Bedrock of Empire

by Thomas M D Brooke

  He looked around furtively. ‘I’ll tell you when we’re in the cabin.’

  I sighed. ‘Very well.’

  Blasius was less keen to join us. ‘If you don’t mind, sir, I’ll bunk downstairs with the other lads from the Praetorians. I know a few of them from my time serving with them. It will be good to catch up and play the odd game of dice.’

  I nodded. ‘Go where you like. There shouldn’t be much you need to protect me from on this ship.’

  Blasius walked off as Aulus and I went to the wooden and canvas cabin on the ship’s stern. Aulus was acting strangely, seemingly trying to hide behind me. ‘What are you doing, Aulus? You’re acting like Silo after he’s been caught stealing honey cakes.’

  He whispered to me, ‘I’m not so sure that there is nothing to protect us from on this ship, Cassius.’

  We walked in the cabin and Aulus immediately hid himself in a far corner on one of the comfortable beds that had been laid out for us there. I rolled my eyes. ‘What is it now?’

  He was interrupted by Marcus, who walked into the cabin, a large smile on his face. ‘All the men are safely billeted below, Cassius. I’m so proud that you’ve given me this chance, my first command!’

  I gave him a smile. ‘Well, your first bit of action as the head of my personal guard might be necessary soon. Aulus has come over all scared over something or other. What is it, Aulus?’

  Aulus just shook his head. ‘It just occurred to me, all those oarsmen on this ship. Some of them might be men I’ve successfully prosecuted in my service to the law courts.’

  I laughed. ‘Oh, come on. What are the chances?’

  Aulus looked up in worry. ‘Well, I’ve successfully sent quite a few to serve as oarsmen in the fleet for the crimes they’ve committed.’

  Marcus looked bemused. ‘I presumed the oarsmen were slaves?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Marcus. The Roman fleet hasn’t used slaves to row their galleys for over two hundred years. Virtually all of those oarsmen will be handpicked men.’ It was said that they used to use slaves in our distant past, but several defeats to the far superior seamanship of Carthage’s sailors showed Rome the error of their ways, and since then they’d used trained free men in that capacity.

  Aulus was shaking his head again. ‘Virtually all of those men, Cassius, but not all. Some of them come from the law courts, sentenced to serve on the fleet as punishment.’

  I shook my head. ‘Hardly any, Aulus. You’re worrying over nothing. It’s a large fleet, and there are only fifty oarsmen on this ship. I find it highly unlikely.’

  Marcus stood proudly. ‘My men will protect you anyway. You have nothing to worry about.’

  I felt the ship lurch. ‘I think we’re under way. Shall we go out and watch the ship leave the harbour?’

  Marcus was excited. ‘Yes, let’s!’

  Aulus was less keen. ‘I’m staying here,’ he said, and he delved into one of his leather bags of scripts as if looking for something to read.

  I shook my head. ‘Very well, Aulus, but we’re going out.’ Something told me that this could be a long few days with Aulus for company on this boat.

  Marcus and I walked out on the deck. The gulls were following us as we left the port, circling and spinning in the wide blue sky above us. We passed the pilot, who held the vast steering oar, a heavy muscular man with the dark skin of Africa, maybe from Numidia or Tripolitania. The steering oar was located at the stern of the ship near my cabin, and I gave him a nod as we went by.

  I looked at Marcus, a smile creasing my face. ‘Look at you. The uniform suits you! You look like you were born to wear Praetorian white.’

  Marcus smiled back. ‘Thank you, Cassius. I have you to thank for it. Although it might take me a while to convince a few of my new men.’

  This took me aback. ‘Why’s that?’

  Marcus leaned on the bulwarks of the ship and looked back at the docks of Ostia as we made our way gently out of the harbour. The oarsmen pushed their oars out to their full extension and began to row us out of dock, accompanied by the sound of a slow rhythmic boom from a large drum beaten by the hortator to help keep the oarsmen in synchronisation. ‘Nothing I can’t handle, Cassius. I was expecting some of the men to be pleased to find me as their new commander. After all, I grew up with a lot of them in the Praetorian camp. But some of them, the centurion in particular, seem a bit aggrieved that a man outside the Praetorians has been given command of your guard. It’s as if they don’t feel I’ve earnt the right.’

  I leaned next to him on the bulwarks and took in the sight of the other ships moving across the sea just outside the harbour mouth. Most were the large high-prowed cargo vessels, but one was a huge warship, vastly bigger than our own, making steady progress just outside the mouth of the harbour, long banks of oars moving in unison. ‘Nonsense, Marcus. You’ve been proven in battle. How many of those Praetorians can say the same? A cushy life in Rome is nothing compared to the campaigns in Germany. Besides, Germanicus said I could appoint anyone I wanted to lead my guard, and I chose you.’

  Marcus looked at me and smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not worried. I’ll turn them around in time. I was just saying.’

  I should have known he’d be confident. He’d come a long way from the naive young boy I’d first met in Rome. ‘I know you will, Marcus.’

  We stood in comfortable silence, taking in the pleasant view as we overtook the other vessels going out to sea. Marcus said, ‘Our ship seems to be quite fast. Look how we’re outpacing those large cargo ships.’

  I nodded. ‘They’ll be the grain ships that travel to and from Egypt and Gaul. They say that when fully loaded with grain the journey from Egypt can take over two months. Speed isn’t really their thing.’

  Marcus laughed. ‘Like strong oxen-carts of the sea, I guess. You couldn’t say the same about that ship though, look at it.’ He pointed to the large warship we were approaching. ‘I bet she could show us a thing or two. Look at all those oars.’

  The warship in question dwarfed ours. It was a large hexeres, named a ‘six’ because six oarsmen filled each rank along the three oar decks: three on the highest and heaviest oar, two on the centre oar, and one man to pull the lowest oar near the waterline. It must have had over two hundred oars branching from its sides. Two large wooden towers were mounted on its stern and prow, a catapult atop each, and the size of its ram was enough to send a chill down your spine. The loud voice of our trierarchus came from behind us and he joined us by the bulwarks. ‘I see you’re admiring our flagship, the Ops. She’s quite a sight, isn’t she?’

  Marcus nodded enthusiastically. ‘She certainly is. Look at all that power, the strength along its lines. Wouldn’t you love to command a vessel so magnificent?’

  The trierarchus gave a throaty laugh. ‘Ha, not on your life. A trireme maybe, those are sleek and maximised for speed, but a brute like our Ops? Too heavy in the water, and nowhere near manoeuvrable enough for me.’

  Marcus was astounded. ‘But all those oars?’

  The trierarchus inclined his head slightly. ‘When they get going in a straight line, you don’t want to be in its way for sure, but smaller lighter vessels like this Liburnian’ – he slapped his ship’s bulwarks – ‘proved the folly of oversized monsters like the Ops at Actium. Now all the big ships are good for is guarding harbours or frightening barbarians into line. She’s a magnificent sight though, I’ll give her that.’

  The Ops was tracking across the bay of the harbour, all oars working in unison, and her speed picked up.

  Marcus looked a little crestfallen, but I was intrigued. ‘Were you at Actium?’ I asked. He looked old enough; he must have been sixty at least.

  The trierarchus folded his arms over his chest. ‘Yes, I was there. Virtually the whole navy were there, on one side or another. I was just a young sailor then, long before my first command. Luckily for me I was on the winning side. Many a sailor from Mark Antony’s fleet perished that day.’

  Marcus
took up the story. ‘I was told that Cleopatra had equipped him with a vast fleet. How did he lose?’

  The trierarchus laughed. ‘Because their entire fleet was made up of ships like the Ops, or even larger ones, vessels with eight men in each oar bank, nines, or even tens. Ridiculous.’

  Marcus looked at the vast size of the Ops as we passed it. ‘But how? How do you destroy something like that? I’d expect your ram to bounce off it?’

  The trierarchus shook his head dismissively. ‘No, you’ll be surprised the damage any ram can do when it’s propelled with enough speed, even to a ship that size. And once any ship is holed, they’re left virtually helpless in the water. Our entire fleet was made up of Liburnians, just like this one, and we just outmanoeuvred Mark Antony’s fleet. Once we realised the advantage we held, we brought fire arrows to their sails, threw flaming pitch on their decks. The whole sky lit up with Cleopatra’s ships, and before long she skulked off, with Mark Antony running behind her.’

  The Battle of Actium, which had changed the fortune of the Roman Republic, gave Augustus complete control over the empire and had brought about the final downfall of the legendary Mark Antony and his Egyptian queen. All due to vanity by the sound of it. My father always did say Mark Antony was rather too pleased with himself; I guess it caught up with him in the end.

  The trierarchus looked over at the vast Ops and remarked, ‘They seem to be breaking in a few of their new oarsmen. I think they want us to wait until they’ve passed.’

  The trajectory of the Ops looked to be directly in our path, so I expected the trierarchus to tell our oarsmen to slow us down until the giant Ops had moved out of our way. Not a bit of it. He called out to his hortator to raise the pace and shouted at his oarsmen, ‘Come on lads, let’s show our flagship how fast real oarsmen can skip over the waves!’ before going over to the sailor by the large steering oar to help him set the direction.

  As the hortator increased the rhythm of the drums, the oarsmen started to sing in time to their strokes. They sang a simple song, saying that they were the pride of the Misenum fleet and how they could row without ever weakening.

  The faster rhythm of the drums and oars had an instant effect. Our ship sped forward, and we steered around in a wide curve that looked as if it would put us directly in front of the Ops. We seemed to be racing for the gap of water just before the flagship, and its deadly ram now appeared to be heading for our beam. I knew that the trierarchus was just trying to scare me, but I felt my knuckles whiten regardless as I gripped the bulwarks tighter and looked at the Ops bearing down on us. Great waves were being divided by the huge three-pronged ram at its prow, painted marbled eyes just above that appeared to lock onto my own. Someone on the Ops obviously spotted us, as they blew an oversized bronze horn that gave a loud booming signal that no one could mistake – get out of our way!

  A grimace creased our trierarchus’ black-and-silver beard, and he nodded at the hortator to continue, and Marcus shouted in my ear, over the loud drums and horn, ‘I think our trierarchus is mad.’

  I was too terrified to answer; my eyes were locked on the giant eyes above the ram that appeared to be getting closer. Our trierarchus may have been mad, but he evidently knew his stuff. He judged our curved path perfectly, as we just slipped past the onrushing Ops, which sailed harmlessly behind us.

  I gave a loud breath of relief. ‘That wasn’t funny,’ I told the trierarchus.

  Marcus gulped and nodded speechlessly.

  The trierarchus gave me a wink. ‘I needed to make up time after being delayed on the docks. Now, you won’t keep me waiting again, will you?’

  I grunted. ‘Alright, you’ve made your point. No more delays.’

  He gave a gruff laugh. ‘Good, I think we’ll get on fine.’ He walked down the decks, past his men, who grinned at him, obviously pleased at the trierarchus’ little lesson. ‘By the way, my name is Bricius. You’ll do well to remember that on this ship my word is the only authority that matters.’

  I looked at Marcus and he blew his cheeks out and let out a long breath.

  I gave him a glance. ‘I told you we should have walked.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Once we were away from the port of Ostia, our trierarchus, Bricius, ordered the sailors to raise the Liburnian’s heavy square linen mainsail, and hoisted the small foremast sail, which aided in navigation. Both were rubbed down with oak-bark, which gave them a brown tint, to protect them from the salt and the weather. We made good progress over the next two days as we headed out into the open sea under blue skies and favourable winds.

  We were alone on this journey. Most of the other ships, even those like us heading for Spain, headed north around the islands of Corsica and Sardinia; hugging the coastline so they could stop off in the great Gallic ports of Massalia and Narbo before hitting Tarraco. Bricius wasn’t interested in going around the isles, however, telling me that he’d be able to navigate our smaller Liburnian through the Corsican straits without a problem, something that would cut several days off the journey. I had mixed feelings on this, as I’d heard stories of the straits, none of them good – of shipwrecks, and drowned seaman, and the wrathful god Neptune forcing unwary sailors onto the straits’ many hidden shoals and reefs. But Bricius was a confident fellow, and it was clear he wasn’t about to listen to any suggestions I made when it came to which route we were going to take. He’d been ordered by Germanicus to get me to the capital of Tarraconensis, Tarraco, as quickly as possible, and that was exactly what he planned to do.

  I decided that as my knowledge of nautical matters was not much more than that of Marcus, I had better trust Bricius to know what he was doing and put the matter out of my mind. The sun was shining and the inner sea looked as gentle and calm as the decorative pool of my garden in Rome, so what was to worry about? It was a pleasant trip and my spirits were high.

  Even Aulus was taken with the sea journey, eventually venturing out from our shared cabin on the stern when he’d safely ascertained that none of the oarsmen were convicted criminals that had been sent there by the courts. He was satisfied that he couldn’t have inadvertently been responsible for their new line of work, so he took to joining me on the deck as we sailed steadily westwards. Most of the oarsmen happily chatted away as they slowly pulled their oars, only gently assisting our wind power, without the need to overexert themselves.

  Marcus, like my lictor Blasius, camped down below decks with his century of legionaries that made up my guard. He never explained to me why, but I suspected that he hoped that by sharing their discomfort and cramped conditions the men would slowly begin to accept him. Bricius wouldn’t allow all the legionaries to come up onto his deck and get in his sailors’ way, but he did allow Marcus to bring up one contubernium of eight men at a time so they could exercise and train. They were doing this now, the eight men paired off with one another as they ran the sword drills under the supervision of Marcus and his centurion, a man named Iovis.

  I was supervising Aulus, dressed in nothing but a loincloth; he squared up to my much amused lictor, Blasius, holding a wooden training gladius. I was trying to teach Aulus the rudiments of swordcraft. ‘That’s slightly better,’ I encouraged him, ‘at least you’re standing correctly now.’

  The encouragement must have gone to his head, as he then spoiled everything by lifting his blade and making a clumsy strike to Blasius’ midriff. Blasius laughed, stood to one side, and slapped Aulus on the behind as our trainee stumbled past him.

  ‘Ouch!’ protested Aulus. ‘Those blades hurt. Why do they have to be so heavy?’

  I smiled. ‘They’re deliberately weighted with lead to be heavier than a normal gladius. It’s to help bring strength to your sword arm, something you’re in dire need of.’ I walked round the two combatants. ‘Now try again, but this time don’t announce your move by raising your blade before you attack.’

  Aulus tried again, tongue protruding from the side of his mouth in concentration as he made a few feints before striking a
gain, and once again Blasius simply stepped out of the way and clipped Aulus’ shoulder this time.

  I gave a slight squint. ‘Well, that was slightly better. At least you didn’t do your trademark Aulus lift before striking.’

  Aulus’ dropped the heavy wooden gladius. ‘It’s no good, Cassius. He is simply too fast for me. I can’t even get close to him.’

  I chuckled. ‘How old are you, Blasius?’

  ‘Forty-three,’ replied the lictor.

  I laughed. ‘There you go, seven years older than you, Aulus. You’ve no excuse!’

  Aulus folded his thin arms in annoyance. ‘Yes, but I bet he started learning this before he hit his third decade. I’m too old to learn this now.’

  Blasius nodded. ‘He has a point, Cassius. By the time I was his age, I was approaching retirement from the legions.’

  I sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right. I just thought it might prove useful for Aulus to know one end of the blade from the other.’

  Blasius shook his head. ‘I think if friend Aulus here ever meets trouble, I suggest he runs.’

  Aulus lifted his head. ‘I completely agree.’

  I grinned. ‘We still need to do something to improve your fitness. This trip may not be as straightforward as we both hope.’

  Aulus picked up his tunic from the deck and scowled at the watching oarsmen, who were smirking at his incompetence with the gladius. ‘Then I will find another way. I’ve had quite enough of this embarrassing spectacle.’

  He stomped off to our cabin, hiding his hurt dignity with a raised nose, and slammed the door to the cabin. A few of the oarsmen started laughing, and I noticed that the legionaries were keeping an eye out for what was going on.

  ‘Keep your minds on what you’re doing!’ the centurion, Iovis, shouted.

  Marcus added, ‘We’ll bring the next contubernium up if you lot can’t be bothered to take this seriously.’

  The legionaries returned to their drills with renewed vigour, one striking, the other parrying; the first down low, then the centre, then up high, before swapping and repeating. The time up on deck was limited, and it was clearly something that each contubernium of eight legionaries cherished. The oarsmen turned their attention back to their rowing as the hortator continued to beat out his slow pace on the drum.