All history now, Lucius thought, and before my time like everything else in this uncomfortable country. Even if the chance came to take the post of governor, he knew he would refuse it. They were such an unpleasant people. It baffled him how such coarse and vulgar farmers could have produced mathematics of such extraordinary complexity. If he hadn’t studied Euclid and Aristotle, he would never have accepted the posting out of Italy, but the thought of meeting such minds had been intoxicating to the young commander. He sighed to himself. Not a Euclid to be found in a city of them.

Mithridates didn’t smile as he halted before the small group of eight soldiers Lucius had brought with him. Turning on the spot, he gazed into the distance all around, then took a deep breath of air, filling his powerful chest and closing his eyes.

“Well? I have come here as you requested,” Lucius said loudly, forgetting for a moment that he must appear calm and unruffled. Mithridates opened his eyes.

“Do you know what this place is?” he said. Lucius shook his head. “This is the very spot where I was defeated by your people three years ago.” He raised his thick arm with the fingers outstretched, pointing.

“That hill, can you see that? They had archers in the woods there, pouring down fire on us. We got to them in the end, though they had trapped and spiked the ground. A lot of men were lost in removing them, but we couldn’t leave them at our back, you see? It destroys morale.”

“Yes, but . . .” Lucius began. Mithridates raised his hand with the palm flat.

“Shhh,” he said. “Let me tell the story.” The man stood a foot higher than Lucius and seemed to carry a strength that forbade interruption. His bare arm reached out again, the corded muscles moving under the skin with his fingers.

“Where the land creases there, I had sling men, the best I have ever fought with. They brought down many of your people and then took up swords to join their brothers at the end. The main lines were behind you, and my men were astonished at the skill they saw. Such formations! I counted seven different calls in the battle, though there could have been more. The square, of course, and horns to encircle. The wedge—oh, it was something to see them form a wedge in the midst of my men. They used the shields so well. I think the men of Sparta would have held them, but on that day we were destroyed.”

“I don’t think . . .” Lucius tried again.

“Over there was my tent, not forty paces from where we stand today. The ground was mud then. Even now, these flowers and grasses look strange to me when I imagine that battle. My wife and daughters were there.”