At the very moment the sun's rays shot over the horizon, Julian slowly climbed the steps that led to the makeshift wooden platform on which the sacrifice to the war god Ares was to take place. He was dressed in the spotless white linen of a high priest, the only concession to his political standing being the broad purple border embroidered to the hem and sleeves of his robe. The men broke out in a lusty, enthusiastic cheer that swept over the plain and reverberated off the hard stone walls of the city, causing the heads of Persian guards and spectators to pop up over the edge of the ramparts to view the commotion, and drowning out the women's eerie keening and wailing that wafted over the walls, and which had been a constant background din ever since the end of the battle the evening before. Ctesiphon, I wagered, had never before experienced the death of so many of her native sons all at one time, and the city was in a paroxysm of mourning and fear for what was to come.
As the men's cheering died, Julian gave a nod to Maximus, who stood waiting with the Etruscan haruspices on the ground just before the steps to the platform, and one by one they solemnly filed up, their flowing robes and conical hoods lending a funereal pallor to the clear brightness of the early morning rays. Each was accompanied by a herd boy leading by the halter a pure-white ox, ten in all, carefully chosen for the sacrifice from King Sapor's massive herds of cattle that had been grazing in the green pasturelands between the rivers. From these herds, our army had taken sufficient head for our immediate needs and scattered the rest. And on this day, as the ten bulls were led carefully up to the platform, a most extraordinary thing happened.
The first bull balked at climbing the four steps, not an unusual occurrence, for cattle are unaccustomed to such structures. This one did not do so out of stubbornness, however, but out of sheer lassitude — it was physically exhausted. As it began slowly walking up, it collapsed on one foreleg, and it was only with great difficulty that the herd boy and two of the Etruscans were able to force it back to its feet, jerking at its halter and whipping it from behind, until it made its shaking but docile way to the edge of the altar.
Had it been overdrugged? Poisoned? I wondered. It is well-known that such large beasts, who spend most of their time grazing in the wild, must often be fed drugged fodder to sedate them sufficiently to stand quietly at the altar until they can be clubbed and their throats cut — still, the seers were generally more skillful with their dosages. Perhaps Persian cattle were less tolerant of the poppy extract than were our hardy Cappadocian animals? In any event, the poor beast made its trembling way to the edge of the altar and promptly collapsed. Julian stood agog, and the entire camp went silent at this spectacle.
Nor did it end there. All the rest of the oxen did precisely the same thing, stumbling and collapsing in various postures on the platform, draped over the steps, on the ground at the base, where they stood waiting to climb the riser. Their tongues lolled lazily out of their mouths and their flanks heaved as if from a great exertion, while their great moist eyes simply stared straight ahead, dumbly, unlike the fearful rolling one would expect to see in an animal being led before sixty thousand men. All the beasts, that is, but the tenth, which, after being urged to step over its prostrate and flagging comrades, suddenly perked and rebelled, emitting a bellow and kicking its rear legs into the air like a newly captured colt brought in to be broken. It shook its great head in terror and flung a spray of foamy spittle and mucus over the nearest soldiers, who recoiled in fear of being trampled. A dozen burly guards leaped onto the maddened animal, wrestled it to the ground, and held it immobile as the poor beast continued to bellow frantically, calling perhaps for its companions under Helios to come to its rescue, but the only response was from Julian himself.
The Emperor, his face red with fury and the veins in his neck standing out in his tension, vaulted off the stage, ignoring the sickened and prostrate animals surrounding him, and without a word strode directly to the trembling, struggling bull lying on the ground. A priest brought the iron hammer crashing down onto its forehead to stun it, and with a swift knife stroke to the throat, the animal was dispatched and fell silent. Julian, without even waiting for the assistance of Maximus, as was his custom, bent down, sliced open the lower belly, and thrust his hands blindly into the steaming stew in search of the critical organ.
What he found left him stunned, and the Gallic guards around him sucking in their breath. The liver was cancerous, riddled with dry spots and scar tissue, swollen to twice its normal size. The crowd of soldiers surged forward for a better look, until driven back by the swatting swords of the bodyguards. In the end Julian rushed back onto the platform to hand the organ to Maximus, who, after a quick examination of it, turned his back to the troops and left the stage without a word. Julian turned back to the men and raised his hand still bearing the bloody knife, to call their attention.
'By the king of gods, Zeus!' he cried, his voice unnaturally high-pitched and shaking, and the troops fell silent. 'By the holy god Mithras and by all the inhabitants of Olympus, I swear: never, by the gods, never shall I make sacrifice to Ares again! For a more fickle and treacherous god than he has never before cursed the race of man!'
The men stood silent a long moment, frozen in their shock at his cursing of the god of war. Julian leaped off the platform, his gaze avoiding the panting and twitching bulls littering the ground around him, and swept past his court to his tent without a word. Shaking their heads ruefully, the men slowly scattered to their quarters while I stood gazing at the ruins of the ceremony. It was not the first pagan sacrifice I had ever witnessed, but it was undoubtedly the foulest ever undertaken, and I confess the question crossed my mind as to whether the cursed results had been due to my presence.
Julian kept his oath, to the letter.
VI
'Burn the fleet.' Maximus' head shot up, his red-rimmed eyes wide in a kind of malignant amazement. Even staid Sallustius recoiled.
'Sire?' he inquired after a moment, setting to one side the maps he had been examining in Julian's tent.
'You heard me. Burn it. Every vessel. We'd have to occupy half the army dragging the damn ships up the Tigris, and they would be a temptation for us to flee. Burn the fleet, or it will prevent us from meeting Sapor with all our strength and wits.'
Already the decision had been made not to lay siege to Ctesiphon. The city was simply too strong, its surviving garrison too numerous, its supplies, according to information we had received from defectors, too copious. Moreover, our position at the foot of the walls was untenable, if only for a hazard we had not counted on: the enormous clouds of biting flies and mosquitoes that swarmed in from the nearby river and canals, in such quantities that they dimmed the sun by day and obscured the stars by night, driving the men and animals to near madness. Thus God's tiniest creatures summon the attention of His largest. Sapor's prime minister within the city had sent Julian a cautious embassy, offering to cede back to him all the Roman cities the Persians had taken in the last decade, but this proposal was scornfully rejected.
'Returning that which is already rightfully ours is no concession!' Julian stormed, flinging the calligraphed document back in the face of the startled ambassador. 'Let the cowardly Persians emerge from their walls and fight on the plains like men!'
But this the Ctesiphon garrison would not do. They shouted taunts and fired arrows at us desultorily, challenging the Emperor to demonstrate his bravery by seeking out the Great King himself and engaging his army rather than a besieged city garrison. Julian took the insult to heart. But to attack King Sapor without being pincered by the garrison on the other side would require leaving Ctesiphon and marching north along the Tigris — upstream. It would be impossible to bring the enormous fleet.