Throne of the Caesars 01 - Iron and Rust (35 page)

The first attack had come within an hour of setting out. Groups of Persian light horse had raced in towards the column. About a hundred and fifty paces out, they had started shooting. Some fifty paces short of the line – well outside the cast of a javelin – they had wheeled around and galloped away, all the while plying their bows over their horses’ tails. One charge had succeeded another almost without cease.

Each foray had slowed the march and claimed a few of the dead and wounded. The former, if they were fortunate, had a handful of earth sprinkled over them and a coin for the ferryman put in their mouths. Beyond that, there was nothing to do but leave the dead where they fell. Those too injured to walk were carried to the centre and mounted or strapped on the mules. Soon the path of the army was littered with the bodies of men and animals and strewn with abandoned baggage.

Progress had been agonizingly slow. Even on half rations, food had run short. It had taken two days to cover some twenty miles to the first unnamed river, another two to cover the same distance to the Arzamon, and a fifth to approach the Chaboras. At the first two crossings the Persian armoured cavalry had feinted a charge as the army struggled through the water, hoping to disrupt the lines enough to press home the attack. Priscus and the other officers had patrolled the column, shouting themselves hoarse. Somehow, panic was held at bay, cohesion maintained. The Sassanid nobles had turned their horses and, in good order, cantered away.

The Romans would have to face down their fears again before they gained the far bank of the Chaboras. Many more men would die before they reached the temporary safety of Resaina. The futility of it all dragged at Priscus. They should have accepted the offer of Ardashir, handed over Singara and Nisibis. Of course, it would have been unpleasant for the inhabitants, and the truce would have been temporary. The Sassanid was committed to conquering as far as the Aegean, and Rome would have had to try to retake the cities, and exact revenge besides. But it would have given the armies of the eastern provinces time to send an expedition west, and place Serenianus on the throne. Maximinus was bleeding the empire white for his unwinnable northern war. Priscus had served on the Rhine. There were many tribes in the North. You used money and the threat of the legions to keep them at each other’s throats. In the East, there was just the King of Kings. You could set all the other rulers of the Orient on him – the Kings of Armenia and Hatra, the Lords of Palmyra, any other petty potentates you could find – and Ardashir would defeat them all, and still unleash his horsemen on the
imperium
. The real threat to Rome was the house of Sasan.

Priscus prided himself on clear-sighted realism untrammelled by sentiment. Last autumn, even his brother had been horrified by his proposal. That was why he had left Philip in Mesopotamia, when he had gone to Samosata. Priscus accepted he had mishandled that meeting. He should have known the sloth and cowardice of Junius Balbus and Otacilius Severianus would not be moved by appeal to patriotism or advantage. Even his friend Timesitheus had not spoken out. Now the opportunity had gone, and all that was left was the residual danger of denouncement.

‘Infantry ahead.’

Priscus realized he was tired, his mind wandering.

The front line was less than a couple of hundred paces from the Chaboras, almost in effective bowshot.

‘Archers ready.’ Priscus called.

As they trudged forward, the auxiliaries notched arrows, raised and half drew their bows.

There was something strange about the line of men under the wide-spaced trees on the far bank. Those at the front were without shields or arms.

‘Gods below,’ a soldier said, ‘they are ours!’

The murmur rippled through the ranks like wind through a cornfield.

‘It is the garrison from Nisibis.’

He was right. Priscus could see men in Roman undress uniform, two hundred or more of them. They must be from the detachment of the 3rd Legion captured at Nisibis. Their hands were bound. Sassanids stood behind them.

A flight of arrows arced up from behind the human shield. The legionaries raised their shields. The auxiliaries lowered their bows, ducked into cover. Sporakes covered Priscus. The shafts whistled down. Someone nearby screamed.

‘Draw!’ Priscus pushed Sporakes away. ‘They are dead men. Draw, unless you want to join them.’

Only a few bowmen obeyed.

Another squall of Persian arrows fell. More men howled in agony.

‘All of you, draw!’

More – but far from all – did as they were told.

‘Release!’

A ragged volley. There were near four hundred bowmen still with the standard, but no more than half that number of shafts sped away.

Most of the arrows struck harmlessly into the trees. But Priscus saw a captive legionary transfixed. Then another tumbled down the bank, and another.

The Sassanids were hacking down the defenceless men.

An animal roar of hatred rose from the Roman column.

‘Draw! Release!’

This time, without hesitation, all the auxiliaries used their weapons.

All the prisoners were gone by the time the front rank reached the river. In their place stood a wall of big wicker shields. Dark-bearded easterners peered over the top.

The banks of the Chaboras were stony and sloped gently here. The legionaries poured down and splashed through the shallow water.

Priscus held up his hand and halted the auxiliaries. The order was relayed back. The whole column shuffled to a standstill. Too many men would breed confusion. The legionaries could clear the way. No eastern infantry could hold legionaries. Not legionaries who had just seen their comrades murdered.

The men of 1st Parthica and 6th Ferrata swept up the far bank in a terrible tide of steel. Priscus saw Persians running from the rear of their line before the clash. You could not call them cowards. Unarmoured, with inadequate shields and next to no training, the Persians who stood had no chance. They fell like wheat before the blades of the legionaries.

Priscus looked away, back across the rest of the army. Through the clouds of dust raised by innumerable hooves, he could see troops of Sassanid noble cavalry, the dreaded
clibanarii
, moving up to the south and east. Thank the gods there was no sign of the elephants.

‘The way is clear,’ Sporakes said.

On the far bank, Priscus could see Julius Julianus spurring his horse, shouting, gesticulating. The centurions were dragging men drunk with the violence of vengeance away from the mutilation of the fallen easterners and back into line. The legionaries were fanning out, creating a bridgehead.

Priscus gave the word to advance, told the Prefect commanding the Mesopotamian cavalry to take over the infantry as well, and pulled his Horse Guards out of the line.

Philip and Porcius Aelianus kept the flanking columns in reasonable order as they went down into the river. It was just as well. The baggage train degenerated into terrible confusion. Although there was little current and the water was not above thigh deep, the wounded men and lame and injured animals began to flounder. Some slipped and fell, obstructing or bringing down others. Soon it had ground to a flailing, staggering halt. The armed men guarding the flanks halted. Priscus sent one of his
equites
after Julius Julianus to make sure the vanguard did not continue and open a gap between the bodies of troops. At the rear, the Armenian horse and the infantry of Cervonius Papus had been turned about, and faced back the way they had come. Beyond them, out on the plain, the
clibanarii
were arrayed in a wide crescent stretching from the east to the south further down the river. They were ready, should any opportunity present itself.

When, finally, the last of the non-combatants scrambled and crawled up the far bank, the flank guards moved off. Chosroes and his Armenians wheeled about and thundered across in a cloud of spray. From the rear, Cervonius Papus sent his foot archers jogging after them.

The legionaries of 12th Fulminata were the only troops still on the far side. They were tired and hungry. They had been hard handled throughout the retreat. No more than fifteen hundred remained under the standards, many of them with minor wounds. Men in the rear ranks were looking over their shoulders, eying their retreating fellow-soldiers and the delusory security of the river.

A drumbeat rolled across from the Persians.

The first individuals began to edge back from 12th Legion.

Priscus knew what was going to happen; a lifetime in the army left no doubt. Shouting an order to a guardsman to ride and halt those on the far side, he put his boots into his horse’s flanks.

The Sassanid heavy horse was walking forward.

Small groups – three or four at a time – were breaking away from the legionary phalanx and running towards the river. Centurions and junior officers grabbed some, manhandled them back into place. More broke away. The first threw down their shields the better to run.

The drumbeat quickened. The Sassanid horse were moving into a slow canter.

Priscus brought his horse up across the flight of a gaggle of legionaries. He shouted at them to stop. Ignoring him, they swerved out of his way and ran all the harder.

Flamboyant heroics were not in Priscus’ nature. A Roman general was not Achilles. Priscus tried to think calmly, take everything in, weigh up the options. Abandon the legionaries to their fate, ride back to Chosroes, get his Armenians drawn up along the far bank? No, the fleeing legionaries would disrupt their line. In the confusion, they would all be swept away. Once a panic starts in an army, it spreads like fire across a parched hillside. Sometimes even a general has to stand in the line and fight. It was the only rational thing to be done.

The
clibanarii
were picking up speed.

The legionaries were bunching together, their line contracting, gaps opening. It was worst on the right, away from Cervonius Papus and the eagle.

Priscus spurred his mount across.

‘Stand firm! Hold your line. No cavalry will ride into a formed line.’

The men looked at him, uncertain and afraid.

The Sassanids were closing fast, The noise of their charge drumming in Priscus’ ears.

Swinging a leg over the horns of his saddle, he dropped to the ground. He turned his horse, drew his sword and brought the flat across its rump. The animal clattered away.

‘We will stand and fight together. Stand with your general.’

Priscus shouldered his way into the ranks. He took a standard bearer by the shoulders, propelled him to the front.

‘Spread out. Give yourselves room to use your weapons. Not too far. Shield to shield.’

When Priscus looked up, the
clibanarii
were no more than a hundred paces away; a solid wall of steel and horseflesh.

‘Stand, and they will not charge home.’

Priscus braced himself; left foot forward, right heel digging in.

‘Level your weapons.’

He could not take his eyes off the Sassanid bearing down directly at him. The tall, glittering helm, flowing silks. The wicked point of a lance. The huge charger, mouth foam-flecked, hooves pounding.

Priscus shut his eyes, braced for the impact that would smash him to the earth under the hooves.

Screams, shouts, an incomprehensible wave of noise.

The Sassanid was almost on top of him; halfway up his horse’s neck, clinging on, unbalanced. Further down the line a maddened animal had crashed into the line. Others were trying to push into the opening it had created. But the rest had refused. There were unseated riders on the floor. Loose horses bored into those still mounted.

‘One step for victory!’

Priscus jumped forward, brought his sword down into the thigh of the unbalanced rider. The edge bit through the scale armour. The Persian gripped the wound. The horse leapt sideways, crashing into another animal. In the chaos, riders yanked the heads of their mounts around, fought to get away.

‘One more step!’

Blades rose and fell, red with retribution, as the legionaries around Priscus stepped forward.

CHAPTER 30

Rome
The Forum Romanum,
Two Days before the Nones of August, AD237

Pupienus was not listening to his son. Africanus had said it all before and, most likely, he would say it again.

The heat was overwhelming. It seemed to radiate up from the pavement, and reflect back, intensified and blinding, from the marble-clad walls of the Flavian Amphitheatre. It was August, but no one in Rome could remember a heatwave of such intensity. The superstitious were linking it to any number of prodigies; a huge red wolf had been seen slinking through the Campus Martius in the dead of night; the paintings of Maximinus by the Lake of Curtius were said to have sweated blood; a woman in Aquileia had given birth to a child with two heads. The latter at least was true. The infant had been brought to Rome. To expiate the portent, the Senate had ordered it burnt alive in the Forum, and the ashes thrown into the Tiber.