Again we waited in a long line of men, until at last we gained the wide bar where the armorer, a sturdy old veteran with short white hair and a belly lopping over his wide belt, took the wooden tile from my hand and asked, “Pedes aut ala?”
“Ala,” I replied.
The armorer regarded me with a dubious expression. Behind me Quintus said, “Pedes, tell him. We are infantrymen.”
“But I can ride.”
He shook his head. “Until you get yourself a horse, you are a foot soldier.”
“Which is it?” demanded the armorer impatiently. “Speak up!”
“Pedes,” I said. The answer was relayed to the back of the long building with a shout that brought two young boys running. One boy carried a spatha—a long sword—and a round, slightly curved iron-banded leather shield, called a parma. The other boy brought a bundle of cloth upon which rested a new pair of boots.
We were then dismissed to the yard, where no fewer than ten barbers were busily shearing the new flock of recruits. Once more we were made to endure another lengthy wait before submitting to the razor. My own hair was not long, but no exceptions were made, and, newly shorn, we gathered our armor and bundle of clothes and followed Quintus to the bathhouse outside the walls. “There are baths within the garrison, to be sure,” he explained, “but this one is better.”
We traipsed dutifully through the bare-earth streets to a large, rough-hewn building of timber and stone, where we piled our belongings on the ground. Quintus gave a serving boy half a denarius to watch over them while we were inside. Then we went in, stripped off our filthy clothes, and proceeded directly to the tepidarium, where we plunged ourselves into the cool, clean, running water and washed away the dirt of the trail. Because the pool flowed with fresh water diverted from the river, we were allowed to use soap to clean ourselves. I scoured myself with the rough, grainy stuff until I fairly gleamed, then continued to the caldarium to immerse in the hot-water pool.
Oh, it was splendid. I lolled in steaming water to my chin and tried to remember the last time I had sat in a genuine balneum. The place was crowded, of course, but it was paradise nonetheless, and I made full use of the various hot and cold rooms until my skin glowed pink as a new rose.
I strode from the bathhouse a better man, for now I was soldier in the Roman army—albeit a lowly mercenary foot soldier. Nevertheless I belonged.
My clothing bundle consisted of a paenula—a rough, red-dyed woolen cloak with a hood large enough to cover a helmet; a linen loincloth; a wide leather belt with a hanger strap for a sword; and thick-soled, high-laced, hobnail boots. I wound the loincloth around me and pulled on my tunic; since no one else wore trousers, I did not bother with them, but I buckled the belt around my waist, laced up my shoes, and followed Quintus and the others to the barracks.
“No room,” said the tabularius, the man in charge of the barracks, a fat Iberian with one hand. “Camp in the field.”
“Do you know who we are?” demanded Varro.
“No,” replied the barracker. “But I know a barbarian when I see one.”
“Barbarian!” cried Varro. “We have served this army for seven years, you blind dog!”
“The barracks are for legionaries,” the Iberian countered.
“If you want a bed, join the legion.”
Varro was just drawing himself up to challenge the tabularium’s courage and parentage when Pallio pulled him away. “Come, Varro, my friend, it is mercy itself this fellow is dispensing. Only a lunatic would sleep in his flea-infested beds anyway.”
Quintus agreed. “This way, men. I know a place beside the river we can make camp.”
Thus began my life as a soldier.
The first few weeks were spent in weapons practice. Each day I joined the raw recruits in their training; I worked until my bones ached, mastering the moves I was taught. When I had learned all I could from the instructors, I extracted more from Quintus and other veterans who knew how to stay alive.
“I miss the old sword, I do,” Quintus told me one day. “But the spatha is better in many ways. See here, Succat”—he slashed the weapon through the air—“the blade is longer, narrower—better for striking at a distance.”
“With the gladius,” offered Varro, “you have to be right up face-to-face with the brute to thrust in sharp. You have his foul breath in your face and his greasy blood on your hands. Give me a spatha any day.”
“Now what we have to do is keep our eyes open for a good mail shirt and helmet,” said Quintus.
“Without them you’ll be dead before the summer is run,” added Varro.
“Too true,” said Quintus. “A mail shirt will save your life; likewise a sturdy helmet.”
“Where do we get those?” I asked.
“From the barbari!” hooted Pallio. “Where else?”
At my disbelieving frown, Quintus explained, “Brutes they may be, but they make good mail shirts, and their helmets are almost as good as the legion’s, which the numera can’t get anyway.”
“You take it from them on the field,” I said, guessing his meaning. “You strip the dead.”
“How else?” said Quintus.
“The live ones won’t let you have ’em,” Varro said.
“You’ve done this before,” I said.
“Many times,” replied Pallio.
“Then where are your mail shirts and helmets now?” I wondered.
“We sold them in Massilia,” replied Varro.
“They kept us in wine and women all winter long,” added Pallio.
“The wine of south Gaul is like no other,” affirmed Quintus sagely. “A good mail shirt and helmet can fetch a handsome price in the right place.”
I accepted that they were right and redoubled my efforts to find Rufus. I had tried from the first, of course, but none of the other soldiers seemed to know him. As the weeks passed, however, I found opportunity to ask most of the officers in the garrison as well. Again no one seemed to have heard of him. In the end I was forced to assume that my information was wrong. Probably he was stationed at some other garrison by now.
As soon as training finished, patrols commenced. Every other day or so, another company of men would leave the garrison to go out to walk the frontier boundary. The auxiliaries joined the regulars in this as our lot was drawn. Most often we completed our circuit and returned to the garrison having encountered nothing more ferocious than a wild pig or a deer. Twice, however, we surprised barbarian tribesmen skulking through the forest on our side of the river. Both times we engaged them at once and drove them back without undue difficulty. I fought in both skirmishes and acquitted myself well enough to begin thinking that my future as a soldier was assured.
Then, one fine warm day in the middle of summer, the army assembled on the parade ground to be addressed by the commanding officer: General Sentius Papinius Septimus, a twenty-year veteran and hero of countless conflicts. He had led the Valerians into battle successfully for more than ten years, the last three of which had been spent patrolling the northern borders of Gaul and Germania, quelling barbarian incursions in brief, fierce encounters.
He was a short, stocky man with a thoughtful, almost melancholy aspect—until he mounted a horse or stepped before his troops. Then the true stature of the man became apparent. His troops revered him as a god.
At the long, piercing blast of the bucina, we all hastened to the parade ground and formed ourselves into rough ranks according to our cohorts—the legionaries first and the auxiliares after. We waited, standing easy, as a small delegation emerged from the commander’s house. Before them went the vexillium, the revered golden-boar standard of the Valeria Victrix.
Foremost of this group, and shorter than the others, was General Septimus. He took his time, reviewing his soldiers, stopping here and there to speak to someone he recognized. One of those he knew was Quintus; I was standing close enough to hear.
“Well, what have we here?” said the general, pausing before the old veteran. “Are y
ou back again, Quintus? I thought we’d seen the last of you.”
“Hail, Commander Septimus, it is good to see you, too,” replied Quintus affably.
“You told me you were going to retire, did you not?”
“Yes, well, let us say Massilia was not entirely to my liking.”
General Septimus laughed. He placed a hand on the soldier’s neck. “We will see some fighting this year, my friend. I will do what I can to keep your hide undamaged.”
“I ask for no special favors, Commander.”
“No,” said the general, “of course not.” Turning to regard the men clustered around Quintus, he said, “Is this your numerus?”
Quintus grinned. “They seem to have followed me, General.”
Commander Septimus nodded to himself and then, looking along the ranks at us, said, “When the battle grows hot, you men stay close to Quintus. He will see you through the worst of it.”
The old veteran smiled. I could tell he was moved by the general’s oblique praise. “Thank you, General, I will do what I can.”
Septimus moved on then and, when he finished his informal inspection, strode to his place before the standard, engaged our gaze, and spoke to us in a low, clear voice, his words both simple and direct. Listening to him, I imagined, was like listening to the ancient spirit of the empire itself.
“Soldiers of Rome!” he began abruptly, “I summon you today not to demand your allegiance but to demand your lives.”
He scanned the ragged ranks before him with a stern, unapologetic gaze, an expression hardened by conflict into a flintlike determination.
“Even now our enemies are gathering in the forests to the north. Our scouts have encountered raiding parties larger than any seen in twenty years. When they believe themselves strong enough to overwhelm us, they will attack.”
He walked a few paces along the front rank and then stopped to face his soldiers again. “They will attack, and they will succeed. Yes, this time they will succeed….” He paused once more, letting us chew on that for a moment. “They will win, my friends—my brave limitanes—unless you give me your lives.
“What does this mean?” He stared with grim determination upon the wondering ranks. “It means: Deliver your fate into my hands. It means: Trust not to your gods, but place your trust in me. It means: Do not think about what you will do tomorrow—give all your tomorrows to me.
“Give everything to me: your hearts, your minds, your bodies. For unless you give me everything, the barbarians will take it from you, and you will lose it all.”
His voice resounded in the silence of the yard. “Every time a man marches out onto the battleground, he has a choice to make: whether to hold fast to his life or let it go for the good of the legion. I do not ask you to give your lives to the legion, or to your comrades, or to the glory of the empire, but to me.” He struck himself on the chest with his fist.
“Why do I ask this?” he said, gazing out over the assembled ranks. “Because, my friends, if you give me your lives, when this season of war is over, I will give them back. This is my pledge to you.”
He raised his hands high and repeated his pledge, and it was greeted with a great outpouring of acclaim. Men roared their approval, shouting the general’s name over and over again. I had never seen anything like it before, and I could not help being stirred.
When the shouts and cheers subsided, General Septimus continued, “I do not intend to allow the enemy time to build his strength. Therefore, tomorrow we take the offensive in the first of a series of raids on barbarian camps that our scouts have marked. Tomorrow, my friends, the battle begins.”
More cheering greeted this declaration, but in fact it was ten days before any barbarians were sighted. Having marched north for nine days into the dark, tangled heart of Germania, we camped on the banks of the broad, gray waterway called Rhenus. Along the way I learned how a proper military force was organized, how troops in the field were provisioned, how to march all day under a heavy pack and then make camp, dig a barrier ditch, fetch water, cook food for a cohort, and clean up afterward without becoming too fatigued to move on come the following dawn.
Thus, after a nine-day march, I stood on the banks of the Rhenus and gazed across the mildly swirling water into the deep-shadowed denseness of the pine forest on the other side. The rolling expanse of water marked the farthest limit of the empire. Beyond the bank on which I stood lay a land untouched by the civilizing hand of Rome. Some of the younger men quailed to see it, but I looked on unafraid. I had lived in a barbarian land before. It held no terror for me.
We established camp in a meadow a short distance from the river. The first task was to dig a deep ditch around the entire perimeter of the camp, heaping the dirt along the inner rim to form an earthwork bank through which there was but one entrance. The sides and top of this rampart were lined with sharpened greenwood stakes cut from the surrounding forest.
This done, the soldiers carried water from the river to fill the large cisterns which had been dug and lined with great leather integuments brought especially for the purpose.
Each cohort and numerus hollowed out a place at the base of the earthen rampart near their lodgings to use for a hearth to cook their meals. For lodgings the legionaries had tents, but the auxiliaries either slept under the sky or erected makeshift shelters using their cloaks and javelins, or pikes. This is what those of us in Quintus’ numerus did, and it was not so bad once I got used to it.
While we were making the field camp, the scouts were ranging north across the river to ascertain the enemy positions. They returned the second day with a report that a large number of Goth and Hun warriors were moving south toward a fording place on the Rhenus a day’s march to the west of us.
Early the next morning, under a low, gray sky, we took up our weapons and marched out to meet the enemy at the ford.
FORTY
THEY CAME AT us out of the forest without warning. One moment we were sitting in the shade of the trees at the edge of the ford, waiting for our scouts to return with word of the enemy’s advance…the next moment we were fighting for our lives. The barbarians rushed in eager swarms, splashing across the shallow water and racing headlong toward our camp.
The trumpeter had time to sound but a single warning blast before the first wave closed on us. The legionaries scrambled to form the battle line—triple ranks of cohorts—to take the brunt of the attack while the auxiliaries flew into the forest on either side of the meadow to guard the flanks and prevent the enemy from getting behind the line or, in the final stages of the conflict, to prevent their escape into the wood.
At the trumpet call we took up our arms and ran to our positions. “Stay by me,” shouted Quintus. I struggled to force my hand through the straps of the shield and hurried after him. “Do what I tell you.”
General Septimus had placed us in sparse cover along the western side of the battlefield. We filled the gaps between trees and waited for the signal to close in.
“Remember what I told you,” Quintus said. “Let your shield do the work and strike up under it. Aim for the belly. Short thrusts. Make it quick. Trade blows with them and you’re dead.”
Just then the first Goth raiders came into view, rushing up over the riverbank. They were big men, with long fair hair, huge muscled chests, and arms they had smeared with red and black designs. Some of the leaders wore the mailed shirt and war helm, while others wore leather tunics covered with iron disks or rings. Most, however, wore neither shirt nor head covering of any kind and, I noticed, ran into battle barefoot. For weapons many wielded swords and a few had axes, but the rest had spears of various kinds, mostly short and easily thrown or used in close fighting.
Upon sighting the cohorts ranged for battle, the barbarians sent up a tremendous cry: a sound to rattle the bowels and raise fear in the boldest heart. My hand trembled on the sword hilt.
“Steady,” muttered Quintus. “Let it wash over you.”
I did not know what he meant: the
fear, the sound, the tremendous surge of energy? I let it all wash over me, drew a deep breath, and tried to stop my hand from shaking as I watched Goth warriors stream over the earthen rampart and across the meadow, closing with breathtaking speed.
The legionaries waited motionless, a rock headland about to take the battering of a wild and angry sea. Facing such a terrible assault, how could they stand so still?
Three heartbeats later the collision came with an earsplitting crash. Shield met shield, and blade met blade. The swift advance shuddered, halted, and staggered backward upon itself. The solid Roman wall took the full onslaught and did not buckle or break, but stood firm. A shout of acclamation rose from the watching auxiliaries. I cheered, too, much emboldened by such a handsome display of disciplined courage.
The barbarians, stunned by the obvious and utter failure of their principal tactic, fell back a pace or two. Those still rushing up from behind were thrown into stumbling confusion as they collided with their own men.
Seizing the momentary disorder, General Septimus commanded the cohorts to advance; the ranks moved forward a few paces, shortening the distance the barbarians had to maneuver. Pinned between the unbending Roman line and the crush of their own numbers from behind, the Gothi in the first ranks gave out a roar of anguished frustration and began hacking at the shield wall before them.
The clatter of blade on rim and boss reached us as the sound of hail on a tile roof. The legionaries, safe behind interlocked shields, forced the enemy back step by unforgiving step. The Gothi fell beneath the slow, controlled onslaught like so much stubble sliding under the threshing sledge.
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