Here we stayed three days, adjusting formations and marching orders, and then, rather than simply following the Euphrates downstream toward Ctesiphon, as King Sapor might perhaps have expected us to do, we crossed the mighty river on a pontoon bridge in the dead of night, and struck out again across the desert in a series of forced marches, twenty or thirty miles a day in full gear. The route took us through Batnae, where another unfortunate event occurred — a huge stack of grain collapsed at a supply station, burying and suffocating another fifty men who were gathering fodder. Still, however, we paused no longer than it took for Julian to perform a brief sacrifice for the care of the men's souls, a ceremony that left even the most ardent bull worshipers cold with the haphazard and absent way that Julian conducted it. Without lingering, we pushed on to Carrhae, an ancient town memorable as the scene of the destruction of a Roman army under Crassus centuries before. We were well on the road now to the mighty Tigris River, several weeks' journey distant, which also led to the same goal of Ctesiphon.
Ctesiphon had, in fact, been the mark achieved by the Emperor Trajan two and a half centuries earlier, in his victorious campaign against the Parthians. Trajan, however, had started from the north, in Armenia, and marched to the Persian capital along the more favorable course of the Tigris, leaving his secondary army to advance to the capital along the more difficult Euphrates shore. By marching well past the Euphrates and moving toward the Tigris with his huge army, Julian aimed to keep Sapor's spies guessing as to which of the two attack routes he intended to take; and perhaps he himself was unsure at this time which he would choose, as he attempted to monitor Sapor's own forces from afar. Ultimately, he decided to use the pincer tactic that had served Trajan so well in his assault, though with a twist: Julian's secondary force, under the command of his kinsman, General Procopius, would continue east toward the Tigris, joining with Arsaces' Armenians if called upon to do so, and then lay waste the districts along the banks of that river while advancing to Ctesiphon. Julian, meanwhile, with the bulk of the troops and supplies, would double back south to rejoin the massive Euphrates fleet at Callinicum, and then push forward to meet Procopius at Ctesiphon upon his arrival.
At Carrhae I was again party to a perceived good omen involving his horse. Ever since the embarrassing event in Thrace when I had fallen on my face in the mud, I had been particularly cautious, when invited for a ride with Julian, to plant my feet sturdily before assisting him into the saddle Persian-style, if his lance hook was not available. I was unconcerned here, however, for there was no mud.
He had invited me for a short ride to watch a detachment of Scythian slingers and archers at their target practice, and I had gladly joined him, eager for the excuse to leave the confines of the camp. On the way, however, Julian's usual stallion pulled a shoulder, and he borrowed a horse from one of the groomsmen accompanying us. We watched the practice for perhaps an hour, and were just mounting our horses to leave, when suddenly an errant stone from a slipped sling slammed into the side of the borrowed horse's face.
The weapon was not one of the deadly, lead, acorn-shaped missiles that the slingers use in actual battle, but rather simply a round, hard river stone that had been casually picked up by the slinger from the ground where he was practicing. Nevertheless, the speed of its impact knocked the poor beast's head to the side with a spurt of blood that bespattered the surprised Julian, as the stone penetrated its cheek and shattered the molars on that side of its face. The horse fell in agony to the ground, throwing its rider clear, but writhing and rolling in the dirt, its hooves flying in all directions, scattering its priceless silken trappings trimmed with gems and gold.
Julian was red-faced with fury. 'Where is he?' he shouted, stalking toward the dumbfounded centurion who had been training the slingers, the crowd of confused soldiers clustering behind him in terror. 'Where is the ass who felled my horse, and who damn near killed me?'
The centurion looked behind himself in consternation at his squad, wondering what he should do, as the groom and I rushed behind Julian to calm him before any damage was done. Rarely had I seen Julian in such a fury — even when his son had been killed he had been able to control his emotions, but his moods of late, swinging from utter apathy at the death of fifty soldiers, to sputtering rage at a mere injury to his borrowed horse, confounded me. I seized his shoulder to hold him back from launching himself at the centurion. Suddenly one young Scythian, scarcely a boy, stepped out from the crowd of slingers and made his way shakily toward the Emperor.
Julian watched, trembling with rage, and when he had approached near, roared, 'Do you realize what you have done, boy? With your clumsiness, the horse is as good as dead, and it is only by the grace of the gods that I am not too! A fine horse, this… this… damn it all, groom, what was the name of the horse?' he said, whirling around to where I stood next to the trembling stable hand.
'Babylon,' the groom croaked, and as Julian turned back to the boy to continue his tongue-lashing, he suddenly stopped.
'Babylon?' he repeated, in wonder. 'Babylon… Boy, Babylon has fallen!' and a broad grin suddenly wreathing his face, he threw his arm around the astonished slinger's shoulders and turned to stare calmly at the trembling, moaning horse struggling to stand to its feet, its rich trappings torn and hanging off its sides. 'It has fallen, boy, stripped of all its wealth! You have killed Babylon!' And so saying he rushed to the horse, ripped off a strand of decorative gold chain that had been partially torn from its position on the saddle, and thrust it into the dumbfounded boy's hands. 'May your aim never improve beyond today!' he shouted, and the wonderstruck archers and slingers cheered, though more with relief and surprise than in true support.
I returned to camp shaking my head in amazement that a man who professed such belief in the gods could ignore the signs given by disasters that had killed dozens of men in recent weeks, yet continue his campaign on the basis of a misguided sling stone.
III
Having split off Procopius' forces, the army continued its march to the south and east, reaching the fortified Euphrates city of Callinicum a mere three weeks after our departure from Antioch. Here Julian received homage from the chieftains of several groups of nomadic Saracens, who vowed obeisance to the Emperor on bended knee and offered him a golden crown. He received them graciously and accepted the military assistance they offered, since these tribesmen were known to harbor an abiding hatred for the Persians, and were considered to be excellent at guerrilla warfare. Here, too, we reunited with the fleet that had been slowly making its way downriver, and from this point on, the massive river and land forces advanced together into the heart of ancient Mesopotamia.
Over the next week the force covered ninety miles before arriving at Cercusium, a stronghold at the junction of the Chaboras and Euphrates rivers that Diocletian had fortified years before, because of its critical location in defending Syria from Persian invasions. Julian rotated and reinforced the local garrison, assigning four thousand troops from his own army, and ordered the construction of a pontoon bridge to cross the tributary. The fifty engineering barges, bearing precut beams and pilings and stacked with miles of lashings, swung into action, to the astonishment of the sleepy local inhabitants, and within two days a magnificent bridge had been constructed across the half-mile-wide mouth of the Chaboras, over which the entire army, including supply wagons, camels, horses, and provisions, crossed in a matter of a few hours. The army cheered as the last of the ox teams bearing fodder and siege equipment lumbered over the solid timbers of the bridge, and the men stood by, aghast, as Julian gave orders to pour pitch on the timbers of the very bridge he had just built, and to fire it behind us. With the bridge destroyed, there could be no hope of turning back. His confidence, and arrogance, knew no bounds.