by C C Taylor
But in the end, there he was at last, your great great etcetera – ‘trained’ – and on a ship bound for Egypt with some thousands of Caesar’s troops and – here’s the funny part – he was going as their general.
He had been paraded before them on the evening prior to boarding, unsure of whether the troops were in on the joke or if Caesar was brazenly tricking them
“You wanted a Scipio! Here’s your Scipio!” Caesar pushed him out in front of them on horseback.
And to his credit, Skip at least managed to stay upright on the horse and looked dignified…which was all he had been asked to do, while the legions chanted:
“Sci-pi-o! Sci-pi-o!”
He was supposed to wave and beat his breast a bit, but all he did was look sullen, his eyes looking down toward the ground, his mind wishing he was back in his wife, Metella’s arms with some roasted chestnuts for supper. Of course, Caesar was no fool and had placed Scipio at some three hundred paces from the first line of soldiers. And on an upward-facing slope…at twilight with the sun behind him…well, Caesar didn’t get where he was by not knowing how to pull the wool over people’s eyes, let’s say.
Now Skip, though he was happy enough to poke fun at Parthians and Greeks, had never been out of Rome, so he was a mix of curious and lost. It was winter, the sea was rough, and sea travel at the best of times is an ordeal. What did Cicero say about the state of the centre of Rome? ‘Even the rats have left!’ Skip would wheel that quip out on occasions, and was happy enough to believe he was living in one of the world’s scummiest places. So it came as a shock to him to discover that in this big wide world, there are many places worse even than our dear old Roman slums. And lurching from side to side in a Roman warship is certainly one of them. And in the company of men who seemed to emit gas at either end constantly, though this he did not suffer too much, as Caesar had him travel with the officers. Obviously. He had to be kept apart from the general rump of soldiery, in order to maintain the illusion that he was in some way above them.
Before setting sail, he’d been allowed to send a message back to Metella (which she never received), saying he’d be back ‘as soon as possible’. But right at that moment he had no idea if he would even come back at all. How long would this battle take? In his mind’s eye, the legions went over to desert countries or dripping forests, and trampled them into submission under gleaming rows of brass and scarlet, and came straight home. But then when you thought about it, sometimes they were away for years…decades…
They didn’t go straight to Africa, either. First they put into port at Sicily to wait for the rest of the men. Caesar spends a week on the beach at Sicily, watching the storms over the sea towards Africa. One afternoon, he calls Scipio up for his briefing and they meet on the beach under a grey violet sky.
“When I see the battleground, I’ll give you more precise instructions. In war, you react. If you don’t react, you die. But basically, you’ll be in front of the lot of us on horseback. I’ll have you flanked by guards with banners. They need to know you are a Scipio. I’ve already sent men over to spread the rumours.”
Oh, young Marcus, I tell you, I would love to have seen Skip’s face as he received news of his duties there on the sodden beach, under a leaden sky, his future crumbling before him, his clothes flapping in the chill breeze and his probable imminent death now looming while the Head Man outlined the plans as if for a journey to the Eleusinian Fields.
“So when the trumpet sounds,” Caesar continues, “you’ll be the first to move off towards the army. You’ll have skirmishers either side, who’ll go off and do their own thing but basically you’re in charge of the middle column. Any questions?”
“What…what…how many…?”
“They’ll have more than us, but I wouldn’t worry about that. My men are the world’s best. And, now that I have a Scipio, they will follow me again. I spoke to them the day before I sent them out to find you. I said ‘OK then, if you won’t do me just this one last favour, have it your own way…I really was expecting more of you…’ I called them civvies, not soldiers, and discharged them. You should have seen their faces. The Tenth begged to be taken back, said I could decimate them if I wanted to prove their loyalty. So I promised them a Scipio. That’s how much it means to them. You see?”
“Yes, Caesar…”
“So there it is. I shall wait for reinforcements, and when the weather clears, we go over first, we divert, sow seeds of panic, and at the first opportunity I attack where I see a weakness. It has happened before. I know how to do this. And this is my last battle, Scipio. Then we can all go back home to our homesteads.”
“Yes, your greatness.”
“Very well. Dismissed.”
And now here he was, on the choppy seas going southwards, to fight the remnant rump of Pompey’s renegades. Caesar hadn’t the patience to wait for a patch of good weather, so eventually, they set off in rough seas. And even the few ships they had got, scattered. And the voyage was interminable. Skip recalled how a century before, Cato had famously pulled fresh African figs from his toga, at the end of his speeches. To impress upon the Romans just how close the enemy was. ‘Look at these nice juicy fresh figs from Carthage, just over the water there, just three days old,’ he said. The lying cunt.
So to sweeten the torment of the crossing, he’d get out his plagiaulos and play some of the old tunes. One night, he was playing on deck for a group of enthusiastic listeners, who were singing and clapping along. Not all clapping, he noticed. The darker-skinned legionnaires kept time by clicking their fingers in complicated ways. He was beginning to interact with them, crossing rhythms, call and response, all his favourites. Skip even reeled out a few of the old jokes between the songs and got to know a few of them. This odd bunch had names like Isalcas and Niptasan, or Hanno, or Tabat…the latter two being particularly interested in Skip’s ability to remember dozens of tunes.
“I also love music,” said the one called Hanno, “I am a singer.”
“Sing a song then, friend,” said Skip and a couple of others.
“I would like to sing a song from many many years ago,” he announced, looking round. (It was at this point that Skip said that he realised all the ‘white Romans’ had gone and he was left with this assortment of hairies, Parthians and who-knows-what. It was a long way from what he’d imagined a Roman army to look like.)
“A song, which is, ’In my glory I eclipse all heaven and earth.”
And then, he began to sing something that sounded like a lament as the others shook their heads, some mouthing along with the words…and everything was going fine till one of the commanders caught them and sent them their separate ways with clouts on the ear with a reprimand for chanting strange-sounding pagan songs.
And so, more days passed but without the pleasure of this agreeable musical company, by orders of The Boss.
And then, finally, after an eternity of slewing and rolling, it was just the one bedraggled boat that arrived at a port called Hadrumetum, on the desolate North African coast. Skip watched as JC made to repeat one of his glorious conquering gestures. He insisted on being first off the boat and wading through the last bit of sea, so he could be the first to put a footprint down. But just at the sea’s edge, he fell straight on his face and took a mouthful of wet sand. The bodyguards some yards behind him rushed to his aid, commendably keeping straight faces, and made to lift him up but he had stayed down. And there he was, pretending to embrace the earth and saying, ‘You’re mine, now, Africa’.
This story is almost legend now, young Marcus, and your great, great whatever was there to see it. And no doubt thinking how he would work it into his comedy routines, once he (IF he) got back home. First he had to lead an army into battle against superior forces. Which have elephants.
By the balls of Jupiter, he was thinking, If I hadn’t been so chummy with the crowd that night, mouthing off about…if they hadn’t been looking for…well I’ve done some stinkers, but, all things considered, and
despite the laughter, just for sheer arrogance and stupidity, that must count as my worst ever gig.
But he had no idea of what was to come, of course. Worst ever gig? No, that wasn’t it.
Chapter Two
Elephants
‘Now here’s one you might like.’
I suppose it depends what you mean by a gig after all. He soon learned, that the soldiers used the same word to mean ‘campaign’ or ‘battle’. When he was a boy back in Rome, your Uncle Skip’s mind’s eye imagined well-drilled columns of men on both sides marching under banners. Chests puffed out. Death or glory. Either is a satisfactory outcome, so be glad to go. And there’d be trumpets and maybe marching songs, and all the men would be in good cheer. And it would be nice fertile ground and a sunny day. All of this had been wiped away in a few hours. He missed his miserable little hut. Miserable it might be, but there was a warm fire there and a wife waiting for him. And hot chestnuts.
Not only that, but when Caesar went to make the due sacrifice to ask the gods’ protection for the campaign, the whole public sacrifice went wrong and most of the animals bolted away somehow. It was considered the worst possible omen.
Scipio’s imagined marches of the Victorious Eagle had also failed to include the tedium. Tedium lightened only by news from Rome of sunken ships and Marc Antony, who JC had left there to look after the place, turning Rome into a whorehouse with free wine. Statues destroyed, gang warfare in the streets, all of which put Caesar into a frenzy.
Now we sit here nice and snug, you and I, knowing that the Roman Empire was saved. We wear our togas, we speak our Greek and exchange our witticisms in Latin we worship our gods as before…plus a few fresh out of the oven… But Caesar didn’t know that then. Still less your uncle Scipio. They had gone over to trample down a few embers and the gods had rolled the dice in favour of the enemy. If you’d looked at them then, you wouldn’t have believed they would ever have got out of it alive.
The camp they made didn’t lighten your uncle’s spirits much either; it was a miserable affair near the coast. Supply ships failed to arrive, perishing in the foul weather and hope began to run thin. The meagre food was tasteless, the ‘companions’ utter brutes. Some of these had done their sixteen years, others, he learned, had signed up on contracts of up to twenty. Two decades living like this? What were they? Animals?
As the days passed, the food ran out. The men were down to their last and the horses feeding on dried seaweed they’d dragged up the shore out of the brine. So they had to go inland to look for food.
Caesar was reluctant to let Scipio out of his sight, but one day, presumably due to an intense shortage of manpower, he was sent out with a group of foragers on horseback. They were well outside camp. For once, it was a warm day and they wandered into the desert, the sun high over their heads. The way Skip told it, they were looking at a wide, shining horizon one minute and the next at a dust storm heading towards them, and almost upon them in a blaze of horses and flashing steel. What would you have done, there, little one? You’d be up and at ‘em, would you? Sword out in front? Ay, just as our hero had envisioned it in his youth. You want to know what your uncle Skip did, in fact? ’I fucking shat myself,’ was the way he told it, pardon my vulgate.
And his first instinct was to turn right round and run, but he was caught up in the pandemonium. The more seasoned battlers, putting hunger to one side, charged back a distance to the foot of a hill where they met up with the bulk of Caesar’s men, who’d also suddenly appeared out of a desert sandstorm. Then there’s more chaos…some of the rescued are heading back for the camp, but Caesar himself grabs them bodily and turns them round to face the enemy, shouting, ‘The enemy’s that way, you landica!’. Say what you like about JC, he was always there with his men. Skip’s instinct was pure cowardice, of course, but even he felt inspired to stand his ground some as his first ever battle roared on around him.
In truth, it was a short-lasting skirmish, the way Skip told me, “As the bulk of our troops appeared just then from behind the hill where they had been sent to forage not far behind us, we charged as we could to the top of the hill and made our stand there.” (You’ll notice now that it’s the brave stuff; he’s included himself in with the soldiers. He enjoyed telling me the next bit!)
“Caesar now rode to the front of his legions on horseback and peered out to the enemy, who having seen the size of our forces double, had come to a standstill some two hundred yards downhill. There was a long silence as the two armies sized each other up. Their men probably thinking, with the rest of the gang we can pick these off easily in a couple of days, and our men thinking, Please Jupiter, Neptune and Minerva, get us out of this hole!”
So, young ’un, there they were in this eerie stand-off, when Caesar beckons Skip to come up and be seen beside him. “It’s Labienus,” Caesar says to him. “The traitor to end all traitors. Leech. Toad. Look at him prancing like a girl.”
“Enjoying your seaweed, lads?” He shouts over at us. Caesar looks angry.
“It’ll go nice with your brains fried in butter,” Scipio says to JC. “Tell them that, sir…”
Caesar looks at Scipio with some doubt. But suddenly screams out:
“It’ll go nice with your brains fried in butter!”
His troops roar with laughter.
“With your cock in a bread roll to finish off…sir,” Skip advises.
“With your cock in a bread roll to finish off!” He yells over.
More uproarious laughter from the troops. What an easy gig, thinks your uncle. He can see Caesar’s on a roll now, like when the gig’s going well and the crowd are like lime putty in your hands…
“Where’s your Scipio now, by the way, big boy?” Caesar tries an insult of his own.
“Our Scipio is on his way, loser,” Labienus retorts in his booming voice. “How do you expect to win in Africa, without a soldier who knows Africa? I’m going to grind you into the dust, Caesar.”
“Oh yes? Well I’d like you to meet OUR Scipio!” And he pushes your uncle some yards further forward (Cheers from the troops). “Look on, monkey-brain! Your talisman means nothing now. Scipio is with Rome too,” (and that he may be, but he’s desperately trying to get the helmet to slip over his face, so no one has the remotest chance of recognising him at any later time, though he does lamely raise his right arm in the air as instructed).
“My my, how ferocious!” shouts back Labienus, “and you lot!” (To the rest of the soldiers) “You must be fucking moonstruck to follow this bag of shite. He’s not going to pay you, you know that?”
“Give me a comeback!” Caesar hisses at Scipio, but he’s too far away and can’t make out what Caesar said. And anyway, by now the rival troops are turning…
“I’ll be back!” shouts Labienus.
But just as his horse rears up on its two hind legs, a javelin hurled by Pontius drives into it full in the flank, felling it, and Caesar’s troops watch and laugh as Labienus picks himself up from the dirt, is carried onto another horse, and rides off into the sunset. The dark comes over, and storm clouds begin to gather once again.
The Romans make it back to camp and a waiting game begins. Every now and again, a ship makes it through to the coast, prompting great rejoicing. Food and wine. But most of the days are spent in fear. Not a single soul is to be seen. Everything is quiet because of the terror of the desert.
One night, the moon is seen to flash with frequent fires and is filled with the wantonness of Aegipanes and Satyrs, and the music of flutes and pipes, and the sound of drums and cymbals. Skip watches on. Freezing cold, shivering in a light blanket and his army gear, he can’t sleep. He’s heard from others that the Optimates, who would at that very moment, be amassing their forces could already count on slingers, Gallics, Germans and great big fuck-off elephants!
JC is up shit creek and news spreads round the Med. The Mauritenians are mobilising to the West now, they hear, and it is doubtful they will side against Juba if he lends a hand to Labie
nus. And now this weird and wonderful light show in the nocturnal heavens. What can it mean?
Ah well, thinks Skip, at least I’ll be able to tell people what this army gig is really like, if I could just somehow get the fuck out of here.
“Psst…Clown!” He hears in the darkness, while the light show is crackling on.
“Who’s that?”
“Come here!”
It’s Hanno. One of the men who was listening to his flute-playing on the ship and clicking his fingers along. Most of Caesar’s lot are looking up into the sky now, more interested in witnessing the omen and commenting on it. Good? Bad? What does it mean?
“Come here!” The voice shouts again.
“What?”
“Come with me. And bring your flute.”
Skip doesn’t know what to do, but follows his instinct and walks towards the voice. There, Hanno stretches out a hand and leads him to a group of soldiers just round the other side of the hill and together they ride off south towards some kind of valley. In an hour or so, they discern a distant camp fire and make towards it. Why? Scipio has no idea. Why did he even come?
The scene that greets them is one of warmth and hilarity. Dark-skinned tribesmen are singing and clapping as they sit round the fire. Tribesmen…and tribeswomen! Dancers. With lithe, sinuous bodies…
As the Roman legionnaires approach, they hear the high sounds of a flute and the rattling of a sistrum and cymbals then they hear how the rest of the group keep time by clicking their fingers as he remembered Hanno and the other musicians doing…and prevalent above everything, the wailing of voices. But Skip’s eyes are drawn toward the dancers. He hasn’t seen a woman in almost a month. Hanno beckons him and the others to dismount, they tie the horses and are received into the circle. Just then, Skip notices that a thick smoke is billowing off the fire. He naturally makes for the side where there is no smoke, but is directed to a place between two tall, black Numidians enthusiastically inhaling then coughing and spluttering. Then grinning.
