Escape to Antioch

Part 1

Roman pressed against Roman, shields clashed and swords swung through the hot desert air. Steel glittered in the sun for mere moments as swords arched up and slashed down, searching for a target. Soldiers, once of the same army, wearing the same red tunics, chain mail armor, and steel helmets, pushed and struggled against each others' shields, the large rectangular scutums, symbolic of the Roman legions, around which swords, searching for openings, strove for the taste of men's blood; payment for their terrible work.

Screams and gasps of shock filled the air along with grunts and shouts of victory as each individual soldier found his mark or became the mark. There was no mercy, no time for second thoughts, no time to breathe. Blood peppered the Mesopotamian battlefield upon which a mighty Roman army consecrated itself, one side to treason, the other to loyalty.

In the midst of the thriving mass of men lay the torn body of the once living emperor of Rome. Marcus Antonius Gordianus Pius, or Gordian III , as the people called him, lay dead in his own blood, blood slowly disappearing into the Mesopotamian sand. His polished, golden armor that once glistened in the desert sun was now tarnished by imperial blood. Face down in the sand and motionless, only the armor distinguished him from the many mangled bodies that littered the field of battle. The young emperor of Rome, barely 20 years of age, had fought desperately for his life and that of his men, but to no avail. A punch to his jaw with the pommel of a gladius, the famous Roman short sword developed for the thrust and stab, which then swung back down, its blade slicing his throat in two, ended his life, and pain, in an instant.

Only one man saw him fall. Plotinus, the young emperor's friend, confidant, and teacher, was standing just a few feet away from the brave son of Rome as Gordian fell. Plotinus was not a soldier, nor was he young. A man of 37 years, Plotinus was a philosopher who had spent much of his adult life studying in Alexandria, Egypt, the home of the great libraries of antiquity. He had been introduced to Gordian by his good friend Zethos, who was the personal physician to Gordian. Both Plotinus and Zethos had studied together in Alexandria and Zethos knew that Plotinus would give anything to travel east to study the philosophy of the Persians and the Brahmans. Together they petitioned the emperor to accompany him and his army on the

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