The Belgae

by S. J. A. Turney

  As the four officers reached the gate of the camp, the duty guards snapped to attention with great professionalism. As always, Fronto studied them carefully. He found the Eighth a great yardstick for measuring the performance of his own legion; the two were the closest among the army in both age and command style.

  The spring bees hummed around the grass and scrub outside the gate as the men trod heavily on the dirt track that had formed from months of soldiers tracking to and fro between the camp and city across the river. From here the path ran down a gentle grassy slope to the bridge, where it converged with similar tracks that had been worn from the camps of the Eleventh and Tenth Legions. At the meeting point by the bridge two posts had been erected; one bore direction signs to the city and the three camps, presumably erected so that merchants and teamsters knew where to sell and to deliver; the other post held a banner with the eagle of Rome.

  “”What is Labienus thinking?” snapped Fronto as he pointed down at the flag.

  “Hmm?” Balbus looked closely and frowned.

  “I suppose it’s just there to denote the presence of the legions and the headquarters in the citadel in town?”

  Fronto grumbled.

  “Labienus is bright enough to know that you don’t plant the flag of Rome in territory we don’t own. It basically tells anyone who sees it that we either think we do own it or that we intend to own it shortly.”

  Crispus shrugged.

  “And yet it remains. I cannot help but wonder why the indigenous people have not requested it be taken down. I’m sure that if they had, Labienus would have done so.”

  Fronto growled again.

  “Stupid. Arrogant and stupid.”

  Balventius rolled his eye around and laughed.

  “I think you’re crediting them with a little too much intelligence there, Fronto. Six legions bring a lot of money into an area. Even the lowest vagrant in Vesontio is dining out and wearing silk now. After this winter it’s probably the richest city in Gaul. Most of them would let you plant a flag in their back if you jingled your purse!”

  “Well…” Fronto pointed up the valley, “it looks like their customer base is about to increase again. Can’t see which legion that is, but they’re coming from roughly south west. Which legion’s camped out west?”

  Balventius frowned.

  “That would be Crassus’ Seventh. Why the hell are they coming in?”

  “That’s not the Seventh.” Crispus shaded his eyes and squinted. “In fact, I have no idea who they are.”

  He became aware that Fronto was looking at him expectantly, but with a hint of irritation.

  “Well I cannot see the legion number on the flags, but all of Caesar’s legions bear the Taurus emblem. Those flags seem to have horses.”

  Fronto boggled at him.

  “You can’t see how many ‘I’s are on the flag, but at that distance you can distinguish between quadrupeds?”

  “It’s a simple matter of shape, Fronto. In fact, those symbols look a lot more like Gaulish ones than Roman.”

  “Let’s get to the bottom of this!”

  Without waiting for the other three, Fronto started striding purposefully out from the path in the direction of the approaching legionaries. After a minute, he became aware that the others had caught up, Crispus coming alongside in a vaguely undignified scurry, Balbus lagging a little, and Balventius striding calmly along.

  The insignia became gradually clearer as the four approached and, once he finally picked out the detail, Fronto came to a sudden halt, as did his companions.

  The legionaries in front of him were marching not in one column, as it appeared at a distance, but in two, each column with a width of six men and trailing off like a glinting armoured ophidian. The arms are armour they bore were shiny and new, the shields devoid of any marks, and the banners…

  Two new insignia, both with some kind of Celtic-style horse, fluttered below the numbers XIII and XIIII.

  “New legions?” Crispus’ tone echoed Fronto’s own surprise.

  The column was not being led, as was customary, by the officers, but by the signifers, the eagle standards, and the musicians. The officers were riding alongside in a small knot, with the cavalry stretched out behind them.

  Fronto stepped to one side so as not to impede the army, but rather to stand in the way of the command unit. As he placed his fists on his hips in a haughty gesture, he was further surprised at the commands being barked at the men by the lower officers. There was no doubt at all about what he heard. Those commands were issued in fluent Latin, but with a pronounced Gaulish accent. He was still staring in disbelief at the passing legions when he became aware that his three companions had joined him and the command staff had reined in before them. He looked up.

  “Fronto! You look bloody disgraceful!”

  Quintus Pedius, one of Caesar’s senior staff stared down at him and a slow smile began to creep across his face.

  “Not that that’s anything new, of course!”

  “Ha, bloody, ha! What the hell’s going on? Why are you dressing up the auxilia as legionaries?”

  Pedius gave him a sharp glance.

  “You’d be well advised to sheath that mouth of yours, Marcus.”

  The staff officer turned to the tribunes behind him.

  “Menenius? Hortius? Get the legions to the nearest appropriate flat ground, preferably between these other encampments and have a temporary camp set up for each. Once they’re settling and underway, I want the two of you at the headquarters. Report to me there!”

  The two men saluted and rode off to find the primus pilus of each legion. As they went about their business, Pedius dismounted and gestured toward the bridge. As the four officers walked steadily back along their track and the distance between the five men and the legions increased, the staff officer handed his reins to Crispus and removed his helmet with a sigh of relief.

  “I need a bath and a shave. And a jug of wine, but that can wait until I’ve had the bath and the shave. But sadly, both of those will have to wait until I visit the headquarters. Are you gentlemen accompanying me?”

  Balbus nodded.

  “We were on our way there anyway.”

  “Good. Now, Fronto, what’s irritated you?”

  The dishevelled legate scratched his bristly chin.

  “They’re Gauls. They’re not Romans, Quintus… they’re Gauls! What are they doing in legionary equipment? When the ordinary soldiers find out about this there’ll be riots. It demeans the whole purpose of the legion. That’s what the auxilia is for!”

  Pedius sighed.

  “Calm down Fronto. You’re going to have a fit if you go on like this.”

  “Well?”

  Balventius nodded. “It’s true sir. This is the citizen army. It’s against the rules to enlist foreigners into it. There’ll be hell!”

  Pedius shook his head.

  “It’s all above board, gentlemen. I can tell you some of it, but not all. Present company, you see?”

  He indicated Balventius, though respectfully.

  Balbus shook his head.

  “My primus pilus is as solid as they come. Caesar tried to make him camp prefect, remember? Anything you can say in front of us, you can say in front of him!”

  Pedius regarded Balventius for a long minute and then nodded his head.

  “Very well. This is in strictest confidence. I expect the general will put some spin on it for the public, but some of you will know there’s more anyway. You remember that tribune who stirred things up in Vesontio last summer?”

  “Salonius? Yes. He scurried off back to Rome with his tail between his legs as I remember.”

  “He did.” Pedius lowered his voice fractionally.

  “But Caesar thinks the man’s been carrying on his campaign of disruption in political circles back in Rome. The general has been blocked with almost every political move he makes. Finally we managed to find out where we could get to Salonius in private to ‘have a little wor
d’ and before we turned up someone knifed him and tipped him in the Tiber. Pickpockets was the official line, but that’s unlikely.”

  Crispus bore a shocked look. Pedius sighed.

  “A man called Clodius, who seems to have a network of spies and an almost unlimited chest of gold, is stirring things up in Rome like a madman. And not just against Caesar, but against Crassus and Pompey too. The general thinks Salonius was an agent of this Clodius.”

  They begun the descent toward the bridge and Pedius took a deep breath.

  “Caesar needs some serious victories and a lot of money. He owes important men, but more importantly, he’s losing political ground. He requested permission of the senate to raised new legions in Cisalpine Gaul. The senate actually refused him. I’m sure you can imagine how that went down!”

  Fronto winced, glad he hadn’t been there for that meeting, and Pedius continued.

  “So Caesar did what he does best. He found a way around the rules.”

  Fronto issued a small half-smile.

  “I think I can see where this is going…”

  Pedius nodded.

  “Caesar managed to have the Helvetii, the Aedui and a few of the smaller allied tribes classed as Foederati. If they’re treaty-bound with Rome their men can theoretically be enlisted into the legions. It’s not common and not popular, and it’s a very grey area legally, but it can certainly be done. They wouldn’t let Caesar raise citizen troops from Cisalpine Gaul, so he used his own authority to raise two new legions from our allies; mainly the ones who speak Latin, though. They’re now Roman citizens. There’s been a shit storm over it in Rome and Caesar’s just dealing with the aftermath before he joins us.”

  Fronto nodded.

  “We think we know what the general’s planning; if it’s true he might well need those two new legions.”

  Pedius nodded.

  “Best go see Labienus and inform him of events then.”

  Fronto nodded as he watched the new ‘Gaulish’ legions marching across the hill toward the camps. There was no doubt the Gauls fought fiercely, but should they be legions? He couldn’t shake the feeling there was trouble in his near future.

  Chapter 2

  (Vesontio)

  “Praetor: a title granted to the commander of an army. cf the Praetorian Guard.”

  As the party of officers strode across the square to the main building that had been commandeered by Caesar for his headquarters almost a year ago, Fronto became acutely aware of how scruffy he must look compared with the others. Pedius had just arrived from over two hundred miles of travel with his legions and he was parade-smart. Fronto had been here for hours and still looked like he’d been dragged behind a horse. And his sister wondered why he failed in politics!

  The guards by the doorway were already at attention, in their prominent position among the senior staff of the army. Pedius, at the head of the group, acknowledged them with a slight nod of the head and they went inside. The headquarters building was in what could only reasonably be described as ‘organised chaos’. Fronto knew from experience that the headquarters of a legion ran smoothly and with the minimum of fuss, since there was a hierarchy that worked with machine-like precision. The headquarters of a large army was different, though. There were six legions based around Vesontio, all with the same hierarchy and, while the general’s command had its own clerical staff, they spent most of their time trying to respond to the legionary clerks and filter, prioritise and just plain argue with them. The net result was that the higher one went in the military, the messier the paperwork became.

  The three men entered the main room to find Labienus at a wide desk covered in parchment and wax tablets with the chief quartermaster, Cita, and the camp prefect, Paetus, opposite him. As he rattled out answers to their quick-fire questions, they made marks and, without turning, held out the tablets behind them where a junior clerk would grasp them and run off to deal with the issue, only to be replaced by another haggard-looking legionary clerk.

  Pedius stopped in the doorway, his companions behind him, and waited for a moment, blocking the entrance and exit of various clerks, before clearing his throat.

  Labienus looked up in surprise.

  “Pedius? Good grief. I wasn’t expecting to see you for a while yet. Does that mean Caesar’s with you?”

  That last question had a note of desperate hope in it, Fronto noted with a smile.

  “Not with, I’m afraid; though I doubt he’ll be far behind. Can we interrupt your burdensome tasks?”

  Labienus nodded; a little too quickly, Fronto thought again.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” he addressed Cita and Paetus. “We’ll resume tomorrow morning. I think I need some time to rest anyway.”

  The two officers stood and bowed to the interim commander. Turning, they saluted the officers in the doorway, who shuffled out of their way with some difficulty. Once the others had left, Balventius closed the door and the other four men walked across to the desk, while he remained standing by the door like a guard.

  Labienus gave a long-suffering sigh.

  “Almost my entire day now consists of two things: military bureaucracy like ‘which legion has to produce the engineering detail to maintain the command section’, and politics, like the local farmers complaining that the latrines of the Tenth are emptying into a tributary stream that their wives use to wash clothes. I just don’t understand how Caesar gets anything done!”

  Pedius grinned.

  “Because he delegates the irritating parts to us, you know that.”

  “Ha!”

  Labienus leaned back and gestured to the seats opposite him. As the officers sat, he looked up at Balventius.

  “Centurion? If you’re here on business, I suggest you sit. No one will interrupt us with my door shut.”

  Balventius nodded respectfully.

  “Thank you sir, but I’m comfortable standing.”

  “Very well,” Labienus said, stretching, “nice to see we’ve got all the staff and legates assembled again. Once Caesar arrives, I very much think we’ll be on the move quickly. There are troubles stirring.”

  “We’re all aware of that” said Fronto flatly. “And I think Caesar’s already prepared. Ask Pedius who escorted him back from Cremona.”

  Labienus turned to his peer and raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

  “I had the honour of escorting the newly-raised Thirteenth and Fourteenth Legions to camp.”

  Labienus sank miserably back into his chair, visions of a new cartload of paperwork rolling inexorably toward his desk.

  “And that’s not all…”

  Fronto smiled broadly.

  “They’re vaguely Romanised Gauls, not citizen troops!”

  Labienus face slipped into bleak misery.

  “There’ll be fights. Complaints… possibly even fatalities. We’ll have to keep them apart.”

  Pedius shook his head.

  “No. Integration is the key. I’ve sent them to set up between the existing legions. They may have a funny accent, but Caesar levied them months ago. They’ve been well trained by veterans at Cremona. They’ve all taken the oath. Hell, they think of themselves as Roman. So does Caesar apparently, so we’d better shift our perspective a little.”

  Such news apparently did little to raise Labienus’ spirits. Pedius smiled sadly.

  “There’s two more things yet.”

  “Oh good.”

  “Two letters. Sets of orders in fact, from the general himself. One for you, and one for Crassus.”

  Labienus sighed.

  “I can’t be bothered to read them right now. Just give me the highlights.”

  Pedius laughed.

  “Well Crassus’ letter orders him and his Seventh legion out to the north west. He’s to fortify up at the Gaulish Oppidum they call Cenabum and monitor the activity of the tribes between there and the sea. We’ve had word that there’s anti-Roman sentiment growing in the area.

  Fronto frowned.

  “If
we’re going to be fighting a million Belgae shortly,” he muttered, “I’m glad Caesar’s given some thought to the danger of allied attacks on the flank, but if there’s real trouble stirring out there among several tribes, sending one man with one legion could be a death sentence.”

  The others nodded their agreement.

  “And the one for me?”

  Pedius shrugged.

  “Crassus’ orders were standard military orders; yours come sealed with wax. I’m intrigued, myself.”

  He leaned forward and let placed a tightly rolled parchment of finest Egyptian import quality on the desk. It rolled toward Labienus a little until it hit the wax seal and stopped.

  Labienus raised an eyebrow again.

  “I expect I’m supposed to open this when I’m alone then?”

  Fronto made a ‘tsk’ noise and tapped on the table.

  “For Mars’ sake, Labienus, we’re all senior officers. Just open the bloody thing and tell us what to expect.”

  Labienus retrieved the scroll and leaned back in his chair again. With a slowness and a thoroughness that irritated Fronto intensely, the interim commander cracked the seal and unrolled the parchment. Fronto watched as the man scanned down the text, noting with interest the various expressions that crossed his face. A long, silent minute passed and then Labienus let go of the lower end, allowing the scroll to roll up once more before he dropped it onto the desk.

  He whistled quietly through his teeth.

  “I can see why that was sealed.”

  “Come on, man” barked Fronto irritably. “What is it?”

  “It’s an arrest warrant.”

  Crispus, a look comprised of equal parts excitement and worry, leaned forward.

  “An arrest warrant for whom?”

  The commander stared at him in silence.

  “Labienus!” barked Fronto, and the man jumped slightly and shook his head as if to clear it.

  “I’m to arrest Paetus, the camp prefect.” He sat in silence for a moment, staring at the scroll. “Paetus! I’ve known the man for years!”

  Fronto reached out irritably and grabbed the orders, unrolling the parchment and reading for himself.