them back to their units on pain of death. Legio IIII was to remain formed on the road as a reserve under Castricius. Aurelian was to attend the Dux Ripae.
Some horsemen clattered away purposefully. Others remained, looking concerned. There was something unspoken in the air. Aurelian? Where was Aurelian?
Macapor edged his horse forward. 'He is hurt.'
'Badly?'
Mucapor shrugged.
'Everyone, carry out your orders. Mucapor, we will go to him.' Even in the extremity of his fear – this was no trick, no false alarm – Ballista did not push Pale Horse too hard. He forced himself to keep the gelding to the gentlest of canters, forced down the hollow feeling of panic.
There was a knot of men under the standards of Legio IIII. It parted as Ballista approached. Aurelian was lying on his back. His right leg was at an odd angle. An army doctor was on his knees, preparing to set the broken limb.
Ballista jumped down from the saddle. Aurelian's face was grey, and he was sweating. Through gritted teeth, he whispered, 'I give you joy of your victory.'
Ballista looked into his friend's eyes. 'Thank you.' Unable to say more, Ballista leant down and very gently squeezed Aurelian's shoulder. Then he straightened up, turned away, and got on with what needed to be done. The army had stayed at Circesium for thirteen days. It had been a busy time for Ballista. He had pushed cavalry patrols out further and further in all directions. There had been no sign of any Persians – or none that were still living. The premature charge of Acilius Glabrio had robbed him of the chance to destroy the Persian army, but it seemed the easterners had withdrawn, at least for the time being.
There had been many, many burials to attend to. Aelius Spartianus, the tribune commanding the Roman forces in Circesium, who had fallen with almost all his men when the Sassanids took the town, was interred in a slendid sarcophagus in a fine tomb by the main road into town – admittedly, both sarcophagus and tomb were reused, but the local stonemason made a good job of the new inscriptions. The other Roman dead among the soldiers were buried in communal graves, but they were accorded all due respect: their eyes closed, a coin in each mouth, a newly sculpted monument on top of each grave.
Things had been different with the Sassanids. Their often mutilated remains were burned and the ashes thrown anyhow into pits. But this was not just casual contempt for the enemy. The Romans knew that the Sassanids were Zoroastrian fire-worshippers who exposed their dead to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. They knew well that the Zoroastrians held that the mere touch of a corpse polluted the very sacredness of fire. A small voice at the back of Ballista's mind had whispered that this could only exacerbate the conflict between east and west, that it might even rebound personally on its perpetrator. The Sassanids would see it as an atrocity, a deliberate insult to their religion. They would, of course, be right. Yet there was little that Ballista had felt he could do. His men had suffered day after day at the hands of the easterners. They had wanted revenge even on the dead bodies of their tormentors.
Ballista had tried to set the defence of the town on a sounder footing. Across the Chaboras a tower was built to give early warning of any Sassanid forces advancing up the Euphrates. The walls and gates of Circesium itself had needed little work, as the town had fallen to a surprise attack rather than regular siege works. Ballista had arranged for supplies and materials of war to be transported by boat downriver from Zeugma. Two thousand inhabitants of Circesium had been conscripted to form a local militia. Legio III Felix and the Mesopotamian archers were to be left as a regular garrison. They would be supported by three of the small war galleys.
The whole was to be commanded by Rutillius Rufus, the prefect of Legio III. The gods knew it was a small force, but Rufus seemed solid enough. While having done nothing outstanding, he had performed creditably on the march and in the battle. Ballista had started to give him a lengthy lecture on the tactics and stratagems to be adopted in defending a town against the Sassanids. The northerner had stopped abruptly when he thought he detected a badly suppressed smile on the prefect's face. Ever since he had entered the imperium as a sixteen- year-old from barbaricum, Ballista had had a strong dread of being mocked. He knew he was still oversensitive about it. But there again, it had to be admitted that Arete, the only town Ballista had defended from the Sassanids, had fallen in a bloody sack. And now it seemed Acilius Glabrio had stolen much of the credit for the victory at Circesium.
The march back had initially retraced their steps, north to Basileia and Leontopolis, across the Euphrates by the wide stone bridge at Soura, and on to Barbalissus. It had been hot and tiring but, with no enemy in sight, it had been a stroll in a Persian paradise by comparison with the march south. At Barbalissus, Castricius had taken his leave, marching his vexillatio on up the Euphrates to the base of Legio IIII at Zeugma. Ballista had led the remainder of the army west, skirting the southern shores of the great lake of Garboula to the city of Chalcis ad Belum and on to the main road to Antioch.
As they approached the capital of the Roman east, they had passed through the small village of Meroe. It was strange how some unimportant places stuck in one's mind. Ballista could always picture the dingy, dust-covered, mud-brick houses which flanked the road, the cracked public fountain, the thin, straggly trees which passed for a sacred grove. He had been through the village four times, on his way to and from first Arete and then Circesium. Nothing of note had happened on any of these occasions. Yet he could summon it up exactly, down to the smell of the water evaporating in the sun as it leaked from the fountain.
For five days, the returning army had been camped outside the Beroea Gate. Finally, the emperor Valerian had given his gracious permission for them to enter. Ballista looked up and down the procession. Everything was nearly ready.
Turpio rode up and saluted, the gold bracelet he had taken from the Persian king's tent sparkling in the sun. All was ready. Ballista cast a last look down the line. The army made a brave show, standards flying, infantry in serried ranks, cavalry and officers on prancing horses. Acilius Glabrio looked particularly splendid on a glossy black charger. Aurelian, on account of his broken leg, was having to ride in a carriage. Ballista adjusted his helmet and made the signal to move off.
The crowds were waiting through the Beroea Gate. They lined the colonnades of the Street of Tiberius and Herod. They threw flowers and called out compliments. A few girls, surely prostitutes, lifted their skirts or pulled down their tunics, offering the troops tantalizing glimpses of flesh.
'Keep the line straight, boys,' exhorted Ballista. 'Plenty of time later.'
They turned off into the street that ran down to the second bridge over the Orontes. They made their way across the island, the circus and the imperial palace to their right, past the Tetrapylon, the four columns supporting statues of elephants where imperial orders were posted, through the district known as the Bull, and out over the far bridge to the suburbs. There were no crowds on the western bank of the river. Instead, at no great intervals, the heads of malefactors and those who had earned imperial disfavour rotted on their pikes. They reached the campus martius and drew up in front of the imperial tribunal.
Ballista played with Pale Horse's ears as they waited. Imperial ceremonies tended to involve waiting. Junior officers scurried about checking the men were standing properly squared off, their kit just so. The sand of the campus martius had been watered that morning. No one wanted the polished arms and armour coated in dust. The usual wind from the south-east that blew up the Orontes valley was getting up. Already it tugged fitfully at the purple hangings of the imperial tribunal. Ballista smiled to himself. Outside verse Panegyrics, the gods and not the emperors controlled the winds.
After a decently short amount of time, the imperial party arrived. Slowly, the aged emperor Valerian stepped down from his carriage. After him, equally slowly, emerged the Comes Sacrarum Largitionum. There were few higher honours in the imperium than the invitation to ride in the emperor's carriage. Macrianus the Lame looked as if he felt he belonged there.
Laboriously, the two old men climbed the steps. The other great officers of state followed them. When they were all in the position their rank dictated, Valerian alone moved to the front of the tribunal. He saluted the army. The army saluted back. The prearranged chants rang out: 'Hail, Valerian Augustus, may the gods preserve you!' – twenty times; 'Valerian Augustus, deliver us from the Persians!' – thirty times; 'Valerian Augustus, long may you live!' – forty times.
In the quiet that followed, the snap of the purple hangings in the wind echoed across the parade ground. Valerian filled his lungs, put his head back and began to speak.
'Ave, hail the victors of the battle of Circesium. Ave, hail the conquerors of the eastern barbarians!'
