Sample Chapter from my Roman historical novel

[indianasmith]

I saw a thread on here somewhere the other day about where to post excerpts of original Roman era fiction, but now I can't find it so I am going to start a separate one . . . I hope that is OK.  This is a sample chapter from my new novel, LOVER OF GOD.  It is the story of Marcus Quintus Publius, better known to readers of the NT as "Theophilus," the mysterious figure that Luke dedicated his Gospel and the Book of Acts to. My novel tells the story of his life and how he got mixed up in the new religious movement that became Christianity.  I wanted to post a sample here and ask for feedback from you good folks, many of whom know much more about Rome than I do.   Here goes:
 

 

CHAPTER XIII

 

The winter sun was not hot, but it was phenomenally bright, Marcus thought.  High overhead, it illuminated the desert landscape harshly, casting black shadows and making the scrub grass and sandy flats so bright one had to squint.  Colors were muted, and the whole landscape looked barren.  They had left Zeugma behind just a few days before, and in the distance Marcus could make out a small cluster of clay and brick buildings rising out of the plain.

“Is that it?” he asked.

“It is,” Manlius Hortensius replied.  “Carrhae, the graveyard of Crassus’ legions.”

          Marcus looked across the innocent looking plains with a shudder.  A hundred years before, Marcus Licinius Crassus had led an army over 40,000 strong across this desert in a campaign designed to destroy the Parthian Empire and replenish the public coffers of Rome, drained by years of civil strife – some said that Crassus also hoped to enhance his own fortune, but since he was already the richest man in Rome, Marcus had always doubted that.  According to his grandfather, who had briefly known Julius Caesar when he was a young man and Caesar was dictator, Crassus was simply jealous of the great fame that Caesar and Pompey had enjoyed as generals.  Pompey had defeated the great rebellion of Sertorius in Spain, and crushed the pirate kingdoms that harassed Roman shipping throughout the Mediterranean.  Caesar was winning a string of battles in Gaul that were earning him a fame that exceeded even Pompey’s.  Years before, Crassus had led the forces that crushed the great slave revolt under Spartacus, but no one remembered that twenty years later – or, if they did, they pointed out that crushing an army of runaway slaves was hardly the same thing as conquering three new provinces in Gaul!

          So Crassus, sixty years old and hard of hearing, had arranged for his son Publius to detach himself from Caesar’s command and join his father on the campaign that would show all of Rome that Crassus was just as great a general as his fellow triumvirs.  But bad luck had dogged his expedition from the start – one of the tribunes of the plebs had cursed Crassus as he and his legions left Rome, damning him for planning an illegal war of aggression. Then Crassus ignored the advice of the Armenian king, Artavasdes, who had counseled him to take his army by a longer route, through the Caucasus Mountains, and avoid the dry deserts of the Mesopotamian plateau.  Despite the king’s offer of 16,000 additional troops, Crassus had listened to his advisor, Ariamnes, and led his men straight into the forbidding desert, the shortest possible route to Ecbatana.  Unknown to Crassus or his son, Ariamnes was in the pay of the Parthian King Orodes II and was leading the Romans into a trap.

          In the plains that Marcus now rode over, a combined cavalry force of cataphracts - the fearful armored horses and riders that could cut right through a shield wall without harm - along with hundreds of mounted archers, had attacked Crassus’ numerically superior force.  Crassus and his men endured a brutal rain of arrows that never seemed to run out, and were unable to defend themselves from the cataphracts and attack the archers at the same time.  Publius Crassus had led a force of Roman and Gallic cavalry to attack the mounted bowmen, but he and his men were cut off and isolated by the cataphracts, and Marcus Crassus, the richest man in Rome, had been forced to endure the sight of his son’s head on the end of a spear before sunset.  That had broken him – he asked for terms from the Parthians the next day, and during the meeting between him and the emissaries of General Surena, the Parthian commander, a scuffle had broken out, and Rome’s triumvir had died from a Parthian sword driven through his belly. Of all his mighty legions, only 10,000 men had escaped death or captivity, and all seven of their eagle standards were captured by the Parthian army.

          Cadius came and stood by Marcus’ side.  About a hundred yards in front of them, a dry gulch wound through the sand and scrub.  Marcus pointed it out.

          “I imagine that is what is left of the stream where Crassus and his men paused before the battle began,” he said.  “Most of the fighting would have been on the far side.”

          With that, the party mounted and began riding forward again.  Behind them, the infantry legion resumed its march, while the cavalrymen rode out ahead, scouting the way to the village.

          “I heard when I was a lad that the Parthians killed Crassus by pouring molten gold down his throat,” Rufus said.

          “The survivors who came back to Rome years later said he was already dead when they did that,” Marcus replied.  “They also said that there was a fat centurion in the Legion who looked a good deal like Crassus.  The Parthians dressed him up in Crassus’ best suit of armor, paraded him through the streets of Ecbatana, then stripped him and put him in a woman’s dress before cutting him to pieces in front of a screaming mob.”

          “Barbarians!” said Cadius.  “That is no way to treat a vanquished hero!”

          “It is certainly not the Roman way,” Marcus said.  In a Roman triumphal parade, the conquered kings of the enemy marched in full royal regalia behind the general who had bested them, with all the trophies of war on display on wagons and rolling platforms behind them, followed by the victorious legions.  After the parade was over, the captive chiefs could be released and enrolled as client kings under Rome’s dominion, or, if they were regarded as a continued threat, they could be taken into the Tullarium, the ancient Roman temple of war, and strangled privately – but they would never be publicly humiliated.  Rome wanted its citizens to see that their champion had vanquished a worthy foe, not a disgraced vagabond.

          “What’s that?” Cadius asked, pointing at the ground.  A metallic gleam was shining up from the sand.

          Marcus slid off his horse and knelt in the sand, brushing it aside with his hand.  The gleam of gold was unmistakable – as were the dried out leather and steel rings it was attached to.  A Roman centurion’s cuirass lay buried in the desert floor before them.  Marcus cleared away enough sand to grab it by the collar, and when he heaved on it, he was able to lift it free of the sand and gravel that had covered it.  He saw that it was still occupied – a bare skull was protruding from the depression it had left in the sand, and he could see the dull white vertebrae and ribs inside the armor as the sand poured out of it.  There was a single hole in the leather, just below the shoulder blade, with the broken shaft of an arrow protruding from it.  He let the remains go with a shudder.

          “He must have tried to flee when he saw the battle was lost,” Marcus said.  “Or perhaps he was a courier, sent to ride back towards Syria for reinforcements. But whether he was a hero or a coward, or just a man desperate to survive, the arrow found him nonetheless.  And now this wasteland is his grave.”

          He turned to the legionaries behind him.  “Collect these bones,” he said, “and any other Roman remains we find.  They have lain here as spoil for the beasts too long.  When we make our camp tonight, we will give them a proper Roman funeral pyre, so that their spirits can rest in peace.  Now let us move on, and leave this accursed place behind us!”

          They marched as quickly as they could through the harsh desert that lay between them and the village of Carrhae, where Crassus had spent his last night alive after his son’s death.  Marcus had no desire to stay at that ill-fated place, so when a local informed the Romans that there was a spring five miles ahead, he led the century onward.  Despite their hurry, though, the men spotted and collected another dozen or so skeletons, all wearing the remains of Roman armor.  They were respectfully loaded into the wagons and carried along.  Two hours before dark, they halted by the banks of the small stream – a cluster of palm trees grew around it, and the water was sweet and clear.

          Marcus was loath to cut any living wood when there were so few trees growing there, but a quick search located two dead trees, felled by age or wind some time before.  He ordered the men to cut the wood up and stack it neatly, and then they arranged the bones of Crassus’ legionaries on top of the pile, still clad in the remnants of their armor.  The legionaries, both cavalry and infantry, formed up before the pyre.  Marcus lit a torch and stood next to it, before the assembled men.

          He hesitated for a moment.  In his heart, he had already embraced the God of the Christians, but these men were Romans, citizens of the old Republic, steeped in the worship of the ancient gods of Rome.  Surely, he thought, a God who chose to incarnate Himself in the form of a gentle carpenter would not be offended if he honored these brave, fallen souls in the way that they would have wanted?  He hoped that was the case, at least.

          “Legionaries and citizens,” he began, “we have gathered here the bones of brave men, who fell serving their general and the Senate and People of Rome to the very end of their lives.  Long have their bones laid here, parched by the desert, their flesh food for scavengers, their restless spirits unable to pass into eternity.  In the name of the gods of Rome, of the gods they worshipped, of Jupiter Optimus Maximus and Mars Invictus, and of the goddesses of hearth and home, of Juno and Vesta, I commit their mortal remains to the flames.  May their spirits find rest, and may their ashes be returned home at last, where I shall erect a tomb to house them, that all of Rome may know that these legionaries, who died at Carrhae in the service of Marcus Licinius Crassus, have come home at last!”

          With that, he thrust the torch into the dry wood, which caught right away.  The desiccated bones burned quickly, and in less than a half hour, the pyre and its long-dead occupants were consumed.  Marcus then dismissed the men to pitch their tents.  The Centurion Manlius approached him as the legionaries went about their business.

          “That was well done, sir,” he said.  “The men have been grumbling ever since they knew that we would be passing over that accursed spot, but now they are bursting with pride at the thought that we will be bringing some of Crassus’ men home.”

          Marcus nodded.  “It was the least I could do,” he said.  “The minute I saw the bones, I realized what was needed.”

          Rufus had been standing there listening, but after Marcus was done, he spoke up.

          “One thing you will learn about Marcus Quintus Publius, Centurion,” he said.  “He has a knack for understanding what needs to be done – and doing it!”

          Manlius laughed.  “So I have heard,” he said.  “Do you know what they call you behind your back, Quaestor?”

          “What would that be?” Marcus asked.

          “The scourge of the provinces!” the centurion replied.  “They mean it in a good way, though, I think.”

          Marcus raised an eyebrow.  “The scourge of the provinces, eh?” he said.  “I rather like that.”

          Cadius came trotting up as the three men conversed.  “Your tent is ready, dominus,” he said.  “The cooks are preparing supper.  Will you be dining with Cassius Claudius and the rest of us?”

          Marcus thought a moment.  “No,” he said.  “Not yet, at least.  I want to walk among the Legionaries and visit with them a bit.  I will join you in an hour or so – if I go much longer, come and find me.”

          The century did not build a fortified camp, as a full legion would.  Instead, each squad of ten carried a tent big enough for all its members to sleep in, and now fifteen such tents were scattered across the desert along the edge of the tree line.  The soldiers had taken the time to fill their water bottles completely, and many were already going back for seconds – in this terrain, no one knew where the next fresh water source might be found.  Marcus circulated among them, thanking them for their service, answering their questions, and listening to their comments.  He was pleasantly surprised at how highly they had come to regard him.  They had been riding and marching together for ten days now, but his choice to pause and pay proper respect to the fallen of Carrhae, after a full century, had endeared him to these hard-bitten veterans.

          “My father was a cremator for one of the mortis collegia in Rome,” said a young legionary named Decimus Octavius.  “When the fires have burned out, I will gather the ashes into an urn and deliver them to you.”

          “I thank you,” Marcus said.  “I was going to ask someone to do that.  Perhaps your father can help us purchase a plot to erect their tomb upon?”

          “He would have loved to,” the man said, “but he died four years ago, just before I left for Judea.  My uncle still works for the collegia, though, and would be glad to find a plot and build the tomb for you.”

          “Then you shall furnish me with a letter of introduction before I sail for Rome,” Marcus said.

          “Gladly, sir!” the soldier replied.

          Marcus wandered through the camp for another hour, making sure that he was seen by every legionary, and spoke to all those who seemed interested in talking to him.  When he headed back to his tent, an hour later, he reflected on how important personal connections were.  When the expedition set forth a few days before, he was just another aristocrat in a toga to these men, a bloviating non-entity they were tasked to escort across the desert.  Now the men looked up to him with respect and admiration.  The discovery of the skeletal remains of Crassus’ men could have dogged the mission with worry and fears of the restless dead – but now the men carried themselves with pride, knowing that, thanks to the Quaestor, their predecessors in the Legions would finally be coming home to the rest that their sacrifice had earned.

          Inside the tent, he found Rufus, Cassius Claudius, and Cadius waiting for him.  The meal was simple – some bread loaves that were not entirely stale yet, a bowl of figs and dates, and fresh roasted chicken from the village of Carrhae.  The quartermaster had purchased enough meat from the tiny town for every soldier to have some fresh food that evening – the dried fish and mutton would have to last them for the next three weeks as they journeyed to Ecbatana.

          Marcus thanked them for holding up the meal for him, and fell to with a vengeance.  Back in Rome, he had been an indifferent eater, surrounded by plenty and trying to eat sparingly so as to avoid the obesity that was becoming more and more common as Epicureanism replaced the traditional Stoic values of Rome.  But nearly three years on the road had worn away any hints of a middle-aged belly, and he had done without food often enough to cease taking good meals for granted.

          `”I never thought that I would stand on the battlefield where Crassus died,” Cadius told him.  “This journey of ours has taught me so much!”

          “Experience is a good teacher, lad, but you need to learn your letters, and have some schooling in logic and rhetoric as well,” Marcus said.  “When we get back to Rome, I am going to hire a tutor for you.”

          “I don’t understand,” Cadius said.  “I know you have freed me from slavery, but I am still a simple pleb, a son of slaves.  Why bother to educate me when you might have children of your own someday?”

          “Cadius, Rome is not what it was a hundred years ago.  Freedmen can serve on juries and hold important offices,” Marcus said.  “You saved my life in Ancyra, and I intend to repay that debt by helping you make something of yourself.  You have the brains and the gumption – all you need is the education now.”

          “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, my boy,” said Rufus.  “You and I have been blessed with a generous employer who is rapidly climbing the cursus honorum.  If he wants to pull us up behind him, who are we to question his judgment?”

          Marcus laughed.  “You two have been good companions,” he said.  “I am delighted to do what I can for you.”  His own secret plans he had not spoken to either of them yet – indeed he was still debating in his mind whether or not to follow through with the impulse that had first occurred to him as he watched the miraculously healed Cadius gulping down enough food for a small army at the inn of Antioch.  But it was there, nonetheless – the impulse had, in fact, gained force and clarity in the days since then.  Marcus did not know if he would ever remarry or not, but even if he did, there was no guarantee that he would ever sire a natural son.  Why not adopt this boy he had come to love as his own?  It would not be the first time a Roman had adopted a former slave.  Indeed, Cato the Censor, that immutable symbol of the Old Republic, had married one of his slaves – to the shock and chagrin of the children he had by his first wife!  Marcus would have a much easier path than that, since he had no living children.

          “So what’s cooking in that head of yours?” Cassius Claudius asked him.  Marcus started, realizing he had been sitting there silent for some time.

          “Just thinking about home,” he said.  “It will be three full years since we set out, by the time we get back.”

          “Indeed,” Cassius said.  “It will be good to see my master again.”

          “I do hope the Emperor is well,” Marcus replied.  “He is a good man, and I think the Empire has flourished under him.”

          “I am worried about his successors,” Cassius replied.  “In his last few letters, he has said less and less about his own son, Britannicus, and goes on and on about what a genius Agrippina’s boy Nero is.”

          “Such thoughts are above our station,” Marcus replied.  “Emperors do what they do, and we live or die as a consequence of their decisions.”

          “Indeed we do,” Cassius said.  “All the more reason to pray to the gods that they make good ones!”

          “Or to one God,” Marcus replied.

          “Going on about that again, are you?” the Greek freedman said.  “Well, I have had enough religious talk for a lifetime on this trip.  I am going to bed.”

          “I think I will turn in as well,” Marcus replied.  “We have a long day ahead of us, and another long day after that one is done!”

          Cadius followed him to his bed – a simple hammock supported by the tent poles – and helped him out of his robe and sandals.  Marcus stripped out of his tunic and used a bowl of warm water to wash himself.  How he longed for a proper oil bath, followed by a good swim and a rubdown!  But such luxuries were in Rome, half a world away.  He shrugged into the light tunic he slept in, and pulled the linen sheet up to his chin.  Through half-shut eyes he saw Cadius preparing his own bedroll, and then he let his dreams take him far away from the harsh sands of Parthia.

          It was still dark when voices woke him.  He shook his head, sat up, and rolled out of his bed.  A figure holding a torch stood in the tent’s main chamber, with Rufus’ solid form standing firmly between Marcus and the new arrival.

          “What is it?” he asked.

          “Sorry to disturb your rest, sir,” the legionary said.  “But Parthian soldiers have surrounded our camp, and they wish to speak to you.  Manlius says you’d better come quick.”

          “Cadius – my dress toga – now!” Marcus snapped.  He grabbed a tortoiseshell comb and brushed his thinning locks into place, then washed his face and mouth.  He looked in the bronze mirror and did not like the fact that his face was stubbly, but there was no time to shave.

          “Rufus!” he said.  “Fetch my lictors, and have them formed up outside my tent in five minutes!  I will greet them as an emissary of the Emperor of Rome, with all the appropriate ceremony!”

          Moments later, Marcus came striding out of his tent.  His toga gleamed solid white in the moonlight, and the ornate scroll with its gold and teakwood carrying case was tucked under his arm. Eight lictors formed in perfect ranks, four on each side, with the senior man bearing the fasces that represented Marcus’ imperium gripped upright before him.

          They walked through the camp, past the light of the dying campfires and the smoldering embers of the funeral pyre from the night before.  The neighing of horses carried loudly through the night, and he could see that their small force was surrounded by a Parthian army at least ten times as large.  Well, he thought, we did not come to start a war, so the numbers should not matter.

          On the open ground beyond their tents, a group of Parthian soldiers stood, facing Manlius Hortensius and a squad of legionaries who had been on watch.  One of the Parthians had the sash and plumed helmet of an officer; he saw Marcus approach and stepped forward to meet him.

          “I always heard that the Romans were bold to the point of foolhardiness,” he said in fluent Latin.  “But to invade my master’s Empire with only a hundred and fifty men goes beyond foolishness and into the realm of insanity!”

          “This is no invasion,” Marcus said.  “I am an envoy of the Emperor Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.  My name is Marcus Quintus Publius, and I am an elected Quaestor of Rome, with imperium maiis over all the provinces.  I come to the realm of the King of Kings, Eueregetes and Dikaios, Vonones II Epiphanes Philhellen, bearing the express greetings of one great ruler to another.  If you claim to serve your King Vonones, then you must escort us to him and allow us to fulfil our embassy.  Otherwise, you will be committing an act of betrayal to your royal master as well as an act of war against Rome.”

          “Well, you certainly said a mouthful there, Roman!” the Parthian officer said.  “And you took the time to remember all of our King’s titles and honors, no doubt!  However, I fear I cannot take you to see King Vonones.”  His deeply tanned face lit up with a smile.  “I could possibly send you to him, however.”

          Marcus furrowed his brow.  “I have no doubt you stand high in the service of the King,” he said.  “But I stand equally high, if not higher, in the service of my great Emperor, the conqueror of Britannia and the Princeps of Rome.  Such riddling ill becomes you, captain.  Speak plainly!  Why would you send us to Vonones but not take us to him?”

          By now many of the Parthian soldiers were snickering to themselves, and Marcus guessed the truth before the officer spoke it.

          “Because old Vonones is in Hades, Roman!” the Captain said.  “His son Vologases rules in Ecbatana now, and he is young and strong and unafraid of your crumbling, effete Empire!”

          “He does not know Rome if he does not fear her,” Marcus said.  “But if he is now the King, then bear me to him.  I would carry Caesar’s message to him directly, not to his underlings, no matter how important they think they may be.”

          “And if I slay you and your paltry force instead?” the Parthian captain sneered.

          “Then Ecbatana will be in flames, and your King dead by this time next year,” Marcus replied.  “And your force will return to Ecbatana much smaller than it is now.  I am no Crassus!  I cannot stop you if you would run to battle with me, but I can arrange for you to limp on your homeward journey!”

          The captain scowled at Marcus, searching his face for signs that he was bluffing.  Then he threw back his head and laughed.

          “You have stones, Roman, I will give you that!” he said.  “Fine then, I shall escort you to Vologases.  But be warned – your bravado will not endear you to him.”

          “I did not intend bravado,” Marcus said.  “I am a representative of the Emperor, Senate, and People of Rome – no more, no less.”

          “That is why I will take you to my King,” the captain replied.  “I am called Ventularia. You have my word that you and your men will stand safe and unharmed at the gates of Ecbatana in three weeks’ time.”

          “I will hold you to it,” Marcus said.

         

 

[indianasmith]

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