Rome's lost son

CHAPTER X

The speed with which Vespasian led Cotta’s II Cappadocia Auxiliary Cohort out of the north gate, had it form up in two ranks, each of five centuries, and then advance towards the siege lines unnerved the conscripts manning them as he hoped it would. Once the centurions’ bellowed commands had died away the eight hundred men marched in silence, their uniform footsteps more threatening than any battle cry, their inexorable progress across the field more ominous than any charge, and their precision drill as their shields came up and their right arms went back in preparation to release their javelins more crushing to the conscripts’ morale than the impact of the volley itself. Before the first sleek point hissed into the Parthian lines the human cattle had stampeded despite the summary slaughter of many of their number by their pitiless officers who soon became overwhelmed by the herd’s terror. They surged north, through the artillery, sweeping away the crews and on towards the Tigris, towards the bridge.

But the bridge was wide enough for only eight men at a time.

Barely pausing to jab the tips of their swords into the throats of those trampled in the panic, the men of the II Cappadocia Auxiliary Cohort crossed the siege lines in good order and drove the conscripts on to the river as behind them the other four cohorts began to march in column out of the north gate. The Romans were abandoning Tigranocerta, leaving it aflame and the citizens defenceless.

The arithmetic of getting more than three thousand terrified men across a bridge just eight paces wide did not work in the conscripts’ favour and many suffocated in the crush. Many more drowned in the deep waters of the Tigris into which they threw themselves in desperation, praying that Apam Napat, the fire god of fresh water, would save them. But the god’s eyes were elsewhere, focused on the Naphtha-stoked fires raging in the city; hundreds were swept away and hundreds were trampled underfoot. Yet hundreds more were shot down on the north bank by the Iberian and Armenian horse and foot archers of Radamistus’ army as they traversed the bridge on the River Kentrites, the remainder of the army, its heavy cavalry, conscript infantry and baggage, following slowly behind.

‘Have your lads cross the bridge and form up on the other side, Cotta,’ Vespasian ordered the auxiliary prefect, ‘and hold it while the other cohorts cross.’

‘Cross?’

‘Yes, prefect, cross; we’re going north and leaving Tigranocerta to the Parthians.’

‘But-’

‘But nothing, Cotta; just hold the bridge so that we can link up with Radamistus.’

Cotta snapped a puzzled salute as Vespasian turned back to see, glinting in the strengthening sun, a wall of iron and bronze appear from around the eastern wall of Tigranocerta; the Parthian cataphracts had come to do battle with the enemy rather than with their own. To the rear of the metallic wall massed the supporting horse archers. At the head of the advance was a rider more sumptuously apparelled than the rest; Vespasian knew that to survive this day he had to talk with him and keep him talking for a while, because if that cavalry charged his auxiliaries, their weight could well sweep them from the field.

Walking fast against the tide of centuries streaming out of the city Vespasian quickly found Mannius at the head of his cohort shielding the evacuation, facing to the east. ‘Have your centurions deploy your men in deep formation facing the heavy cavalry, prefect; and then join me in front of them. Get Fregallanus to join us as well.’ As the centuries manoeuvred into a line eight deep and took up position side by side across the complete width of the field from the gate to the newly abandoned siege lines, Vespasian picked up a dead branch and stood alone in front of them waiting for the advancing Parthian cataphracts with Babak at their head.

Mannius and Fregallanus soon joined him as he watched the slow advance of the heavily armoured cavalry, conserving their energy in order to be able to accelerate to a trot. Behind him Mannius’ cohort had finished forming up and waited in silence. Fregallanus’ cohort faced to the west creating a path between the two units along which the rest of their comrades doubled out of the city, followed by the baggage. They crossed the bridge with all possible haste to the northern bank of the Tigris to the accompanying bellows of centurions who had one eye on the iron-clad menace advancing from the east.

‘Where’s Paelignus?’ Vespasian asked, without taking his eyes from the wall of metal and horse-flesh.

Fregallanus also kept his gaze on the advancing threat. ‘I haven’t seen him since the assault ended. He was by the north gate screaming at his slaves to get the wagon holding all his plunder harnessed up; it looked like he was going to try and buy his way out.’

Vespasian laughed and raised the branch of truce in the air. ‘I would have loved to have seen him try. Well, he’s out now but I don’t suppose he’ll be joining us in negotiating our safe passage; someone like him has no idea of when honour has been satisfied.’ He put all thought of the cowardly little procurator to the back of his mind as Babak, just fifty paces away, raised his right hand in the air. Trumpets sounded along the Parthian line and five paces later the cataphracts came to a halt in unison.

After a short pause Babak urged his armoured mount forward and halted a kontos-length away from Vespasian; he raised his silver-plated facemask inlaid with a bronze beard, eyebrows and lashes. ‘We are in an interesting situation, I think you’ll agree?’

Vespasian shrugged. ‘We have put up a defence of the city against far greater odds and I now consider that honour has been satisfied. Tigranocerta is yours.’

‘And I should just let you walk away with your troops?’

‘If you massacre the Roman garrison after it has surrendered the city in accordance with the rules of war, then Rome will follow you for vengeance, even into Parthia itself. Whereas if you let us pass, the war between our empires will stay confined to a struggle for the mastery of Armenia and your people will not suffer. That is something that your King will appreciate as would his master, the King of Kings, in Ctesiphon.’

Babak smiled, sweat dripping down his face despite the cool temperature. ‘If I kill you now the war will effectively be over.’

‘Wrong, Babak.’ Vespasian pointed north to the bridge over which auxiliaries were marching double pace; beyond it Cotta’s cohort were formed up in a defensive position. ‘I’ve already got enough of my men across to add substantially to Radamistus’ army. By the time you break through this cohort I’ll have extricated most of them. You can expect no help from the north as Radamistus must have defeated the troops you sent up the river on his way down here.’

‘You parley to gain time; I do not consider that to be the act of an honourable man.’

‘No, Babak, I parley to try to save as many of my men as possible.’ He indicated to the city now overshadowed by a pall of smoke. ‘Take your prize, Babak, and let me take my men.’

Babak looked down at Vespasian almost sorrowfully. ‘I can’t do that; now that Radamistus is here I must confront him and beat him and to do that he must have as few troops as possible.’ He closed his mask with a clang and turned his huge horse.

Mannius looked at Vespasian, determination in his eyes. ‘My lads will hold them for as long as possible, sir.’

Vespasian placed a hand on the prefect’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Mannius, but I’m afraid that is exactly what you’re going to have to do.’ He turned to walk back to the line of ill-fated auxiliaries with the two prefects following. The last of the three cohorts was now passing behind with the baggage in close accompaniment. ‘Fregallanus, get your men across as soon as the baggage is clear and then, Mannius, follow as best you can. I’ll have Cotta hold the bridge for as long as he’s able to.’ As they passed through the ranks he looked over his shoulder; Babak had almost rejoined his cavalry; a horn sounded. ‘Best of luck, prefect.’ He grasped Mannius’ proffered forearm with a firm grip. ‘Your lads fought well this morning, you have a chance.’

‘We always have a chance; Fortuna’s watching.’

Vespasian nodded and walked briskly away into the traffic hastening to the bridge with ever-increasing urgency. He had sent men to their deaths many times and could do so with a clear conscience if the sacrifice would enable more to live; he remembered the young military tribune Bassius’ suicidal cavalry charge into the rear of the Britannic army with which Caratacus had surprised Vespasian in the dead of night and had come close to being in a position to annihilate the II Augusta. That order had not been easy to give but he had done so without regret: it had been a desperate situation in a continuing war and the loss of a legion would have been a serious reversal for Rome — not to mention the end of Vespasian’s career had he been unlucky enough to survive. This time, however, it weighed heavy upon him. He had engineered this situation and these men would be sacrificing themselves not only to save the rest of the cohorts, but also to further his personal ambition. There had been no military reason to defend Tigranocerta in the first place; they should have retreated in the face of such overwhelming odds. But he had defended it because he had to ensure that there was a clash with Parthia and a war initiated. Now he had abandoned it in order to join with Radamistus and fight a delaying retreat north into the heart of Armenia, leading the Parthians ever on to threaten the balance of power in the East, causing outrage back in Rome and questions to be thought and then whispered about the competence of an emperor who would allow this to happen. He felt that he had become little different from the men he had always struggled against: a man who spent others’ lives to further the richness of his own. And yet that was the way in which they held on to power, so why should it be any different for him trying to achieve it?

‘Are you just going to let them stand and die?’

Vespasian snapped out of his gloom-ridden introspection to see Magnus seated next to Hormus, driving the wagon at a quick trot. He broke into a run and caught up with them. ‘What choice do I have?’ he asked, vaulting up onto the vehicle. From this vantage point he could see over the heads of Mannius’ cohort to Babak raising his right arm; more horns sounded loud enough to penetrate the squealing cacophony of scores of carts and wagons being driven at speed, and from behind the cataphracts rose a great shadow as the horse archers loosed a massed volley. ‘I could die with them; but would that make it better?’

Magnus looked with regret at the backs of the auxiliaries as they raised their shields over their heads, the front rank kneeling; they then hefted their javelins, preparing to use them as stabbing weapons to aim at the small round bronze grilles protecting the horses’ eyes or to jab them at their unprotected mouths or lower legs and hoofs. ‘They were good lads.’

Down came the first wave of arrows thumping into the upturned shields with a multitude of sudden staccato reports, causing little damage to the well-disciplined auxiliaries, as the second was launched. Some missiles fell long, landing amongst the baggage train, stirring up panic.

‘But I ain’t going to hang around and share their fate neither,’ Magnus said, cracking his whip so that the wagon kept its pace as it approached the siege works.

A single pounding of a deep drum boomed over the field, followed a couple of heartbeats later by a second and then a third; the Parthian cataphracts moved forward at a walk, driven gradually on by the deliberate beat. The slow but inexorable charge had begun and the auxiliaries stood, waiting to receive it, knowing that the momentum of such heavily armoured troops would break them very soon after the first contact. But they stood nonetheless. Behind them the baggage scrambled to safety across the abandoned siege lines as the third cohort cleared the bridge.

Magnus whipped the mules continuously as they struggled across one of the two northern gaps in the trench- and breastwork left by the Parthians for the passage of their cavalry; Vespasian held on tightly as the vehicle rocked on the uneven ground. Smoke from cooking fires wafted about carrying the burnt odours of the conscripts’ hastily abandoned midday meals still in pots over the glowing wood. The booming of the Parthian war drum continued, increasing fractionally with every few beats as the massive horses accelerated slowly under their enormous burdens, their great hearts working at almost full capacity even though they were travelling at little faster than a quick walk; soon they would break into a trot for the very last dozen or so paces.

As the horse archers continued their massed but ineffectual volleys, Vespasian looked across at the advancing cataphracts, hundreds of them in two ranks, their armour shining in the sun and their banners fluttering over their heads, and marvelled that such a beauteous sight could be so deadly. The sun blazing down on them made the slow-moving wall of burnished metal seem that it was crowned in golden flame.

Flame? Fire?

Vespasian started; the wagon had cleared the earthworks and was now passing through the few artillery pieces on this side of the town. He glanced along the line of machines; there were at least two onagers. ‘Magnus! Pull over. Now!’

Magnus steered the wagon off the track and slowed, just ten paces from the bridge; the centurion in charge of the detail manning it signalled at them to press on but was ignored. Vespasian jumped off and ran to the nearest onager; and there he saw them: stacks of earthenware pots, one foot in diameter, with rags protruding from their wax-sealed tops.

Naphtha.

The war drum’s tempo increased. He looked back; hard up against the breastwork protecting the front of the abandoned trenches, the auxiliaries’ extreme left flank was just fifty paces away; the arrows had stopped beating down on their feathered shields for the cataphracts were finally at the trot and almost upon them.

‘Magnus! Hormus! Help me with these and bring the lads on the bridge with you.’ He picked up two pots and held one underneath each arm; he had expected to struggle but, surprisingly, they were not too heavy.

Magnus came barrelling over with the auxiliary centurion and his eight men.

‘Two each!’ Vespasian shouted at the men. ‘And then follow me as fast as you can. Hormus, bring burning branches from the cooking fires in the trenches.’

A mighty shout rose to the sky drowning even the pounding of the war drum; Vespasian did not need to look to know that the Parthian cavalry had collided with Mannius’ cohort. It was now just a matter of time.

Vespasian led his scratch incendiary unit at a lung-burning pace back across the siege lines directly to where the uneven cataphract-versus-infantry battle abutted them. He scrambled up the edge of the final earthwork, his arms cradling the Naphtha pots, struggling for balance and dislodging loose soil that tumbled down into Magnus’ face behind him. His head cleared the top of the defence and he looked along the length of Mannius’ cohort’s line, all the way to the city walls, a bowshot distant. And it was ragged, beset by armoured killers mounted upon beasts almost impervious to the weapons being wielded against them. With their horses pressing their huge bulk against the cohort’s front rank, pushing them down and back with cracked skulls and broken limbs, the Parthian troopers used their far-reaching kontoi to stab razor-edged points down into the faces of desperate auxiliaries in the second and third ranks, preventing them from using their weight in support of their comrades before them. Screams rent the air as eyes were pierced and throats were gouged; dying men dispersed sprays and mists of blood with their final explosive breaths as the juggernaut of cataphract cavalry pushed into the Roman infantry with the ease of a voyage-weary sailor penetrating a dockside whore. Javelins, swords and knives could not halt them, but Vespasian held in his hands the only weapon that would: fire.

Kneeling, he set down one of his pots. ‘Hormus! Bring the brands.’

The slave clambered up the bank with three thick sticks with red-glowing ends.

Without thinking of the dangers or whether he was doing it correctly, Vespasian proffered the Naphtha. ‘Light it!’

Hormus touched the glowing end of the brand to the trailing rag; it smouldered for a moment and then flashed alight as if impregnated by some accelerant, shocking Vespasian. Panicked by the rapidity of the fuse’s burning, Vespasian leapt to his feet and brought the pot, two-handed, behind his head, bending his back and legs, and then levered it forward with the pressure of his whole body unfurling behind it. The pot soared along the Parthian line to crash down onto the unarmoured rump of a front rank horse, twenty paces away, splintering into jagged shards and spilling a viscous brown liquid over the beasts and troopers close by; but it was virtually unnoticed in the chaos of battle as it did no more than that.

Vespasian dropped back to his knees. ‘Shit! Nothing happened.’

Magnus stuck his fingers into the wax seal of one of his pots, breaking it. ‘That should help. Hormus!’

The slave had more life in his eyes than Vespasian had ever seen before; he touched the glowing brand to the rag and, as it flared up, Magnus jumped to his feet with his right arm stretched behind him and his left arm crooked in front, balancing, and, with one fluid motion, he hurled the pot, with as straight an arm as an onager’s, so that it outdistanced Vespasian’s throw by a few paces. It ignited an instant before it crashed onto the helm of a second rank rider, immediately engulfing him and his mount in flame and splattering his comrades close by with sticky, burning slops. With a sudden detonation, the contents of Vespasian’s pot exploded with the deathly fury of the fire god. The agonised, terrified shrieks of both man and beast drowned the clash of weaponry and for a few moments all conflict ceased as the combatants watched the immolating horses buck and rear, dislodging writhing riders as both were roasted alive within the metal ovens that were supposed to make them almost invulnerable.

‘Centurion!’ Vespasian shouted above the continuous screams. ‘Now that you’ve seen how these things work, take your men along the rear of our line and throw as many pots at those armoured bastards as you’ve got.’

With a grin the veteran saluted and, grabbing a couple of the brands from Hormus, loped off with his men following to cause burning mayhem. Magnus lit his second pot and tossed it at the cataphracts nearest the earthworks who had resumed beating down the lessening resistance of the overwhelmed auxiliaries. As they too were engulfed by the fire god’s wrath, howling their pain to their own uncaring deities, the Parthians closest to the two conflagrations began to disengage, unwilling to risk sharing in the skin-shrivelling, fat-sizzling, baking deaths that were being meted out seemingly from the heavens.

And then clumps of flames burst forth from the Parthian line, one by one, at irregular intervals, marking the progress of the centurion and his men along the rear of the auxiliaries. With the exception of one poorly aimed shot that was bringing a searing death to a dozen or so screaming Romans, the centurion’s men had managed to lob their deadly incendiary missiles over the infantry to cause their enemy’s cohesion to fracture in many places as the animal instinct to run from fire became the cataphracts’ overriding motivation.

And those that could turned and fled. Some with patches of sticky fire clinging to them, adding urgency to their retreat; others with armour heated by close contact with blazing comrades and steeds; and then others, the majority, untouched by fire but not untainted by the fear of it. Within a few heartbeats the surviving cataphracts had turned their tails and were heading back towards the horse archers who, in turn, withdrew to facilitate their comrades’ withdrawal.

But it was not the fleet and nimble flight of the fresh and unencumbered; quite the reverse. Despite their powerful fear, the great beasts were unable to generate much speed, having been armoured for a few hours now, plus having charged and fought. All they could muster was a lumbering walk that left their exposed rumps open to the unthrown javelins of the jeering Romans; and, as Mannius realised the opportunity was there, they were used without pity. To the bellowed, succinct commands of their centurions each century hurled their primary weapons at the slowly retreating cavalry, adding to their panic as their hind-quarters were riddled with deep wounds, causing many to collapse from stress and over-exertion.

Mannius, however, was a commander of experience and he kept a tight hold on his men, forbidding them to follow up their retreating foe and, instead, held them steady as Fregallanus’ cohort began to follow the baggage train across the Tigris. The extreme right of his cohort abutting the city walls had started to peel back, century by century, to follow their comrades heading for the bridge.

Vespasian, Magnus and Hormus stood on the top of the earthen embankment surveying the field in astonishment, now littered with heaps of flaming metal that flared and sizzled as the bodies encased within them gave up their fat; smears of dark smoke, stinking of burnt man- and horse-flesh, drifted between the line of auxiliaries and the beaten, retreating Parthians. The cries of the wounded were surprisingly few and mainly confined to the Roman side, for neither cavalryman nor his mount could survive the broiling temperatures of the weapon given to man by the god of fire, Apam Napat.

‘That’s how to do eastern bastards who like to cover themselves with cooking pots,’ Magnus observed, his blood-encrusted face now blackened with the smoke’s residue. ‘I’d say they were well done, if you take my meaning?’

Vespasian did but was in no mood for levity. ‘You seemed to know something about that stuff.’

‘I might have come across it in Rome,’ Magnus muttered evasively. ‘You wouldn’t want to know the details.’

‘I’m sure. Come on, we’ve still got work to do.’ He turned and slid back down the slope as the centurion and his eight lads returned from their inflammatory rampage. Behind them Fregallanus’ cohort had begun to cross the bridge. ‘That was good work, centurion; now follow me.’ He scrambled out of the other side of the trench and made his way as fast as possible back to the artillery; there were still a couple of dozen Naphtha pots piled next to the onager. ‘Get these onto the wagon,’ he ordered, pointing at Hormus’ vehicle, which remained where Magnus had abandoned it.

As Fregallanus’ men cleared the bridge and Mannius’ battle-weary cohort began tramping across, carrying their wounded, the wagon was loaded. Vespasian rested, watching the men whom he would have condemned to certain death make their way across to the relative safety of the northern bank of the Tigris, relieved that he did not have to bear the responsibility of their violent demise on his conscience. He offered up a prayer to the fire god of these lands in thanks for the inspiration that he had blessed him with and also for the gift of Naphtha.

There was no sign of the Parthians returning in force as the last century of Mannius’ cohort crossed the bridge with the wagon loaded with pots following close behind.

Mannius was waiting for Vespasian on the other side; he gave a tired salute. Vespasian returned it. ‘Well done, prefect. I thought you would all die.’

‘I know; we’ve all had to give those orders in our time and I sympathised with you; what else could you have done? Fortuna, however, had other ideas.’

Vespasian smiled faintly. ‘There’ve been a few gods at work here today and we shall thank them with the appropriate sacrifices once we unite with Radamistus’ army. But first I want as many of the abandoned wagons, dead animals and as much other detritus as possible piled onto the bridge; we’ll cover it with the rest of the Naphtha and make a fire that will burn for a day to slow Babak down while we head north. Let’s make the bastard angry enough to really want to catch us.’