Defeated by Mithridates, Manius Aquillius fled for his life. With a small company of soldiers he reached the coast and commandeered a boat to take him to the island of Lesbos, which was still loyal to Rome-or so Aquillius thought. No sooner had Aquillius taken refuge in the home of a local physician than an angry mob appeared. They broke down the doors of the house, seized Aquillius, and put him in chains. He was thrown in a boat, rowed back to the mainland, and handed over to Mithridates’s men.
The soldiers treated him roughly, but not so roughly that he might die, for they knew their master wanted Aquillius alive. This I did not witness, but according to hearsay the various parts of his military garb, including his cape and his greaves and breastplate and other armor, were stripped from his body and claimed by the more aggressive soldiers as souvenirs. Then the soldiers slapped Aquillius about. With his hands chained behind him, Aquillius was helpless to resist. Repeatedly his captors knocked him down, then kicked him, then forced him to stand and be slapped about again. Ripped to shreds, his undergarments hung in tatters from his chained hands and feet. While Aquillius crawled in the dirt, the soldiers stood in a circle and altogether they urinated on him, making a game of it. Some even defecated on him.
Naked and covered with filth, Aquillius was put on a donkey. His fetters were refastened around the neck and belly of the beast so that he could not dismount. Switches were used to drive the donkey forward. As often as not, the whips struck Aquillius instead of the donkey.
The donkey and its rider were driven from town to town. At each stop, crowds gathered, curious to know what sort of criminal had earned such a humiliating punishment. “Say your name!” his captors would shout at Aquillius. “Tell the people who you are, and what you did to deserve this!” I imagine, for a while, Aquillius managed to maintain a stoic silence, as one might expect of a Roman general, but soon enough, with prompting from the switches, he shrieked his name whenever he was ordered to, and admitted his crimes.
Some wit among the captors got the idea that their prisoner should introduce himself not as Manius Aquillius, but as “Maniac” Aquillius, making a Greek pun out of his Latin name. Surely Aquillius resisted-to make an ugly joke of his own name, the name he inherited from countless forefathers, is as low as any Roman could sink-but soon enough Aquillius was babbling on command: “I am Maniac Aquillius, son of Maniac Aquillius! I am a filthy Roman, and like my father I am a murderer and a liar and a thief!”
Those who gathered to watch the captive pass by were invited, indeed encouraged, to spit on him and to throw rotten food at him, but no one was allowed to strike him or throw stones, for fear that Aquillius might be killed before the procession reached Pergamon, where King Mithridates was waiting to receive his captive.
Thus Manius Aquillius entered the city from which his father had once ruled the Roman province of Asia, not in a chariot but chained to a donkey. Covered with bruises and lacerations, and coated with every imaginable kind of filth, he looked hardly human, and emitted such a stench that his captors could hardly stand to be near him. Deprived of food, water, and sleep, he was so dizzy and weak he could hardly hold his head up. His voice was so hoarse that the sounds from his throat were like the croaking of some animal as he was prodded to shout again and again: “I am Maniac Aquillius! I am Maniac Aquillius!”
I was in Pergamon on the day Aquillius arrived. I had only just joined the court of Mithridates. I had been debriefed by various underlings, but had not yet been granted an audience with the king himself. Nevertheless, I was allowed to join the royal entourage on the day the king’s victories were to be celebrated with a great spectacle in the Theater of Dionysus, perched on a steep hillside. I happened to be given a spot in the procession not too far behind the king and his new bride, Queen Monime. They rode in a chariot while the rest of us followed on foot. I saw little of them except the back of their heads, and their upraised arms as they waved to the cheering crowds on either side.
As we filed into the theater, I was given a seat in the front row, near the center, and was quite pleased at this stroke of apparent good fortune. Mithridates and Monime were seated on a dais on the stage of the theater, directly in front of me, so that finally, as ten thousand spectators took their seats behind me, I had my first good look at the man whom I had been serving in secret for so many months.
Mithridates looked exactly as I had pictured him from seeing his image on coins, and from a statue I had seen in Rhodes. He wore his hair long, like that of Alexander the Great, and was quite handsome and clean-shaven, in the way that Alexander was handsome, with strong, regular features and bright eyes. Alexander had never reached his late forties as Mithridates had, but this was how he might have appeared, still trim and fit and strongly muscled. Like Alexander, Mithridates wore only a simple diadem, a purple and white fillet of twined wool tied around his head; the head of Monime was likewise adorned with such a fillet.
While other kings often mimicked the extravagance of Persian royal costume, that of Mithridates was relatively simple and recalled that of Alexander, who likewise mixed clothing that was both Greek and Persian. His white tunic, dazzling in the sunlight, was trimmed with purple embroidery and belted with a jewel-encrusted sash. At his hip, fitted to this sash, was the golden scabbard of the dagger he was said to carry always on his person. His legs were covered by Persian-style trousers. On his feet were intricately tooled leather boots with the toes turned up.
Draped over his shoulders, despite the warm weather, was a cape-like cloak, purple with gold embroidery, but faded and worn in places, as if it might be very old. A hand-me-down from the king’s forebears, worn for sentimental reasons, I thought. Then, with a gasp, I realized what this garment must be-the purple cloak of Alexander himself! This fabled cloak was said to be among the vast inventory of items seized by Mithridates when he took the island of Cos, a place where a number of kings and nations kept treasuries remote from themselves and therefore thought to be safe, for Cos had long been sacrosanct; even the Romans had never dared to loot any of the treasuries there. But Mithridates had done so, and among the booty had been the treasury of Egypt, which contained not only fabulous jewels and stores of precious metals, but the most sacred heirlooms of the Ptolemy family, including the cloak worn in life by Alexander, which no one since had dared to wear. Now it adorned the shoulders of Mithridates.
I looked at the queen, who appeared hardly older than a child. Indeed, at first glance I thought she might be one of Mithridates’s daughters. But the intimate looks and touches they exchanged soon enough dispelled that notion. I suppose the queen is beautiful (clearly the king thinks so), but my first impression was formed by the look in her eyes-the restless, rapacious eyes of some predatory beast, more dangerous than beautiful.
Joining the king on the stage and seated to his right and left were the closest members of the royal circle, including childhood friends who now served as the king’s generals, and the most influential stargazers, shamans, seers, and philosophers of the court. The Grand Magus and many lesser Magi were present. There was even a Scythian snake charmer-with a snake around his neck! In search of reliable prophecy and divination, the king reaches to the farthest corners of his kingdom.