Marching With Caesar-Pax Romana

by R. W. Peake

  It began somewhere roughly in the middle of our battle line, with the Fifth Cohort, as one of their Centuries had managed to isolate a group of Varciani from the remaining mass of warriors who were being pushed slowly but steadily towards the southern part of the town. As far as I know, I doubt the exact number of this smaller band of Varciani will ever be known; over the years, I have heard a number ranging from a dozen to more than a hundred. However, many of these isolated warriors there were, once they were completely surrounded and cut off from their own comrades, they continued to put up a fight for a short period of time. This group had formed their version of an orbis, which in their case is little more than a rough circle of men with their backs to each other, with those not currently engaged in the middle, waiting for one of their own to fall so they can step in. Apparently, one of these Varciani was of a sufficient rank in their society to be considered a commander whose word would be obeyed, because when he suddenly ordered this group of Varciani to yield, signaling their surrender by throwing down their weapons and dropping to their knees in submission, he was obeyed. Depending on to whom you talked in the Fifth Cohort, this noble's order was either instantly followed or most of the men refused it for a few hundred heartbeats of time; whatever the case, there were a number of Varciani warriors who surrendered. What happened next was the subject of much debate over the subsequent winter among my comrades and, being honest, I believe that just as we will never know the exact number of these Varciani, the truth of how this event developed will never be fully known either. What is certain is that every one of those Varciani were initially allowed to surrender, then their hands and legs were bound with whatever was available; leather thongs that some men carry for that purpose, baltea discarded by the medici who were treating the wounded, even lengths of rope. The material used does not really matter; what does is that once they were secured in this way, these Varciani were then thrown bodily into the fire that was still consuming what had been the homes, shops, and storage buildings of this town. We were sufficiently far enough away we could not hear the actual screams of these particular Varciani, but we were made aware of some sort of disturbance over and above the normal noise of the fight. It prompted Avitus and me to look in that direction, except it was too far away and there were too many men between us. However, after a few moments a new sound emerged, made discernible mainly because of its rhythmic nature, which was in direct contradiction to the cacophony of noise that had become the normal sounds of a fight to our ears. Cocking my head, even after lifting one earflap, I could not make any sense of it; Avitus was the first one of us able to decipher the sound that continued with the same rhythm but was growing in intensity and strength with every heartbeat.

  "Are they shouting….burn? Like a chant?"

  The moment he uttered this, I instantly understood Avitus was undoubtedly correct; as the men of the Fifth were throwing their prisoners into the fire, their comrades around them who were no longer engaged in the fight were cheering the sight of these men being burned alive. The manner in which they were chanting reminded me of how the supporters of one of the chariot racing teams like the Greens will chant the name of the team, or perhaps that of their favorite driver. This was the first sign I remember that told me this night would be unlike any other I had experienced; I had no way of knowing at the time that I would still be able to make this claim even as I scratch these words tonight, that I have seen nothing like it since.

  Regardless, it was Avitus who first uttered the words that within the next full watch would have the ring of prophecy when he said grimly, "I have a feeling that whatever's happening over there is just the start."

  It was actually not until quite some time had passed before we heard anything that could even remotely be called boasting by the boys in the Fifth about what they did that night. In fact, in the ensuing confusion and chaos of that night, I had occasion to run into some of the men who had been part of this act; in truth, they were easily identifiable, even with just the light of the fire. Every inch of their exposed skin was a deep red, except not from blood, either theirs or that of the enemy, and I saw at least two men whose arms were blistered, informing me they had to have been close to the flames. Even so, it was their armor that was the most telling, because the plates of their segmentata were scorched and blackened. Still, this was not what I remember most vividly; it was their reactions to the shouted questions from men of the Cohorts on either side, or even men of the Fifth of different Centuries. More accurately, it was their refusal to answer or even look their questioners in the eyes, to the point where their lack of communication about what they had witnessed angered the men asking the questions. It did not come to blows, but seeing it firsthand, I am sure this was more due to exhaustion than any other reason that restricted the dispute to the verbal kind. And, compared to everything else going on, this was a minor event.

  Shortly after the chanting stopped; only later did I learn that, in fact, there were still Varciani who had yet to be consigned to the flames but as enraged and vengeful as the men of the Fifth were, they evidently had lost the stomach for watching men burn to death. Over the ensuing weeks, as more details of what happened emerged, I find it easy to understand why they felt this way. It reminded me of my Avus' account of his first campaign as Camp Prefect under Marcus Publius Crassus, the grandson of the great man, who ordered a stand of trees in which tribes from the Bastarnae were hiding to be set afire, and how it had haunted Crassus when he witnessed the sight of men burning to death. And although there is no way to know with any certainty, I believe that any chance of the remaining Varciani, perhaps a thousand of them still fighting at this point, offering to surrender was certainly lost. Consequently, I have no doubt that even those Varciani farthest removed from the northern edge of the steadily shrinking battlefield quickly heard what had befallen those Varciani who were roasted alive. While the end result was inevitable, the acting Primus Pilus of the Legion, Aulus Macerinus, hastened that end by his decision to relieve the First and Third Cohorts, ordering two of the Cohorts who had been in reserve but not charged with guarding the prisoners, who had been forced to watch the destruction of all that they knew and loved, to relieve the First and Third in place. Because this maneuver actually takes a fair amount of space behind the engaged Centuries as their counterparts in the relieving Cohorts line up on the tail end of each Century still fighting, we were forced to move aside. Normally, this would not have been anything more than an inconvenience, but in this case, we were running out of room. At least, if we did not want to end up looking like the boys in the Fifth who had danced with the flames, and in this, we were all of a like mind, not wanting anything do with the fire.

  "Shouldn't he start thinking about getting us out of this fucking place?"

  I glanced over at Sido, who had asked the question, but he was occupied with staring in the direction from which I had come; looking past him to the south, I will say I simultaneously felt a sense of shame and relief as I realized that the house holding Caecina and Mela was already fully ablaze. Also, from what I could tell, the fire was just crossing the narrow street to the block where the girl's body was located. Even if Macerinus were to order the entire Legion to stop fighting Varciani and start battling the fire, there was no way either of the houses containing the evidence of what took place would be left. Still, despite the fire solving one problem, I shared Sido's concern; now that the fire had reached the southwest corner of the town, we would have to rely on the northern wind to arrest the fire's progress as it consumed the eastern section of town. I supposed it was conceivable that if we stayed in the large open area of the common ground, where the only building there was the chieftain's hall, from my observation, it seemed to be far enough from the nearest buildings to catch fire itself, although there was no way to know with any certainty. Still, even if this was true, it was already uncomfortably hot, to the point where those comrades of mine who had at least cleaned their faces from the blood and grime of the fight now glistened i
n the light from their sweat. In fact, it was sweat that reminded me of my own particular problem when it rolled down my face and into what I still did not know was a gaping wound along my cheekbone. Specifically, it was the salt from my sweat that reignited the fire along my cheekbone, which very quickly became so distracting that I swallowed my pride and turned to Avitus.

  "How bad is this?" I pointed to my cheek, trying to keep my tone light and bantering. "Will the ladies love it or run and hide?"

  Avitus stepped closer, moving my left side towards the light of the fire. His sudden and involuntary wince gave me the answer.

  "Pullus, I'm not going to lie." He shook his head. "That's a right nasty gash. I can see your cheekbone."

  Rather than be thankful to him for being honest, despite knowing better, I found myself growling, "You could have lied to me about it."

  Thankfully, his response was not to take offense but laugh, and oddly enough, his reply, "What? Then have you come bash my skull in when you go to the medicus and he keels over in a dead faint and you find out I was lying?" actually made me feel better.

  Such was and is still, I suppose, my hubris. I remember something I once heard my Avus say to my father that, like so many of the things he said and did, has stayed with me.

  "The day nobody thinks I'm a dangerous man," he had said, sitting at the table with my family, "is the day I open my veins. There's no worse fate for a warrior than to be seen as harmless."

  I remember thinking at the time that his fear was so far out of the realm of possibility that it was simply beyond comprehension to the young boy sitting at that table; even now in my thirty-first year, I find it impossible to think of Titus Pullus as harmless. And yet, what I will say is that, like my size, strength, and other gifts, he has passed this same feeling to me as well, and only now as an adult can I see that my father was no less affected. It was what made the year after the loss of his leg the hardest my family had to endure, as he struggled to cope with the idea that when he limps down a street in Arelate on his one crutch and wooden leg, the reason people step aside is because of our society's revulsion for anyone who has been crippled. At least, that is how he viewed, and I suppose still does, their reaction. But having walked beside him more times than I can count, while I cannot deny that some of the looks he got were based in this idea, far more of them were of respect and recognition that he was a man of the Legions. And in places like Arelate, which was founded by Divus Julius himself, that means something.

  Immediately after Avitus informed me of the extent of my facial wound, I was forced to admit, only to myself of course, that I should not have asked him because now it was all I thought about. I found my hand reaching up to probe the wound, but after Avitus gently stopped me from doing so a half-dozen times, he finally slapped my hand, hard, which elicited an undignified yelp of pain from me.

  "You're going to open it up again, idiot," he growled at me. "Then you're going to bleed some more. Then you're going to start staggering around because you'll think you're bleeding to death. Then you'll keel over. And then I'll have to lug your fat ass to the medici." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder to the area that had been set up as a makeshift field hospital. "And they already have more business than they can handle. They don't need to waste time holding your hand."

  Ironically enough, this was precisely what I needed to hear at that moment, and the shame of being so absorbed in what I knew was a minor wound kept me from worrying about my cheek for the rest of the night. The fact that there would be more than enough to occupy my attention did not hurt.

  Being where we were at the southeastern edge of the common area, behind the part of the Legion that was still occupied in slaughtering the remaining remnant of the Varciani warband meant that our attention was evenly split between watching the fight and the fire. Most troubling was our recognition that all access to the southern gate was now cut off since the fire was at its hottest in that area. The northern gate was our only option, at least if we did not want to be forced to lift our dead and wounded up and over the eastern wall, which was still untouched by the fire at that point. Immediately after this thought crossed my mind, another one came on its heels; I found it hard to believe there were only two gates for this town. Even if it was just nothing more than a doorway built into the wall somewhere, I was sure there had to be another exit. I debated for a moment whether or not to approach Asinius and bring this up; Macerinus was still with the Cohorts finishing our business with the Varciani, Capulo right there with him, the sight of our eagle inspiring men who I knew were near exhaustion. This battle had been by far the longest in which I had ever participated, and even without all that had taken place with Caecina, I would have been bone tired. Now, if another warband had somehow appeared, I was sure that neither I nor any of my comrades in the First would be able to do more than offer a token resistance before being cut down. Thankfully, this did not happen. Finally, I could restrain myself no longer, and I half-walked, half-stumbled over to where Asinius was standing a few paces in front of us, his eyes on the fighting as he waited for a signal that we were needed, something I fervently hoped would not occur.

  "Do you know whether or not those gates are the only way in or out of here?"

  I admit I asked the question with no real hope or expectation of an answer, but Asinius was always one to surprise.

  "The Primus Pilus sent a couple sections from the Sixth to search," he informed me, not taking his eyes off the fighting. "But that was before…" He did not finish, nor did he need to. "Whether or not they found anything…" He shrugged. "All I know is that I saw one of them talking to Macerinus, so maybe they did. Or," he finished, his tone flat with resignation, "they didn't."

  Understanding this was all I would be getting from my Optio, I returned to spread this piece of information to the rest of my comrades in the Century that were left. During this period of time in the waning moments of the battle, although a fair number of my Century had followed the eagle into the fray, more of them had come drifting back to rejoin us, the last of their energy spent. It would still be some time before we knew our exact strength and who we had lost, but just in my section, I knew of four men; the fact that two of them were by my own hand was not lost on me. Making a quick count, the only men unaccounted for were Geta and Bestia, and I assumed the grizzled veteran was still in the thick of the fight, still intent on exacting vengeance for the loss of his best friend. As far as Geta was concerned, I confess I had been pleasantly surprised he was not with Caecina or Mela, although it was only for tactical reasons; three men are harder to kill than two. While we had not been given leave to sit on the ground, otherwise, we were only required to stay in a semblance of our proper alignment. And nothing had been said about leaning on our shields, which all of us were doing now, resting our arms across the top and bent over at the waist, trying to regain as much strength and energy as we could. Another unusual aspect of what was already a remarkable night was that our normal banter was clearly muted, confined to muttered snatches of conversation between men who were standing side by side. Completely missing were the calls to men on the far side of the formation, or between the first couple of sections back to the last; it was as if nobody was willing to expend that much energy. This was certainly part of it, but I suspect that more than anything, we were all still in shock. Whatever the case, it did mean there was no missing the sudden roaring sound, over and above the fight, and when we all looked in that direction, I will never forget the sight of our eagle, thrust high in the air by Capulo and outlined against the flames as the last of the Varciani fell.

  "It's over," Avitus said, but flatly and without any emotion; there was nothing left, in any of us, to feel any elation at our victory.

  But, while he was correct in one sense, the next battle had just begun, and all of us were about to be caught up in the events that were to come.

  As one might suspect, it takes some time to restore a semblance of order and organization after a battle, even under the be
st of circumstances. What faced our new Primus Pilus that night was the exact opposite of the best of circumstances, and even now, I cannot fault him for any of the decisions he made in the aftermath of such a chaotic night. The first order of business, of course, is to take stock of our casualties and get the medici to those men who have fallen but cannot be moved immediately, which was what happened next. At least that was how it started, except there was a complication; we had men who were still alive but were now lying on the field too close to the flames. Once the din of the actual fighting had died down, at least the clashing sounds of metal on metal and metal against wood, for a brief period of time, what we heard were the normal sounds of the aftermath, the shouts and cries of men exulting in still being alive, the short, sharp screams of Varciani being finished off, and underlying it all the low, keening moan of those who had fallen but were still breathing. But then, after an interval of perhaps thirty heartbeats of this, just long enough at least for my ears to send the signal to my mind that matters were settling back to normal, what turned out to just be the first of a series of screams pierced the night air. Even after the riot of battle noise and the sounds of agony we had already heard, this was unlike anything that had come before, causing Avitus and me to exchange an uneasy glance. I never asked him, but I suspect his mind was running along the same lines, that one of those numen we all know lurk about us, the disembodied, invisible shades of all manner of creatures and men had been drawn to this scene of carnage. But then it was joined by another shriek that, if anything, was even more distressing to the ear than the first. All of my comrades were muttering now, shifting about as what was rapidly becoming a chorus of agony so unbearable it made the hair on my neck stand up, reminding me of the night I first heard the wolves howling outside our camp in Germania during the campaign the year before. Except these were not wolves, but men, I knew, although we still had no real idea of what it meant. Once we got our answer, not for the first or last time did I curse my inquisitive nature.