The voyage to Amastris passed without incident. No wind got up, so the men had to row all the way. No bad thing to knock them together again. They laboured hard past the tomb of Sthenelos. They took no more notice of the mouth of the river Kallichoros, where the god Dionysus danced, or that of the Parthenios, where the goddess Artemis bathed. They were unaware when they hauled the ship from the territory of the Bithynian Thracians to that of the Paphlagonians. And all the while the enormity of the sluggish sea stretched on their left.
Not long after the time for the midday meal, the Armata pulled into the neat, sheltered oval of the galley harbour at Amastris; pulled in most gladly. No one appeared happier to disembark than Felix. Ballista followed him down the boarding ladder. The elderly senator’s joy was palpable. True, Felix had not been doing physical work. Far from it: a comfortable chair had been provided for him to view the tomb of the hero as they went by. After that, he had retired to the tiny cabin in the stern, declining all invitations to see rivers associated with divinities – unless there were an epiphany, that day, they were just rivers to him. Nevertheless, he was evidently glad to be back on terra firma. Ballista imagined that the consular was looking forward to some food and a drink, then a relaxing afternoon. These, followed by a massage at the baths and a good dinner, should suffice to restore his spirits. Ballista had some sympathy with the general idea.
Felix stopped so abruptly that Ballista almost barrelled into his back. A man had run out from between two warehouses. He was thin, in thin clothes; both hard worn. He ran straight at the senator. Two men, better set up, ran out after him. Belatedly, it occurred to Ballista that social precedence had left Felix’s four bodyguards at the top of the boarding ladder. Ballista moved to intercept the thin man. He was too late. The man slid to his knees, and grabbed Felix around the thighs. The senator tried to step back; the man’s arms pinioned him. If Rutilus had not caught Felix from behind, he would have fallen.
‘Asylum, Kyrios, grant me asylum,’ the man pleaded.
‘Do not listen to him.’ His pursuers, overawed by the maiestas of Rome, embodied in the elderly ex-consul, had pulled up short.
‘In the name of Caesar, grant me a hearing, Kyrios.’ The man clung to Felix like a shipwrecked sailor to driftwood.
‘He is a slave, a runaway,’ one of the others said.
‘No, I am a free man, a Roman citizen, wrongly enslaved. Grant me a hearing, Basileus.’
Felix, his vanity flattered by being called a king, placed a hand, almost in benediction, on the cowering man. ‘I shall hear the case at the start of the second hour tomorrow. The plaintiff will remain in custody until then.’
One of the bodyguards, a legionary detailed from Legio II Parthica , had fought his way off the ship and now took the man away.
The second hour of the next day, the seventh day before the ides of May, found Ballista seated next to Felix, as one of his five assessors, in a pleasant portico overlooking the agora.
The thin man was asked the prescribed questions: Name? Race? Free or slave?
‘Melissus, son of Charillus, Kyrios; from Erythrinoi, a village in the territory of Amastris. I am a free man, unjustly taken into slavery.’
He was given a chance to tell his story.
‘I am a fisherman. I was out in my boat, the Thalia, when the Borani came. They captured me. The barbarians burnt my Thalia, just for their pleasure. They took me with them. When they went ashore for fresh water at the mouth of the Parthenios, I escaped.’
The men who claimed to own him started to voice their disagreement. Felix silenced them with a look.
‘I had nothing but a tunic on my back. As I walked towards Amastris, I fell in with these men. At first, they spoke gently to me. When they had lulled me, they had four of their followers grab me. They bound me, beat me. With cruel humour, they renamed me Felix. They were laughing, joking it was a lucky name for a lucky slave.’
His captors ill-omened naming decided the case there and then. But Felix went through the formalities. The man’s supposed owners were allowed a chance to state their case. Fully aware of how the wind was set, they made a very poor job of it. Witnesses appeared on both sides. Those for Melissus made far the better impression.
Felix made a show of consulting his assessors. Ballista, Rutilus, Castricius and two young, well-born friends of Felix gave their unanimous opinion. Then the consular delivered his judgement.
‘Melissus, son of Charillus, of the village of Erythrinoi, is to be restored to freedom. The men who have so inhumanely preyed on a fellow citizen in misfortune are to be stripped and beaten. Their property is confiscated: half to the fiscus of our dominus Gallienus Augustus, half to Melissus, son of Charillus. Let the sentence be carried out now.’
Straightaway, eight burly soldiers from the stationarii based in Amastris seized the men, dragged them out into the agora.
Even before the first whip fell, the condemned were screaming.
‘Cowardly Graeculi,’ said Felix.
The words, even the screams, were cut across by a new voice, loud in its desperation: ‘ Kyrios, hear my petition. I too have been wronged.’
Wearily, Felix said, ‘Who spoke? Bring him forth.’
And so it started: an endless series of complaints, all different, but all having one thing in common. When the barbarians came, I hid in the hills, returning I found my neighbour had taken my goat, field, wife… When the barbarians came, in the chaos, my fellow citizen attacked my boat, home, daughter… When the barbarians came, my fellow townsman joined them, pointing out roads and houses, sharing in their depredations. When the barbarians departed, they left behind my silver bowl, my statue of Athena… My friend recovered it, but now will not return it to me.
All through the long day, Ballista listened to the stories of woe. He thought of the famous description by Thucydides of the breakdown of society during the civil war in Corcyra. He thought the coming of the barbarians might be worse; to domestic bad faith and betrayal was added the horror of the unknown.
A very small part of him felt an atavistic pride – this is what we northerners can do to you feeble men of the south. He suppressed the thought as unworthy. He concentrated on his dominant emotion, a genuine pity for peaceful men and women whose innocence had been no shield. Yet he did not suspend his critical faculties, trying hard to discern the victims from the liars and opportunists. A false accusation, if successful, brought the same rewards as a genuine one.
To give him his due, Felix worked hard. But, by the evening, the old senator was very tired. He had had more than enough. There were eight complaints still unheard. Felix announced that he must sail the following day; his duty to the Res Publica demanded it. The remaining cases must be taken to the governor of the province of Bithynia et Pontus, Vellius Macrinus, currently thought to be holding assizes in the city of Prusa. That many of those involved were poor men, poorer still after their disaster, and Prusa probably was over two hundred miles away, did not seem to occur to him.
The following morning, bright and early, the Armata pulled out of Amastris. At first there was a north-westerly breeze, but it was fitful; several times it disappeared and the oars had to be run out; as many times again, it returned and the oars were drawn inboard. Leaning on the starboard rail, Ballista commented to Bruteddius on the forbidding-looking coast. Big, wooded mountains; the trees ran down to the rocks, and the rocks jutted out into the sea. Stark precipices reared up from the water. There were coves, but most were rock bound, open to the weather; each more of a trap than a haven.
‘Not good,’ Bruteddius agreed. ‘I wanted to get to Sinope today. The noble senator, however, seems to have rediscovered his pleasure in religion. He demands we spend the night at Ionopolis. I am told by the locals the mooring there is not secure. If another storm gets up…’