To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late; And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods? For Romans in Rome's quarrel spared neither land nor gold, Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life, in the brave days of old.
The men rode up to the caves in the early morning, a thin line that crawled over the dark earth. They ride single-file, to spread out across less of an area, and wore dark cloaks to hide them from sight. Their clothes were the muddy browns and greys of their stony land, and they seemed to blend into the hills as they rode.
Even so, the man at the forefront of the line thought, it was still a risk coming this close, this far, this quickly. As the sun rose, his yellow face peering above the jagged mountains, they would only become more and more visible. Should the Romans catch them here, it would all be for naught. But he had to know, and he had never been one to let things like odds and chances stand in his way. He had been a gambler since youth, and Fortuna had always stood by side. Until now.
Gemino of the Pentri paused a moment to look out over his land, his home. He had not been born in these specific hills, but he knew them well, had come to love them these last years. And this land, this land of stone and steel that had borne him into the world, now bled and cracked beneath the whip of tyrants — and one tyrant above all, the conqueror Sertorius. But even the general and his legions were but symptoms of a greater illness, he had come to realize, a sickness which had taken the Etruscans and the Latins, a vile plague that now hung cloying over the world — a plague by the name of Rome.
Once, he had been sure he could drive this plague from his homeland, but the long years had weathered his resolve. The people had grown resentful, bitter. Few remembered the old songs and tales, and instead of holding fast to their people and their culture, the old ways that had kept them strong when so many others had fallen, they thought only of their bellies and the coming winter.
He could not fault them their selfishness, but could they not see it was damning them all? Now the sickness had reached into the very heart of their land, and Gemino no longer knew if he had what it took to repulse it again. Sulla has been a monster, all fire and blood, easy to rally the people against, but this Sertorius was more insidious. He and his cronies wormed into hearts and minds, stealing not Samnium from the Samnites, but the Samnites from themselves.
He would not let his people die so easily. The name of the Samnites would, at the very least, not fade weakly into history. Rome would weep bitter tears long ere she ever saw the Samnites slaves, and he would go to his death with his gods on his tongue and a sword in his hand, on the lands of his fathers and their father's fathers.
It was another hour of riding before the line of horses rode up to the caves. These caves seemed for all the world unremarkable among the dozens of others littered through the hills, save for the two flickering braziers outside the entrance. As Gemino slid off of his steed, two of his men hoisted the calf he'd been carrying off of his steed. The beast was half dead already, but it lived enough for his purposes. Swiftly, he had them lay the calf on the rock in front of the cave, then drew a knife from within his cloak and unceremoniously slit the beasts' throat. In almost the same motion, he drew the blade across his own fist, then sprang up and held the bloodstained blade over the brazier's flame.
"Blood of beast and blood of man, given to the earth. Blood of yoke and blood of kin, given to the flame. I beseech thee, tongue of the divine, look upon a humble son of thy land. Grant me thy blessing, the gift of the god."
There was long silence after that. Some in the band muttered that he had been to quick, that the ritual was meant to be a thing done well, or not at all, but just when they began to truly waver, a deep voice issued from the dark mouth of the cave.
"Enter, supplicant."
He needed no further summons. With a final glance at his men, Gemino stepped into the lip of the cave. There was no sign of whoever had spoken in the dimly lit cavern, but he gathered his cloak around him and proceeded down the winding path. After a few moments of walking, he entered a dark cavern, absent of even the few lamps that had lit his way thus far. He knew this was all meant to intimidate, to awe simple farmers with mystery and fear, and so he waited. A sickly smell hung in the air, clouding his mind and making his thoughts sluggish.
And he waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Finally, after an interminable time that could have been hours or days, he heard the groaning of rock above. A single shaft of sunlight fell into the cavern from a newly uncovered grate in the ceiling. The rock and the angle gave the light a distinct reddish tinge to it, an unearthly quality that struck him every time he had made his way here in the past, and one that struck him now.
He was prepared for what the light fell on, but it unnerved him all the same.
A woman, dead at least some ten months, sat before him in a chair of carven stone some twenty feet above the ground. Her face was well-preserved, but the lips had begun to sink in, and her head tilted at an unnatural angle. Her white eyes glinted in the light — for the flesh had long since rotted, replaced by carved gemstones fitted into hollow sockets that stared unnervingly into his own. It was from this corpse which the sickly smell emanated, and Gemino, though he had known it was coming, had to fight to keep from gagging.
The dead woman, dressed in purest white, stared at him for a few long moments, and then another grate shifted above with the grinding of rock. A beam of light, natural and whole, fell on a lower chair, this one of a height with Gemino's eyes. In the chair sat a woman, dressed like the last, but there the similarities ended. This one lived and breathed, and, from the smirk on her face, had enjoyed watching Gemino squirm.
He did not recognize her, but that was to be expected. The acolytes, recruited from neighboring towns, served in the shadows until their mistress died, at which point the eldest of them would replace her and sit beneath her corpse until her own death, when the cycle would repeat.
This one was younger than most, with fair eyes and olive skin. Her dark hair fell almost to her knees, and as she leaned back in her stone chair, the old rebel felt his skin prickle. He hated these women, and indeed he thought most of them charlatans and soothsayers. But not this one. Her eyes, like those of the dead woman, bored into his own, into his very soul, and he felt his throat seize despite himself as he lowered himself into the ritual position.
"Oh most auspicious and revered Sibyl," he began. "Most holy and wise voice of the God, unparalleled tongue of the divine —"
"Do skip the flattery." Her voice was amused, as if he was telling a joke she already knew the end to.
His brow furrowed. The oracles were usually sticklers for theatrics and pomp. Thrown off his pace, he began again.
"I have come to request a prophecy, Sibyl. I beg thee, I beseech thee: tell me how I might defeat my enemies, and tell me of the fate of our race."
She smiled, and showed her teeth as if to laugh. But then her body grew still and rigid, her eyes rolled up into her head, and she spoke a Greek verse in the voice of the God.
Too late you learn that wit is naught
And, like the beast when it is caught,
Fly when else you might have fought.
Rome yet may fall, but what the cost?
All will be one before the frost,
Or stand apart, and see it lost.
The Roman breaks before thy name
And victory wins you endless fame
Yet one piece may lose the game:
He who sees you overthrown
Melts with tongue the heart of stone,
And stands apart, though not alone.
Dark of eye and dark of hair,
Wisdom's child, the soldier's heir:
His the fate of Rome to bear.
She fell back, and her eyes slid down, as knowing and piercing as ever.
"You have your answer, Gemino of the Pentri. Go forth."
He stared, stunned. The words burned into his mind, beating a staccato rhythm inside his skull. Victory, but at what cost? Victory before winter, and only one who might stop him.
One dark of hair...? But the general Sertorius was fair of hair and skin, or so it was famously told. Who might...
His eyes widened, and the Sibyl broke into a loud, jubilant laugh, cold and cruel in its' mirth. Her laughter followed him as he turned and ran from the chamber, his feet pounding underneath him as he dashed back down the winding passage and out into the warm summer morning, one name pounding in his skull, echoing in his mind, ringing in the Sibyl's voice as she laughed.
Atellus' net worth is something like 81 talents (presumably cash) of 'wealth' plus 946 talents of real estate (land and the very valuable domus which may be a typo?).
Well, there's actually a very good reason for that:
A Short History Of The Decline of the Cingulii, by Georges McCaulay (pub. 2014, Northwestern University):
Built sometime around 155 BCE by the orator and jurist Lucius Cingulatus Cotta (popularly known as Cotta the Elder), the Villa of the Cingulii was originally meant to be a summer home for the twice-Consul and his large family. By the end of the century, however his last living relatives would count it as their sole remaining possession of worth.
Though beloved in his day, Cotta and his heirs would become the most popular victims of what was later called the Punic Curse. In his time, Cotta was one of the most adamant supporters of Cato the Elder in his efforts to see Carthage destroyed, and, during his Consulship, famously ended his own speeches with "...and, in my opinion, Cato must be heeded in the matter of the Carthaginians.", both echoing and signifying his support for Cato's famous refrain: Carthago delenda est — Carthage must be destroyed. Many in Rome opposed this course, for Rome had previously sworn a holy oath to never again take up arms against the Carthaginians unless provoked, and many feared breaking it would incite the gods themselves.
Nevertheless, Cotta and his allies formed a major part of Cato's support, and, in 149 BCE, succeeded in convincing the Senate to declare the third and final Punic War. His son, Cotta the Younger, was placed in command of one of the legions sent to destroy the city of Carthage. Cotta the Younger was instrumental in the siege of Carthage, being one of the first through the walls, and plundered many of the riches of the Carthaginians, a wealth he would later call '...the vilest and most subtle curse ever set upon a man'. Under Cotta and his fellows, the Romans easily sacked the defenseless city, sold its inhabitants into slavery, and burned it to the ground.
Two weeks after Carthage fell, Cotta the Elder, in one of history's little quirks of chance, slipped off of his horse while visiting the conquered city of Utica — in what had once been Carthage. He broke his neck, but --much to his own regret-- did not die instantly. Rather, he spent four agonizing days barely-alive, paralyzed, until his heart gave out and he died. Many in Rome whispered that this was a bad omen, a sign from the gods of ill things to come, but Cotta the Younger, now heir to all his father's wealth, heeded it not. He grieved a week or two, then returned to Rome with the spoils of the Punic foe.
Cotta began to use his newfound wealth, gained from the spoils of Carthage, to improve the fortunes of the Cingulii. He built a great domus on the Palatine Hill, where Rome's most powerful and wealthy lived, and began sponsoring or taking on as clients many of the downfallen and less wealthy members of his sprawling family. He also began hosting great parties and feasts, making himself beloved of his fellow Patricians, and quickly garnered a reputation as one of the wealthiest men in Rome, and one of the most generous besides. He would often take visitors to his home aside to show them spoils from Carthage. The most prized of these spoils was reportedly a mural taken from the former home of Hannibal, which Cotta delighted in showing off to visiting senators to remind them of his 'heroics' in Carthage.
But as time passed, Cotta's troubles began to make themselves apparent. His family quickly grew accustomed to the wealth, and his cousins and nephews soon relied on him almost entirely for everything, from food to housing to clothing. His near family was affected as well: his sons grew up in opulent wealth and quickly grew decadent. At an age when other young men began aspiring for the cursus honorum, Cotta's heirs seemed satisfied with wine and women. His wife was little better, constantly throwing massive parties and feasts for which she demanded the finest silver plates and settings — replaced newly with each meal, as she felt water dulled their shine.
Cotta often despaired of his family in later life, and on more than one occasion, was heard cursing both his own seed and the womb that had borne them. Every day, new long-lost family members seemed to crawl out of the woodwork to take advantage of his famed generosity, and he found himself supporting entire branches of the gens single-handedly. The family, though exceedingly wealthy, began to lose status in the eyes of Rome proper: wealth was appreciated in Rome, but hedonism was certainly not. Cotta began to lose allies and influence as quickly as he had gained his wealth, and found his words carried less and less weight in Rome -- forcing him to back them up with coin.
Finally, in the late 140's BCE, a final tragedy struck, putting a permanent end to Cotta's troubles.
A massive fire broke out in Cotta's estate in Rome, burning it to the ground. Cotta the Younger perished, along with his wife, his two eldest sons, and at least another sixteen members of the gens Cingulii. Cotta was survived in the male line only by his brother's son — Gnaeus Cingulatus Atellus, then forty-three years of age, who was visiting a grandmother in Herculaneum at the time. Atellus raced to Rome to claim the family inheritance and rebuild the home, only to find that there was no inheritance. Cotta had merely sold some of his many treasures when he needed new funds, and all those treasures had stayed with him in his home. In his paranoia, the senator had trusted no one save himself with his wealth, and now everything had gone up in smoke. The Cingulii were destitute.
Atellus removed himself to the ostentatious villa in the Roman countryside, now all that remained of their inheritance. The other surviving Cingulii, absent even that small comfort, fell into fleshmongering, merchantry, and other practices the Romans considered distasteful. His branch of the family, the Atellan Cingulii, would remain there for the rest of the century and well into the final century of the Roman Republic.
Gnaeus himself would be plagued by financial troubles for the rest of his life, and squandered what little wealth he could gain in half-baked attempts to regain the family's status. For decades after, he served largely as a living, breathing cautionary tale to Roman youths about the dangers of greed and oathbreaking. His piteous state, as well as the fates of Cotta the Elder and his son, once Rome's brightest stars, helped give rise to the legend of the Punic Curse: a terrible doom bestowed upon Rome by the gods for the arch-sin of destroying Carthage. Those who believed in the Curse said that Rome's unjustly stolen wealth would lead to her destruction, and that the slow death of the Cingulii would play out again over the course of centuries, this time with Rome herself.
As for the Cingulii proper, it was only under Gnaeus' son, Lucius Cingulatus Atellus, that the family began the process of regaining their long-lost honor, through his deeds as a legate in Spain. However, the family would not regain any true status in Rome until the majority of his own son, Quintus Cingulatus Atellus, who would catapult the dynasty to heights not seen since Cotta's own grandfather, Lucius Cingulatus Mereber, the Dictator of Macedonian fame...
The Lupercalia was winding down. The second wild festival to consume Rome in as many months, it had torn through the city with the fervor only a people desperately attempting to distract themselves from their current predicament can muster. Yet the Lupercalia was no mere triumphal celebration: it was a festival of birth and life and fire, a celebration of the ancient mother wolf who had nursed the first King of Rome, and above all a plea to the gods to hold back the winter and the shadow another year. It was Rome's oldest festival, deeper and older and darker than the Greek gods who had followed after. It was a rite of flesh and flame and bone that their ancestors had danced in the shadows of the seven hills in a time when Rome's dominion stretched only as far as the eye could see from the top of the Palatine Hill.
On the Ides of Feburatus the people of Rome, great and small alike, had gathered one and all at the mouth of the Lupercal, that ancient cave at the foot of the Palatine where in elder days two boys named Romulus and Remus had suckled at a wolf's teats. There, the priests of the Luperci, the ancient brotherhood of the wolves, had sacrificed seven goats for the seven hills that had known seven kings, and the citizens of Rome had let loose in a revel to shame Bacchus himself. Then the mad satyr god Pan had danced wildly through the Forum, and the gods of Olympus and Hellas were for a moment forgotten as the Romans returned to the spirit of an older, wilder day. Incredible amounts of wine were spilled, great swathes of flesh were bared, and men danced in the street garbed in the skin of goats, their voices raised in guttural song.
In the aftermath, most Romans of any standing, if they had come to consciousness, would nurse sore throats and splitting headaches for days to come.
Well, most men.
The women of Rome, though they had enjoyed themselves well in the Lupercal, had duties still to tend to. The week's meals would not buy themselves. The dozens, nay hundreds of vases and plates and amphorae shattered during the Lupercal could not magically replace themselves, nor could the households of the great men manage themselves in their drunken stupor. Foreigners and merchants had been driven from the city for the festival, but the moment the sun rose, they filtered back in, and their markets were filled with a strange sight -- streets packed thick with nothing but Roman women picking through the stalls and perusing their wares. Oh, there was a slave here and there, of course, and a servant to carry goods, but gone were the pompous Senators and booming aediles, the boasting legionnaires and crooning orators. For a few quiet hours, as the sun split the sky after Lupercalia, the daughters of Mars alone walked in Rome.
Cingulla Major paced through the streets carefully, picking at things that caught her eye here and there. Glaber loomed at her side, his impassive face a welcome but --for once-- unnecessary deterrent. He had insisted on coming, and she had relented, more for his sake than her own. She had left all the slaves at home, which the tall bodyguard had remarked was an odd choice for a woman going shopping.
And he had been right, she reflected. She was not shopping. Well, not for this at any rate, she thought as she passed her hand over a set of shriveled fruits which the owner, a grinning Sicilian, claimed were freshly picked.
No, she was here for something else. Someone else.
And she had spotted her: A striking raven-haired woman in a rich flowing dress of the sort called a stola, who strode through the Forum as if she owned it. A bevy of other women surrounded her, and though they all spoke and whispered and giggled in turn, any observer could tell that they hung on her word. This was Valeria of the Cornelii, wife to the eminent Publius Cornelius Lentulus, currently serving as praetor in charge of the distribution of Senatorial funds, a position the famously curt and sullen man held only due to the influence of his wife and her family.
Valeria, Cingulla knew, was a woman of influence in Rome. Her father was a pontiff of no small influence, and her husband's position as praetor meant she had a grip on a good portion of the city finances and, most importantly, their allotment in the coming year. Each of the witless birds currently chirping in her ear was anything but -- the right word here and the correct bit of flattery there, and their husband's election campaigns might receive a good bit of funding from a mysterious benefactor.
Cingulla had no husband to flatter for, and her brother, gods knew, was managing just fine on his own. But she was tired of sitting around, tired of waiting for that despicable oyster-faced worm Curtilius to swoop back and claim her as his.
Motioning to Glaber to stand back, she fixed her hair slightly, conjured the same beaming smile she had reserved for her father's favorite suitors, and made her way towards the small crowd of women.
"...and the absolute nerve of him! Well, I gave him a piece of my mind after that, let him know that if he sends any more slaves into the baths after me, he won't be getting them back!" Valeria finished.
A burst of laughter erupted in the small room, a tittering fake sort of thing that only a narcissist might find rewarding. Valeria beamed. She sat on a plush couch surrounded by a handful of other women from the Forum, among them Cingulla.
Cingulla leaned back and sipped at her wine again, more for an opportunity to let that banal smile slip from her face than out of any real desire to drink it. She had been in the entourage of Valeria for days now, and though she had told herself she would not become a giggling crony, her fake smile had not left her face in what felt like lifetimes. Only the thought of another awful day of teaching her little sister Greek (dear gods, why had her brother taken Theo?) kept her docile and giggling like some goat-brained farmgirl. It was part of the act, part of the dance, the give and take. She had to keep it up.
Had to.
Valeria clapped. "Well, girls, I'm afraid that's it for today. My husband will be back from the gyms momentarily, and he won't be so receptive to guests, I'm afraid." A chorus of appropriately dejected sighs followed her proclamation, and the crowd of women exited the lounge, talking loudly amongst themselves about Valeria's many virtues and how very nice her domus was, and weren't her slaves so well behaved?
Cingulla stood to follow, but Valeria rose to block her path.
"No. Not you, I think. Sit, girl." Valeria's voice was changed. The airy titter was gone, and her blue eyes were shards of ice.
Cingulla sat, trying to mask her confusion as she projected the practiced smile once more and blinked her eyes in a manner she hoped was coquettish. "Mistress Valeria, what on earth--"
"Do you know, I had thought you one of Flavia's girls? But even that trollop would have the good sense to send someone who could actually act."
"Valeria, dear, I don't--"
"I swear to all-seeing Jove, call me dear one more time and I'll cut your bloody hands off, girl. Are you deaf or just stupid? Who sent you? That two-faced whore Catiline?"
Cingulla blinked, and when she spoke again, her voice was natural, if shaky. "No one...no one sent me, mistress. I came on my own."
That seemed to be the only answer that the looming domina had not expected. Her brow furrows, and when she speaks again, her voice is a hair less harsh. "On your...own? And what mad devils possessed you to do that?"
"You...forgive me, mistress, but you are a woman of power in the city. I had hoped, perhaps, that by gaining your favor I might...well, that I might help my family, and my brother."
At that, Valeria's face softens. "Ah. So you really are just stupid, then."
At Cingulla's indignant snort, she cut in again. "It is not an insult girl, even if it may seem it. We are all stupid to begin with. Sit, be quiet, and listen."
Valeria relaxed on the couch, though her eyes still shone like the Tiber in winter. "First of all, girl, consider this: what help can my favor give your brother, or your family? My husband is a praetor, and his influence is over coin the Senate has given him power over -- he can only spend it where they wish."
"But your followers, they--"
She laughed, a cold thing. "They do not want my money, silly girl. Even if I were willing to convince my husband to steal money from under the Senate's nose, it would not be so I could turn around and give it to some weasel-cocked aedile because his wife whined compliments into my ear for a few weeks."
"Then why--"
"Did I not tell you to shut up and listen?" Valeria snapped. She sipped at her wine for another moment, then continued. "They follow me because they are spies, my dear. Yes, yes," she followed in a tone of mock surprise, "Spies. They try to pry information on my husband and his dealings out of me, and I try to figure out who they are working for. We laugh and titter and glare daggers behind our cups at one another. It is a fun game we play."
"One you are spectacularly bad at."
Cingulla hangs her head. "Gods above, I'm an idiot. Here I thought I was a player, when --"
"When you weren't even playing? Wrong again. That's the first step, girl."
Cingulla raises her head, an eyebrow raised above teary eyes. "The first step?"
Valeria smirked. She was enjoying this. "The first step lies in learning to play — or rather, the very act of realizing that you're playing. That we're all playing, whether or not we like it." She finished her wine with a great gulp and hissed with satisfaction. She filled up two more cups, then turned to Cingulla and offered her one. "It is a game every Roman plays, from their birth to their death, and we are all pieces and all players. It is the oldest game in the city, and it will never end."
The wind buffeted Gaius Flavius Fimbria's cloak as he walked, a chill wind from the west biting at the parts of his skin that his tunic and boots did not cover. The acrid tang of smoke filled his nostrils, and he sucked it in with a deep breath, savoring the woody smell of it. The smoke rose in great black charnel pillars above the earth, and the rising sparks of the fire mixed with the black plumes to paint the sky a certain grey-orange that reminded him of blood.
The color of war. It meant that Mars was pleased, and the thought made Fimbria smile. He had punished the traitors well. It was on days like this that he felt proud to be a Roman.
Ahead of him, two of his men shoved a sobbing woman to the ground. As she struggled to rise, one of them lazily placed a sandal on her back, forcing her back down, then slid his gladius softly between her shoulderblades, silencing her sobs. His fellow clapped him on the back with a laugh, then reached down to pluck their prize --a finely wrought golden necklace-- from around her neck. Upon noticing him, the men turned from their victim and offered sloppy salutes, grinning as they did so.
He returned the salute sharply, then left the men to their grisly work. Around them, the city smoldered and burned. Storefronts gaped, their doors torn off their hinges, and men filed in and out, their arms heavy with lucre. Most of the homes had been fired, and those that had not were in the process of being sacked. Everywhere he looked, corpses littered the streets, women and children in night-shifts and smallclothes. The city had been asleep when the Ninth Legion fell upon them. They had not known what was coming until his soldiers dragged them from their bed and put swords to their necks. He had ordered that not a soul in the city should die well, or in their sleep. Each and every one had felt terror before they died, had felt cold steel against their skin, and in the instant of their dying, had known the fear of Rome.
Fear of him.
Some back in Rome frowned upon Fimbria's methods. Brutal, they had called him. Cruel. Sadistic. The words had bothered him once, but no more. Fimbria had been born a soldier's son, and knew that war was never half so clean or easy as the soft lawyers and bureaucrats imagined. His mouth twisted as he imagined them now, weak men full of weak platitudes, who stood before progress in Rome and imagined that their wealth made them great, made them better than him.
He had enjoyed slaughtering them so. His mouth shifted in the other direction as he reflected on the red days and nights when Rome had fallen to him and the men he gladly served. He had killed many of his detractors then, and he had glimpsed again and again the fear which he so enjoyed in their eyes. They had realized in those moments what he had always known -- that Rome was not them. It was not their empty words or prattling speeches. It was not their gold or their palaces or their monuments to nothing. Rome, they had understood as they choked on their blood and stared into his eyes, was him. It was a killer with a heavy hand and an empty smile. It was a sky dark with ash and fire. It was a sword red with the blood of other men.
As Fimbria thought, his eyes were drawn to the body of a man lying in the mud some feet from him. The man's face was a ruined pulp of blood and bone, but his chest, Fimbria noticed with some amazement, was rising softly. One of the Greek's hands were closed weakly around a shortsword, but there was no strength left in the fingers. The poor fool had attempted to stand against the legion, most likely, and caught a sword to the head for his troubles. Fimbria drew his short dagger and knelt at the dying man's side. Carefully, reverently, he lifted up the blood-soaked head and brought his lips to the hole where the Greek's ear had been.
"You fought well, Greek. You fell sword in hand against Rome. Be proud. That is more than most can say. I will give end to suffering, but return me small favor. When you reach the Underworld and are ferried over Styx, tell all the dogs of Sulla who will be waiting there it was Gaius Flavius Fimbria who sent you. They know the name. Count yourself blessed to die by such hand."
He kissed the man on the cheek, then slid the dagger gently into his heart.
When the man's breathing stilled, Fimbria wiped the dagger on the dirt, then rose to his feet.
"Men!" He called, raising his voice to be heard over the din of slaughter. "Ninth Legion! Fimbria speaks! Raise tongue in answer and give ear!"
Answering cheers and shouts of assent returned to him from across the city. When the cacaphony had stilled, he continued loudly.
"I have been given word -- great Marius marches on the Maeander! We march now to meet him, but we do not go empty-handed, like cowards or craven! We bear high the heads of all the Greeks who gave knee to the traitor and his legions! These lands forever and always shall give fear to the name of Rome! We march for the Maeander! For Marius! For Rome! For Fimbria!"
He bared his chest to the sky and howled. "MARIUS! FIMBRIA! ROME!"
The cry that returned was more like the howling of wolves than the shouts of men, and it echoed into the blood-smoke sky.
The mountain was cold. Terribly so. Lucius Magnia was no stranger to the cold, but this far north, it was almost unbearable. There was nothing like this in the hills of Rome.
Not for the first time, he wondered if he would ever see Rome again, or the old farm by the river, or his daughters' smiles. It grew colder as he thought those thoughts, and the centurion pulled his cloak tighter still. The gods visited cruel deaths upon traitors, he had heard, and upon their families to the tenth generation. He hoped that was not true. He did not mind a cruel death. He was a soldier, and he had long ago grown accustomed to the idea of --had even come to expect -- such an end, a slow and bitter dying on a distant field under strange stars. His girls had done nothing, however. The youngest was only twelve, with big brown eyes and curly hair and soft laughter that seemed to him the sweetest sound the gods had ever made. They did not deserve to suffer for their fathers' sins.
In a motion that had grown all too familiar in the past weeks, Lucius cast his eyes to the overcast heaven and offered a silent prayer to his gods. Mars was not kind, he knew, but a man could dream.
He cast his eyes ahead of him, to the tall man in a dark cloak who was his guide on this cold mountain. He had been blindfolded for most of his journey, and had been led by a variety of different Greeks, of which this man was the latest. They still did not trust him to know their final destination, for fear that he might return to Rome and spill their secrets. He could almost have laughed at the idea. Rome, either Rome -- Marius' or Sullas' -- did not smile on traitors. Before any secrets could leave his lips, he would be up on a cross, or strangled, or whatever inventive measure his former countrymen could find for him. His people were creative killers, and cruel when it suited them -- and it suited them often.
That last fact, at least, the Greeks had been well aware of, treating him tersely, and with barely concealed disdain. When they spoke, their sentences were littered with pointed references to the butcheries at Athens or Sardis. They had led him and his broken half of the Ninth Legion blindfolded across most of Asia, caring little for their comfort or their pride. This guide, however, was of a different make than the rest. He was kind, for one thing, and he had removed Lucius' blindfold with an apology in thick, accented Latin. They had spoken a little at the base of the mountain, but the small conversation alone had been different to any reception Lucius had gotten in Asia.
Even as the thought crossed his mind, the man turned and called back to him over the icy winds.
"Your daughters, Roman. How old are they?"
Lucius replied, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the gusting winds. "Twelve and fifteen. The augurs assure a third on the way."
"So you have something to fight for, then. Men without families are too easily broken, and their loyalties too easily turned. But then, you would know something of loyalty, wouldn't you, Roman?"
Lucius bent his lip and gave no reply.
"Relax," his guide called. "I do not mean that harshly. It takes bravery for a man to break such loyalty. If you did not have a family, I might think you coward -- but as you do, I think you perhaps a braver man than I. Perhaps you will see your daughters again, aye? If Mithridates takes Rome."
Mithridates. The name sent a shiver down Lucius' spine.
"Yes," he called back. "Mithridates. Where is he, exactly?"
"Not far," his guide responded. "Not far at all. His majesty holds his war-court atop this mountain for several reasons, you know."
"And what might those be?" Lucius wondered.
"Well, firstly, only soldiers have the toughness for the trip. By the time the soft little lords have made the journey, they're all too cold to argue much. A noble is much less haughty and much more pliant when he's frozen over."
Lucius nodded. He was already finding it hard to talk past his numb tongue and lips. "And the second?"
His guide slowed, and dropped back down the path to walk of pace with him. The man's dark blue eyes drilled into Lucius' own as he spoke.
"When the first Mithridates came to these lands, he had only six horsemen at side, loyal men who had helped him flee the Macedonians. He had received an oracle which said that his hope -- and the hope of all his line -- lay in these very mountains and hills. He sent his riders out to the corners of the land, to raise his name among the people and gather a force with which to resist the army of Antigonus. He would await their return with his army on this mountain. If a year had passed, and no one came, he would know the oracle for false, and would take his life."
"That did not happen, I'm guessing." Lucius smirked.
His guide paused, holding up a hand for patience, and drew a dark bottle from under his cloak, which he unstoppered, and took a deep swig from. When he was done drinking, he met Lucius with a sharp smile.
"It was a near thing. A year had come and gone, Mithridates the First stood alone upon the mountain, and no help had come. But then, on the night of the last day of the year Apollo appeared to him on the mountaintop, and apologized. His prophecy, usually so unerring, had been off -- the Fates had weaved a thread, a hair out of place. Mithridates' army would come on the morrow, the Sun God promised, and deliver him from Macedon, if only he would not take his life as he had so sworn. Mithridates stood tall and replied that he had done well, then, not to place his trust in the prophecy or the god, but in those who served him. He had never despaired, you see, for he knew his six men for true."
"An inspiring tale."
"Indeed. The strength of Pontus has never been it's king (though it's king is mighty enough) or it's faith in the gods, but it's people, who are loyal and bold and strong to the dying. A thousand Roman armies could come to these hills, and there meet their ends before they ruled over Pontic men. The sons and heirs of those six men live in these lands, and they are as true as their fathers were. That is what our king needs in these days. True men, who will serve him to their dying, and he them."
"We do not have kings in Rome."
"I have heard men serve themselves in Rome, and little else. It is poor result."
As they spoke, they rounded a corner and the mountaintop came into view. A ring of torches stood there, with soldiers standing at the ready. Behind them milled men and commanders and nobles, murmuring and planning, perhaps two dozen Pontic princes all in all. As Lucius and his guide came into view, one of the soldiers let out a shout. Immediately, all the nobles and the lords and the generals turned from their planning and knelt, their knees thudding upon the snow all at once. Only Lucius' guide remained standing.
The man turned, throwing back his hood as he did so. His hair was dark, like raven's wings, and his eyes seemed now more steel than blue. A soft smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
"Mithridates," Lucius croaked, and fell to his knees.
"Rise, Roman." The king who had been his guide placed a firm hand on his shoulder and lifted him up. "I walked you here myself, to have the measure of you, and give you the measure of me absent weight of crown. A man should choose freely whom he serves, no?"
Lucius found himself at a loss for words.
"Once more, as my ancestor, I find foes at my borders and enemies all around. I cannot put my faith in the gods or in the oracles -- I can only trust in those men who have given themselves to me. If I have that, I need nothing else. Will you serve, Lucius Magnia of Rome?"
Lucius thought for a long moment on his daughters, and his farm, and his cruel old gods. He thought of the death he had so long come to expect, alone and nameless under strange skies.
He thought on all these things, and he made his choice.
