by C. R. May
As the guard set about his friend Solemis’ laughter caught in his throat. A gasp of shock escaped his lips as he gazed on the temple, and the memories of a fresh autumn day in a far-off land came tumbling back into his mind. Oblivious to the sounds of his friend’s beating Solemis pictured three children, and he heard her words clearly again.
‘The trees were a creamy colour but so was the ground, and, looking up, we noticed that the sky was the same…’
He turned to Albiomaros with a sense of awe. ‘Genos, this is the place in Catumanda’s dream! The floor, the columns and the roof are all carved from the same coloured stone. It’s her strange forest!’
The guard had stopped his beatings and Solemis was surprised to see a smile play across his friend’s swollen lips as he replied in a voice edged with wonder. ‘She is here.’
Solemis looked back, gasping in wonder as he noticed the small, brown-clad figure for the first time. The procession moved forward again and drew to a halt at the steps of the temple. The Roman, Camillus, crossed to a great white ox held by the Roman priests as others led Catumanda down the wide steps towards them.
Solemis felt his eye cloud as tears came to it, and he blinked them away as she was led across. It was plain that they were to follow the ox, now bellowing its last, into the next world, and Solemis felt a curious mixture of joy and regret that the three childhood friends were to end their stories together. Her hands and feet were shackled but she shuffled across, and they smiled and shared their first embrace in a good many winters.
Unaware of their relationship, Numerius ordered the guards to let them perform their religious rites before, rather more ominously, they were led across to the stone. Drawing apart Catumanda opened her hand, and glancing down they saw the ridge of reddened skin that bisected her palm. They smiled then, and copying her action as the ox bled out into the dusty soil made a ball with their fists in an echo of that long-off day as they renewed the pledge.
‘Let us be joined for all days.
One blood…
One bone…
One clan…
Steadfast and true!’
Catumanda moved forward to kiss them tenderly, her voice racked in sorrow, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘What have they done to you, my beautiful friends?’
They both grinned despite the pain, and a rumble of laughter came from Acco as the defiant gleam they knew so well returned to Solemis’ remaining eye, and he spoke a final time.
‘Nothing like as much as we did to them.’
Epilogue
It was growing late as Numerius guided his mount off the Via Ardeatina and back onto the track he knew so well. He had rebuilt the villa soon after the defeat of the Gauls with the money donated by a grateful dictator, and he snorted at the irony. Camillus, at least, acknowledged the debt owed to him for his efforts and sacrifices that distant summer. The sun lay on the earth’s rim away to the west, the shadows lengthening by the moment as it shone its crimson light across his lands. A little fuzzy headed from the entertainments of the day, the old Roman sighed in anticipation as he thought of the relaxing bath that waited for him at the head of the track.
Almost twenty years had passed since they had driven the Gauls from the city. Rome had risen, phoenix-like from the ashes of the destruction that they had wrought, and the aged senator reflected on the part that he had played in its rebirth. The walls of Servian had finally been refortified and the army had been reorganised so that the massacre of the higher echelons of society would never be repeated. Numerius had been instrumental in the reinforcement of the unwieldy phalanx style formations by the triarii, and he had seen to it that the soldiers of the new army had abandoned their long spears for the heavier bladed swords and body covering shields favoured by the Gauls.
He smiled to himself as he remembered the pride with which he had led the army against their old foes, the Volsci and the Aequi, his new formations crushing them both and adding their lands to Rome. Naturally, he snorted to himself, Camillus had been acclaimed the victor and awarded a further triumph, but age had dulled his sense of grievance. He now found that the pursuit of comfort within the bosom of his growing family afforded him far greater pleasures than the pomp and ceremony of the city.
Each year now the numbers of veterans who attended the celebrations marking the re-founding of the city grew fewer, although Camillus himself seemed to have the longevity of Jupiter himself! He had put aside his rivalry with the old dictator in the interests of the citizens of Rome, and together they had worked on new formations that they hoped the Roman army would adopt as it went out to fulfil its destiny. Camillus’ idea of freeing the centuries from the rigid mass of the phalanx completely had been brilliant in its simplicity. The new manipular formations were akin to pummelling an enemy with a series of hard-hitting mailed fists, allowing the army an ideal combination of flexibility and mutual support.
The old senator sighed once more as he wondered how his father would have reacted to the new alliance between the houses of the Fabii and the Furii. It was obvious now that he had incurred the wrath of the gods by seeking to delay the advent of the Gauls; Camillus’ action in bribing the barbarians to uproot themselves from their dank northern forests had clearly been their work, and Marcus had paid the ultimate price. Like a brushfire clearing away the weeds and dead wood the defeat of the army and the sack of the city had rejuvenated Rome. Now she was poised on the cusp of a great future, he was sure of it, and he hoped that Nemesis, the goddess of justice, had rebalanced the scales to her satisfaction.
A crow cawed, and Numerius’ mind came back from its meanderings. He glanced absent-mindedly up into the branches of the great cypress trees that lined the track and narrowed his eyes. Three crows moved in the shadows, one of whom was the largest he had ever laid his eyes upon – practically the size of a vulture. The huge crow cocked its head, the white of its inner lid flicking across as it studied him, and the Roman froze in fear. It was the same icy stare that the druid Catumanda had fixed him with all those years before, and he swallowed hard, only dimly aware that his guards had moved protectively to his side.
The men, both experienced old gladiators, were drawing their swords, and Numerius looked at them in surprise. ‘Stay between us, senator. If we can break their line, forget us and ride for the villa.’
Numerius looked ahead and saw that a line of horsemen had formed up there, blocking their path. A horse snickered from the field beside him and the three men cast about to either side as more riders ghosted from the gloom.
Despite the lateness of the hour Numerius knew the men for Gauls; their size alone would have been enough, and he sighed in resignation as he recognised the horsehair plumes that fluttered softly from their spear shafts with each gentle caress of the wind. A second line of Gauls walked free of the shadows and, sawing at their reins, took station behind the first. Numerius knew that the time for flight had already passed. Walking his mount forward, he halted a dozen paces from them and pulled a wry smile. ‘It’s been a long time.’ He looked along the line of warriors and gasped with surprise. ‘You I remember!’ He gave a dry laugh as his mind wandered back to the day beside the River Allia. ‘You led the charge that would have wiped us out, had it not been for Caedicius’ tribulus. Very nasty things,’ he snorted, ‘those spikes!’
Caturix was unmoved. ‘I watched you kill my father. He died well, sword in hand on the field of battle. Your father,’ he added with a snarl, ‘squatted like a pissing woman as my blade took his head.’
Numerius hardened his expression again. The barbarian was right – this was not the time or place for the reminiscences of old men. His gaze moved on, and the blood drained from his face as he saw the man who sat proudly at their head.
The young man drew his sword, hefting his shield as the horse warriors at his side followed his actions. The Gaul edged his mount proud of the line as he began to pass judgement on the Roman.
‘Chieftain of the Fabii: know that my name is Solemis, son of So
lemis, son of Connos, chieftain of the Horsetail clan of the Senone tribe. I come to take vengeance for the slaying of my father, our chieftain, and of Albiomaros and Catumanda, friends of our clan.’
The Gauls rhythmically beat swords and spears against their shields, and the dark birds cawed and swayed with excitement as the men began to chant.
‘Blood for blood! Bone for bone!’
Author’s Note
The few surviving sources that describe the events at this time were written several centuries after the events themselves, but they all agree that the Romans completely underestimated their enemy. Although it seems that the army of Rome may have been surprised whilst still in marching formation by the sudden arrival of the Senone army, it appears that they offered some resistance before they broke and ran. The Roman commander, Sulpicius, appears to have ordered his reserves to a low hill that stood at the right of their line, and it was here that the Gauls attacked first, outflanking the phalanx and causing the panicked flight that cost the Romans so many lives. Many managed to cross the Tiber, seeking safety behind the walls of the abandoned Etruscan City of Veii that lay a few miles to the north, and it was from here that the Roman recovery began.
The Romans did fortify the hill of the Capitol, remaining there as the Celts ransacked the city below them, although how much effort the Senones made to remove them is debatable, despite later claims by Roman historians. The Celts were not conducting a war for territorial conquest, but to reclaim their honour following the Roman insults of the previous year, display the might of their arms and amass as much booty as possible.
The famous story of the night attack that was thwarted by the sacred geese of Juno and the ‘Vae Victis’ legends both come from this time, as does the tale of the deaths of the elder patricians who, having decided not to seek sanctuary on the Capitoline, sat before their homes and awaited the coming of the Gauls. Legend has it that Marcus Papirus did cause the resulting slaughter by striking one of the Gaulish chieftains with his cane after the man tugged at his beard.
The sacrifice of prisoners and their arms is well attested in the sources from this and later periods. Many ‘bog bodies’ have been discovered in the Celtic and Germanic north, and large deposits of ritually destroyed weapons have been discovered in similar locations. The ‘wicker man’ sacrifices are of course well known from several modern films, and they were described by both Julius Caesar and Poseidonius in antiquity.
The description of the lunisolar kalendae was based on that found at Coligny, near Lyon (Lugdunon) in present day France. Written in Gaulish using Latin letters it has been dated to the first century, but the concept is global and far older. In essence it enabled them to fix the correct time for the observance of religious rituals, which was essential to the druids.
The fishing village of Cale is the modern city of Porto; its Latin name, Portus Cale, is thought to be the origin of the name Portugal itself.
Numantia would of course eventually fall to a Roman army commanded by Scipio Africanus after a siege lasting nine months in 133 BC, but even this famous general failed to break the defences, starvation succeeding where the force of Roman arms could not.
Demokritos did live at this time. A pioneer of mathematics, he is sometimes referred to as the father of modern science, not least due to his formulation on the atomic theory of the universe!
That the Romans recovered so strongly from their defeat is a mark of their civilisation. The Servian Walls were rebuilt at this time and the army reorganised so that the massacre of the patrician class at the Allia could never be repeated. Gradually the phalanx was replaced by the manipular formations of the later Republic and Imperial periods. Standardised sword, shield and armour was introduced on a Celtic pattern alongside more advanced iron working and improved close-quarter fighting techniques.
Whether there was a Roman or allied recovery as the Gauls withdrew is still a matter of debate among historians. The story where Camillus shows up at the moment that Brennus throws his sword onto the scales and cries ‘Vae Victis!’ before chasing the Gauls from the city is obviously a later, face-saving fabrication at a time when Roman arms swept all before it. There does seem to be a persistent tradition that the army of Caere overwhelmed at least part of the Senone force as it retired, although some think that even this is a later confusion with a battle fought in 384/383 BC between the Caerentans and Gaulish mercenaries in the employ of Dionysius of Syracuse, the same employer who features in this tale. The simple truth is that we may never know the truth of the various traditions this far removed from that time.
The Romans never forgot the shame of the defeat and sack of their city by the Senones under Brennus the Raven. It would take them almost four hundred years, but they would take their revenge on those who had inflicted the particular fury that they came to call the Terror Gallicus.
Cliff May
March 2015
Characters
AMA: Olindico’s helper.
AIA: Solemis’ gwraig. Sister of Caturix.
AIKATERINE: Wife of Hektor, mother of Thestor.
ALBIOMAROS/ACCO: ‘Big man from Albion.’ Solemis’ ‘blood genos’ and champion of the Horsetail clan.
ALEXANDROS: Owner of the Greek ship, Ksiphias.
BERIKOS: An Aeduan warrior freed from slavery by Solemis. Adopted by the Horsetails.
BRENNUS: War leader and chieftain of the Senones.
AMBUSTUS, CAESO FABIUS: Tribunus Militum of Rome.
AMBUSTUS, MARCUS FABIUS: Pontifex Maximus. Paterfamilias of the Fabii.
AMBUSTUS, NUMERIUS FABIUS: Tribunus Militum, later paterfamilias of the Fabii.
AMBUSTUS, QUINTUS FABIUS: Tribunus Militum.
ANASTASIOS: Solemis’ Umbrian neighbour.
ATTIS: A warrior of the Horsetail clan.
BRIZIO: An Umbrian warrior, son of Anastasios.
CACIRO: An Iberian carter.
CAEDICIUS, QUINTUS: Centurion at the Allia, later commander of Roman forces at Veii.
CATUMANDA: A druid. One of the three ‘blood genos.’
CATURIX: Chieftain of the Crow clan. Brother of Aia.
COTOS: Carnyx warrior of the Horsetails.
CAMILLUS, MARCUS FURIUS: Dictator of Rome. Leads the Roman relief armies.
CRETICUS, LUCIUS ANTONIUS: A decurion.
DEMOKRITOS: Grandfather of Philippos. Philosopher and mathematician, inventor of the ‘lunisolar kalendae.’
DOROS: Champion of the Crow clan.
DORSO, GAIUS FABIUS: A cousin of Numerius.
DRUTEOS: A Horsetail warrior.
FIDENAS, QUINTUS SERVIUS: Sulpicius’ deputy commander at the Allia.
GALATUS: A warrior of the Horsetail clan.
GALBA: A warrior of the Horsetail clan.
HEKTOR: Husband of Aikaterine, father of Thestor.
LICINIA: Wife of N Fabius Ambustus.
LONGUS, QUINTUS SULPICIUS: Commander of the Roman army at the Allia and the garrison on the Capitoline.
OLINDICO O OLINOCO: A druid at Cale.
PAPIRUS, MARCUS: An elder patrician.
PHILIPPOS: Catumanda’s companion.
RODOLFO: An Umbrian warrior, son of Anastasios.
SEARIX: One of Sedullos’ warriors at Ostia.
SEDULLOS: A clan chieftain of the Senones.
SOLEMIS: Clan chieftain of the Horsetails. One of the three ‘blood genos.’
TERENO: Iberian owner of the fishing vessel, ‘Dolfinn,’ rescuer of Catumanda and Philippos.
TERKANTU: Eldest son of Tereno.
TERKINOS: Deaf son of Tereno.
THESTOR: Baby son of Hektor and Aikaterine.
ULTINOS: Uxentio’s son.
UXENTIO: An Iberian smith.
VERNOGENOS: Druid on the Spirit Isle.
VORTRIX: A warrior of the Horsetail clan.
Places / Locations
RIVER ANIO: River Aniene, Lazio, Italy.
ANXUR: Terracina, Latina, Italy.
APENINNUS: The Apennine Mountains, Italy.
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ARDEA: Lazio, Italy.
CAERE: Cerveteri, Lazio, Italy.
CALE: Porto, Norte, Portugal.
CLEVSIN/CLUSIUM: Chiusi, Tuscany, Italy.
RIVER DUBRO: River Douro/Duero, Portugal/Spain.
EMPORION: Near L’Escala, Costa Brava, Spain.
FIDENAE: An abandoned Etruscan city in Latium, conquered by Rome 435BC.
NEAPOLIS: Naples, Campania, Italy.
NEQUINUM: Narni, Umbria, Italy.
NUMANTIA: North of Soria, Garray, Spain.
OSTIA: Lazio, Rome.
PYRENES: The Pyrenees.
SPOLETIUM: Spoleto, Perugia, Italy.
RIVER TIBERIS: River Tiber.
TIBURUM: Latium, Italy.
TIRRENO SEA: The Tyrrhenian Sea.
VEII: Isola Farnese, Province of Rome, Italy.
VESBIOS: ‘Hurler of Violence.’ Mount Vesuvius, Campania, Italy.
VOLSINIA: Bolsena, Lazio, Italy.
Conquerors of Rome
Lords of Battle
Nemesis
Find out more
About the Author
C.R. May is the author of more than a dozen novels set in early medieval and ancient Europe.
Before becoming a full-time writer he worked as a city trader, single-handedly renovated a Victorian townhouse and medieval hall, and added stay-at-home dad to his roll call of misadventures.
Born in London and raised in Essex, he now lives with his family near the Suffolk coast.
Also by C. R. May
Beowulf – Sword of Woden
Sorrow Hill
Wræcca
Monsters
Dayraven – Hygelac’s Raid
Conquerors of Rome
Lords of Battle
Nemesis
King’s Bane
Fire & Steel
Gods of War
The Scathing
Erik Haraldsson
