Dawn of The Eagle

by Francis Mulhern

  “Our Tribune” he called to some cheers, but also a series of cat-calls from the back of the crowd, which he ignored whilst trying to spot the perpetrators from the corner of his eyes. “With the strength of Mars, war bringer, took three thousand good Roman men and crushed the enemy” more cheers from the crowd “and for you, the people of Rome” he waved an arm over the heads of the crowd “he will bring back spoils. Gold, silver and new slaves.” He turned and dropped his head at this last word, a smile flickering on his face at the booing and jeering from the crowd. It was customary for heralds to hold their heads down when mentioning the taking of slaves from captured cities as it reminded all Romans that they too could fall to such fate if Rome ever fell. Inside he laughed at his own skill, the crowd reaching a crescendo of abuse for the Aequian slaves, some calling for slaves to be given to every freeborn Roman citzen and others wailing for the loss of freedom it brought to them. Romans are fickle, thought the herald as he stood and looked down the curve of his nose at the crowd. His deep brown hair, long and dirty from his ride back to Rome, lay in thick clumps on his head and his face was coverd in a film of dust as he held his head high for a moment before the silence allowed him to speak once again.

  “Our Tribune” he raised both arms to the skies as he spoke “will return with the glorious men in four days” his face turned to the crowd. “Word of his victory has been given to the Senate and will be posted within two hours” he added, knowing that this would certainly buy him lunch and drinks as he sneered at the crowd, now pushing forwards to be the first to find out the details of the fight, who had died, who had distinguished themselves in the battle and how many slaves would be for sale. As he moved from the steps and headed towards his favourite alehouse he had to fight off the crowd of people asking for more information, just as he expected. He held his purse tightly in case a pickpocket was in the crowd and jostled his way towards his lunch, with several bystanders already pulling at his sleeve begging him to let them buy him a drink if he told them more about the battle of Bolae. He knew at least one of Postumius’s spies was at his heel and would make sure that his Master knew every word the herald said, so, as he trudged away to the corner by the Temple of Saturnus he praised the strength and ability of Publius Postumius, slayer of Aequians and bringer of glory to Rome, even if he didn’t believe a word of what he said.

  Watching him leave the forum Gatto turned on his heel and set off towards the Oppian hill at a leisurely lope, scratching the thick scar on his chin, a relic of a battle against a shorter man and a long spear. He had grown his beard a full five inches over the winter as befitted the new Greek style that everyone was wearing, but it played with his scar, making it itchier than ever. As he started the slow climb past the temple of the vestals he watched two dogs chasing each other and splashing through a pile of slops thrown from a window in one the rickety tenant buildings at the foot of the climb. The area had seen a sudden growth of new buildings as land was sold off to house the ever expanding city. It was said that close to two hundred and fifty thousand people lived in Rome now, he thought, as he cursed the dogs which were so busy chasing each other they ran straight across his path nearly knocking him over.

  Gato had to give his report to a rider who he would meet at the Temple of Tellus, half way up the hill and as he approached the corner before the temple he saw a man running away to his left glancing quickly at him as he did so. Without thinking Gatto knew something was wrong and ran the remaining forty paces to the corner, stopping and peering around the bend before stepping out into the road. As he turned the corner the first scream came. Ahead of him, and spread across the front steps of the temple was a mix of brown and red, with a flurry of well-to-do ladies standing screaming at the mess that used to be a messenger. The brown of a cavalry cloak, its dusty hue now mingling with the bright crimson and dark red of the messenger’s blood, lay across the steps, the rider himself sprawled across it as if he had been hit with a very heavy object. The man’s face was twisted into an inane grin, it looked as if he had laughed as his blood bled from his body. From the distance he stood away from the body Gatto knew there was no point going any closer so he turned and walked away with an imperceptible shake of his head, he would never catch the man he saw running, and Javenoli would not be happy.

  Chapter 2

  At just over twenty years of age Marcus Furius Camillus was as healthy as he had ever been. His muscles were tight under his woollen tunic and his hair was thick and long, with his deep black beard grown into curls in the Greek style. His ability with the sword had grown as he had aged, and after successful summer campaigns he had gained a Junior Tribune rank earlier than any man for the past fifty years.

  Following his return to Rome the previous summer he had spent much of his time developing a machine which he hoped would launch a thick arrow, over three feet long, to a distance of over two hundred paces. He’d read about the machine in a Greek war scroll he had been given by Senator Gaius Javenoli and since then he had been fascinated by recreating it. He had spent weeks developing the machine with his friends Cornelius Scipio and Gaius Potitus, both of whom had excellent engineering minds like his own, but they didn’t possess the foresight that Marcus had for its use in military campaigns. As he wrenched at the wooden wheel which connected the spring loading mechanism to the catch where the bolt was placed, he looked across at Scipio, his half smile causing Marcus to shout, “What? Why the stupid look?” at which both Scipio and Potitus fell about laughing.

  “You could help” Marcus said, his teeth clenched as he twisted his body to use his full weight to gain as much leverage on the wheel as possible.

  “By the time you’ve wound that thing up my Grandmother could have snuck up on you from a half mile away, taken your trousers down and given you a damn good thrashing” snorted Potitus, his eyes streaming as he received another slap on the shoulder from a guffawing Scipio.

  Potitus was the son of one of this term’s newly appointed Senators, a man that Marcus had fought with some five years before when his brother had received the grass crown, Rome’s highest military honour, for saving the besieged army of his friend Cornelius’s father. The Scipio’s remained one of the foremost families in Rome and Cornelius, like his namesake father, had already seen success in his military career alongside Marcus.

  “You’ll see” smiled Marcus, his determination set in his eyes. “Once I get the mechanism” he grunted as he twisted “to load, I can start to see how the strain affects it and improve it”. He laughed at the strained looks on his friend’s faces, going through the motions but not actually helping. Potitus was a better engineer than either Scipio or himself, but the man was happy to stay back and watch Marcus do all the hard work, he thought, finally standing back and looking at the machine with his hands on his hips, his breathing heavy from his exertions.

  “There” he said “the tormenta” by which he meant the complex spring system developed to give the tension to the machine “is ready to load.”

  “Look out for Grandma” laughed Scipio as he walked to his right to the old olive tree where they had stacked three arrow bolts that Potitus had made. Each bolt was roughly three feet long with a thick iron spike attached to the end. Potitus had enjoyed developing the spike for the arrows in the forge at the back of Marcus’s father’s house and had developed the majority of the thinking for the machine that they now stood over.

  “What are you going to call this machine then?” asked Scipio, smiling at Marcus, his brown hair cut short, more in the military style of the previous decade than the current Greek fashion. His green-brown eyes smiled at the invention, which they had failed, to this point, to actually fire. After a series of snapped strings and broken bows they had given up trying to develop the machine that Marcus had read about in his Greek studies into an efficient Roman war machine. But now, in the late summer heat of Marcus’s father’s house in Tusculum they had taken to the task with gusto. Marcus had worked the wood into a slightly longer bow than the pre
vious one, adding three layers of thick wood together to create a bow which he couldn’t bend with his hands but which the new mechanism did with the ratcheted gearing system Potitus had developed.

  The machine stood three and a half feet tall on three collapsible legs – a change to their first design which they couldn’t easily carry up the hill from the house. It had what looked like a large bow placed horizontally across a plate attached to the legs, with two large metal rods screwed vertically into the same plate to be able to create tension around this central point. The first arrows they had made had been too heavy to fire and so Potitus had found some strong, but light, wood in a boat building yard which he had fashioned into these latest three arrows. The two metal rods also served as a viewing gate through which the machine could be ‘sighted’, though they had not yet had the success of firing an arrow so didn’t know how useful that would be.

  “I’m not sure what to call it” mused Marcus, standing back and looking at the machine, “but I think that if it works it might sting a bit if it hits you” he laughed, looking to his friends with a wicked smile on his face.

  “Like a Scorpion” said Potitus. “A sting in the tail.”

  “Exactly” laughed Marcus “A Scorpion. That’s what we’ll call it.”

  “Here” said Potitus with a flourish “You load your Scorpion Marcus” and handed the wooden arrow across, it’s heavy iron spike with a thicker rear to counter balance the weight held firmly in his hands. Marcus took the arrow and placed it on the top. “Stay” he whispered” referring to the previous five times when simply adding the weight of the arrow had triggered the wooden bow to collapse or the string, tightly stretched across the loading mechanism, to snap with a loud twang. As the arrow sat neatly into the groove all three men looked to one another and raised their eyebrows, the smile starting to curl on their lips. Marcus smiled at the small eagle motif Potitus had carved into the arrow, a symbol Marcus had used in all of his military campaigns since the fateful day he had heard the prophecy which foretold the future of Rome.

  “You hit the switch” Marcus said to Potitus. “You developed the thing, so you can have first shot.”

  Potitus stepped up behind the Scorpion with a twinkle in his eyes. “Mars and Fortuna, bring us luck” he said with a wink as he pulled the trigger switch and the machine clicked, throwing the arrow with such force that it crashed through the tree trunk fifty yards ahead of them, shattering the wood and knocking half the tree over at the same time.

  Marcus, Cornelius and Gaius stared open-mouthed at each other momentarily before they whooped with joy and raced to the tree to assess the damage it had done.