Free Tiberius by Allan Massie

ambassador, a lean fellow whose name I forget, though I remember his oiled ringlets and the odour of mint which was diffused about him, said with a leer: "There are certain human trophies to be returned also."
    I did not understand him immediately, but he clapped his hands, and a slave-boy departed to return after a few minutes leading a group of old men, several of whom at the sight of the Parthian lord fell to their knees.
    "They have learned who their masters are," the ambassador said, "but now that there is peace and tranquillity between our two great empires, it is time that they should go home."
    They looked up as if expecting a trick. They were soldiers from Crassus' army, men who had spent almost forty years in slavery. They crowded round me, babbling. I later discovered that three of them had forgotten the use of Latin. They hailed me as their benefactor, and this embarrassed me. I did not feel like a benefactor. On the contrary, in an obscure fashion, I felt guilty, and that guilt has remained with me ever since. We initiate great campaigns, and call mighty armies into being for a public purpose that even we who initiate it barely understand. Our own soldiers are our victims. These men had been deprived of life, even more surely than if they had been killed, for they had retained through the years a consciousness of what they had lost, and the principal cause of this robbery was Marcus Crassus' determination to show that he was as great a man as his colleagues Caesar and Pompey ... So I made arrangements for them to be returned home and to be settled on land in a veterans' colony in Basilicata. But I have never forgotten them, nor forgotten that war is a terrible necessity. Its triumphs, which I have enjoyed as proper to one of my station and achievements, are illusory. Its disasters are real. There is almost no more to be said about war. I hope never to be involved in it again. I expect to pass the rest of my life here in Rhodes, enjoying the pleasures of the mind, the conversation of intelligent men, and the beauties of the sea and landscape.
    8
    N o wise man risks incurring the anger of the gods by neglect of religious duties and observances which are properly binding on us. It is well known that the great Scipio was wont to have the shrine of Jupiter Capitolinus unlocked before dawn so that he might enter and commune in solitude - in holy solitude as he would say himself - with the god about affairs of state. The guard-dogs, which barked at other visitors, always treated him with respect. We know also that certain places are in the charge of particular gods; that certain hours of day are propitious for particular actions; and that the wise man invariably consults the gods in order to discover whether they approve a given course of action.
    Nevertheless I also recognise that it is impossible for any man to overcome by prayers and sacrifice what is fixed from the beginning and to alter it to his taste or advantage; what has been assigned to us will happen without praying for it; what is not fated will not occur, pray as we may.
    Is it possible to reconcile these two beliefs? This is a question I have frequently heard debated by philosophers, and though I have found much of profound interest in the debates - and have indeed, on occasion, ventured to offer contributions of my own, which, I am happy to say, have not been ill-received — I confess that the matters appear to me fundamentally incompatible. The fact is that in this shadowy life, we are incapable of receiving or understanding the full truth about the nature of things in the same way as we are unable to know our own natures thoroughly. What is clear is that on the one hand everyone wishes to know his fortune, while on the other we derive profound satisfaction from performing harmonious and time-hallowed actions with the utmost punctiliousness. We all have a desire, an innate desire, to do what is right, and at the same time we are alert for signs which