Marius' Mules XI: Tides of War

by S. J. A. Turney

  He looked around for a moment during a heartbeat’s respite, and spotted Salvius Cursor close by. Galronus was just visible in the press, too. Everyone was at the party now.

  ‘I’ve done my three,’ Fronto bellowed. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Five,’ roared Salvius as he plunged his blade into a thigh, then rose, fresh blood all down his front.

  ‘Show-off,’ grinned Fronto.

  ‘Six,’ replied Salvius, as he jumped up, threw his free arm around a man’s neck and jerked his head down to meet a rising knee encased in bronze greaves. His victim screamed as the bronze tore his face, and blood and eye matter washed the metal leg armour.

  ‘You’re an animal, Salvius.’

  ‘Aren’t we all? Look to your left.’

  Fronto returned his attention to the fight before him just in time to parry another blow and deliver a devastating slash to the neck.

  The dance went on for perhaps a hundred heartbeats more, then a horn blew a cadence somewhere out by the fort, and the enemy began to turn and run. A few took blows to the back as they fled, but the legion of Pompey’s, recent recruits from the Greek lands, were on the run. Fronto, weary but unhurt other than a few scratches and bruises, climbed up to the surviving wall walk and took in the scene. The enemy was in full retreat. They had lost a third or more of their number and were in flight back to their own lines.

  Untried and untested no longer, they had been found wanting.

  Volcatius had held the fort, and Fronto and the men of Volcatius’ cohorts had held the river bed.

  Salvius Cursor joined him, wiping gore and liquid from his face.

  ‘A very solid victory, that. Pompey will be furious.’

  ‘But the gates of Hades have just opened,’ Fronto sighed. ‘Thus far we’ve danced around each other, trying not to truly start the war, but it’s done now. That’s just the first fight. It won’t stop now until either Caesar or Pompey bend their knee. The bloodshed has only just begun.’

  Chapter 8

  Caesar’s camp, Junius 48 BC

  It turned out that the day of the attack had been brutal all along the siege lines. Pompey had been careful to launch a number of attacks simultaneously in order to prevent the Caesarian forces from being able to strengthen any point or bring their main reserves to bear. In addition to the attack on Volcatius’ camp, which had been driven off despite horrendous odds, there had been a similar push in the south, near the coast, where the Ninth had fought like lions, once and for all removing any stigma that remained from their insurrection at Placentia. Further north, in the high peaks, Calenus had struggled to control small installations against concerted attack by a sizeable force of both legionaries and auxilia. Close to Dyrrachium itself, Sulla had been the senior commander present and had brought up every man available, throwing two extra legions into the defence of the lines, where three different Pompeian armies had pushed, attempting to break through, presumably hoping to resupply from the city.

  Miraculously, or at least a credit to the officers and men of Caesar’s army, each of the six pushes had been contained and driven back. Losses had been high on both sides, but it was generally agreed that the Pompeians took the brunt of the body count. Hirtius, updating Caesar’s accounts of the war to be published back in Rome, somewhat extravagantly numbered the enemy fallen at two thousand, and Caesar’s men at less than twenty. Heroism had never looked so unbelievable.

  One bright side of the push was the six Pompeian standards that had been captured, two by men of Volcatius Tullus’ command. These six had been reverently packed, given an escort, and sent to the ships to transport back to Rome, where they would be prominently displayed to remind the populace of their consul’s strength and divine support. And of their own loyalties, of course.

  Caesar, recovering from a minor illness that had kept him from the action, spoke to the legions at the main camp, his face a little pale and drawn, but exhibiting all the strength and presence expected of him. He praised Sulla for his powerful actions and the defence of the main camps. He praised Volcatius for his heroic victory in very difficult circumstances. And he praised a centurion in particular. It was a standard trick of Caesar’s, as Fronto knew well. It was all to the good lauding senior officers, but it gave heart to the men when heroics among the main fighting force were recognised.

  It had brought a smile to Fronto’s face, too, and had been well-deserved. A centurion by the name of Scaeva – one of only two centurions in his cohort not to have lost an eye during the fight – was invited up onto the general’s rostrum. He had acquired a limp, and his leg was wrapped in linen that had already soaked through pink. Scratches and marks criss-crossed him. The men nodded their approval, but it was the piece of evidence of the man’s bravery brought up for viewing that stilled the breath in all present. Scaeva’s oval shield was displayed to the legions present as the sign of a man who knew no fear and was watched over by gods. There was virtually no painted linen left on the sorry item, which was more hole now than shield, punctured by dozens of arrows and spears, cut by dozens of swords. Even Fronto, no stranger to the frenetic fighting at the front line, had never seen a shield that had taken such punishment and remained in a man’s possession. That Scaeva was alive at all was incredible. The man’s left arm was a mass of blood and purple bruises from the blows that had penetrated the boards.

  The centurion left the stand in stunned silence, eyes wide at the two hundred thousand sestertii reward the general had announced, in addition to his raising from the lesser ranks of the centurionate to the position of primus pilus.

  Thus was Caesar’s gratitude displayed and received.

  Fronto sighed and reached for the jug of wine to top up, only to find that it had disappeared. Unsurprisingly as he scanned the gathering, the jug was in the hand of Marcus Antonius, and he felt slight irritation as he saw the jug upended into the man’s cup and drained of the last drop. He needed some kind of sustenance to see him through the latest round of self-delusion among the officers.

  ‘He will break,’ Calenus said. ‘He has to break.’

  Murcus nodded his agreement. ‘He now knows that he cannot overcome our lines. He has tried, and we fought him off, even with inferior numbers and no warning.’

  ‘And that means he continues to lack water supplies,’ Calenus reminded everyone. ‘How long can he keep his army supplied by ship?’

  ‘Indefinitely,’ Antonius spat, waving his full cup so that the wine sloshed over the edge, adding further irritation to Fronto. What a waste.

  ‘What?’ Calenus said.

  ‘Now that the blockade’s been lifted – after all, what use is it now? – Pompey is using his entire fleet to bring in supplies from Dyrrachium and any other sympathetic source. We may have secured much of the local region, but most of Greece, Macedonia, Thrace and so on are all in Pompey’s camp. Yes, it takes a long time to bring supplies that far, but he has the ships to do it.’

  ‘He cannot produce enough water and fodder for all his beasts,’ Calenus argued.

  ‘No. That’s why he fed the pack animals to his men. He’s kept his core cavalry mounts and reduced the need. He can last as long as he needs to. And sooner or later Scipio is going to arrive from Syria with his legions, at which point we get done from both ends, Pompey on one side and Scipio on the other. Remember Alesia? Imagine what it had been like if the reserve army on the hill had properly committed? That’s what we’re facing. And these men will not baulk at coming full force. All Pompey has to do is wait. That’s all. And our only chance to change things is to take Dyrrachium off him.’

  The tent erupted in a wave of noise as men vented their opinions on the sense of any kind of assault on that coastal bastion.

  Fronto, who had yet to say a word, stood angrily in the middle of it all, lacking wine, with a growing headache from all the noise and argument, wondering if this was how a tutor felt in a room full of unruly students.

  ‘Quiet!’ he bellowed suddenly.

  The vo
lume of his shout and the sheer anger in his tone cut through the crowd and added a great deal to Fronto’s burgeoning headache. The whole tent fell silent, all officers turning to face Fronto, even Caesar, who wore an unaccustomed expression of surprise.

  ‘Marcus?’ the general said.

  ‘You argue over and over again in circles, never getting anywhere. I hear the same old suggestions and rebuttals going on here every day, and nothing changes. It’s all repeated. Here is the situation in truth.’

  Every ear twitched in anticipation, and Fronto walked over and calmly took the full cup of barely-watered wine from Antonius’ hand, taking a grateful sip.

  ‘Yes, we beat Pompey. He won’t try that again. Agreed. But he is not a man to rest on his laurels. He knows that sooner or later Scipio will arrive, but he also knows that we know that, and he will expect Caesar to pull some clever little trick before then. So he will be probing, looking for a way to bring us down. Do not be fooled by this current lack of battle. It’s just a drawn breath before the next fight.’

  He turned and gestured to Antonius. ‘It has already been concluded more than once that storming Dyrrachium stands a minute chance of success, and if we fail it undermines everything we’ve achieved. We cannot stop Pompey resupplying by sea, as he has all the edge in naval power. All we can do is try and diminish his sources. Caesar, send some men into Greece in the south and try and turn the coastal cities to our cause. That way his supplies from the south dry up and he is forced to rely solely on Dyrrachium. Also, while they are there, they might be able to stir up the countryside in our favour and hinder Scipio when he passes through.’

  He stepped back and took a swig of wine. ‘Other than that there is nothing we can do but wait and be ready. Perhaps lead out the army regularly and offer battle. But stop these interminable planning sessions where we simply argue impossible plans and the same old ideas. We sit tight, we squeeze his supplies in the small ways we can, and we wait to see what happens. Pompey is clever, but he’s also impulsive. A man driven by anger. Perhaps if we squeeze enough we can cause him to do something rash that will change everything.’

  He fell silent and the whole room waited, expectantly.

  ‘There is no more,’ Fronto sighed. ‘That’s it. Session over.’

  Caesar nodded. ‘Rather bleakly expressed, Marcus, but a succinct representation of our situation. Very well, I shall dismiss this meeting and another shall not be called until the Ides unless there are developments. Calenus? Take Cassius Longinus and Calvisius Sabinus and the Twenty Sixth and Twenty Seventh into Achaea and do as Fronto suggested. Take Pompey’s coastal supply dumps off him and make the way slow for Scipio. You know what to do. Calvinus? You take the Eleventh and Twelfth and do the same in Macedonia. Pompey was there with his legions and training camps and that may well be the source of much of his land-based supplies. Turn Macedonia from him.’

  And that was it. The officers departed, going about their own business, often in pairs, deep in discussion over the very same points Fronto had argued were pointless. Antonius crossed to Fronto with a raised eyebrow, and the legate held out the cup to its owner.

  ‘Keep it. Seems you need it more than me.’

  And he did. Right now, bogged down in an interminable siege with no great hope for a successful conclusion, with a headache and listening to the officers arguing like children, all he wanted was to be back in Tarraco with the family. Somewhere warm and comfortable where he could splash around in the water and drink his own wine while the boys cavorted and laughed and his wife smiled at him.

  Gods, but when would this war finally finish?

  * * *

  And nothing did change. Days came and went with no appreciable difference to the situation. One minor point of interest came in the form of news finally of Vibullius Rufus. The man Caesar had chosen as his envoy to Pompey and sent thence with horsemen had apparently gone over to the enemy, for rumour emanating from Rome suggested that he was behind some stirrings of political trouble there. Closer to hand, Calenus and his cohorts disappeared off south and east to secure Achaea, but there was no sign of a reduction in the number of supply vessels coming in to feed and water Pompey’s army. Indeed, if anything, it seemed that Pompey was settling in for the long run, which picked at Fronto’s nerves, for he was still certain that the old bastard would try something sooner or later.

  In the south, facing the defences manned mostly by the Ninth where there had been brutal fighting that day, Pompey’s siege works were strengthened. The walls grew higher and new towers sprouted here and there along the ramparts. The former camp of the Ninth that Pompey’s forces had manned was now abandoned, perhaps as being too difficult to protect, protruding from the main lines as it did. Its gates were blocked and the men pulled back to the main wall leaving woodland and open ground aplenty between the lines.

  It all appeared to be indicative of a man happy to be besieged, knowing he would win in the end.

  ‘He’s not, though,’ Fronto said, leaning on the fence, musing quietly.

  ‘Who’s not what?’ asked Galronus, strolling up beside him and leaning next to him on the timber.

  ‘Pompey. He’s not content just to wait it out.’

  ‘It does look that way.’

  ‘But it isn’t. I know how his mind works. And while I trust Salvius Cursor’s opinions about as far as I could shit a trireme, he served with Pompey and he seems to know the man well, and he shares my opinion. This is all too easy. Something nasty is coming. Pompey’s preparing something, I’m sure. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens in the south.’

  ‘Why?’

  Fronto tapped his fingers on the timber. ‘The lion’s share of our forces are in the north, between him and Dyrrachium. But we can’t be certain where his are. We have no intelligence, which I know is a joke in its own right, by the way. He’s abandoned the old camp in the south and drawn back, consolidating his ramparts there.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So our officers will get complacent. They see the south as being secure. Pompey’s withdrawn his forwards position, so no trouble can come from there, eh? But what if Pompey’s army is concentrated in the south?’

  ‘No,’ Galronus countered. ‘They can’t be. Every few days Caesar marches the men out and lines them up in the north, offering Pompey a fight, and he responds by bringing out his own men, never outside the protection of his missiles, but we can see them. They’re in the north.’

  ‘Pompey has a huge army, Galronus, with a lot of shiny new recruits. I’m confident that he could field a large force of impressive looking men to match Caesar’s without drawing any of his veterans or the better trained troops, like those Hispanic cohorts under Afranius. No. They’re in the south. I’d wager my arm on it.’

  ‘You think he means to swamp us?’

  ‘I just don’t know. That’s what stops me arguing with the officers for a concentration there. I can’t figure out what he’s up to. But mark my words, something will happen there.’

  Galronus nodded. ‘Well if that’s not tension enough for you, here’s some news. Scipio and his legions have been spotted in Macedonia. Calvinus is moving to intercept him.’

  Fronto sighed and closed his eyes. ‘That’s too close for comfort. Calvinus and Scipio’s forces are more or less evenly matched, but Scipio’s wily. Perhaps even more so than Pompey. I fear that any direct confrontation between him and Calvinus will go badly for us. We can’t really afford to lose two such veteran legions. We’re standing in the latrine trench, Galronus, and the shit just gets deeper.’

  ‘Caesar has responded,’ Galronus noted. ‘He’s sent an ambassador to join up with Calvinus and mediate with Scipio. A mutual friend, apparently. He’s hoping that Scipio can be turned from Pompey’s side rather than coming into conflict with Calvinus. Let’s face it, if the Syrian legions joined us, then we’d have the edge. And now that we’ve started harvesting the crops we could feed the excess.’

  Fronto snorted. ‘When did you becom
e an expert on Roman strategy?’

  You’re talking to a senator of Rome, remember, Fronto?’

  They both laughed for a moment.

  ‘Let’s hope this loyal envoy is more loyal than Vibullius Rufus was, eh?’ Fronto sagged. ‘I’m going to take Bucephalus and ride out to the south to see what I can turn up,’ Fronto declared. Care to join me?’

  ‘I might. I need to go and see Volusenus anyway. The cavalry have not been doing much more than helping gather crops these past months. I think it’s time they went for a little exercise and remember they’re soldiers, not farmers.’

  Fronto smiled. Volusenus was the current Prefect of Horse, and took his job very seriously. He would be more than happy to commit the cavalry to exercises, since he had been moaning in meetings for some time that his forces were being used only as glorified ploughmen.

  ‘Come on, then.’

  The bulk of the cavalry, most of whom were Gallic or German auxiliaries, were based on the periphery of the huge main northern camp. Row upon row of plain tents marked out their accommodation, the cavalry standards, both Roman and native, standing in position at the end of each unit’s territory. The horses were neatly corralled in large fenced areas with only peripheral guards, generally several units’ steeds kept together. The officers’ horses were largely kept according to their owners’ wishes, which meant that most were privately stabled by their master’s accommodation. Fronto, aware of Bucephalus’ advanced years and the need for social animals like horses to have company, allowed his to stay with those of Galronus and Salvius and a few other officers’ in a paddock of their own near the main cavalry steeds.

  The two men were sauntering contentedly towards that small paddock, and the quarters of Volusenus and the various staff, when the sound of angry shouting insisted itself upon them. The two peered in the direction of the noise. A small group of Gauls were pushing and shoving towards the far end of one of the lines of tents.