Wrath of the Furies by Steven Saylor Read Free Book Online

with Rome. One of the Roman generals, Quintus Oppius, took refuge in the city of Laodicea, but the Laodiceans promptly expelled his ragged, half-starved army and handed Oppius over to Mithridates.
    But what of Manius Aquillius, who started all this trouble by prodding Nicomedes into a puppet war?
    Even before this man appeared on the scene, the name Aquillius was hated by the Greeks. In the previous generation the father of Aquillius was a provincial governor notorious for the harshness of his rule, and in particular for his suppression of the so-called “Citizens of the Sun,” a group of Greek rebels who went so far as to preach the abolition of slavery. Tired of besieging their strongholds, the elder Aquillius poisoned their water supplies, causing the deaths of an untold number of women and children along with the men on the barricades. After stamping out all resistance, the elder Aquillius ruthlessly taxed his subjects. Roman bankers defrauded the natives and confiscated family estates. Roman soldiers raped virgin daughters. When the natives sued for redress, the elder Aquillius ordered them to be fined and beaten and thrown into the street. Romans such as this sowed the seeds of further resistance, and drove a man like myself to become a spy.
    To be sure, on his return to Rome, the elder Aquillius was accused of maladministration by a fellow Roman senator. Aquillius was even made to stand trial, but he avoided conviction by bribing the judges. So much for Roman justice.
    When Manius Aquillius, the son of Aquillius, was posted to command a Roman army, his very appearance on the scene seemed a provocation, a deliberate snub by the Roman Senate against those who had suffered for so many years under Roman rule. Even before Aquillius began his manipulation of Nicomedes and set in train the machinations that would lead to his own destruction, the Greek-speakers of Asia were ready to hate him.
    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