Antony and Cleopatra (31 page)

One didn’t use horse troopers to build a camp; they weren’t Roman and they had no idea how to go about manual labor. Now Silo had come up he could go about erecting something that would give his soldiers shelter but not inform them that this was going to be a long stay. Labienus was worried enough to huddle within his walls and look up the scarred slope to where Ventidius’s camp was growing rapidly; his only consolation was that, in taking the high ground, Ventidius had left him an escape route down into Cilicia at Tarsus. A fact of which Ventidius was equally aware, though not concerned about. He preferred to chase Labienus out of Anatolia at this time; such a steep, stump-riddled site was no place for a decisive battle. Just a
good
battle.

Four days after Silo had arrived, a scout came to tell the Roman commanders that the Parthians had skirted around Tarsus and taken the road up to the Cilician Gates.

“How many of them?” Ventidius asked.

“Five thousand or thereabouts, general.”

“All archers?”

The man looked blank. “No archers. They’re cataphracts to the last man, general. Didn’t you know?”

Ventidius’s blue eyes met Silo’s green, both pairs startled. “What a cock-up!” Ventidius cried when the scout had gone. “No, we didn’t know! All that work with the slingers, and for nothing!” He braced himself, managed to look determined. “Well, it will have to hinge on the terrain. I’m sure Labienus thinks we’re fools to have offered him a chance at flight, but I’m now more committed to chopping up cataphracts than I am to his mercenaries. Call a meeting of the centurions for tomorrow at dawn, Silo.”

The plan was careful and meticulously worked out.

“I haven’t been able to ascertain whether Pacorus is leading his army in person,” Ventidius said to his six hundred centurions at the meeting, “but what we have to do, boys, is tempt the Parthians into charging us uphill without infantry support from Labienus. That means we line our walls and shout awful insults at the Parthians—in Parthian. I have a fellow who has written down a few words and phrases that five thousand men have to learn by heart. Pigs, idiots, sons of whores, savages, dogs, turd eaters, peasants. Fifty centurions with the loudest voices will have to learn how to say ‘Your father is a pimp!’ and ‘Your mother sucks cock!’ and ‘Pacorus is a pig keeper!’—Parthians don’t eat pork and regard pigs as unclean. The whole idea is to work them into such a rage that they forget tactics and
charge
. In the meantime Quintus Silo will have opened the camp gates and broken down the side walls to let nine legions out in a hurry. It’s your other job, boys, to tell your men not to be afraid of these big
mentulae
on their big horses. Your men must come in like Ubii foot warriors, under and around the horses, and chop at horse legs. Once a horse is down, swing the sword at its rider’s face or anywhere else not protected by chain mail. I’m still going to use my slingers, though I can’t be sure they’ll be of any help. And that’s it, boys. The Parthians will be here tomorrow fairly early, so today has to be spent learning Parthian insults and talking, talking, talking. Dismissed, and may Mars and Hercules Invictus be with us.”

It was more than a good battle; it was a sweet one, an ideal blooding for legionaries who had never set eyes on a cataphract before. The mailed horsemen looked more fearsome than experience showed they actually were, and responded to the barrage of insults with a rage that overcame all common sense. Up the stump-spidered hill they came, shaking the ground, screaming their war cries, some of the horses falling needlessly as their riders crashed into stumps or tried to hurdle them. Their mail-clad opponents, tiny by comparison, issued out of the forest to either side of the camp and danced nimbly into a forest of equine legs, hacking, chopping, turning the Parthian charge into a frenzy of squealing horses and floundering riders, helpless against the blows that rained on faces and stabbed at underarms. A good thrust with a
gladius
penetrated belly mail, though it wasn’t very good for the blade.

And, much to his delight, Ventidius discovered that the lead missiles flung by his slingers punched rents in the Parthian mail and went on to kill.

Sacrificing a thousand of his infantry to fight a rearguard action, Labienus fled down the Roman road into Cilicia, thankful to be alive. Which was more than could be said for the Parthians, cut to pieces. Perhaps a thousand of them followed Labienus, the rest dead or dying on the field of the Cilician Gates.

“What a bloodbath,” said an exultant Silo to Ventidius when, six hours after it began, the battle was over.

“How have we fared, Silo?”

“Oh, excellently. A few cracked heads that got in the way of hooves, several crushed under fallen horses, but all up—I’d say about two hundred casualties. And fancy those lead
glandes!
Even chain mail can’t stop them.”

Frowning, Ventidius walked the field, unmoved by the suffering all around him; they had dared the might of Rome, and found that a fatal thing to do. A number of legionaries were passing through the heaps of dead and dying, killing horses and men who would not survive. Few who stayed were lightly injured, but those who were would be gathered together and kept for ransom, for the cataphract warrior was a nobleman whose family could afford to ransom him. If no ransom came, a man would be sold into slavery.

“What do we do about the mountains of dead?” Silo asked, and sighed. “This isn’t country with topsoil beyond a foot or two, so it’s going to be hard to dig pits to bury them, and the wood’s too green to burn as pyres.”

“We drag them into Labienus’s camp and leave them there to rot,” said Ventidius. “By the time we come back this way, if come back we do, they’ll be bleached bones. There’s no habitation for many miles, and Labienus’s sanitary arrangements are good enough to ensure that the Cydnus won’t be polluted.” He huffed. “But first, we search for booty. I want my triumphal parade to be a good one—no Macedonian imitation triumph for Publius Ventidius!”

And that remark, thought Silo with a secret grin, is a slap at Pollio, waging the same old war in Macedonia.

In Tarsus, Ventidius discovered that Pacorus had not been present at the battle, perhaps one reason why it had been so easy to work the Parthians into a furore. Labienus was still fleeing east across Cilicia Pedia, his column in wild disarray between the leaderless cataphracts and a few mercenary grumblers with the influence to stir up trouble among more placid infantrymen.

“We have to keep on his tail,” said Ventidius, “but this time it’s you can ride with the cavalry, Silo. I’ll bring the legions on myself.”

“Was I too slow getting to the Cilician Gates?”

“
Edepol
, no! Confidentially, Silo, I’m getting too old for long rides. My balls are sore and I have a fistula. You’ll fare better, you’re much younger. A man nearly fifty-five is doomed to use his feet.”

A servant appeared in the doorway. “
Domine
, Quintus Dellius is here to see you, and asking to be accommodated.”

Blue eyes met green in another of those glances only close friendship and similar tastes permit; it spoke volumes, though not a word was said.

“Send him in, but don’t worry about the accommodation.”

“My very dear Publius Ventidius! And Quintus Silo too! How nice to see you.” Dellius settled himself in a chair before he was offered one, and looked significantly at the wine flagon. “A drop of something light, white, and bright would be good.”

Silo poured, handed the goblet over as he spoke to Ventidius. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll be about my business.”

“Tomorrow at dawn for both of us.”

“My, my, so much earnestness!” said Dellius, sipping, then pulling a face. “Ugh! What is this piss, third pressing?”

“I wouldn’t know because I haven’t tried it,” Ventidius said curtly. “What do you want, Dellius? And you’ll have to put up at an inn tonight, because the palace is full. You can move in tomorrow and have the place all to yourself. We’re off.”

Bridling indignantly, Dellius sat up straight and glared. Since that memorable dinner when he had shared Antony’s couch two years ago, he had become so used to deference that he expected it even from crusty Military Men like Publius Ventidius. Now, to find it missing! His fawnish eyes encountered Ventidius’s, and he went red; they held contempt. “Well, really!” he cried. “That is the outside of enough! I have a propraetorian imperium and I
insist
that I be accommodated immediately! Throw Silo out if you’ve no one else to throw.”

“I’d not throw the meanest
contubernalis
out for a crawler like you, Dellius. My imperium is proconsular. What do you want?”

“I bear a message from the Triumvir Marcus Antonius,” Dellius said coldly, “and I expected to deliver it in Ephesus, not in a rat’s nest like Tarsus.”

“Then you should have moved faster,” Ventidius said without sympathy. “While you’ve been bobbing around in a boat, I’ve been doing battle with the Parthians. You may carry a message from me to Antonius—tell him that we beat an army of Parthian cataphracts at the Cilician Gates, and have Labienus on the run. What’s your message? Anything that exciting?”

“It isn’t wise to antagonize me,” said Dellius in a whisper.

“Ask me do I care. Your message? I have work to do.”

“I am instructed to remind you that Marcus Antonius is most anxious to see King Herod of the Jews placed upon his throne as soon as possible.”

Incredulity was written large on Ventidius’s face. “You mean Antonius sent you all this way just to tell me
that
? Tell him I will be glad to put Herod’s fat arse on a throne, but first I have to eject Pacorus and his army from Syria, which may take some time. However, assure the Triumvir Marcus Antonius that I will bear his instruction in mind. Is that all?”

Puffed up like an adder, Dellius lifted his lip in a snarl. “You will rue this conduct, Ventidius!” he hissed.

“I rue a Rome that encourages suckers-up like you, Dellius. See yourself out.”

Ventidius departed, leaving Dellius to simmer. How dared the old muleteer treat
him
like that! For the time being, however, he decided, abandoning the wine and getting to his feet, the old nuisance would have to be suffered. He’d beaten a Parthian army and chased Labienus out of Anatolia—news Antony would love as much as he loved Ventidius. Your comeuppance will wait, Dellius thought to himself; when I see my opportunity, I’ll strike. But not yet. No, not yet.

Commanding his Galatian troopers with valor and shrewdness, Quintus Poppaedius Silo penned Labienus in halfway through the pass across Mount Amanus called the Syrian Gates, and waited for Ventidius to bring up the legions. It was November, but not very cold; the autumn rains hadn’t come, which meant the ground was battle hard, battle worthy. Some Parthian commander had brought two thousand cataphracts up from Syria to aid Labienus, but to no avail. For a second time the mailed horse warriors were cut to pieces, but this time Labienus’s infantry perished as well.

Pausing only to write a jubilant letter to Antony, Ventidius went on into Syria to find the Parthians absent. Pacorus had not been at the battle of Amanus either; rumor had it that he had gone home to Seleuceia-on-Tigris months ago, taking Hyrcanus of the Jews with him. Labienus had escaped, taken ship for Cyprus at Apameia.

“That will profit him nothing,” said Ventidius to Silo. “I believe Antonius put one of Caesar’s freedmen in Cyprus to govern on his behalf—Gaius Julius—um—Demetrius, that’s it.” He reached for paper. “Get this off to him at once, Silo. If he’s the man I think he is—my memory grows muddled about anyone’s Greek freedmen—he’ll search the island from Paphos to Salamis very efficiently. Diligently, in fact.”

That done, Ventidius scattered his legions in several winter camps, and settled to wait for whatever the following year would bring. Comfortably ensconced in Antioch and with Silo in Damascus, he spent his leisure dreaming of his triumph, the prospect of which became ever more alluring. The battle at Mount Amanus had yielded two thousand silver talents and some nice works of art to decorate the floats in his parade. Eat your own arse, Pollio! My triumph will eclipse yours by miles.

The winter furlough didn’t last as long as Ventidius expected; Pacorus returned from Mesopotamia with every cataphract he could find—but no horse archers. Herod turned up in Antioch with the news, apparently obtained from one of Antigonus’s minions who had soured about the prospect of perpetual Parthian rule.

“I’ve established an excellent rapport with the fellow—a Zadokite named Ananeel who yearns to be High Priest. As I don’t intend to be High Priest myself, he’ll do as well as any other, so I promised it to him in return for accurate information about the Parthians. I had him whisper to his Parthian contacts that, having occupied northern Syria, you intend to lay a trap for Pacorus at Nicephorium on the river Euphrates because you expect him to cross it at Zeugma. Pacorus now believes this, and will ignore Zeugma, travel on the east bank all the way north to Samosata. I imagine he’ll take Crassus’s shortcut up the Bilechas, isn’t that ironic?”

Though he couldn’t warm to Herod, Ventidius was fully shrewd enough to realize that this greedy toad of a man had nothing to gain by lying; whatever information Herod disgorged would be the truth. “I thank you, King Herod,” he said, feeling none of the revulsion Dellius inspired. Herod wasn’t a sycophant, for all of his obliging guise; he was simply determined to eject Antigonus the usurper and king it over the Jews. “Rest assured that the moment the Parthian threat is no more, I’ll help you get rid of Antigonus.”

“I hope the wait isn’t too long,” said Herod, sighing. “My women-folk and my betrothed are marooned atop the most hideous crag of rock in the world. I’ve had word from my brother Joseph that they’re very low on food. I fear I can’t assist them.”