With the bridge destroyed, there could be no hope of turning back. His confidence, and arrogance, knew no bounds.
Evil omens followed as if by divine retribution, making the men increasingly nervous. During a sudden storm that had appeared out of a clear blue sky, a lightning bolt killed two horses and a soldier named Jovian, whose name derived from that of Jupiter, the king of the Greek gods; a flood caused several dozen ships to be driven through the stone dikes protecting the riverbank and sink from the damage; and a sudden tornado tore tent pegs from the ground and set the soldiers' tents flying, even throwing many of the men themselves painfully to the ground. Like the previous signs, Julian chose to ignore these, yet the men themselves could not, and in fact some even claimed that a Roman expedition so far east was beyond peacetime precedent and need. When we came to a place called Zaith, two days out of Cercusium, where lay the magnificent tomb of the Emperor Gordian, the muttering and lack of discipline had reached such a point that several legions of auxiliaries refused to march any further until the evil portents were addressed.
When informed of the troops' concerns, Julian was outraged at their lack of faith in him. His initial reaction was to order the mutinous troops to continue marching under pain of court-martial and death. His generals pointed out, however, and Maximus quietly concurred, that even if he were successful in forcing the men to march, they would not be supporting him in their hearts. A soldier who has lost confidence in his leader is worse than useless — he is, in fact, a positive danger, because of his propensity to lose courage and run, endangering the courage and lives of even staunchly loyal troops.
'Talk to them, Julian,' I urged. 'Put your skills to use. Remember Gaul, before the Battle of Strasbourg? You have always been able to fire up your troops.'
He calmed himself, but remained indignant. 'I refuse to believe,' he said, 'that Alexander had to coax his troops across the desert like so many blind puppies to their milk bowl. Still, if that's what it takes to make the Saracens march, let's go to it.'
And without a moment's thought or planning, he strode over to a great mound of earth near the elaborately modeled, boat-shaped marble tomb in which Gordian lay, and stood waiting with his senior officers as heralds hastily assembled the troops. Within moments the army had gathered, all the centuries, cohorts, and maniples assembling in order, with those at the farthest reaches of the camp running as if to battle, for indeed the heralds had, at Julian's order, blown the call to arms to induce the troops to arrive yet more quickly. There, beneath a clear blue sky with scarcely a cloud to be seen, with the sun shining on rolling plains of low brown grass spreading away from the broad expanse of river like a vision from a pastoral of Virgil, he delivered the most, let us say, educational address I have heard, barring your inspired sermons, of course, Brother.
'Gallant men,' he shouted, a promising beginning, 'seeing all of you, heroes, so full of energy and eagerness, I have summoned you here to explain to you that, contrary to what has been suggested by certain rumormongers and malcontents, this is not the first time Romans have invaded the kingdom of Persia. Antony's general Ventidius gained innumerable bloody victories over these people, to say nothing of Lucullus. Pompey, after decimating so many hostile tribes that stood in his way, also broke through into this country and viewed the Caspian Sea with his own eyes. I will admit, however, that these were from very early times. More recently, Trajan, Verus, and Severus all returned from Persia crowned with laurels and triumph, and Gordian the Younger, whose tomb we here honor, would have done the same after defeating the Persian king at Resaina and putting him to shameful flight, if he had not fallen victim at this very spot to a wicked plot hatched by his own men. But justice weighed Gordian's enemies
