the mountains, also is often called the Caspian Gates, but is more properly the Caucasian Gates. Through it erupted the Alani, in the time of the Divine Hadrian, when they set upon the province of Cappadocia, and were only driven back by the valour of the historian Arrian. Now the pass is held by Polemo, king of Suania. It is here that the Vir Ementissimus Marcus Clodius Ballista, with my colleague Mastabates, will advise the king and rebuild the fortifications.’
Interesting, thought Hippothous, that this eunuch from the palace calls Ballista Vir Ementissimus, as if he were still one of the great equestrian prefects of the empire.
With a flaccid sweep of his hand, Eusebius continued. ‘Although it is less well known, between the two great passes are several others. They are harder going, but usable. They debouch into the territory of Hamazasp, king of Iberia. The Vir Perfectissimus Marcus Aurelius Rutilus has mandata to go to him. He will be accompanied by my friend Gallicanus.’
Finally, Eusebius gave his attention to Felix. ‘To the west of the main Caspian or Caucasian Gates are several more tracks across the mountains. They lead down to the Black Sea at the cities of Pityous, Sebastopolis and Cygnus. The most powerful rulers here are Rhesmagus and Spadagas, the kings of the western and eastern Abasgi. They have established a certain loose hegemony over such tribes as the Macropogones and the Phtheirophagi in the mountains, as well as the minor chiefs of the lowland Colchis behind the coastal city of Phasis.’
Eusebius bowed deeply. ‘A situation of such complexity calls for the political acumen, and possibly the military skills, of such a man as Spurius Aemilius Felix, the hero of Byzantium and Mediolanum.’
Hippothous only smiled inwardly; for a physiognomist is not to be caught out himself. No matter how Eusebius dressed it up, the self-regarding consular Felix was unlikely to welcome a commission which would see him struggling up goat tracks at the end of the world to mountain tribes such as the Macropogones and Phtheirophagi. There was something pleasurable in contemplating the Vir Clarissimus Spurius Aemilius Felix in the huts of the chiefs of the ‘longbeards’ and the ‘lice-eaters’.
The eunuch seemed to be moving to the close of his oration with the sort of courtly platitudes and gestures he thought suitable to the occasion. Hippothous found it hard to watch. The too smooth cheeks, the broad mouth, the long, thin neck, the fleshy arms and wrists, the womanly breasts and even hips: the complete repulsiveness of a man who is not like other men.
‘Of course, men of understanding, such as yourselves, will long ago have unveiled the other reason for this mission; the one not to be spoken of with any outside this room.’
A neat rhetorical turn, thought Hippothous, whose mind had been elsewhere.
‘Of course, it is important to keep the hordes of the Alani north of the Caucasus. But there is no especial reason to think they are intending to try to force the Caspian Gates now.’
The eunuch had all Hippothous’s attention.
‘Many reports, some casually received from merchants, others sent by frumentarii, indicate that, since the capture of the emperor Valerian, the minions of the Persian king have been assiduous in their courting of the rulers to whom you are being sent. There is hardly a petty chieftain south of the Caucasus that is not eating off a silver dinner service embossed with images of Shapur hunting lions or carrying out some other kingly pursuit. There is a Sassanid army, commanded by Shapur’s son Prince Narseh, south-west of the Caspian Sea. It is there on the pretence of crushing a revolt among their subject tribes of the Mardi and the Cadusii, but it is poised to move up through Albania and Iberia. Unless we can restore our client kings in the region to their rightful loyalty to Rome, the imperium will find it has lost the whole Caucasian region as far as Colchis. Unless we succeed, next year, Sassanid horsemen will be riding west along the shores of the Black Sea.’
XVI
The trireme waiting for them at Byzantium that had orders to convey them the length of the Kindly Sea to the Caucasus was named the Armata. Its trierarch was called Bruteddius Niger. Ballista liked the look of both immediately. The big galley was taut, well run. Its captain was square set, the epitome of a grizzled seaman.
Yet not all was ideal. The Armata was not from the Classis Pontica which operated out of Trapezus in the Black Sea. Instead, she had been one of the squadron of Venerianus that had followed the Gothic pirates as far as Byzantium. When the rest of the flotilla sailed south, it had been seconded to remain. The Armata was an Italian ship based out of Ravenna. Neither it nor Bruteddius had ever been into the daunting Black Sea. Somehow that was typical of imperial bureaucracy.
Bruteddius had hired a local pilot to negotiate the Bosphorus. It had been a wise step. The current in the middle of the channel ran down from the Black Sea like a mill race. To proceed north with any ease, a galley, even one with nearly two hundred oarsmen, had to catch the counter-currents close to either shore, several times pulling across the rush of water from one side to the other.
Nevertheless, in a few hours, they passed the clashing rocks. These marked the entrance to the Black Sea. Once, they had floated, dashing together and crushing any vessel that attempted the passage. After Jason and the Argonauts had got through, the gods had fixed the dreadful obstacles in place. The pilot pointed them out with parochial pride. Ballista and the others were less than impressed. The dirty stubs of charcoal-green stone did not look the stuff of myth.
They had all heard terrible things about the Black Sea. Storms blew up out of nowhere. The southern coast was notorious for a wave pattern like no other: triple waves which could put even the most seaworthy craft on its beam ends. But the first day, the Kindly Sea was calm. The only thing that surprised the seamen used to the clear waters of the Mediterranean was its opaque quality. However, while they could not see into its depths, a helpful and strong current ran to the east.
The Armata raced along, leaving a long, straight wake like a path through a green meadow. Bruteddius wanted to push for a long day’s row all the way to Heraclea. But Felix, true to the interests of his class, managed to turn the trip into a voyage of antiquarian sight-seeing. First, at lunch time, he insisted they delay at Calpe. Through the eyes of the cultured, the promontory was just as Xenophon had described it in the Anabasis: the harbour under the steep cliff, its beach facing west; close by, the spring of plentiful fresh water; the broad headland with the narrow, defensible neck connecting it to the mainland; the abundance of good, shipbuilding timber; to the south, before the mountains, the villages set on the rich soil. No wonder, Felix opined, Xenophon had wanted to settle the ten thousand there. Only the short-sightedness of the mercenaries had prevented the foundation of a magnificent Greek polis.
After Calpe, Felix desired to see the small island of Apollonia, where Apollo appeared to the Argonauts, and which was called Thynias by Apollonius of Rhodes in his epic of the voyage. Fortunately, there was a harbour of sorts at the bottom of the island. Bruteddius close berthed the Armata for the night, lashing her tight with double cables. As the rowers relaxed on the beach, Felix took Ballista and the other emissaries off with him. They wandered the shore, searching for the altar of the god and the sanctuary of Homonia which Jason had founded, and the place where the heroes had danced. Felix was not to be disappointed. A few indigenous inhabitants blended out of the trees and provided with utter certainty locales for every detail of the Argonauts’ story; including several unmentioned by Apollonius. Furthermore, these sagacious guides encouraged the elderly senator to call for weapons and nets and set off after them, climbing the thickly wooded slopes to hunt the descendants of the very deer and wild goats pursued by the crew of the Argo.
At times like that evening, as, bow in hand, he strolled under the canopy of leaves, Ballista wondered if the education of the Roman elite really was the best training for governing their imperium. Some might consider expertise other than skilled rhetoric and an encyclopaedic knowledge of literature from or about the distant past might have more utility in holding together a far-flung empire threatened on all sides and from within in an age of iron and rust.
The second morning dawned bright and clear. At no particularly early hour, Felix led on to the trireme the envoys and their supernumeraries – friends, secretaries, servants and, in the case of the esteemed senator, who knew what else besides. The sailors and oarsmen had been waiting for some time. The members of the mission distributed themselves across the deck. Their numbers were such – no fewer than forty – that the galley’s marines perforce had been left in Byzantium. As Bruteddius had been heard to say, the Armata now scarcely fitted her name. There would be Charon to pay, if they ran into trouble.
