Clash of Empires

by Ben Kane

  The brothers were careful to keep their gaze averted until the last men had gone by. Doing the same wasn’t as important with squadrons of cavalry – noblemen paid no attention to lowly travellers – yet they adopted the same policy. As Antonius had declared at the start of their long journey from Rome, there was no point tempting Fortuna any more than they already were. All soldiers and cavalry were to be avoided unless there was no alternative. Felix hadn’t argued.

  On the Via Appia itself, it wasn’t hard, but each evening, their tactic became more problematic. Most roadside inns were full to bursting with ex-soldiers like themselves, heading to re-enlist. Concerned they would be recognised, Felix had insisted they spend their first nights in the open. Cold and wet after a prolonged downpour early the second morning, he had given in to Antonius’ argument that when the time came each day to seek lodgings, one could take an unobtrusive walk around the chosen tavern and stables before paying for a quiet sleeping spot, away from other travellers.

  ‘Drink little, and keep ourselves to ourselves, and it should be all right,’ Felix had muttered, throwing up yet another prayer to Fortuna.

  He cast a casual glance around. In front, a squint-eyed farmer with a cartload of vegetables whistled the same out-of-tune ditty he’d been subjecting them to for miles. Behind, a shaven-headed brute with a club strode along at the head of a line of miserable-looking slaves, bound together at the neck by ropes. Three companions, equally as unsavoury, took up the end of the file. Beside the brothers walked a lanky figure in a threadbare robe. His greasy, blunt-peaked hat marked him as a soothsayer; he supped often from a leather wineskin, and belched almost as much. He was accompanied by the skinniest boy Felix had ever seen, an assortment of bony limbs and angular joints topped by a mass of curly black hair.

  The urchin caught his eye and grinned. ‘You a soldier?’

  Felix scowled and looked away, but it was too late. The soothsayer had heard. Despite his florid drinker’s complexion and a breath foul enough to turn the stomach, he had sharp weasel eyes. ‘Going to join the legions, boys?’

  Felix exchanged a look with Antonius, who gave a minute shrug. Lying would be too obvious – they were two healthy young men journeying to Brundisium. ‘Aye, if they’ll have us,’ he acknowledged.

  ‘Big strong fellows like you are prime soldier material,’ fawned the soothsayer. ‘You must have served before, in the war against Hannibal?’

  ‘Aye.’ This was not information Felix wished to disclose to the world at large, but their sandals and daggers were a clear giveaway. He could already sense the attention of the slave trader behind them; the farmer had stopped whistling, to eavesdrop. ‘For a few years.’

  ‘And now you’re re-enlisting,’ cried the soothsayer, warming to his task.

  ‘We don’t need our futures read,’ said Felix.

  The soothsayer hadn’t even noticed. ‘An as each, and I’ll see what the gods have in store for you – which legion you will join, whether your officers will be bastards or no.’

  ‘They’ll all be whoresons – everyone knows that,’ snapped Antonius, raising a laugh from the slave trader and the farmer.

  ‘Six asses, and I’ll determine the perils you will face in Illyria and Macedon,’ said the soothsayer, moving to walk in front of the brothers, his back towards Brundisium.

  The boy bobbed about, swearing how accurate his father’s predictions were. ‘They say so in every town,’ he piped.

  ‘Buy a hen at the next farm we pass, and I’ll see from its liver if you will both survive the war. A denarius it will cost, for both. You’ll not find a better offer!’

  ‘If we had money, we wouldn’t be going back into the fucking army.’ Felix waved his arm. ‘Leave us be.’ The charlatan could no more read the future than Felix could fly, but his relentless chatter rammed home again the danger they’d be in – not just from the enemy, but from their own kind.

  The soothsayer took note of the brothers’ grim expressions. ‘Of course, sirs. If you change your minds, you need only ask.’

  Antonius nudged Felix, who managed to bite back an angry retort.

  ‘Don’t give him a reason to remember us,’ muttered Antonius.

  ‘Aye, aye.’ Relief filled Felix as the soothsayer noticed a stall selling wine and hurried to replenish his sagging leather skin.

  Fresh concerns about the risks they were taking gnawed at Felix for the rest of the day; the same worries were mirrored in Antonius’ eyes. The soothsayer’s curiosity would be as nothing compared to the interest a centurion might take when they presented themselves to re-enlist. Say the wrong thing inadvertently – name a unit in a legion the centurion knew, for example, or let someone hear Felix crying out Ingenuus’ or Matho’s names, as he often did when the nightmare came – and they could be found out at once. The fustuarium, crucifixion, being torn to pieces by wild beasts in the arena – any one of these dreadful fates would be their end. A troubled silence replaced their previous banter.

  The walls of Brundisium were in sight when Antonius voiced his anxiety. ‘What are we doing? It’s madness to join up again.’

  Felix felt no better about it, but their other options were worse. ‘D’you want to be the doorman of a shithole tavern in Rome for the rest of your life?’

  Antonius shook his head.

  ‘The farm’s still there. Back-breaking work from dawn to dusk, month in, month out, four seasons a year, for precious little reward. No wonder Mother and Father died before we returned.’ In Felix’s mind, a life such as the wine grower they had met was one to be envied, and aspired to; working oneself into the grave for a few bushels of wheat at harvest time was not. ‘I didn’t spend seven years in the legions to end up worse off than a slave. We can make our fortune in this war – fuck the risk.’

  The brothers walked on for fifty strides, then a hundred.

  ‘Well?’ asked Felix.

  Antonius cursed. ‘I’m not going back to the farm. At least, not without the money for mules and slaves.’

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ said Felix, delighted.

  Early the following day, the brothers walked to the vast tract of land outside Brundisium that had been set aside for the assembling army. Camps sprawled on two sides of the rough square; in the middle, legion standards marked the places to enlist. Felix and Antonius were but two among thousands of potential recruits, and it seemed half the legions in Rome were represented. Spotting their old legions’ standards was terrifying; to their good fortune, it was before they had drawn close. Giving the area a wide berth, nervously watching for Matho, the pair made their way to the far end of the line of recruiting tables.

  Here, they told themselves, there was no danger.

  ‘Next!’ The centurion’s voice was quiet, but it carried down the queue.

  Perhaps a score of men were ahead of the brothers, but Felix’s stomach gave a painful clench nonetheless. The centurion wasn’t Matho – they had both checked – but it was difficult not to imagine it was him.

  The man in front shuffled forward several steps, and the brothers did the same. A barrage of questions fell on the unfortunate before the centurion; neither they nor his answers were discernible, but the result was soon clear. A disconsolate figure, his shoulders bowed, he trudged away from the group who’d been accepted.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ whispered Antonius.

  ‘I can’t tell.’ Felix couldn’t make out any obvious physical infirmity, the commonest reason for refusal. ‘Maybe the surgeon noticed he had bad eyes. Perhaps he’s too old.’

  ‘Let’s hope the centurion doesn’t mind a limp.’

  The man in front turned and with a grin, indicated a purple scar running from the side of his right knee to halfway down his calf.

  ‘How d’you get that?’ asked Felix. ‘Fighting Hannibal?’

  A wry chuckle. ‘Aye. Somewhere near here, funnily. It makes me hobble, but I managed to serve out my time until the war’s end.’ Short, thin and with wide cheekbones and a
friendly smile, the man was about the brothers’ age. ‘Gaius is my name, but since the injury, everyone calls me “Hopalong”.’ He stuck out a hand.

  ‘Felix.’

  ‘Antonius.’

  The three shook.

  ‘Brothers?’

  Felix could never see the resemblance. ‘It’s that obvious?’

  ‘Your faces are similar,’ said Hopalong. ‘Been in the legions?’

  Here we go, thought Felix, his nerves wire-taut. Antonius’ answer was smooth, however. ‘Aye, for some years. Which one were you in?’

  To the brothers’ relief, Hopalong’s old unit wasn’t the one they had decided upon. For the moment, their story would hold. Their shared stories of army life put them at ease; this continued when the man behind joined in. About a decade older, he was tall, with thinning grey hair and stooped shoulders. When asked his name, he muttered, ‘Fabius’. Before anyone could say a word, he added with a snarl that he was ‘no relation of Fabius the Delayer’.

  Amused, Felix mouthed, ‘He’s heard that a thousand times’ at Antonius. Fabius’ reluctance to be identified with the Delayer wasn’t surprising. Quintus Fabius Maximus’ cautious tactics against Hannibal were still despised.

  Fabius had been in the legions almost from the start of the conflict with Hannibal, but he didn’t ask any probing questions of the brothers. The four talked about where they were from, and what they had done since the war’s end. Drinking stories began to surface, as did the best practical jokes they had ever played on comrades. Sooner than they’d expected, the brothers were third and fourth from the front of the queue; Hopalong was second in line. A nervous silence fell. No one enjoyed being interrogated by a centurion.

  When Hopalong’s time came, his scar was inspected, and he was made to walk up and down in front of the Greek surgeon.

  ‘You’ll do,’ the centurion said when the surgeon had given him a nod. ‘Join the group behind me. Give your details to the optio. Go.’

  Next it was Felix’s turn. Sweaty-palmed, dry-mouthed, he stood forward. A polished vine stick and crested helmet lay on the table before the centurion; numerous phalerae decorated his chest harness. Twin silver torcs hung around his neck on a strap. Perhaps forty years old, he had fair hair and a jutting chin, and like all his kind, an intense gaze. Standing by his shoulder was the surgeon. His job, Felix knew, was to perform a quick physical examination of every suitable recruit.

  ‘Name?’ demanded the centurion. His low voice was just as threatening as Matho’s had been.

  ‘Felix Cicirrus, sir.’ This was the family name the brothers had decided to adopt.

  The centurion flicked a finger at Antonius. ‘And the fool behind you is your brother.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  A jerk of the chin at Antonius. ‘What do they call you?’

  ‘Antonius, sir.’ He sidled to Felix’s side. ‘Cicirrus, sir.’

  The centurion’s lips thinned. ‘Clowns, are you?’

  ‘No, sir,’ the brothers said in nervous unison.

  Worried about their discharge from the legions being discovered, they had altogether forgotten how mention of their adopted name would make people think of the well-known stage clowns, Sarmentus and Messius Cicirrus. ‘It’s just our misfortune to have the same name, sir,’ said Felix.

  ‘I’d say.’ The centurion looked them up and down. ‘Healthy?’

  ‘We are, sir.’

  ‘You’ve both been legionaries, or I’m no judge.’

  ‘Aye, sir. Seven years we served,’ said Felix.

  ‘You know one end of a gladius from the other, then.’

  ‘We do, sir.’

  ‘Which legion?’

  ‘The Twelfth, sir, from near Rome.’ Felix could feel a pulse at the base of his throat, and it took great self-control to keep his gaze facing front. If the centurion had been in the Twelfth, or knew someone in it, they could be undone.

  ‘The Twelfth?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Felix could see Ingenuus’ terrified eye staring up at him, could feel breaking bone under his hobnailed sandal. He wanted to vomit. We’re dead, he thought. Dead.

  ‘You were principes?’

  ‘We were, sir,’ the brothers answered.

  ‘As long as the surgeon’s happy, you’re in. Once he’s done with you, see the optio behind me. He’ll measure your height and record any scars, make you swear another oath of allegiance to the Republic–’ the centurion half-smiled ‘–you know the drill.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’ Felix and Antonius exchanged an incredulous, delighted look

  ‘Move, fools. There’s a line of men behind you,’ said the centurion.

  Muttering their thanks, the pair hurried towards Hopalong and the other new recruits.

  The centurion called out a command – although his voice was different to Matho’s, Felix’s stomach lurched again. They had succeeded, he thought, yet this was the first hurdle of many.

  From this day on, they would be in constant, mortal danger.

  CHAPTER XVII

  Outside Pella, Macedon

  The sun had reached its highest point in the autumn sky, and on the plain outside the city, Demetrios was drilling with his speira. All the brazen shields were there, but not the white: the two units trained on alternate days. The phalangists had been at it for hours, the chiliarchies trudging to and fro across the flat ground near their camp, performing half a dozen exercises over and over. The commonest routine was the march in open order, the formation used to approach the enemy when it was impossible or impractical to have the speirai fully arrayed. Watched by an eagle-eyed Kryton, the second file walked behind the first, the third behind the fourth and so on, making each unit only eight files wide. When the order came, the alternate files quickly had to resume their usual position, forming the battle-ready speira.

  Demetrios had lost count of how many times they had drilled like this since the army’s return from Asia Minor. Still new to the army, it was normal routine to him, but some veterans were muttering that regular training was not something phalangists did. Despite the grumbling, no one made their feelings known to Simonides, less still Kryton. The order had come from the king, whose word was not to be questioned. Overhearing, Simonides cried, ‘Philip wants us to practise, and that is what we shall do. Anyone who disagrees is free to take it up with me.’ No one said anything. A champion pankrationist, Simonides was not an opponent whom men wished to go up against.

  The men of his file weren’t the only ones to complain, however, and Kryton had also noticed. At length he ordered the phalangists to ground their sarissae. He stalked up and down before the front rank, down one side, along the back and up the far side, roaring that they were a crowd of lazy good-for-nothing sheepskin-wearers, and that they would go back to their tents when he fucking told them to. No one was stupid enough to answer back; there were plenty of awkward coughs, and men kept their gaze fixed anywhere but on their fuming commander.

  ‘Seeing as you’re such experts at the usual drills, we shall practise something different. Something that might prove useful if you are ambushed on the march with no time to form the phalanx,’ announced Kryton.

  He bellowed a series of orders at the four-file leaders. The next exercise would see the speira split into four groups of sixty-four men.

  ‘I’ll be watching,’ he shouted at the ordinary soldiers. ‘Any man I see who’s not doing his best will be severely punished, as will anyone whose spear tip isn’t covered in leather. You’re to thrust at men’s aspides, remember, not their helmets. I don’t want anyone blinded.’

  Demetrios could scarcely believe what he’d heard. He twisted to look at Zotikos. ‘We’re to split the file?’

  ‘That’s what he said. Our file will break up into four lines of four men, with a second file positioned the same way beside us. We’ll face another two files arrayed in similar fashion.’ Zotikos’ lips twitched. ‘That means you’ll be in the third rank, yes. You will have to use your sarissa.’
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br />   Demetrios grinned until his face hurt. At last, he thought. At last I will stand near the front.

  Chivvied by Simonides, the phalangists formed into smaller lines. The phalangists in the other files did the same, and soon a rank that was eight men wide, four deep, faced another of the same size and width across a distance of perhaps a hundred paces. Quite deliberately, Simonides and the other file-leaders had placed their eight front-rankers together on one side. This meant Demetrios and every phalangist in his ‘formation’ was at best someone who stood ninth in a file, and at worst, was like him, the fifteenth man.

  As this grim realisation sank in, Demetrios stared at the men opposite, trying to ignore the knot twisting in his belly. An exercise it might be, but the reality of combat had never been clearer. Four sarissae protruded from between each of the closely held aspides. Over the shields, he could make out little more than the tops of helmets: pilos type, Chalkidian and Thracian.

  Soon, he thought, those spear tips will be close enough to kill.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ shouted Kryton. ‘Advance!’

  Both sets of phalangists moved off. Obvious differences were soon evident: the front-rankers kept an even, solid line. Unused to leading, the quarter-file leaders struggled to keep their less experienced men apace of each other. Curses rang out, and accusations that some were marching too fast.

  Twenty-five paces on, and the veterans began to scream war cries. The replies of a few men in Demetrios’ formation were drowned out.

  ‘Ready to die?’ roared the front-rankers. ‘Yellow-livers!’

  ‘This is it,’ said Kimon.

  Demetrios was scared now – properly scared. Although the neat line of approaching shields was only eight men wide, it rammed home the brutal reality of the storm of bronze. Facing an entire enemy phalanx or thousands of Roman legionaries would be utterly terrifying.

  ‘This is it,’ said Kimon again. A tremor had crept into his voice.

  The quarter-file leader heard. A dull type, he had nonetheless survived ten years in the brazen shields. ‘We’re younger than every man in the file opposite,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Stronger too. They’re trying to scare us. Reach them scared, and we’ve already lost. That’s what they want, so hold your nerve, curse you!’