"Somtow Sucharitkul - Aquila" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sucharitkul Somtom)

sea-battle.
"You'll take the Thirty-fourth," he said. "What a spectacle! I
may even come and watch the carnage."
"But your subjects need you here in Rome, Caesar," I said.
"Beware, beware, I've a purge coming. Your best bet is to be
far from here; and fighting is, after all, the only thing you do
well."
That was true. I remembered the last major purge; for a
moment, after twenty-odd years, I saw my father as he lay dying
on a couch, back on the estate with the olive groves. "Thank you,
Caesar, for the signal honor," I said, going down on one knee; but
Domitian was busy shooting the crocodiles, cackling with glee as
the draining arena churned red.
We set sail shortly from Brundisium. We used traditional
triremes because it wasn't too far; but to show our status as
purveyors of the Imperial Wrath, we were preceded and followed
by a full escort of the new fast little ships. They wove in and out
among our old-fashioned ones, making a thorough nuisance of
themselves.
The Thirty-fourth was garrisoned in Thrace at the time, fresh
from its foray into the land of the Dacians. My tutor Nikias was
there, wizened but waggish as ever. We marched eastward.
At first it was clear that we were in the land of the Pax
Romana. Town after town followed the prefabricated Roman
pattern: country estates of the rich, a temple to the local god and
another to Jove or Augustus or someone, a circus for family
entertainments, an enormous public baths, insular apartment
complexes for the poor, markets, and so forth. The terrain would
change from the hills of Bithynia to the plains of Galatia, but the
towns all looked alike; it was one of the less agreeable aspects of
the Empire.
Naturally I adhered to strict discipline throughout. I didn't
hesitate to have men flogged or executed, and all down the good
straight Roman roads I never once heard a sour rhythm in the
thump, thump, thump of infantry, nor did the legion's eagles once
waver as the aquiliferi held them high. In spite of himself, Father
had made a man of me.
When I got to Cappadocia I found that Domitian had been
grossly misinformed.
The Parthian host had pushed right through the mountains
and into the western plain of Cappadocia, where lies a great salt
lake. We were outnumbered five to one, and they had already
taken the border town of Domitianopolis, only a year old. The
precious herds of aurochs and their grazing grounds were behind
the enemy lines!
I did my dogged best. We set up castra about a mile from
where they were, up the side of a hill, and engaged them in the
traditional manner, to little avail. There were just too many of
them. In the second battle I lost one of my eagles, the sacrificial
ram had three livers and its heart on the wrong side, and I sat