The Caspian Gates

VIII



Ballista looked at the moon. It was big, one night before full. Over the starboard bow was the small, three-humped island of Lade, dark and quiet. To the other side, no distance across the water, the lights of Miletus twinkled all over the slopes of the peninsula. The water ran down the sides of the boat, spun out behind, the wake bright on the dark sea.

It was late. Ballista was tired. They had ridden out of Priene, past the landlocked port of Naulochos, to a village called Skolopoeis. There they had sent one of the slaves back to Priene with the animals. Having hired the fishing boat, they had waited for the coming of the evening offshore breeze. Ballista stretched and yawned. It seemed an age since they had set out before dawn that morning to travel to Priene.

Seated in the bows, Hippothous was telling Maximus about Miletus. Like a good Hellene – like Demetrius, the previous accensus – Hippothous seldom missed an opportunity to parade his knowledge of distant Hellenic history. ‘The land here was ruled by a local, a Carian chief called Anax or something barbarous like that. Then warriors from Crete came. They were led by Miletos, the son of Apollo and Areia; although some say his mother was Deione or Acacallis.’

‘Strange,’ said Maximus. ‘It is usually the father a fellow is not so sure about.’

Hippothous ignored the interruption. ‘Of course, some say the founder was Sarpedon, but that is obvious nonsense.’

‘Obvious to the most benighted fool.’

‘Anyway, the Cretan newcomers settled down with the local Carians and things were fine between them. But things were very different when the Ionians came under Neileus, son of King Kodros of Athens. They killed all the men and took their women. And that is why, to this day, the wives of the Milesians will neither sit at table with their husbands nor call them by name.’

Maximus nodded admiringly. ‘Sure, these Milesians are on the right track, but imagine if they could get the women not to talk to them at all.’

It was strange how often Hippothous and Maximus talked. Of course, over their months together in the familia, they had shared salt, but much about them suggested that they disliked or even despised one another. Yet there was something that made each seek the other out. Now Hippothous was telling Maximus how the Milesian philosopher Thales thanked the gods for three things: that he was human, not an animal; a man, not a woman; a Hellene, not a barbarian. The teasing did not run all one way.

Ballista hoped the slave had got Pale Horse back to Priene safely. Allfather, he hoped he was right about the safety of Priene. He knew Calgacus would die before he let any harm come to Julia and the boys. Nothing melodramatic about it, he just knew it. If the Goths went there, the acropolis looked impregnable, and Tatianus struck him as capable. But Flavius Damianus was a very different case. The man had done well after the earthquake, but Ballista still mistrusted him from the previous time in Ephesus. Still, Julia and the boys staying there and him going to Miletus was the right thing.

The old fisherman was in the stern with the steering oar. The remaining slave was asleep in the bottom of the boat. Ballista unhitched himself from the mast and asked Hippothous what he knew of the defences of Miletus.

‘“Once, long ago, they were brave, the men of Miletus.”’ Hippothous recited the iambic verse. ‘The words of Phoebus Apollo have become a proverb. For twelve years, the army of the kings of Lydia invaded the land of Miletus. It did them no good; the city held. Since then things have not gone so well. The Ionians lost the naval battle off Lade and the Persians took the city. Alexander’s fleet anchored at Lade and the city fell. A later Macedonian king, the Antigonid Philip V, took Lade, and Miletus went over to him.’

‘So,’ Ballista said, ‘if the attacker has control of the sea, the city falls.’

‘The Goths have a few boats.’ Maximus laughed. ‘Well, that is grand. As Calgacus would say, we are all going to die.’

‘The men of Miletus are not what they were,’ said Hippothous. ‘By the time of the Romans, the Milesians had sunk so low that their island of Pharmakousa was overrun with pirates. Notoriously, they held the young Julius Caesar for ransom.’

‘Although,’ countered Ballista, ‘in the story, once released, Caesar raised boats from Miletus, returned and crucified his captors.’

‘That would be more down to him than the men of Miletus.’

Ballista shrugged. ‘All stories change in the telling.’

The boat drove easily through the slight swell. They were getting close. Moving to the stern, Ballista stood by the fisherman. He studied the city of Miletus. Here, in the north-west, the peninsula sloped steeply down to the sea. In the moonlight he could make out the walls. They appeared sound. So far, so good.

The fisherman tacked to bring the boat around into the narrow mouth of the Lion Harbour. On either side, crouching in the gloom, the large statues which gave the haven its name. By them were winches and chains. Once, they would have closed the entrance; now they lay in sad disrepair. The city walls continued into the harbour but ran out before the quays at the far end. To the left were ship sheds to house war galleys. They were derelict.

Ballista thought back to another arrival at another town, years earlier. He had been sent to defend Arete on the Euphrates. He had told the Boule what had to be done, told them of the necessary destruction and impositions as sympathetically as he could. They had not liked it. Cries of outrage – some of them shouting that it would be no worse being captured. Maybe in some ways they were right. Had he thought that then, or was it something fitting he now added? Memory was a slippery thing.

As the boat glided in, there was a stir on the quayside. A telones – something about them always betrayed them as customs officials – led a group of auxiliary soldiers to the edge of the water. There were no more than half a dozen soldiers; useful for arresting smugglers, less good for a hansa of Goths.

The old man docked the boat. The telones shouted – something peremptory befitting the nature of his calling. Ballista ignored him, let Hippothous browbeat the official with the sonorous titles of Ballista’s exalted Roman status. The soldiers saluted smartly enough. The telones managed to appear both fawning and vaguely aggrieved.

Ballista stepped ashore. As the others tied up the boat, he asked the telones to summon the Boule of Miletus.

The official bridled. ‘Kyrios, it is late. The councillors will be asleep.’

‘Then wake them.’

‘They are men of influence.’ The telones sounded outraged. ‘It would be unseemly.’

Ballista turned and spoke in Latin to one of the soldiers. ‘Go to the curia. There should be public slaves in the council house.’

‘Kyrios, the councillors must not be disturbed,’ the telones interrupted, still in Greek. ‘They will be angry.’

Ballista continued addressing the soldier. ‘Send the public slaves to rouse the councillors.’

‘No, Kyrios, you must leave this until tomorrow. You have no authority over these troops.’

Ballista looked at Maximus, nodded his head at the telones, and continued giving orders. ‘If there are no slaves in the curia, find out where a prominent councillor lives.’

Maximus approached the telones, put a fraternal arm around his shoulders and, pulling him close, drove his knee into the man’s crotch. The official crumpled, clutching his balls. Maximus took a step back and effortlessly kicked him to the ground.

‘Hammer on the councillor’s door until someone answers.’

Maximus had lined up to bring the heel of his boot down on the telones’ ear, when Hippothous restrained him. The accensus handed over his walking stick. Maximus thanked him.

‘When you have woken the councillor’s familia, send his slaves to summon the rest of the curia.’

There was a swish as Maximus swung the walking stick through the air, a solid crunch as it landed. The telones yelped.

‘Is that clear, Miles?’

‘Perfectly, Dominus.’

Swish – crunch, swish – crunch; Maximus was going about his work with skill and commitment.

‘Take two of your boys with you.’

‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’

The soldiers had done well: barely a smile. There were few things soldiers enjoyed as much as watching a civilian getting a good beating.

‘Enough,’ Ballista said. Maximus handed the stick back to Hippothous.

‘Thank you,’ said Hippothous. ‘Done most philosophically. One day, when we have time, I will tell you how the great doctor Galen recommends one beats people.’

The three remaining soldiers began to help unload the baggage from the boat. The telones got to his feet and limped off. Maximus sang as he caught and stacked things. Hippothous, such manual labour being beneath a free-born accensus, polished his walking stick.

Ballista set his back to the sea and surveyed the harbour. Off to the right was a large monument on a stepped circular base. It boasted several ships’ rams in marble. There was a colonnade behind it that turned and ran across in front of him. Its shops and warehouses were all shuttered bar one – probably a drinking den. Where the colonnade stopped to the left was a tall gate, the sort of elaborate, impractical thing commissioned in civic pride in the days when peace seemed immutable. Beyond that, running back towards the water, was the plain wall of a sacred enclosure. It was pierced by just one ornamental gateway. Behind it rose the round roof of the actual temple. It had to be the home of Apollo Delphinios, the patron god of sailors.

Ballista strolled over to the monument on the round base. An inscription recorded its erection to honour Pompey the Great for ridding the sea of pirates.

‘All done,’ Hippothous said.

Maximus, the slave and one of the soldiers shouldered the various bags and shields. The mail coats and everything else were both bulky and heavy.

Through the Harbour Gate was a broad paved road, now empty. The men’s footsteps echoed back from the colonnades on both sides. There was always something unnatural about a city at night.

A walk of a few moments and the roadway opened out into an agora. The soldier pointed to an imposing building to the right. Miletus was, and had always been, a more important polis than Priene. Its Bouleuterion was correspondingly grander. The outer gate through the propylon was open.

Inside was a wide courtyard, porticos with Doric columns on three sides, a tomb or shrine in the middle. On the fourth side the several doors of the actual council house were hermetically shut, although lights could be seen through the high windows. The soldiers who had gone ahead sauntered out of the shadows under the columns. Public slaves had been sent to find the councillors. There was nothing to do but wait.

Overhead, the moon rode across the sky, putting the stars to shame. In the mundane sphere, ox skulls sculpted on the tomb threw back its light. Ballista slipped into an elegiac mood. He thought about defending Miletus, his reasons for coming to this polis, about the Goths. It would not be the first time he had faced them. That had been many years before. He had been a Roman officer when the general Gallus had thrown the Goths back from the walls of Novae up near the Danube. Gaius Vibius Trebonianus Gallus – what a general he had been; what an emperor he would have made, if the fates had not struck him down so soon after he reached the purple.

The night was not having such a melancholy effect on the others. ‘You may well like this town,’ Hippothous said to Maximus. ‘It is a sink of depravity.’

‘I can but hope.’

‘And your hopes may be rewarded. The divine philosopher Apollonius of Tyana tried to bring the Milesians to virtue. He sent them a letter: “Your children lack fathers, your youths old men, your wives husbands, your …”’

‘Well, if their wives are lacking husbands, I am their man.’

‘“… husbands rulers, your rulers laws, your …”’

‘And I am sure you will be looking after the youths.’

Hippothous sighed an exaggerated sigh. ‘I am far from sure Thales was right. It might be better to be born an animal rather than a barbarian.’

‘Maybe some of the husbands too.’

‘Of course, you will not know that this town has given its name to a whole type of erotic story. Would you like to hear a Milesian tale?’

‘That depends,’ Maximus said suspiciously.

‘“There was once a boy of Miletus, the first blush of down on his cheeks–”’

‘No, I really do not think I would enjoy that.’

‘Then how about this? “Once there was a woman of Miletus–”’

‘Better already, much more my end of the agora.’

Hippothous spun the tale, a depraved Penelope weaving an obscene account: a virtuous widow starving herself to death in her husband’s tomb; outside, a soldier guarding a crucified corpse; his blandishments; her acquiescence; the unspoken horror of their lovemaking by her husband’s decaying remains.

Maximus was listening intently, although with lines of suspicion on his face.

The disappearance of the corpse from the cross, the widow volunteering her husband’s cadaver to take its place, the discovery of the substitution, the laughter of the townsfolk, the unresolved ambiguities of the tale’s ending … What happened to them? Was he punished? Was she? Was the laughter enough to save them?

‘You Greeks are all f*cking liars,’ Maximus exclaimed.

‘I think you will find that is just Cretans,’ Hippothous replied suavely.

‘You stole that story from Petronius’s Satyricon, and it happened in Ephesus.’

‘No, it is likely he took it from Aristides’ Milesian Tales.’

‘The Romans are right about you – thieves and liars, every f*cking one of you.’

The acrimonious literary debate was cut short.

‘Health and great joy.’ The man appeared like an apparition conjured out of nothing. He was in middle age, respectable, right arm wrapped in his himation. ‘I am Marcus Aurelius Macarius, stephanephor of Miletus, and asiarch of the imperial cult in this polis.’

‘Health and great joy,’ Ballista replied formally.

Macarius smiled. He was good-looking, with a cleanshaven face reminiscent of a polished artefact of considerable value. ‘It is an honour to welcome Marcus Clodius Ballista, Vir Ementissimus, victor of Circesium, Soli and Sebaste, to Miletus.’

‘It is an honour to be here.’

‘If it is convenient, the Boule wishes to have your advice.’

Inside, the Bouleuterion was the shape and scale of a theatre. Curved tiers of seats banded up to the shadows of the tall beamed ceiling, upon them some two hundred men. There was room for six or seven times that number. Ballista noted the two doors high up in the back wall. That was how the councillors had got in unseen.

Macarius offered a little wine and a pinch of incense to the gods, and then made the proposal.

The men of Miletus had done well. Seven years ago, when the Goths had sacked Nicomedia and the other cities in Bithynia, the Boule and Demos of the Milesians had begun the repair of the walls. The number of men chosen for the watch had been doubled. Proper military training had been reintroduced to the instruction of the ephebes. Three days ago, when the news had come from Ephesus, they began stockpiling food. The men of Miletus had done well, but one thing had been lacking, a thing now made good by the providence of the gods. The city had lacked a man of proven military skill and experience to command the defence. Now, in answer to their prayers, the gods had sent such a man. Macarius called on the Boule of Miletus to appoint Marcus Clodius Ballista, the hero of Circesium, of Soli, of Sebaste, to be strategos, to save the city from the fury of Scythian Ares.

The councillors shook back their cloaks and applauded. The proposal was passed without debate, unanimously. Macarius called on the Vir Ementissimus Ballista to take the floor.

Ballista had been thinking about what he would say, but he had not prepared a speech. No stranger to what was expected, he would let the words come.

‘Once, long ago, they were brave, the men of Miletus.’

Unease ran through the Bouleuterion. No one knew the proverb better than the honourable men assembled. Who was this barbarian to insult them?

‘Once, long ago, they were brave, the men of Miletus, and they are brave still.’

Recognizing the rhetorical ploy, the councillors were mollified. They settled to listen.

‘What makes a people brave? We should believe Herodotus: it is geography, the nature of their land. The Maeander Plain may have grown, but the mountains and the sea do not change. The backbreaking limestone mountains, and the deep, widow-making sea remain. While they endure, the Milesians do not change.’

A murmur of approval came from the councillors. This general from the north spoke their language.

‘For twelve years, the Milesians defied the Lydian kings. It took the might of Persia and the genius of Alexander to take the walls of Miletus. There is no shame in going down fighting against overwhelming odds. Men do not speak ill of Leonidas and the three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae. Athens fell to the Persians, Rome to the Gauls. There is no shame in it. Where would Rome have been if the Milesians had not avenged Julius Caesar and crucified the pirates? The Goths who will come are not a host led by a Darius or Alexander. They are no more than the pirates your forefathers routed on Pharmakousa.’

Again the cloaks were shaken back and applause rang to the gloomy rafters.

‘I cannot tell yet what measures may be necessary but, be warned, they will be a bitter medicine. But we have time. The Goths will not be here for several days.’

As soon as Ballista finished, before the sounds of approbation had died, Macarius was on his feet. ‘How do you know the Goths will not arrive for days?’

Ballista smiled. ‘I know too much about Goths.’