A Mixture of Madness, Book II of The Bow of Heaven (67 page)

Trireme
Originally Greek, then Roman galley. Approximately 120 feet long, they were powered by 170 rowers on three levels. Picture courtesy of Zvezda Models.
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Triumph
The crowning achievement of a Roman imperator, or general. City-wide celebration of a great victory awarded to the returning victor. In Republican Rome, only the senate could grant a triumph. As the parade marched through the city, according to Tertullian, a slave would stand behind the general in his chariot, holding a bejeweled wreath over his head and whispering over and over to remember that the imperator was only human.
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Typhoid fever
We do not know what the Romans called this disease, but have inferred that it might be named after the red spots that often appear on the victims’ chest and abdomen.
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Urukku steel
  The first true steel, believed to be manufactured in what is now modern-day India between 500 and 300 BCE. Also known as wootz steel. Pounding heated urukku steel formed what was known by the Middle Ages as Damascus steel (made by this process since about 330 BCE), characterized by its swirling patterns of color, strength and flexibility. Although Romans knew of it, for unknown reasons they never attempted to manufacture it in any quantity.
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Venatio
  Literally, the hunt, but in reality, a slaughter. Wild beasts were brought into the arena and either killed by the least respected class of gladiators, called
bestiarii
, or used as a form of execution of criminals. If the ancient historians are correct, by the end of the empire, literally tens of thousands of lions, elephants, panthers, bears, leopards, bulls, hippopotami, crocodiles, giraffes, rhinoceroses and other exotic animals were butchered.
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Virtus
  The Roman god of military strength and bravery, as embodied in the manly characteristics of valor, courage, toughness and the stoic bearing of adversity. These qualities of virtus defined much of ancient Roman society. When depicting qualities associated more with ancient Greeks than Romans, such as virtuousness and moral fortitude, Virtus is sometimes depicted as female.
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Vulpecula
  A little fox.
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Zeus Eleutherios
  Zeus the Liberator. A temple in the form of a stoa was constructed to honor the god at the end of the 5
th
century BCE.
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***

TIMELINE
– all years BCE, Before the Common Era

115  Born:  Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives

106  Born:  Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, Marcus Tullius Cicero

105  Born:  Alexandros of Elateia

100  Born:  Gaius Julius Caesar, Tertulla, wife of Marcus Crassus

93  Born:  Livia, daughter of Sabina

89-85  First War with Mithridates, King of Pontus

88  Sulla marches on Rome to oust Marius and Cinna

87  Crassus' father and brother murdered by Marius supporters

86  Athens sacked by Sulla; Alexandros taken as a slave

86  Born?  Cassius Longinus

85  Born?  Marcus, Crassus' eldest son (debated)

84  Born?  Eran Spahbodh Rustaham Suren-Pahlav; Cinna murdered by his own troops

83-82  Sulla’s 2
nd
march on Rome; both Pompeius and Crassus fight for Sulla against Marius

83  Born:  Marcus Antonius

82  Born:  Publius, Crassus' youngest son (debated)

82-81  Lucius Cornelius Sulla dictator of Rome

79  Sulla retires to his estate to write his memoirs

78  Death of Sulla (60)

76  Born:  Melyaket puhr Karach

73  Crassus elected praetor

73-31  War of Spartacus, which Crassus wins, but for which Pompeius takes credit

70  Crassus and Pompeius elected as consuls

66  Pompeius given unprecedented authority to defeat the Cilician pirates

66-64  Pompeius participates in the victory of the Third Mithridatic War and makes Pontus a Roman province in 64 BCE

65  Crassus elected censor

63  Born:  Octavian, the future Augustus Caesar; Pompeius establishes Roman supremacy over Coele-Syria (including Judea) and Phoenicia; Pompeius defiles, but does not steal gold from temple in Jerusalem; Caesar appointed pontifex maximus

61  Pompeius celebrates his third triumph on his 45
th
birthday

60  Caesar elected consul

59  Caesar, Pompeius & Crassus form what historians will call the first triumvirate; Caesar marries Calpurnia; Pompeius marries Julia, Caesar’s daughter

58? Publius accompanies Caesar to Gaul

56  The conference at Luca-deal to make Pompeius governor of Spain, Crassus governor of Syria & Caesar commander in Gaul for another 5-year term is struck; Gabinius aborts his invasion of Parthia to re-install Ptolemy on the throne of Egypt

55  Pompeius inaugurates his theater; Pompeius and Crassus serve their second term as consuls; in November, Crassus departs for Syria

49  Caesar crosses the Rubicon, civil war ensues

44  Gaius Julius Caesar assassinated
.
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The Arc of the Arrow

Book III of

The Bow of Heaven

It is so dark, ears see better than eyes. I trip and stumble into the men in front of me. They help me up. No one speaks.

There is a place we have to find. We have to get there because something is coming. Fear prickles my skin and dries my tongue.

We trudge up a long slope and at the peak of this mound make our meager defenses from the whispered commands of the centurions.

They are coming. Through our feet, we feel their dread approach. Small stones shake themselves loose and roll down the hill, eager to leave the place of this, our final stand. Soon they are upon us, monsters riding monsters, their teeth impossibly long. After a time, we think their thirst for our blood has been slaked, for they withdraw and lumber off. Suddenly we are alone.

Above the moaning of the wounded, there comes a rushing of air, but there is no wind. A rain of arrows begins to fall.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Balsdon, J.P.V.D.
Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome
. McGraw-Hill, 1969.

Burns, Thomas S.
Rome and the Barbarians, 100 B.C. – 400 A.D
. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003, p.114
.

Cassius Dio.
Roman History, Book XXIX
. Loeb Classical Library Edition, 1914.

Carcopino, Jerome, Cicero:  The Secrets of His Correspondence, Volume 1. Greenwood Press, 1969, pp. 208-209.

Ferrero, Guglielmo.
The Greatness & Decline of Rome, Vol. II, Julius Caesar
. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907, p. 91, Chapter VI.

Ginzel, E. A.
Steel in Ancient Greece and Rome
.
http://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/def_en/articles/steel_greece_rome/steel_in_ancient_greece_an.html
. 1995.

de Jongh, Brian.
The Companion Guide to Greece.
Companion Guides, 2000, p.191.

Libanius_Redux,
http://libaniusredux.blogspot.com/
, Antiochepedia = Musings Upon Ancient Antioch

Matyszak, Philip.
Legionary, The Roman Soldier’s (Unofficial) Manual
. Thames & Hudson, 2009.

Mitchell, Stephen.
Blucium and Peium:  The Galatian Forts of King Deiotarus
, British Institute at Ankara, 1974.

Plutarch.
The Parallel Lives, Comparison of Nicias and Crassus
. Loeb Classical Library, 196.

Plutarch.
The Life of Crassus
. Loeb Classical Library, 196.

Rawlinson, George, M. A.
The Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy or the Geography, History and Antiquities of Partha
, Dodd, Mead & Company, 1890.

Seager, Robin.
Pompey the Great
. Wiley-Blackwell, 2002.

Ward, Allen Mason.
Marcus Crassus and the Late Roman Republic
. University of Missouri Press, 1977.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrew Levkoff grew up on Long Island, New York, got a BA in English from Stanford, then put that hard-earned degree to dubious use in the family packaging business. After a decade of trying to convince himself to think 'inside' the box (lots of them), he fled to Vermont where for eight years he attempted to regain his sanity by chopping wood and shoveling snow off his roof.

Since 2005 he has been taking the cure out West, where his skin has darkened to a rich shade of pallid. Andrew lives in Phoenix with his wife, Stephany and their daughter, Allison, crowded into close proximity by hundreds of mineral specimens Stephany and he have collected while rockhounding. "They're just a bunch of rocks," says Allison. Ouch.

Since its publication in the fall of 2011,
The Other Alexander,
the first installment of
The Bow of Heaven
series, has been critically acclaimed by lovers of historical fiction worldwide.

www.andrewlevkoff.com