respectable wife never showed herself naked to her husband. That was the behaviour of a whore. But she knew it pleased Ballista, excited him.
Julia traced the fresh scars on his wrists and ankles. 'You had a bad time with the Persians.'
'The boys look well.' He made no effort to hide the fact he was changing the subject.
'Mmm.' Julia kissed his chest, his stomach. She did something no respectable Roman wife should ever do. The very wickedness of her behaviour excited her. They made love again, more slowly this time.
'How long will you be in Antioch?'
'Two days. Then as long as it takes to find ships in Seleuceia. I can requisition a house there. You should come down, bring the boys. We will have a little time until I have to sail north after the Sassanids.'
Julia watched him fiddle with his wine cup, felt his desire to be gone. Men, from what her friends said, were all the same. The act of love would last longer if left to women: all night, if men were made that way.
'Go on,' she smiled. 'Go and find your friends. It is a long time since they have had a chance to drink with you.'
There was a hollowness to Ballista's grin. 'Edessa, a couple of months ago. The festival of the Maiuma. At the end of the night, someone tried to kill me.'
After he had gone, Julia put on a robe. She called for a maid. Ignoring Anthia's complicit smile, she asked for her bath to be made ready. He was trying to hide it, but there was something preying on her husband's mind. She had a couple of days. She would discover what it was. Demetrius stood on the prow of Ballista's flagship. Since the fleet had left Seleucia in pursuit of the Persians, things had not gone well. Demetrius looked at the port of Aegeae.
All sacked cities are the same: in each, the kicked-in doors and smoke-blackened buildings; the ransacked houses and defiled temples; the muted sounds where there had been terrible noise; the splayed and huddled corpses; the smell of burning, excrement and corruption.
Yet each is different. There is always some specific thing that catches the observer's eye, moves his heart to fresh pity: a treasured heirloom smashed in the street; an old woman sobbing noiselessly; a child wandering alone. Those who say compassion is blunted by repetition are wrong.
Demetrius stood on the ship looking at the city of Aegeae. For in my heart and soul I also know this well: the day will come when sacred Troy must die, Priam must die and all his people with him… That is nothing, nothing beside your agony when some brazen Argive hales you off in tears, wrenching away your day of light and freedom!
The lines of Homer — Hector's all too prescient words to his wife — came unbidden into Demetrius's thoughts. Human happiness is very fragile. One day, a prosperous, peaceful town; the next, a stinking ruin. One day, a happy, free youth; the next, a slave at the whim of a capricious and brutal master.
Demetrius had seen too much horror in the last few days. Ballista's ships had followed the Persians around the bay of Issus. Alexandria ad Issum, Katabolos and now the port of Aegeae — all had been sacked.
There had been no way Demetrius could avoid the horror. At each town, his duties as accensus required him to accompany Ballista. Ashore, the kyrios's dark mood had worsened. But Ballista was diligent. He interviewed survivors. He investigated which supplies, public and private, had been taken, attempting to estimate enemy numbers. Here at Aegeae, he had even studied the horse droppings on the road to the interior taken by the Sassanids as they rode out of the sacked city.
Demetrius did not think he would do well in the sack of a town. In the noise, confusion and fear, he doubted he would make the right decisions. Would he run or hide? In either case, where? Would he follow the crowd, hoping for some safety in numbers, or slink off alone, praying to be overlooked? Would his courage fail him altogether? Would he drop to his knees in the pose of a suppliant, trusting in his looks to spare his life? And if they did, at what cost? His first years of slavery had taught him all about degradation.
Demetrius returned his thoughts to the present. Ballista's consilium was not going well; as expected, his plans were not being well received.
'No, we will not pursue the Sassanids inland. We are outnumbered. They have at least fifteen thousand cavalry. We have five thousand infantry and the crews of twenty warships. The Sassanids have taken the road to Mopouestia. The open plains of Cilicia Pedias are ideal for horsemen. They would surround us and shoot us down at their pleasure.'
The assembled officers, some forty men, down to the rank of pilus prior and including the centurions commanding the warships, listened in unconvinced silence. They wanted revenge. However, Ballista's second-in- command, Ragonius Clarus, the legate appointed by Macrianus the Elder, nodded sagely.
Ballista continued. 'We will adopt the strategy used by Fabius Cunctator to defeat Hannibal. We will wait. The prefect Demosthenes will take a composite unit of five hundred spearmen and archers to hold the Cilician Gates. Apparently, they command the only road north over the Taurus mountains viable for a large force of cavalry. The warships can take Demosthenes' men to Tarsus — there will just be space if the marines temporarily transfer to the transport ships. From Tarsus, Demosthenes will force-march north to the Gates.
'The warships will rendezvous with the rest of us at Soli. There we will plan with Voconius Zeno, the governor of Cilicia, to guard the narrow coastal path west to Cilicia Tracheia.
'If the Syrian Gates to the south-east are still held, and the emperors have taken my advice and blocked the Amanikai Gates to the north-east, the Persians will effectively be trapped in the lowlands of Cilicia Pedias. Then we watch and wait for opportunities. With our fleet, we can come and go as we please. Sooner or later, the Persian horde will split up to plunder or we will catch them at some other disadvantage.'
This was Ballista at his best, thought Demetrius. The kyrios was putting aside his personal troubles and fears to plan meticulously, to do what needed to be done. Yet the officers still seemed unhappy.
Ragonius Clarus interjected in patrician tones. 'An admirable strategy — timehallowed and in keeping with the ways of our Roman ancestors. Thus Cunctator vanquished the Punic evil of Hannibal, Crassus destroyed the servile menace of Spartacus. Our noble young emperors will approve.'
Everyone knew that Clarus had been foisted on Ballista to report to Macrianus the Lame. His words elicited no enthusiasm from the military men.
'We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.'
Ballista declared the consilium over and, with his familia, retired to his cabin at the stern of the trireme.
'Sure, but it must be a joy to know our noble young emperors will approve of your thinking,' said Maximus.
'Joy unbounded,' Ballista replied flatly. Obviously he was not in the mood for joking. Since his return from captivity, he seldom had been.
'A drink?' Calgacus suggested.
'No, thank you. I think I will rest.'
As the freedmen filed out, Ballista called Demetrius back.
The young accensus watched as his kyrios looked at the lists and plans piled on the desk. Distractedly, Ballista picked one or two up, moved some others about. A few moments of this, and Ballista stopped. He went over to his bed, retrieved a papyrus roll that lay on the covers and sat down.
'Demetrius, you are a Hellene. Are these Cilicians Hellenes?'
Over the years, Demetrius had got used to the abruptness of Ballista's conversational openings when he had something on his mind. The point usually became clear after a time.
'They like to think they are,' Demetrius replied. 'In terms of descent, most of the cities of Cilicia claim a founder from the ancient Hellenic past. The claims of some of the poleis are plausible. Hesiod and Herodotus tell of Amphilochus, the seer who fought at the siege of Troy, journeying here. He is said to have founded Mallos. The town of Mopouestia is named after another seer, Mopsus. But other claims are most unlikely. The citizens of Tarsus themselves are unsure who founded their town: one of the Hellenes — Perseus, Heracles or Triptolemus — or an oriental called Sandan. Zephyrion openly admits it was the creation of the Assyrian king Sardanapallus.'
When Demetrius stopped, Ballista nodded for him to go on.
'In terms of culture, it is true they pay almost exaggerated respect to Hellenic paideia. Chrysippus the Stoic was from Soli. The two men called Athenodorus, the one who lived with Cato and the one who was Julius Caesar's teacher, were both from Tarsus. There are several schools of philosophy and rhetoric in Cilicia. But those who attain distinction tend to travel away, and few men of the highest attainments ever come here from abroad. I think there is something suspect about the Cilician nature which undermines their paideia. In quite recent times, the two
