The Death of Marcellus

by Dan Armstrong

  As colorful and chilling as Hannibal’s army was to view, it didn’t command my attention the way their general did, as he rode down the line on his charger, waving his sword above his head, calling out to his peculiar mix of men. Moving as he was, it was difficult to focus the lenses on his face for any period of time. But for one moment, I caught Hannibal full face, his helmet hung on his horse, looking straight across the battlefield to where Marcellus sat on his huge white charger.

  Hannibal must have been a handsome man before the toll of war took from his beauty. His skin color was what some would call olive, further darkened by a life in the sun. His hair was black, loose with curls on his head and thick and full on his face, streaked with gray, though he wasn’t yet forty. Weals from old wounds shone on his forehead and right temple. He still might have had a noble face if not for his missing right eye, lost early during his time in Italy to infection. He wore a black patch to cover the empty socket, making him in some perverse way all the more perfect to lead his murderous pack of paid killers, living on plunder and violent physical pleasures.

  As I watched Hannibal prepare his men for battle, with the various peoples represented in the ranks, I wondered how he communicated with so diverse an army. His soldiers must have spoken in no less than ten languages, and had just as many ways of fighting, not to mention their religious differences and eating habits. Even more demanding was integrating five thousand heavy-drinking Gauls into a single camp with tribal Africans who didn’t drink at all. The thought of Hannibal taking such a motley assortment of men through the Alps staggered the mind. Hannibal’s genius was clearly more than his own capacity with a sword or his brilliant battlefield strategy. He had that animating spirit of a leader, so clear, and so strong, that his army bonded to him regardless of their individual color, culture, or creed.

  There was something grand, if not also dire, in that moment when the two armies were finally lined up facing each other. For a frozen instant the prebattle commotion stopped. The sun stood straight overhead in a sky of pale blue. The red-crested helmets, the polished bronze breastplates, the sharpened swords, the silver spangled array of horses and armored elephants challenged the sun for glitter. No less than fifty thousand men stood ready to enter into full-scale murder of each other. All held tense and still but the pounding in my chest.

  Could this be the crowning moment of the campaign? Could it all happen as quickly as this one battle? After only five weeks on the road, would we engage Hannibal in full combat and fight to the end? One army wins, one army is vanquished—the war over if Hannibal is defeated—a horrible reversal for the Roman cause if he is victorious.

  The Roman soldiers began to beat their shields with their swords. The thumping rose to a fever pitch. Marcellus, stationed between the first and second line with the velites, raised his sword above his head. When he struck down at the air, forty trumpets sounded. The first line—three maniples deep—twenty maniples wide—began to march forward. The velites darted through the gaps in the maniples into the open field between the armies, their javelins upraised and poised to throw. The front line commanders, Furius Purpurio and Pacuvius Calavius, rode on horseback behind their men, following the line in its steady advance, shouting orders to their tribunes.

  Across the valley, Hannibal answered. War cries in a cacophony of languages erupted from the Carthaginian mercenaries, and they too began to march forward. The Balearic slingers and light infantry sprinted ahead to meet the Roman velites. Behind these onrushing skirmishers, the two first lines, ten thousand men on each side, stretched out more than a mile across the valley floor, resolutely marching toward each other. When the two armies were in range, the velites and slingers launched their weapons. Javelins arced high in the air and down into the Carthaginian army, plunging into soft flesh or caught by shields. A barrage of lead pellets flew from the leather slings of the opposing skirmishers. When they rained down on the Roman’s upraised scuta, it sounded like a field full of coppersmiths.

  On Hannibal’s command the mahouts prompted the lumbering elephants into a run, scattering the Roman velites, who launched their second javelins at the animals, then retreated back through the first line that was now rushing forward.

  Javelin strikes sent three of the elephants bellowing off to the flanks. Four others dodged through the checkerboard of Roman maniples all the way to the rear. The remaining thirteen broke through the Roman line like rolling boulders.

  Despite the immediate confusion, eight years into the war most of the Roman soldiers had experienced elephants. The hastati quickly reformed their ranks behind the beasts, while the principes turned on the animals with their gladii, targeting their hamstrings. I saw three fall sideways just as the two lines met.

  I had witnessed this kind of fighting from the battlements of Syracuse two years earlier and knew that the majority of the fighting, usually the heart of any battle, occurred at the interface of the two lines, men strung out side by side, shield to shield, slashing and thrusting through any possible gap in the wall of protection. The Romans with their furious use of the gladii seemed perfect for this kind of combat, and as the battle’s first overture settled into stout fighting, Marcellus’ first line was holding strong against Hannibal’s seasoned veterans.

  Perched on my seat among the trees, it appeared some great shoving match, shield pushed against shield, gaining some ground, then giving some. Here and there a pike broke through the wall of shields to pierce a soldier or a sword sliced through an opening to lop off an arm—or cleave a head.

  I had been told to pay close attention to the Carthaginian’s use of cavalry—and Asellus’ reaction to it. The heavy horse on both sides, like the two front lines, appeared evenly matched despite the difference in numbers, but time and again, small packs of Numidians would race around the right wing to get at our men from the flank or the rear. They rode their small, agile garrons bareback, using only rope halters. They rushed at our flank like swarms of wasps, let go with their darts, then retreated.

  Asellus had a portion of his cavalry ride without armor, carrying only a sword and a light shield, to help them match the speed and agility of the Numidian riders. Although the smaller African horses could change direction more quickly than the larger Roman war horses, Asellus’ equestrians managed to imperfectly hold them in check. Handfuls of Numidians might draw up close to our body of soldiers, but never uncontested and never for long.

  All the while the two front lines stood toe-to-toe, shield-to-shield, hacking at each other like two great teams of butchers. At times it appeared that portions of the two lines would mutually pull back, as though taking a moment to rest their arms, then they would surge forward again with twice the energy.

  The greater portion of the men on the battlefield were not engaged. Two full lines stood in reserve, waiting for the signal to enter the battle. Even in the Roman first line, the triarii did little more than hold order. At intervals, pila from the principes sailed over the contested center, taking lives at random, but my tentmates, hastati in the Eighteenth, were front and center in the hot zone. I knew where they were when the battle started, but as the commotion grew, I lost them in the action.

  The Balearic slingers skirted the battlefield, twirling their slings over their heads and trying to pick off soldiers from afar. Our light infantry sought them out, tackling them in the open field, aiming a pugio at their hearts. Knots of men, three or four, five or six, tangled everywhere around the central action of the battle.

  A huge cloud of dust arose from the boiling mass of men and animals and hung over the little valley as though it were another entity in itself. The sound of shrieking men, trumpeting elephants, and clanking metal carried on the wind for miles.

  I clenched the tree branches with such great anxiety, I might as well have been gripping a sword deep within the battle. Not experienced in sorting out the action in what appeared no more than open mayhem, I struggled to judge who was getting the better of whom. Something of the futility of the b
attle, maybe all battles, pressed down on me as the fallen bodies mounted without progress for either side.

  The greatest action was on our right flank, where there was open ground, and the two cavalry forces clashed. They charged at each other, jousting with lances. Those who weren’t knocked from their mounts circled around to race at each other again. Others fought at close range with swords, slashing wildly at the air or hacking off hunks of flesh. Riders knocked from their horses used their swords to defend themselves. They were either trampled or managed to pull down another rider, plunge him through and leap on his mount.

  The Carthaginians outnumbered us on horseback, but by anchoring the two lines to Numistro, Marcellus had effectively sealed off the east side of the battlefield, leaving Asellus only one flank to defend, a strategy that as far as I could tell was working.

  Both Marcellus and Hannibal were on horseback behind their first lines. Marcellus had a ring of lictors around him at all times. Hannibal similarly had a squadron of hand-chosen bodyguards, his famous Sacred Band. The two generals turned their horses this way and that, shouting orders to their commanders and inspiration to their men.

  With each series of trumpet blasts, I sought to decipher the related action within the ranks—hastati, principes, or triarii—moving forward or back as the situation demanded.

  At one point Hannibal pulled the middle of his line back from the center of conflict, a variation of something he had done at Cannae, but Purpurio and Calavius commanded their men to maintain rank to avoid what could be a trap.

  The presence of the second line, though still inactive well past midday, was a wise strategy against Hannibal. Bringing portions of his Numidians around to the rear became more risky when the second line could advance and pin them between our two lines. As long as we held order and resisted any of Hannibal’s diversions, Marcellus felt his heavy infantry could outlast their Carthaginian counterparts.

  I tried to single out Marcus in the fighting, but couldn’t identify individuals in the confusion of combat. I used the lenses a second time, hoping that Marcus had not become one of those lying dead on the ground, trampled beneath the ebb and flow of the center line. With the crystal lens in my right hand and the glass bead close to my eye, I scanned the line from left to right, not catching sight of him. Then, as I scanned again, this time right to left, my hand struck a branch, and I dropped the crystal lens to ground, some thirty feet below.

  Wounded soldiers from either side had staggered or crawled off the battlefield seeking respite in the woods or a place to die. I saw where the lens landed in the weeds, but was too frightened to climb down the tree to look for it. I tried to fix the spot in my mind, hoping that I would have a chance to search for it after the battle had ended.

  With the sun two-thirds of the way across the sky, Marcellus signaled to his trumpeters. Four blasts sent the Twentieth legion into battle. The allies from Fregellae retreated through the spaces in the maniples as the Twentieth advanced. Once this move was completed, five trumpet blasts signaled for the troops from Aesernia to exchange places with the Eighteenth.

  This maneuver, the changing of the lines, involved considerable risk if not performed in close order. The troops from Aesernia were not as crisply trained as those in the Twentieth legion, but the action was accomplished without any mishaps.

  Hannibal sent his entire second line forward as soon as he saw our Twentieth advance. The center line wavered back and forth throughout the transition. Two gaps opened on the Carthaginian right. Legionnaires surged through the broken ranks. Similar action occurred on the left, but it was our line losing order. For a gut-wrenching stretch of time, I watched as the fresh troops added fury to the battle, and men on both sides went down at a greater rate than at any other time in the day.

  But both armies were well-disciplined. Hannibal enforced order just as thoroughly as Marcellus. The grueling match of man on man ground on with no give—except lives, lost in nearly equal numbers from both sides.

  Dusk arrived before a clear outcome. The dead lay in heaps across the battlefield as the lines moved back and forth and side to side in a field now muddy up to the ankles in blood.

  It seemed that both generals came to the same conclusion simultaneously. I might have imagined that the two men even exchanged a glance of acknowledgment. This first day of battle had been fought to a standstill. It was time to pull apart.

  With six trumpets blasts from the Roman side and horns of a different tenor from the enemy, the armies disentangled from each other, stumbling over dropped weapons and body parts, while still maintaining order. The cavalry rode herd on the stragglers, protecting the wounded and the weary as they staggered back to camp.

  Merely watching the men on both sides slug it out with swords and spears had exhausted me. The entire time I had felt that this day would bring the war’s deciding battle. But in the end it had not. The ferocious energy of our army had been matched by Hannibal’s.

  As I watched the men slog back to camp, limping or carrying their brethren, I thought about the duty of a soldier and the courage it must take to awaken in the morning prepared to give one’s life—then to survive and know that this same brutal task would come again in the days to come. It was not all glory. The battlefield was a bloody canvas of broken weapons, animal carcasses, and dead men.

  I climbed down from my perch cautiously. The dead and wounded littered the forest floor. Anxiously I scoured the patch of weeds where I had seen the crystal lens land. Night was falling, and I knew the clear lens would be all but impossible to find.

  A Lusitanian not far from me, whom I had taken for dead, groaned as he pushed himself up to his knees. His white woolen tunic was wet with blood and his eyes were wide and blank. I knew my red tunic would give me away as the enemy, so I hurried my search, raking my fingers through the grass, thinking I might feel what I couldn’t see.

  I took a quick glance over my shoulder. The Lusitanian had gained his feet and was stumbling across the ground toward me. On hands and knees I crawled in a circle, running my hands through the grass one last time. But it was time I didn’t have. The soldier lunged toward me just as I was standing. I pulled the pugio Marcus had given me and dove at his midsection blade first. The man had been badly injured. He had no reaction at all. I pushed him to the ground and used my entire body to drive the dagger into his stomach. There was no fight in him. I felt his life give out beneath me. I killed a man whose wounds had left him something short of helpless.

  Smeared with blood, I climbed off the dead Lusitanian. Other bodies lay about in the forest gloam. Which of those would suddenly rise? I quickly cut an “x” in the tree I had climbed, then raced back to the camp, nearly in tears, knowing that I had killed a man and likely lost the most precious thing I owned.

  CHAPTER 35

  I gave the password at the front gate. Via Principalis may as well have been the corridor of a hospital. At every campfire men were tending to wounds, some small, some that would prevent them from fighting for weeks or longer. At one point a scream cut through the night. I imagined our Greek surgeon Olcades amputating an arm or a leg. Everywhere I encountered exhausted men, sliced up and battered from the battle. Those who were not wounded tended to bent weapons and broken shields. I had no injuries but was covered with blood as though I had taken part.

  My orders were to report to Marcellus at the end of the battle with my observations. My search for the lens and the episode with the Lusitanian mercenary made me one of the last to return to camp. Instead of going to my tent, I went straight to headquarters. Marcus intercepted me before I got there.

  “Timon,” he exclaimed, grasping me by the shoulders, “I thought we’d lost you.” He held me back looking at the smears of blood. “Where have you been? Are you all right?”

  I nodded, noting that both of his forearms were bandaged and an uncovered wound swelled below his right ear. “It’s another man’s blood, not mine. I had to use your dagger,” I muttered, not proud of killing a wounded man.
“What’s the assessment of the day?”

  “If dead are a measure of victory, then the day was ours by some small margin. But I’m guessing they still outnumber us. My father has already briefed the officers. That’s where I’m coming from now. He praised the order of the troops and the action of the cavalry and told the men to get some sleep. He wants us in battle formation tomorrow at dawn, reversing the order of the lines.”

  It seemed impossible that these men could line up again after what had just transpired.

  Marcus saw my reaction. “My father knows that we’ve taken a hard hit, but he feels that Hannibal’s troops must be worse off. Today was their second battle in ten days. They can’t have much fight left. He wants to go for the kill.” Another scream creased the night.

  “Are we up to it?”

  Marcus wagged his head in doubt. “My father overreaches. Our men are in bad shape. All I can imagine for tomorrow is two battered armies cutting each other to shreds. ”

  “I’m to report to him. Will he receive me now?”

  “Yes, go. The camp is settling in for the night, but I doubt he will sleep at all.”

  The guards outside headquarters recognized me and stepped aside with no questions. Marcellus was alone, standing beside the map of the battlefield, staring down at his markers. He looked up when I entered. His face was dark with thought. He had been on horseback rallying his troops all day. He was nearly sixty years old. He should have been exhausted. Instead his eyes were lit like full moons, the thrill of battle still coursing through him.

  “I’m sorry that I’m late, sir.” I held the wax pad in both hands behind my back. My appearance served as a better explanation than anything I might have said.