Zoilus, minister of the Bactrian treasury, client of Theonis;
Raor, Exaltationist, posing as Theonis, courtesan, in Bactra;
Draganizu, Exaltationist, posing as Nichomachus, kinsman of Theonis and priest of the temple of Poseidon that she has endowed just outside Bactra;
Buleni, Exaltationist, posing as Polydorus, aide to Antiochus and devotee of Poseidon;
Antiochus, King of Syria, besieging Bactra.
This is the torturous route by which military intelligence can pass from Euthydemus to his enemy, Antiochus. The Exaltationists do not use radio because the Time Patrol would detect it.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
It all seems very complicated! But real intrigue and skulduggery seems to be like that. It fits in what I read about spies in Sun Tzu's THE ART OF WAR, writing a few centuries earlier during the Warring States era in China.
And I was surprised, possibly last year, when S.M. Stirling said the Romans neglected doing intelligence work on their enemies, trusting in superior training and tactics in times of war. And it was thought unusual when one of the Roman Emperors actually took steps to find out more about the Germans or Persians he was preparing to campaign against.
Sean
Romans had a rather shaky sense of geography, and they conceptualized it differently from the way we did. They had maps, but didn't use them much -- what they did routinely use were strip-like "itineraries", listing roads and distances with appended descriptions.
There was a map of the Empire in Rome that showed the Rhone running east-west for a long way, when it's actually north-south... and Rome would have been full of military men who'd marched every dreary step.
During Marcus Aurelius' campaign against the Marcomanni on the Danube he had no idea of how far it was to the Baltic.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
And this frankly amazes me! I'm no soldier or politician, but MY thought would have been to send out a swarm of spies and scouts to find out as much as possible about my enemies and their territory and resources.
Sean
"There was a map of the Empire in Rome that showed the Rhone running east-west for a long way, when it's actually north-south... and Rome would have been full of military men who'd marched every dreary step."
No compasses yet, and if the sky were overcast (my first two weeks in Germany saw not the least sign of blue in those leaden gray skies) or they were marching through heavy forest, the Romans couldn't get a good idea of direction from the position of the sun, so that's not the most surprising thing I ever heard. Still kind of bizarre, though.
David: yeah, but that map was made after -generations- of Roman rule in the Rhone valley. And when you went up that valley on foot, you spent a -long- time doing it, one 15-mile day at a time.
Post a Comment