Hadrian's Consolidation - reboot

[Hecatee]

Sorry for the late hour at which today's update is delivered...

Governor’s palace, Antioch on the Orontes, Syria, April 162


Marcus Aurelius lowered the papyrus he’d been reading, an edition of the “On the Nature of Philosophy” of the recently deceased Claudius Ptolemy, and look inquisitively at his freedman Gallicus who had entered the room despite his clear instructions.

“I’m sorry to disturb you my Emperor, but a messenger has arrived. The first clashes have taken place in the desert near Zeugma. The Parthians are coming and aim to take Syria from you. As ordered the border is only patrolled by cavalry equipped with the older tack, so they have not seen our new cavalry yet.”

Marcus Aurelius gave a lopsided smile : “Thank the gods for small mercies. But this is only the beginning of the war, we need to bring them to us and crush them in a place of our own choosing. We won’t give them another Carrhae or another Phraaspa… Anyway, give the orders. We leave at dawn.”

Gallicus bowed and retreated while the ruler of the empire took his papyrus and plunged back in his reading. But while he spoke the words on the papyrus his brain kept working in the background, concerned by the upcoming campaign. Pushing the papyrus back, he took the cup holding the hot dark beverage legionary commander Avidius Cassius had offered him. This bunno drink did certainly not help relaxing or push the troubles back, but it provided him with a surge of energy that allowed him to confront the day’s numerous challenges. He’d grown so fond of it that it replaced most of his daily intake of wine, despite the horrendous price. Well, what was the point of being the emperor of the known world if one could not to take advantage of one’s position from time to time. It was not as if his indulgence had any bad consequence for anyone else, was it ?

So getting the bunno beans was ethic, and ethics brought him back to the book he was reading. Maybe one should now study stoicism and purify it in line with the new theories of Ptolemy ? Calling for a scribe, he began to compose in his mind his letter to his friend and teacher Sextus of Boeotia. When the scribe entered Marcus Aurelius began to dictate his epistle while still reading the scroll.

When he finally finished dictating he rose his head and gave the book to the scribe, with the comment that a copy of it should be sent alongside the letter, and that orders should be sent to the palace’s purser in Rome to have a sum ready to cover any costs Sextius might have while working on this imperial commission.

This being done, the emperor went to his desk and called for light. The bunno had once more done their magic and he felt ready to take one part of the numerous files awaiting his imperial attention : requests for tax relief, for authorisation to build new aqueducs or new public baths, dozens of reports on questions previously asked or on events taking place at all corners of the Empire. Agitation on the British wall, results of a punitive expedition on the Rhine designed to keep the barbarians quite while part of the garrison was far to the east, description of the latest topics discussed at the Academia Militaria, … An Emperor’s duty took many forms and he was well decided to engage in all of them !

 

[Hecatee]

Arsamosata, Armenia, July 162


The two armies faced each other, long lines shrouded in the dust of the plain. Standing closest to the Armenian capital, the Parthian displayed proudly the vivid colors of their nobles’ accoutrement, whose silks and plumes brightened the bronze and steel colored armors they and their horses wore. Ten thousand horsemen, including four thousand heavily armored cataphractoi, were prancing in two groups, one on each wing of the twenty thousand men strong infantry levy. Those were mostly made of the usual eastern rabble, poorly trained and equipped peasants raised by their nobles to serve as fodder as the cavalry broke the enemies’ ranks.

On the other side the Romans aligned two legions and their auxiliaries, supported by some seven thousands cavalry men, including three thousand armenian nobles led by their rightful king, half of them cataphract cavalry, the other light horsemen and horse archers.

But the real surprise the Romans had for the Parthians were the two ala miliaria of sarmatian horsemen equipped with the new saddles with stirrup and the two other ala miliaria from the Danubian region who were equipped as medium cavalry using bow, javelins and spear from stirrup saddles : while their horses were not armored, they did carry a good armor and were proficient with all three of their weapons, giving them a versatility few units could boast.

The Sarmatians, with their long kontos, had a more specialized role : while their horse-hooves made armors were not as strong as the metallic one of the Parthians, it was still good enough to come into melee range. Charging with their kontos they hoped to throw many Parthians to the ground and then close in for the kill with their swords, hoping their armor would protect them from the blows of the Parthians’ maces.

The Romans had also a third legion and its auxiliaries coming through another road and apparently unscouted by the enemy : communications with its commander showed they might well arrive in the middle of the battle, their cavalry coming to the back of the enemy.

Overall Marcus Claudius Fronto was happy with the disposition of his forces. He’d followed every precaution mentioned by Arrianus, from the hidden pikes set behind the first lines of infantry to the digging of trenches on his flank that would be impassable by the Parthians’ heavy cavalry.

Finally the battle began as the sun indicated one hour left to the midday. As planned it began with a charge of the Parthians’ light cavalry and horse archers. Bracing for impact behind their shields, the legionaries and auxiliaries waited for the inevitable shower of arrows but it was a vain precaution as two thousand horsemen launched from the Roman lines in order to intercept the hostile cavalry.

Thanks to the stirrups they had more powerful bows than was common for horse archer, giving them a better rank. Two volleys were in the air before the Parthians could launch their first arrows, and while part of the first volley fell short of them they were soon in disarray, their light armors insuffisant to prevent the deadly bites of the steel tipped arrows.

On the other hand their badly coordinated volley did only light damages on their foes and the Romans’ heavier armors resisted the blows coming from the sky. Contrary to every known tactics, the Romans rode in two lines crossing the battlefield from left to right and from right to left, all the while showering the Parthians horsemen until they left the field, leaving hundreds of wounded and deaths behind them and, more importantly, the Roman infantry unscathed.

Back in the Parthian lines Chosroes was angry but not troubled yet. While beaten back his light cavalry had not fled and simply regrouped behind his infantry. The Romans had also retreated to their flanks and hidden behind the screen of the heavy cavalry.

The dust make it difficult to see what the other camp was doing, and Fronto used this opportunity to play another trick on the Parthians. The Armenian king Soahemus had not fled to the roman territory empty ended and had made sure his large horses holding had been emptied in front of the usurpers. Two thousand horses had thus been gathered and the Roman cavalry now swapped horses for the fresher animals, hidden from view and ready to strike back. Men also replenished their stocks of arrows and drank long draught from the wineskins being passed around. Less than a hundred dead and wounded overall, at least five time less than their adversary.

Soon the trumpets announced a new enemy charge. This time they would not be surprised by the Roman horse archers and would thus not break as easily. They were going to close the range for more personal work… This time they would not try to stop the light cavalry from reaching the infantry but they would wheel on the flanks, drawing two cantabric circles to harass the enemy’s flank.

The Parthians suffered. They had not enough room to use their usual tactics of feints and retreats as the Romans’ light cavalry boxed them on two sides and their infantry on a third, leaving only the rear open for retreat, toward their own lines, and they could not, would not be beaten a second time…

Something had to give. Chosroes gave order to his heavy cavalry to move toward the Roman’s flank to disperse their light cavalry and then launch a charge against the Romans’ infantry. It was risky but he hoped his light cavalry would then escape behind the heavies, reform and prevent any attack against his cataphractois’ back.

The dust raised by thousand of horsemen hid at first the Parthian move, but the Roman caught it soon enough and started to redeploy, leaving their harassment of the now quite tired enemy light cavalry and moving back to the flanks of the Sarmatians and Armenians cataphractoi who started their own charge straight ahead to counter their Parthians counterparts. All the while the Roman infantry stayed and died in place, suffering the arrows and javelins of the enemies and countering with chariot-mounted artillery firing above their head and, when some horsemen came too close, their pila.

But the infantry of Rome was not the main force for this battle, it was its cavalry. And despite being numerically inferior they had the upper hand. The Sarmatians had used their long lances, the famous kontos, to unhorse the firsts ranks of the enemy : the stirrups ensured they had much more power than their adversaries and in a number of cases the Sarmatians managed to pierce two men at once with their two handed spears. An unplanned effect of the increased stability of the Sarmatians was that often their weapons stayed struck in their opponents and they had to take their swords for the rest of the fight.

Here too the stirrups were of great help, providing both stability and greater agility against Parthians who wore heavier armors and had to remain seated in their more classical saddles. Chosroes himself rode amongst his fellow noblemen and was at first protected from the Roman attack by his position on a corner of the formation closer to the infantry, but soon Sarmatians reached him and he had to fight for sheer survival.

In the middle of the battlefield the Roman infantry had had enough and began to advance as it had become clear they would not be subjected to any heavy charge. Pushing the Parthians light cavalry back toward their infantry, they added the effects of their pila and gladii to those of the kontoi and spathae of their cavalry.

The Roman light cavalry was tired, but was also still in the fight, trying to go around the heavy cavalry’s fights on both flanks to harass the enemy and attack their weak infantry in order to cause a rout.

While the initial phases of the battle lasted for some hours, it resolved less than an hour after the engagement of the heavy cavalry when more Roman light cavalry appeared in the back of the Parthian infantry : the third legion in theater had arrived to the battle. Its arrival caused an immediate meltdown of the Parthians’ courage and formations. A group of horsemen centered on Chosroes managed to pierce through the Armenian cavalry, but they were the only enemy organized force to leave the field of battle.

The Romans had lost three thousand cavalrymen, mostly from the Armenian and Sarmatians contingents, but only six hundred infantrymen. The Parthians on the other hand had lost seven thousand horsemen dead or captured and five thousand infantrymen, while Chosroes only had fifteen hundred cavalrymen with him, one third of which was made up of cataphractoi. He had to leave Armenia and see to the preparation of Parthian cities in the great plains of Mesopotamia...

 

[Hecatee]

Near Tolosa, Gallia Narbonensis, August 162


Marcus Tribanus Minor walked his horse on the road between Tolosa and Narbo Martius. Behind him a small escort of a dozen horsemen and four servants followed his pace on the well made road. He knew the way predated the roman conquest of the region and the fact he crossed new oxen drawn chariots every few miles showed it was still well travelled.

As procurator quadragenarii rei machinatorii, Tribanus Minor had been to Tolosa in order to survey the path a new aqueduc would take to bring water to the growing city. Tolosa was the point where trade from the Atlantic and Aquitania would get off the barges flowing on the Garumna and would then travel overland to the great port of Narbo Martius, and the town was growing, demanding new infrastructures. He had already spoken with local aediles about the building of a bridge on the river, but the size of the trade on the road made him wonder. Would not a canal between Garumna and Mare Nostrum be worth it ?

He’d have to talk about it with his superior, the procurator sexagenarii. The man had been a quadragenarii in charge of maintaining the Rhine-Danube canal dug thirty years before during the reign of the divine Hadrianus, so he had experience with this type of projects.

Looking at the terrain around him et thinking about his trip to Tolosa, the main issue would be to bring water to the high point of the canal. He was not in a flat plain and would probably require a system of doors and pumps to make it possible for ships to go up and down hill… Was it even possible to build such a system ? In theory it should, there was no big issue, but water would be lost from the higher part of the canal every time the lower doors were opened, so he’d need to be carefull to replenish the top section with enough water, which required bringing water to a high point… Well, aqueduc could do it, but would the amount of water an aqueduc could bring be enough ?

He’d probably need a full team of surveyor to study the issue, that would not be a cheap project… He’d need a lot of slaves and probably some legionary labor to create it, and even so it would cost an immense sum. He’d have to count how much exactly, but he could see two hundred million sestertii being spent in the enterprise using the usual cost of an aqueduct of around 3 millions per miles for around 70 miles of canal, although it could easily be the double…

Still it would be worth it. Just the possibility to export more food and wine from the region would make it worth it, and the lower cost in carrying metals from Britannia to the Mediterranean without having to go around Iberia would also be massive.

Yet he doubted the state would be able to pay all that money, especially with the war going on in the east. He’d need private investment on a scale rarely seen, even if a number of the great landowner of the region might be ready to invest in the project. Yet he’d never be able to convince all the senators to pitch a million each, nor would he get hundreds of equestrians to give a hundred thousand sestertii each…

He’d need to think a lot before this fossa narbonensis could see the day...

 

[Hecatee]

Alauna Civitas, Caledonia, 15 december 162


Outside the wind howled on the moors, but the laughter in the inn were stronger. Most of the inhabitants of Alauna Civitas had congregated in the stout building to celebrate the Saturnalia, although it was mostly a pretext to have a moment of fun in the midst of winter at the edge of the empire.

While soldiers patrolled the nearby wall, the civilians drank and played music and told jokes and spent a merry time together, exchanging small gifts and making small sacrifices to Saturn for the Romans, Epona for the locals, some strange divinity for those descended of Dacian tribesmen deported two generations ago and their singular god for the Jews.

Of course there was no good reason for them to make a sacrifice to their god on that day, but it was a change they had done to their practice to better integrate. They had also adopted everyone else’s calendar and now practised their celebrations on fixed dates which did not require complex calculations to determine.

Overall the small community of Alauna Civitas had well integrated the various elements that had given birth to it, and it was generally the same in all the other settlements of the area. While the Jews still disdained pork, there was no clash between their beliefs and those of the others while all worked strongly every day to insure the survival and prosperity of the town.

New houses had been built for the sons and daughters of the first generation colons and the village now boasted around fifty strong stone houses with tiled roofs and heated floors as the children had decided to imitate their parents and live in confort. Each family produced its own vegetables while the fields were exploited in common. A flour mill had also been built and a nearby stream had been channelled to create a small lake which provided enough outflow to turn the wheel. A blacksmith had also begun work to create a small forge a bit downstream in order to have his own mill. He intended to make use of the coal from a small mine not far from the town, which usually provided the heating material for the town but which was now also used for metallurgical work. In fact the villagers had pitched their modest means together to buy five slaves to work the mine under supervision of a pair of guard, providing them with a new source of revenues as the army fourriers often came to town to buy some of the black stuff for the army’s needs.

The richest man in town was of course Tiophorus, the old centurion now aged sixty seven, who had used his retirement capital to the full to open his tavern and way station which now doubled as a trading emporium set alongside the military road on the backslope of the wall.

Of course all this prosperity had attracted the attention of the Caledonians, a number of which had tried to raid it in the last thirty years, but the high walls of the properties had always defeated them. So the times were good for Alauna Civitas and its inhabitant could enjoy the holiday season without fears about the future. As old Tiophorus said to his son Vaxadus the younger, Io Saturnalia !

 

[Hecatee]

A domus on the Esquiline, Rome, January 163


Quintus Ptolemaius Eupater was drinking wine with his father. He was the third son of the family and thus not active in the family business, having been sent instead into the imperial administration where he worked as the supervisor of an office in charge of statistics. He was often sent on long fact finding missions around the Empire and had come back from one such mission only two months before, but it was the first time he really had the opportunity to spend time with his family.

After answering one of his father's’ question he remarked offhandedly : “You know that we missed a lot of money when we did not invest in horseflesh?”

“How so ?” asked his elder, raising an eyebrow. “Well, you know that since the conquests of the divine Hadrian the army has expanded to add more than ten thousand horsemen to its rolls ? All those horses have to come from somewhere, and you know that the rise in fame of senatorial families such as the Flavii Arianii is directly linked to their rôle in providing those beasts... “

“How do you recon such things ?” asked his father, now interested in the topic. “As you know father, the army has thirty legions, some 165 000 infantrymen alongside some 4000 legionary cavalry. This has not changed since the time of the Optimus Princeps the divine Trajanus and is not even that far from the twenty eight legions on record in the time of the divine Augustus. But while the citizen soldiership has not been expended it is another story for the auxiliary units ! In fact many of the units now fighting the Persians in the East did not exist thirty years ago... “

His father scratched his beard while his son took a sip of wine before he said : “But there are not that many more senators serving in the army, and the Senate has not been expended… So the army can’t have grown that much, can it ?”

His son smiled : “Good observation father ! And quite true too. But it’s because the expansion has been made not so much with new units as with transformation to existing units. I’m not sure how many auxiliary units existed at the time of the divine Trajanus, but it must have been around 380. Now the list I’ve just compiled for the Academia Militaria records four hundred units and some 270 000 men taking their pay from the Emperor, so just twenty more units, around ten to fifteen thousand men with about half being cavalry alae or cohors equitata. But what I’ve seen is that many units that were only cohors quingenaria or miliaria have received new detachments of horsemen, from 120 to 240 depending on whether it was a larger or smaller unit. It did not change the requirement for higher officer of senatorial rank but if course the number of more junior officers has increased, with a number of junior sons from equestrian families such as myself entering the military career, especially those from the more provincial families who hope to improve their connections in Rome. There have been more promotions for soldiers from the ranks too.”

“You know that it is, in and of itself, another opportunity we have not identified… More centurions and decurions means more men who will retire to their provincial plots of land with money which they can spend however they want, drinking it of investing it… In any cases peoples with money to buy things we could sell them... “

“Oh I don’t think so, they don’t really regroup to provide markets, they are too far apart from each other, although they may help develop small villages and other kind of rural areas by improving inns, relay posts, taverns and those sort of places in which many veterans seems to invest…”

“Still, from what you’ve said the army is only as big as about half the population of the city of Rome… That seems so small for an Empire of the size of the Rome…”

“It depend how you look at it father. Those 400 000 men cost about 200 000 000 denarii a year, about 500 denarii per soldier. Of course the rank and file only cost half of that, but officers, horses and the rest of the equipment cost a hundred millions denarii a year. That’s a lot of the empire’s income…”

 

[Hecatee]

First of the promised 4 posts (3 this morning, one this evening)

Edessa, Kingdom of Osroene, April 163


The sound of artillery formed a permanent background to the discussion taking place in the imperial command tent. The defeat of a strong party of Persian cavalry had led to a regrouping of the enemy in the fortress of Edessa, capital of the kingdom of Osroene which was located on the upper mesopotamian plain. The early start to the campaign had taken the Parthians by surprise and their main field army had not been ready, allowing the Romans to besiege the city.

The roman plan was simple : while the northern forces finished off the Persian presence in Armenia and fell on the Parthians on the western side of the Tigris, the imperial force would take the lands alongside the Euphrates before going down toward Ctesiphon and Seleucia, taking fortresses such as Dura Europos along the way. A simple plan, straight from the archives of the divine Trajanus’ archives, but with the additional goal of capturing Hatra and the kingdom of Adiabene, something Trajanus had never been able to do.

The siege of Edessa was thus in many way a deadly training exercise for Marcus Aurelius’ engineers, a great rehearsal before the truly important siege of Hatra. The fact that Edessa had already fallen to Trajanus some fifty years before meant that he was confident of his ability to reduce it and destroy with it a large contingent of the enemy's forces.

The main room in the imperial tent was largely occupied by a model of the town currently besieged, showing the various artillery platforms currently showering the walls of the city into dust. No less than twenty machines were firing steadily at the walls of Edessa, split in a dozen firing platforms protected by their own field fortifications.

Beside the usual gastraphetes, catapults, scorpios and other ballista used for snipping the wall, the army field tested the ideas of an Alexandrian engineer using counter-weights to provide the necessary energy to launch heavy rocks against or above the enemy walls.

The engineer had had two war machines made, one a tall contraption with a very long arm using the counterweights to raise it very fast, a sling at the end of the arm carrying the rocks that were to be thrown. Precise and rather fast, tests showed it was better for sending weight beyond the walls than inside because it was hard to hit low enough…

The other design did not have the same range nor the same precision but could be aimed at lower targets and was somewhat more efficient even if it did not send the same weight down range. Yet it was still enough to crumble stone into dust and the siege was progressing so fast that many thought the Parthians would surrender before the engineers could build the four supplementary machines of the new design the Emperor had ordered…

A sudden cheer erupted from the soldiers in the camp around the tent while a tremendous noise came from the city. It seemed a wall or a tower had collapsed…

 

[Hecatee]

Chersonesus Taurica, Regnum Bosphorus, May 163


The former Senator of Rome and previously richest man alive, Herodes Atticus, lay on a bed in his last villa on the outskirt of Chersonesus Taurica, waiting for his slaves to bring him his meal. While he had lost hundreds of millions of denarii when the Emperor had condemned him, he was still more than rich enough to live with all the comfort one could dream of.

Beside the million left to him by Marcus Aurelius he’d been able to keep another ten millions through his freedmen and simple bribes to officials who had let coffers full of gold leave the empire unmarked, making him the richest man in the Regnum Bosphorus.

He’d married in the royal family to ensure his security, his new wife a daughter of king Tiberius Julius Eupator and sister to the heir apparent Tiberius Julius Sauromates the younger, offering his city a new temple to celebrate the union and building a large villa outside of the walls to honour his newlywed spouse.

The villa was built on the northern shore of a peninsula one hour west of the city, and he’d bought the whole peninsula to ensure his privacy. His retinue had immediately made sure to turn the land into a fertile paradize, bringing with them the latest ideas from Rome and introducing them for the first time in the region.

To secure his land he’d also received permission to raise a small guard of a hundred men and to build a wall that would effectively prevent nomadic horsemen from coming in his garden, a wall that would be a mile and a half long but that would ensure his privacy…

Less than a year after his wedding his new wife had given him a son, which he hoped would compensate the disappointment that was Atticus Bradua, his last surviving child by Regilla and an 18 years old socialite living in Regilla’s villa next to the Via Appia.

But one could not be a former teacher to the emperor, former senator, former foremost man in Athens, and not be frustrated to be relegated to the further confine of the earth. Soon he’d begun to intricate himself in the bosphorean court’s intrigues, gaining favours by helping local notables in the improvement of their domains, lending his personal engineer to those who wanted to build mechanical wonders in exchange for favours.

While his banishment from Rome had diminished his fortune it had not deprived him from his network of contacts in the Empire and he used the remnants of his wealth to invest in the grain trade that made the bulk of the regions’ exports, commissioning his own fleet of grain ships which had soon found work supplying the Parthian war’s legions.

Slowly Herode Atticus was becoming the most important man in the kingdom, more important than the king himself…

 

[Hecatee]

Callinicum, Kingdom of Osroene, June 163


Marcus Aurelius stood on his horse, surrounded by his senior officers while the delegation from the city walked through the ranks of legionaries. The Romans had not yet begun to build their camp that the city’s doors had opened to let the notables out. They came followed by a number of chariots, some carrying gifts and the other prisoners.

The news of the rapid fall of Edessa had spread like wildfire in the Mesopotamian plain. Despite its very large guarison boosted by the retreating army that had sought shelter in its walls, it had fallen in record time. Travellers spoke of an heap of stones, fortifications turned to dust and temples turned to smoking ruins by the diehard jews that wanted to keep fighting despite the odds after the walls had been breached in multiple points.

The authorities of Callinicum did obviously not want to suffer a similar fate : while boasting of having been founded by either Alexander the Great or Seleucos I, they had little martial aspirations… In fact they had even made sure of being able to surrender peacefully by capturing the Jews living in the city after tricking them to a muster of the town militia.

It was good news as far as Marcus Aurelius was concerned. The city was an important supply base on the Euphrate, on a road coming from the Roman bases closer to the coast : communications with Beroia and Antiochea are now free and Callinicum shall now be the main port for sending supply to the south and the last objective of the army for this year’s campaign, Dura Europos, a good week’s to the south alongside the river.

News from the East were also good as Antiocheia Mygdonia had also fallen after a fanatical defense led in large parts by the city’s Jews and the army was now besieging Singara despite the difficulties caused by the aridity of the area. Still, Marcus Claudius Fronto had good hope of being able to capture the town and move to Hatra a week to the south before the end of the campaigning season.

The notables arrived, clothed in their best garments of fine wool, eyes heavy with paints, hands loaded with gifts of gold and precious spices. The translator started to convey their words to the Emperor. None of the locals dared raise his eyes on the master of the world, as was their usage. The soldiers were silent and nothing but the translator’s voice or an animal’s noise could be heard.

Finally the translator finished and the emperor made a sign of his head. The reddition had been accepted. Immediately orders were given to take in the prisoners and to collect the gifts while the notables were ushered into the imperial tent for a cool drink and some fruits. Marcus Aurelius could well take a few minutes of his time to thank those who had saved him at least a week and a few hundred lives…

 

[Hecatee]

Lutetia, Gallia Lugdunensis, August 163

The sun shining above the city of Lutetia was doing its best to roast the gang of slaves hard at work on the cardo of the city. They had begun three months before and hoped to finish before the rains of autumn and the cold of winter made their conditions worse.

They had dug out the large paving stones of the main road of the city and begun to dig a long trench, wooden boards preventing the sides of the hole to fall in and bring down the buildings on either side of the street. The province’s procurator sexagenarii rei machinatorii had decided that the city required a sewer network and a large public valetudinarium. He’d half-cajoled half-coerced some of the richest citizens to make gifts to finance the projects : it was better than a new temple or new games in the arena.

The sewer was to be bricked and plastered, and the private and public buildings on either side connected to the network, taking the city’s waste down the hill to the river

The valetudinarium was a rather recent addition to the pallet of gifts a generous benefactor could provide his city with. Built following the plans of legionary infirmaries, it was situated a bit outside the city. A large wall separated it from the rest of the town and inside one could find a number of large colonnaded courtyards around which were small rooms for two patients each, who would lay on simple beds. The rooms had tiled floors and whitewashed, undecorated walls, glass windows providing light and a brazero to provide heat when necessary. Beside the rooms a small bath had also been built for the patients.

A number of second floor apartments had been built for the permanent staff as well as for an apothecary where the four medicus’ assistants prepared salves and potions for their patients. Room for a staff of twelve and their families had been planned, each team of doctor and assistant being responsible for 24 beds, a surgery room and a consultation room.

Underground a number of large vaulted rooms making a large cryptoporticus illuminated by daylight from sky holes were available to store medical supplies and bodies awaiting cremation, which were evacuated by a backdoor leading to an enclosed field big enough for four pyres. Everything had been planned to ensure top notch medical care to the citizens of Lutetia, the building being a larger version of military hospitals as seen in legionary fortresses and up to date on the latest medical thinking, at least in theory. Even the doctors had been made to read the books by Gallienus, they were not simple butchers or barbers as was too often the case.

The building was on a rather grand scale as such edifice went, many boasting only a single courtyard and somewhat more modest installations, but it was thought that its proportion would reflect positively on the prestige of its founder, and beside many thought that a city of more than ten thousand inhabitants would probably need such an installation.

An inscription, still under the chisel of the stone cutter, would proclaim the name of the main benefactor of the place, one of the local decurions, for all to praise his in the decades to come. Fresh water would be provided by a derivation of the city’s main aqueduc, which also alimented the three public baths.

Togheter the sewers, baths and valetudinarium would make the city one of the healthiest of Gaul, although she was far from being the first to receive such upgrades to its civic buildings...

 

[Hecatee]

Hatra, Regnum Parthorum, October 163


The soldiers of Marcus Claudius Fronto were exhausted but elated. After a siege of three month in the summer period, when water was at its scarcest and the heat was debilitating, this army of Germanic and Danubian legions had succeeded where even the great Trajanus, Optimus Princeps, had failed : Hatra had fallen.

The harshness of the siege had led Fronto to authorize the full pillage of the city. Its fifteen temples, including the large sanctuary that dominated the city, had been emptied of their treasures and burned, as had many of the houses.

The women had suffered many indignities, however young or old they might have been, and many now lay broken in the streets, at least for those still alive. Of men and boys one there were none left alive. The Roman circumvallation and the roving cavalry patrol had killed those few that had tried to escape the trap that its wall had become. King Vologash himself had died fighting with his remaining guards, defending the entrance of the great temple in a futile gesture.

The walls themselve, made of brick and earth, were no longer the proud guardian of the trading hub. In many places the blue glazed tiles that crowned it had been destroyed by artillery and a great gash replaced the western city gate at the place where the Romans had used their new, heavier artillery : while the lighter shots simply embedded themselves in the walls, the huge boulders thrown by the new bracchiae, “arm” being the name given to the weapons with the long wooden pole and the counterweight that threw the heaviest stones against the wall.

Yet it was not that breach of the wall that had caused the city’s demise but an ambitious nighttime raid through the river’s entrance in the wall, under guarded after the breach had been made as the citizens though the Romans would come through the breach : the veteran german soldiers had used inflated water skins to float to the iron bars which were supposed to keep them out and that previous reconnaissance had shown to be rusted and easy to break.

They had infiltrated the city and moved to take the eastern gate which they had then opened to their comrades in arms : the surprised defenders had been hard put to mount any kind of a struggle and were quickly overwhelmed.

Now the Romans were firmly in possession of the northern Mesopotamian plain and it was time to move to the south where the Parthian capital awaited. But it would be for the next campaigning season as the Emperor’s force was still trying to capture Dura Europos and Fronto’s force needed rest. They would leave the city in a few days, after razing it to the ground, and would then march to the Tigris river where they would make a camp for the winter, easily supplied through the river.

 

[Hecatee]

Dura Europos, Regnum Parthorum, january 164


With the imperial army resting in the captured city of Dura Europos, it was time for many to see to all the issues that could not be treated while the army was on the march. For the medicus Claudius Gallienus, who had been recruited in Greece as a member of the imperial medical staff while he was traveling toward Rome, it was time to look into the various ailments of the troops.

He’d long been the official doctor of the gladiators of Pergame, the reason why he’d been recruited as a surgeon in the imperial retinue, but his experience went further. He was also a philosopher and an experimenter. His sharp mind had already brought him to the notice of Marcus Aurelius and he’d given a number of conferences with demonstrations while on the march that showed his practical and theoretical skills. But while he had treated a number of wounded soldiers he had made no progress on studying the illnesses that could take soldiers out of the line, something that was a true issue in the army, with as high as fifteen to twenty percent of the soldiers could be debilitated at any one time.

He’d identified two main types of illnesses : skin issues, with rashes of all sorts, and soldiers having the shits. The first problem was often caused by either friction during the walk that blistered the skin wherever clothes happened to touch it, the second was lice and similar vermines.

Being in the imperial entourage had benefits for Gallienus, including access to the latest innovations. Despite the fact that the emperor was at war many came to his camp to petition for his patronage. This is how he was able to access a very strong magnifier and even a novelty that inversed the principles of the bispector to see not far away but very close by : the microscopein as it had been called by its inventor, allowed him to look at details one could never have seen with the naked eye.

He’d been able to see a number of different beasts under the microscopein, which he’d linked to different kinds of skin conditions. More interestingly he’d seen on soldiers how those animals often pricked the skin of the soldiers, seemingly drinking their blood. As the animals often lived in the filth it was no surprise that they should bring some form of sickness to their host. How they gave sickness was something else altogether…

Another advantage of Gallienus’ position was his access to the imperial post service, even while in campaign. The papyrus he currently held was one such example of the boon that reliable post service gave. Sent from Alexandria in Egypt, it was a compilation of all the cures for fleas and lice known to the librarians of the Serapeion : the precise recipes of each remedy was provided along with a short description. He’d sent his request three months before and he already had a detailed answer : reliable communication was such a great tool !

The papyrus mentioned that the first cure was to have no infestation. Cats, in great numbers, helped it that regard if they had enough food. Priests from the south insisted that the clean animal must not live alone but had to be in pair, if only so that they may be able to clean each other. Together those incarnation of the local goddess Bastet hunted a number of animals that carried the fleas and infections inside houses, such as mouses. But if there were too many cats then they would fight together, get wounds that would infect and make them unable to clean themselves, and thus negate their effect.

Other more direct remedies were suggested : a paste made of cinnamon powder, oregano, rosemary and terebinth mixed with water and vinegar would kill lice very efficiently, according to the Alexandrians. He’d have to test it, especially as cinnamon powder was too costly to use on a whole army…

 

[Hecatee]

Ctesiphon, Regnum Parthorum, may 164


The battle had been bloody, more than bloody even, murderous. Emperor Marcus Aurelius himself had had to take out his sword and wield it in anger, as had the shahanshah Vologases IV. Now one of them rode his horse on the battlefield, blood spattered on his armor, surrounded by his surviving bodyguard. The other lay at the heart of a mound of dead and wounded warriors that marked the most hotly contested ground of the battle, the spot where the ruler of an empire had fallen.

The Roman army had come south from both the Tigris and Euphrates and joined a few days’s walk above Ctesiphon, concentrating all the might of the Roman Empire : a good fourth of the total imperial forces, some 80 000 men, arrayed for battle against the remaining might of the Parthian empire.

Chosroes had been given overall command of some 150 000 men, with no less than 40 000 horsemen. But numbers were deceptive here as many of the horsemen were young second or third sons without the training and experience of their deceased elders. Loses among the parthian nobility had been horrendous during the previous years with the defeats at Arsamosata and in a number of smaller battles taking the best of the light horsemen and too many of the cataphractoi. The situation was no better with the infantry : the Immortals’ regiment, picked infantry of the empire, had less than a third of its original soldiers surviving the campaign.

Desperate measures had been taken. The wall of Gorgan had been depleted of most of its garrison, despite the threat of the nomadic tribes of the great northern plain : the road toward the heart of the Parthian plateau was open to the barbarians and devastation would follow if the troops brought to Ctesiphon did not succeed in turning away the westerners…

Marcus Aurelius contemplated the death and destruction around him, his face a neutral mask to hide his sentiments, a mix of deep sadness and elation, of worry and pain. So many dead. His cavalry almost annihilated, the praetorian guard gutted with more than half its picked elite force dead, his own commander of the imperial bodyguard, Titus Aelius Borysthene, dead in the thick of the fight that had turned the battle.

Chosroes had convinced Vologases to try a last, desperate operation. Concentrating the last of the heavy cavalry in a single heavy fist, they had charged directly toward the roman imperial entourage, bursting from the center of the parthian lines while the rest of their cavalry kept the Romans and Armenian cavalry to the sides of the battlefield. The heavily armored men then pushed into the roman center, brushing away the infantry under their sheer weight of their armoured Nisean mounts, the largest horses known in the world.

The legionnaires had not been enough to stop the momentum of the charge and the praetorian had been engaged but their desperate defense was not enough and the emperor himself, against the wishes of his high command, had ordered a counter charge. Running in the gap between the back of the legions and the praetorian guard, he’d taken a lead position at the head of his bodyguard, a number of his highest military advisors at his side. The wedge formation had taken the parthian snake of the left flank and penetrated deep in the line where Marcus Aurelius and his bodyguard had fallen on Vologases and his own protectors. The two emperors had exchanged a few blows before being separated by the flow of the battle, but legend would say that it was Marcus Aurelius himself who’d slayed the Parthian King of Kings. It had been Borysthene who’d accomplished the feat, causing the fight to increase in ferocity as the Parthians attempted to bring the corpse of their leader back to their lines. The noblest Parthians fell around the body, many dying not from wounds but from the weight of the bodies that fell upon them, be it horseflesh or men’s.

Yet it was too late. The infantry had reformed and now pushed against the cavalry from all sides, not giving the Parthians the room to take any momentum. The roman imperial entourage went through the Parthian lines and exited on their right flank before going back to their initial position, with Marcus Aurelius’ cloak well in sight to prove to those of his soldiers who looked that he was still alive although he’d received a number of cuts, luckily minor, during the fight. Gallenus tended to them while the emperor was still on horseback looking at the disaster happening in front of him as the roman infantry made contact with the underwhelming parthian infantry who was already beginning to flee as rumors about the death of the Shahanshah began to flow on the battlefield.

While some fled toward the walls of Ctesiphon, most would flee east and try to put the river between them and the romans, who were in no shape to pursue given the losses in cavalry. Beside all wanted to be there for the sack of Ctesiphon…

For Marcus Aurelius the victory was total, too total even : he was not sure whom would try to negotiate peace now, as so many of the Satraps had fallen at the side of their lord. What should the goals of the war be now that so much had been won but that peace seemed unreachable ?

 

[Hecatee]

Musaion, Alexandria, Egypt, november 164


Marcus Aurelius Thorsonius was bored. A giant blond bored warrior, but mostly bored. He’d been promoted at the head of the imperial german bodyguard after the battle of Ctesiphon, where he’d shown his prowess as a warrior during the fight for the body of the Shahanshah, although he did not care for that corpse as much as for his former leader’s one.

But with the promotion, and the assorted granting of the roman citizenship, came the need for Thorsonius to follow the emperor more often as his close escort, including at meeting such as this one in the Musaion of Alexandria. As if any of the walking corpses here were any threat to the Emperor ! What weapon would they wield, as they seemed to frail to hold even a stylus !

Although maybe they could kill by boring the Emperor to his wits’ end ? He sure felt like it was a possibility, even if Marcus Aurelius seemed to like the talk of those old men, discussing a number of things with them and giving orders to some, to be completed two months henceforth.

Despite all this boring talk Thorsonius must recognize that his stay in Alexandria was far from uninteresting. Few locals had ever seen anyone quite like him. His true name was Harald son of Thor, son of Harald. Or more simply Harald Thorson. But of course he’d had to change his name when granted his citizenship… He was not even a German but came from a tribe originating north of Germania, the Gothii, who had migrated to the great plains north of the Euxine sea. There he’d met his first romans and had agreed to work for a local merchant who’d made him his bodyguard in exchange for pay and a chance to escape his tribe, something made necessary by his dalliance with a noble’s only daughter… He’d been noticed in Rome and had then been incorporated in the imperial guard, seven years ago.

His size attracted the eye of many girls and quite a few men too, meaning he did not have to pay for drinks or sex, always a good news for a soldier. Of course most of his comrades were in the same situation but his higher rank offered him more refined opportunities… But right now he could only dream of them while his lord spoke with the old men. He would have been tempted to call them wizards if they had not been so obviously close to the men of the Academia Practica. After all he’d seen them open doors without any men doing anything, and do a number of tricks with machines that they then took great pleasure on explaining to their Emperor.

“It is indeed a wonder, all that you can do with simple boiled water, is it not Thorsonius ?”

Suddenly taken from his thoughts, the bodyguard bowed to his lord before answering : “But if I understand those men well, and my Greek may have failed me in this, those inventions are all old and few are of any worth. They do not shot stones at walls like the new bracchiae, nor do they help carry food to an army on the march or propel a ship through the sea, at most they move hot air around as if there was not enough in Egypt… “

Marcus Aurelius, emperor of the known world, laughed at his bodyguard’s good word before frowning. “While I do recognize your northern pragmatism, you do have a point. Most of those inventions were built by Heron, the famous engineer of the time of the divine Vespasianus, almost a century ago, and nothing productive has been done with them. Yet I could see ideas to test, certainly for a ship although I can’t see a chariot with a steam engine, but this could be a limitation of my imagination… On the other hand, you may know that the divine Vespasian, or was it the cursed Nero, when presented with an idea for a steam machine of some kind, denied permission to build it because it would put too many people out of a job...”

Turning toward the head engineer of the Musaion, he then gave his orders : he was about to go up the Nile for a trip to the Pyramids and the great temples of Thebae and Philae, going further south than the divine Hadrianus had. He hoped to see some new and interesting applications of steam by the time he would be back in Alexandria, three months from now…

The engineer, both angry from the perceived slight given by the barbarian bodyguard and picked in his professional pride, promised the Emperor would see something new...


It was now time for the imperial party to move to another section of the Musaion where the mathematicians were assembled. They had seen their numbers increased recently after babylonian priests and other mesopotamian experts of numbers had been sent to the Musaion along with all the archives the Romans had been able to pillage, including a lot of old clay tablets that only the priests could still read. The goal was of course to see if any interesting knowledge could be found in the documents, and to copy the mesopotamian texts into proper Greek and Latin whenever it was worth it.


Arriving months before Marcus Aurelius, the priests and the resident mathematicians had made an effort cataloguing the content, translating it and analysing it. Mesopotamian mathematics did not work like the roman ones, if only because they used another base for their foundation and often used abacus to do complex operations.


“We’ve reached two conclusions, Dominus. Some of those mathematics went in directions never explored by the Greeks or the Romans, and our system to write numbers it too unwieldy for such kind of mathematics. For instance we have no sign to mark the absence of things, and using greek letters or latin letters to indicate numbers is not efficient. We have thus created a mathematical alphabet, nine marks that can mark any number between nihil and the infinite, those two getting their own symbols.

The confrontation between our way of calculating, based on 10, and their ways, based on 8, 12 or 16 depending on the text, has forced us to describe our system to compare it to theirs and we’ve discovered that each has its strenght. Arithmetics are better done in base 10, but geometry is better done in base 12 for instance…”


Expecting an in depth explanation he had no wish to hear before he understood the context better, Marcus Aurelius raised one hand. “Start from the beginning please, for mathematics are not my strongest suit…”

 

[Hecatee]

Near Emerita Augusta, Hispania, March 165


Titus Aelius Rector looked at the contraption in front of him. Most of it was an hydraulic pump of a model such had been used in the mine for decades, although somewhat bigger than what he was used to. It was supposed to suck the water from the deep end of the mine and reject it meters above in a small aqueduc that led it away, allowing for further excavation of the precious metals. Yet no sweaty slave nor any poor animal would work the pump. In their place was an improved eolipyle based on the classical alexandrian design, connected to the pump by way of gears.

The principle was simple : water was to be heated, turned into steam. The steam would go through tubes to a moving sphere from which sprouted two crooked tubes that let the steam escape, making the sphere turn. Gears had been welded to the side of the sphere which made the energy of the rotation available to activate the pump with no need for anything but constant fuel to the system and grease to keep the mechanism working and protect the leather joint on the sphere’s axle. Part of the water pumped was even directed toward the water tank so that it was constantly refiled.

Aelius Rector had been supervising the mine for five years and had been skeptical when the provincial engineer had come with his design, but the man had the authority of the governor’s office behind him and beside no fund had been invested by the mine, but the man had required a number of slaves to both prepare a spot a build a for his pump and to mount his machinery, slaves that had not dug the expected copper, and thus not providing him the metal he skimmed to sell on the side… He really hoped he’d be able to compensate by reallocating slaves that had been pumping to the digging operations…

 

[Hecatee]

Pomptinae Paludes, near Taracina, Latium, March 165

Sitting on his horse on the Via Appia, Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus looked at the gang of slaves working below in the marshy ground bordering the road. The Pontic marshes were a great source of insalubrity to Rome, bringing sicknesses and preventing the cultivation of vast tracts of land right next to the capital of the Empire. Now Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus, confident of the emperor, senator and former consul of Rome would try to use those lands by investing in them a large part of the bounty he’d just brought back from the East.

The divine Augustus had had a canal dug alongside the Appian way to prevent it from being flooded every time the water level of the marsh rose, and the plan of Pompeianus was to have new secondary canals dug by slaves and pumps installed at various water collection points that would the throw the marshes' water into the canals. Of course those pumps could not be operated by men, so he’d had an engineer develop a windmill to power them.

Buildings were erected with a central mast on which spars were attached so as to make a cross when seen from the ground. Sails were put on the spars and rotated the mast. Gears at the basis of the mast transferred the power to two mechanisms, one being the pump and the other a milling stone that could ground wheat into flour or olives into oil: the product of the land would immediately be transformed for transportation toward Rome through the canals and coastal ships.

The first of those windmills was already in operation a few miles further along the way, its sail tinted a bright red to make it more visible and with it the new found glory and fortune of the Pompeiani…

 

[Hecatee]

Virunum, Norica, March 165


Gaius Appius Soter looked at his forge from the balcony of his courtyard, looking at the slaves discharging a load of iron ore from a chariot and putting it on the slide that would bring it to the pit where it would be crushed by a heavy hammer which his slaves worked with pulleys as it was too heavy to be moved by a man. Appius Soter had about twenty slaves working for him under the supervision of his five foremen, freedmen all, and he was often around to make sure all worked diligently.

The crushed ore would be sent to a first furnace to be purified a first time and made into ingots that would then be used either directly to make new tools or melted in the high temperature furnace.

His cast iron business was doing fine, he had even received orders from Rome after the cook of the previous provincial governor had tried them and discovered they helped him in the preparation of meat, being better at conducting heat than the previous instruments he’d been using.

Yet despite all this Appius Soter was not happy. He still had too many problems with his supply chain : he effectively outproduced it, with as consequence numerous periods where he had to wait for more coal or more iron ore. Maybe he would have to expend his work into those business as well ? Or at least take a share in a company that had a mine ?

 

[Hecatee]

Mosylium, coast of Mare Erythreum, March 165


David looked at his map. He’d had it painted on the wall of his office in his main house, a huge building that overlooked the port of Mosylium. Thanks to the discovery of the bunno beans his family had become the most powerful trade conglomerate of the city and one of the main player in the region of the Mare Erythreum, but the recent conquest of Mesopotamia by the Romans had put him into a quandary. Should he relocate his main base of operation to one of the islands at the mouth of the sinus Persicus ? Arabia was out of question, given the enmity between his family and some of the local trading families due to the dominance they had on the sea, and beside the winds would not help take advantage of boths roads from a base set there. So if it had to be somewhere the mouth of the Sinus was the best spot in a game with no good choice.

In fact the more he looked at the map the more he saw that there was no place he could move which would allow him control of all of the Indian and spice trade, so he would have to delegate on spot to one of his brothers… And then the island of Qeshm would be the best bet availlable : sparsely populated despite having enough water, separated from the mainland so that none coming from war thorn Persia or lawless Arabia may attack him easily, it would be a good relay station where to have secure warehouses in which Roman traders would be able to come buy his products without him needing to go all the way to their ports…

 

[Hecatee]

Near Emerita Augusta, Hispania, April 165


The engineer contemplated the disaster. The eolipyle was now a lot of bent bronze sheets, the steam long escaping the ruptured sphere. A too diligent slave had stocked the fire with too much fuel and got boiled alive for his pain, the scalded skin of his face covered in blisters now a gruesome remain of his painful death.

So too much heat could cause too much pressure inside the sphere… But why ? The plates bent toward the exterior, so it was certainly from inside that the pressure built, and the steam escaped through the unplanned opening. It meant that there was a maximum capacity for the sphere, like an amphora could only hold a limited amount of liquids.

It meant by deduction that the machine must have a limited power, but the question was how to measure it ? What kind of unit should one use ?

 

[Hecatee]

Virunum, Norica, June 165


Gaius Appius Soter laid on a couch, a cup of wine in hand. On the next couch reclined the provincial chief engineer, Marcus Plautius Salinator. Together they discussed the operation of the smithy, which they had toured extensively earlier in the day. “You know, Appius Soter, your smithy is on a scale that begins to rival with the operations described to be in operation on the island of Trapobane…”

“Larger smithies than mine, machinator ? And where exactly does one visit those ?” “Oh they are far away, on an island months sailing east of Egypt on the Mare Erythreum and beyond, but I read descriptions of them by a marchant sent by the Academia to learn of they made their famous steel. They only work part of the year because they use local winds captured in great chimneys as bellows, in fact the text said that the smithies there had two chimneys : one to take advantage of the wind, which blows constantly for a number of months, and another for smoke, which is open to the direction opposite the wind’s so as not to send the smoke back into the smithy.”

“And both chimneys are built against each other ?” “Yes, it seems it is the point. From what the merchant said, the air of the bellow was heated by the exhaust chimney, meaning that it brought hot air into the combustion chamber.”

“That’s a very good idea in fact. My bellows bring in air at the local temperature, which is much lower than the temperature inside the oven, so this air brings the temperature down and I must burn more coal to bring the temperature back up. Now if the air comes hotter then I can get either the same heat for less burning or reach higher temperatures for the same amount of combustion.”

“Yes, I presume it would… This kind of hot blast bellows might well be more efficient for your operations. Or those of a glass blower...”

 

[Hecatee]

Colonia Agrippina, Germania, December 165


Titus Claudius Cicero looked at the glass paste coming coming into the mould. It was a beautiful purple ! He’d succeeded in that at least, although it still needed to cool so that he may gauge of its solidity…

For years now he’d been trying various plants and powders to change the colour of his glasses. Taking cues from the changes he’d seen in some of the smithies of the city, he’d had a new oven made and now used the coal instead of the traditional charcoal. It was expensive but worth it as far as he was concerned.

Still he was intrigued by the results he’d had changing the colour of glass by adding various elements. What could cause the change ? Was it something in the nature of the components ? He’d drawn a table of the colours and elements to try to discern commonalities by colour. The local machinator that had visited him had been most impressed by the effort and enjoined him to persevere, talking about some kind of epicurian theory of atomos that may not have been the kind of bullshit everyone thought it was. The man had talked about a limited amount of pure elements that joined to give birth to new compound elements like tin and copper made bronze.

It was intriguing but Claudius Cicero was more practical : how could he make new glasses that would put him ahead of his concurrents ?