Fire in the East Read Free Page B

omen, there had to be a clearer way.
    Ballista very much doubted that those Greek philosophers he had heard about could be right that all the different gods known to all the different races of man were really all the same just with different names. Jupiter, the Roman king of the gods, seemed very different to Woden, the king of the gods of his childhood and youth among his own people, the Angles. Of course, there were similarities. They both liked dressing up in disguise. They both enjoyed screwing mortal girls. They were both nasty if you crossed them. But there were big differences. Jupiter liked screwing mortal boys, and that sort of thing did not go down at all well with Woden. Jupiter seemed rather less malevolent than Woden. The Romans believed that, if approached in the right way, with the right offerings, Jupiter might actually come and help you. It was highly unlikely that Woden would do the same. Even if you were one of his descendants - Woden-born, as Ballista himself was - probably the best you could hope from the Allfather was that he would leave you alone until your final battle. Then, if you fought like a hero, he might send forth his shield maidens to carry you to Valhallah. All of which left Ballista wondering why he had dedicated that golden bowl. With a heavy sigh, he decided to think about something else. Theology was not for him.
    He turned his thoughts to his mission. It was reasonably straightforward. By the standards of the Roman imperial bureaucracy, it was very straightforward. He had been appointed the new Dux Ripae, commander of all the Roman forces on the banks of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris and all the land in between. The title was rather grander on paper than in reality. Three years ago, the Sassanid Persians, the new and aggressive empire to the east, had attacked Rome’s eastern territories. Burning with religious fervour, hordes of their horsemen had swept up the riverbanks through Mesopotamia and on into Syria. Before returning laden with plundered treasures, driving their captives before them, they had watered their horses by the Mediterranean sea. Thus, now there were next to no Roman forces for the new Dux Ripae to command.
    The specifics of Ballista’s instructions, his mandata , perforce revealed the feeble state of Roman power in the east. He was commanded to proceed to the city of Arete, in the Province of ‘Hollow Syria’ (Coele Syria), atthe easternmost reaches of the imperium. There he was to ready the city to withstand siege by the Sassanids, a siege which was expected to fall the following year. There were only two units of regular Roman troops at his command, a detachment, a vexillatio, of legionary heavy infantry from Legio IIII Scythica of about one thousand men, and an auxiliary cohors of both mounted and foot bowmen, again of about a thousand men. He had been instructed to raise what local levies he could in Arete and to ask the client kings of the nearby cities of Emesa and Palmyra for troops, although, of course, not to the detriment of their own defence. He was to hold Arete until he was relieved by an imperial field army commanded by the emperor Valerian himself. To facilitate the arrival of the field army, he had been further instructed to look to the defence of the main port of Syria, Seleuceia in Pieria, and the provincial capital, Antioch. In the absence of the governor of Coele Syria, the Dux Ripae was to have the full powers of a governor. When the governor was present, the Dux was bound to defer to him.
    Ballista found himself grimly smiling at the absurdities of his instructions, absurdities typical of military missions planned by politicians. The potential for confusion between himself and the governor of Coele Syria was immense. And how could he, with the completely inadequate forces allotted him and whatever local peasants he could conscript, while under siege by a huge Persian army in Arete, also defend at least two other cities?
    He had been honoured