Ballista’s attention wandered as Maximus launched into a lengthy epic with much hewing and smiting, many severed heads rolling and frequent digressions for scenes of violent sexual congress, their consensual nature not always evident.
They came to the gate. A cart was blocking it. A small herd of six head of cattle and its driver were waiting. On the instant Ballista turned away from the gate, looked all around for danger. Nothing. He turned, scanned every potential hiding place again. Even Maximus was silent. They were all looking. Still nothing.
Ballista studied the gate again. The cart was carrying furs. With the officiousness of his kind, a telones was checking every bundle — fox, beaver, wolf; each had a different customs duty.
Stepping off the path, Ballista climbed a low, grassy bank, which probably once had been the front wall of a house. He smiled at his reaction. It was a very old trick: get a cart to shed a wheel, break an axle, get wedged — anything to cause an obstruction which prevented a gate being closed — and from concealment men could storm into a town. Several examples from the ‘Defence of Fortified Positions’ of Aeneas Tacticus hovered at the edges of his memory. It had to be ten years or so since he had last read that book. He had been on his way to the Euphrates to defend the city of Arete from a Persian attack. He smiled again, ruefully. That had not turned out well. Despite all his efforts and all his theoretical and practical experience, the town had fallen. It was odd that of the very few who escaped death or enslavement, three were standing in this ruined street half a world away — Castricius, Maximus and himself. With that thought came another, far less welcome. Calgacus had survived the sack of that city, had survived so much else. But Hippothous had killed him, had left those who loved the old Caledonian to grieve, had left Maximus and Ballista himself, had left Rebecca and the young boy Simon. Ballista had written to Rebecca. It had been a long letter, difficult to write. But one day he would return to his house in Tauromenium on Sicily where they lived, and that would be much harder. He would give them their freedom, make sure they lived comfortably as freedwoman and freedman, but he doubted that would be much consolation.
The wind had shifted to the north. It was blowing the smoke of the kilns and furnace over the wall of the lower town, over the docks. Ballista ran his gaze over the wall from the water up to the gate. The wall was too low. It had no towers. He knew that, on the inside, houses were built up against it. The houses meant there were few accesses to the wall walk for the defenders, but they would aid an attacker jumping down into the town. The gate itself was too wide, and it had no projections to enfilade those approaching. A single felled tree — and there were several suitable growing close by — would be sufficient to smash it, if the men wielding it were determined, were prepared to take casualties.
This wall was the weak point of Olbia. The rest was good. The town formed an inverted triangle pointing south. The weak northern wall was its top. On its eastern side was the river; on its western a deep ravine. The citadel, at the tip of the triangle, was a fine strongpoint. It boasted massive stone walls built by the Roman army. They were studded with towers, each showing ports for artillery. It was true the walls had not been kept in good repair. Pocked with weeds, in places they were most shoddily patched with barely mortared, uncut stones. Yet nature aided their strength. On the river side, a cliff dropped nearly sheer down to the water. Opposite, the ravine was not so daunting. Indeed, it was planted with vines. There were even three wineries on narrow, cut terraces. But it was still not inconsiderably steep, and the cover the vines might give to an attacker ended in thirty paces of bare rock to the base of the wall. On the north side of the acropolis a deep moat separated it from the rest of the town. Unlike the main body of the city, the citadel was eminently defensible. Ballista wondered how it had fallen to the Goths some thirty years earlier. He would ask the strategos Galerius Montanus at the meal.
Finally, an armed guard told the telones to let the cart enter. The crack of a whip and it and the cattle were moving. Ballista and the others followed, watching their step to avoid the green, flat cow-pats which fouled the street. Inside, the buildings were close together. More kilns and granaries were wedged up against wineries, cattle shelters, small workshops, stores and houses. Near the gate was a shop which, inexplicably, appeared to sell nothing but tiny, carved-bone pins. The smells of cooking mingled with excrement, spices and packed humanity and animals. The streets were dirty. From what Zeno had said, presumably the agoranomos Dadag had much else on his mind.
They crossed the wooden bridge over the moat and walked under the arch of the citadel gate. Armed guards, fully equipped Sarmatian-style — pointed metal helmets, scale armour, bows and long swords — stood around in numbers.
The house of Galerius Montanus was just inside the acropolis gate to the right. Like all Greek houses, it showed a forbidding blank face to the world. They told the porter they were expected, and waited in the street. Maximus began to tell the old joke about the young prefect and the camel. He had changed it into something he had witnessed himself in Mauretania.
‘Health and great joy,’ Montanus greeted his guests.
‘Health and great joy,’ they all replied with formality.
They followed Montanus along a dark corridor which dog-legged and suddenly opened into a sunny courtyard ringed by Ionic columns. In the centre was a small pool with a water feature and ornamental fish. Couches were set for a meal in a room which opened off the far side. There was a mosaic underfoot — a straightforward geometric pattern in black and white — and sweet-smelling plants in strategically placed pots. It was quiet — just the splash of water — and immaculately well kept. All very simple, yet an oasis of urbanity amid the desuetude of the town.
Montanus introduced them to his other guests: Callistratus, son of Callistratus, the first archon; Dadag, the agoranomos; another member of the Boule called Saitaphernes; and the deputy strategos, Bion. This was a small town. Its society was limited, and — despite the outlandish names of some of the citizens — it was clearly one where provincial Hellenic ways were maintained. There were no freedmen or — women waiting to greet them.
When everyone had shaken hands and said, ‘Health and great joy,’ to everyone else, some several times, Montanus led them to their couches. Nine diners was a traditionally auspicious number.
Ballista was guided to the place of honour to the left of the host. A boy moused up with a pitcher and bowl. With downcast eyes, he washed Ballista’s hands then removed the military man’s boots; finally, placed a garland of flowers on his head. Ballista unbuckled his sword belt and settled himself down on his left elbow. In his youth, no one would have borne weapons into the dining room. Now it was quite normal, apparently especially at the imperial court among the protectores of Gallienus.
Montanus made a libation, calling on Zeus the Saviour, Apollo Prostates, Achilles Pontarches and Hecate the dark goddess to hold their hands over the city in this the two hundred and eighteenth year of its Roman era.
Ballista noticed Montanus neatly tipped the wine offered to the gods not on to his mosaic floor but into the flowerbed. It saved any mess, and presumably the deities did not care where it landed.
Tables were placed close to hand and the slaves brought out the first course. The inevitable eggs were soft-boiled with a sauce of pine kernels. There was a salad of lettuce and rocket. The main dish of the course was grilled carp.