The Sword of Rome

by Jeremiah McCall

  Second, while Plutarch may have been correct that there were senators who favoured peace, he can hardly have been correct to suggest that the senate collectively felt that way. The Insubrians had started this war, laid waste to the country of Roman allies, and slain thousands of Roman soldiers. Certainly some, if not many senators, would have been more than willing to see the Insubrians destroyed as a fighting power once and for all, and, equally as important, their territory pacified after the fears raised by the invasion of 225. Thus, while it is reasonable to believe Scipio and Marcellus pushed for continued war, it is hardly necessary to suppose that Marcellus needed to take the unorthodox tactic of agitating the popular assembly instead of persuading the senate. In the end, the war did continue, and that was assuredly the result of at least some senatorial support. Rebuffed, the Insubrians again obtained the services of Gaesatae mercenaries and prepared for an inevitable Roman invasion.

  When the spring arrived and the campaigning season began, the consuls led their forces across the Po and laid siege to Acerrae.41 Appreciating their choice of targets requires some consideration of Insubrian territory. The Po is a lengthy river running essentially west to east across northern Italy with its mouth roughly equidistant between modern day Venice and Ravenna. In the Roman world the large and fertile Po valley was the heartland of the Gallic peoples south of the Alps. The territory of the Insubrians began roughly at the confluence of the River Addua and River Po, which is approximately in the middle of the Po’s course, and extended north and west into the foothills of the Alps. The main settlement of the Insubrians, Mediolanum (modern Milan), was approximately seventy-five miles from the confluence. To reach this settlement, indeed to penetrate to any extent into the interior of Insubrian lands, required first passing the settlement of Acerrae. The very fact that the consuls needed to besiege it and could not storm it outright suggests the settlement was large and reasonably well defended. In short, to invade Insubrian territory and not take Acerrae meant leaving an enemy settlement positioned across Roman communication and supply lines as the armies progressed into the Insubrian interior.

  In an effort to lift the siege of Acerrae, a detachment of 10,000 soldiers from the Insubrian and Gaesatae forces separated from the main body, crossed the Po, and besieged the settlement of Clastidium belonging to the Anares, a Roman ally.42 Thus began the operation that was to be the cornerstone of Marcellus’ reputation for centuries. Marcellus left Scipio in charge of the siege operation at Acerrae and headed to relieve Clastidium with a force of cavalry and light infantry. The numbers involved are not completely clear. Polybius simply says that Marcellus took ‘the cavalry and a small body of infantry.’43 If ‘the cavalry’ refers to all of the Roman cavalry with the army, this would have totalled anywhere from 3,600 to 4,800 Roman and Italian cavalry – the arithmetic is four legions with 300 citizen cavalry and 600 to 900 allied cavalry per legion. Plutarch is more specific, saying that Marcellus took two thirds of the cavalry and 600 light infantry.44 This would put the force of cavalry somewhere between 2,400 and 3,200. While accepting the word of Plutarch over Polybius on military affairs can be risky, Plutarch’s figures are the more likely in this case since Scipio would almost certainly have wanted to keep at least some cavalry with him to serve as scouts and foragers, not to mention to fend off any potential enemy cavalry attempting to disrupt the siege at Acerrae.

  Marcellus had sound strategic reasons for heading to Clastidium with a small mobile force. When he arrived at Clastidium, however, the larger enemy force besieging the city may well have been more than he bargained for. To bolster the morale of his small forces, invoke the power of the gods, prepare memorials to his hoped-for victory, or some combination of these reasons, Marcellus made two vows to the gods that day prior to engaging the enemy. First, he dedicated a temple to Honos and Virtus, deified character traits that can be roughly translated as Honour and Manly/Martial Valour.45 It was a not uncommon tradition among Roman generals to vow temples to the gods in return for receiving a military victory. These temples served as lasting public monuments to an individual aristocrat’s victory and, it was believed, further cemented the bonds between the Romans and their gods. In Marcellus’ case, this was a particularly important opportunity to burnish his reputation and increase his glory in the eyes of the Roman people. For all he knew, the battle at Clastidium might be the only time he was in sole command that year. Nevertheless, it was a striking choice of gods to honour, for, as he certainly well knew, Honos already had a temple dedicated just over ten years before by the distinguished noble, Fabius Maximus.

  As it happened the god Honos had strong ties to the Roman cavalry, the men of the socio-economic elite who provided their military service to the Republic on horseback. Cavalry service was the most elite form of service and the cavalry symbolized at Rome the qualities of nobility and bravery, powerful associations for a Roman aristocrat. The connection between Honos and the cavalry was reasonably clear to all.46 Every year the members of the equites equo public, the 1,800 most distinguished members of the cavalry class who received a stipend at the public’s expense for purchasing and maintaining a warhorse, undertook a parade celebrating the prestige of the cavalry. The temple to Honos was an important stop for this parade, the transvectio equitum. Furthermore, the sacred day of celebration for Honos was 17 July, two days after the transvectio. When the temple was built in 233 by Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, the most distinguished living representative of the Fabii clan, it was almost assuredly done to emphasize the connection of the Fabii to the cavalry. It was Fabius Maximus’ great grandfather, Fabius Maximus Rullianus, who some seventy years earlier as censor had elevated the prestige of the transvectio equitum from a more minor religious ceremony to a larger scale, spirit-building military review. Rullianus may also have been responsible for ruling that cavalry troopers who received the honourific state-subsidized horse needed to remain physically fit for duty and could not simply count on their family’s high status for a horse. In these ways Rullianus enhanced the prestige of the cavalry as a warrior class and connected their prestige to the Fabii, a link that Fabius Maximus reinforced when he defeated the Ligurians of north Italy and used the loot to build a temple to Honos.47

  Marcellus was certainly aware of these connections and equally well aware that, in a culture where religion and politics were so closely linked, his dedication of even half a temple to Honos was a challenge to Fabius’ claims, an encroachment. Whether he had time to consider the implications of challenging such a powerful aristocrat fully, however, is not clear. After all, the dedication was apparently made right before the battle at Clastidium. The most likely explanation is that Marcellus’ forces were in a tight spot. They were a small cavalry force facing a much larger enemy force. The evidence for this battle suggests Marcellus was nothing if not attentive to the morale of his soldiers. What better way to inflate the morale of his cavalry troopers than to dedicate a temple to the gods that most represented the qualities associated with the cavalry, Honos and Virtus? Regardless of the justification in the moment of battle, however, Marcellus had stepped on the toes of a rival, one from an ancient Roman family, and one who had already held two consulships at that.

  The politics of the temple to Honos and Virtus would occupy Marcellus intermittently for the rest of his life, but it was his second vow of the day that would win him a reputation that would last as long as Roman civilization did. According to Plutarch, just before Marcellus closed with the enemy, he pledged a gift to Jupiter Feretrius, the finest enemy armour from that day’s spoils. That Marcellus made a dedication of this kind is wholly consistent with the reputation he had earned in his earlier years as a skilled practitioner of single combat. This was not a skill shared equally by Romans, certainly not by generals. What better way to add a unique element of glory to his battle than to dedicate enemy armour to the gods and look for an opportunity to be the one to claim that armour personally? Furthermore, beyond the personal prestige such a claim might earn him, it c
ertainly could only help the morale of his forces to see their general was so sure of victory that he was focused on the spoils that the Romans would win that day. Attention to these details of morale was an important component to Marcellus’ success as a commander.

  What happened next is not entirely clear insofar as Plutarch relates the event in some detail, while Polybius, an earlier and generally sounder source on military affairs, is silent – as for Livy, the book of his history that covers this year was lost centuries if not millennia ago. In Plutarch’s version, Marcellus and his cavalry approached the Gallic army, whose own cavalry were arrayed in the front. Before the forces closed, he dedicated the best suit of enemy armour despoiled that day to Jupiter Feretrius. Then the Gallic king Virdumarus, riding at the front of his cavalry, caught sight of Marcellus. He challenged Marcellus to a duel. Marcellus gamely agreed, and as the two riders charged close, he speared the Gallic leader off his horse and dispatched him on the ground. He then loudly declared that this was the armour he had promised to Jupiter and that victory should be granted to the Romans.48

  Though Plutarch gives the only detailed description, Marcellus’ duel and victory is quite well attested by other Roman sources.49 Polybius is wholly silent, however, on the duel between the enemy commanders, by far the most extraordinary part of the entire battle. Yet Polybius, it should be noted, had a marked tendency to pass over Marcellus’ achievements. The historical record is firmly against Polybius; Marcellus did clash with and kill the Gallic king in single combat. The main outlines of the battle after the duel are clear, though presented in a cursory fashion by the sources. Marcellus with only his small force of cavalry defeated a substantially larger Gallic force and broke the siege. On this point our main sources, Polybius and Plutarch are agreed. Plutarch rightly added the note that such a victory of so few cavalry over a much larger combined force of infantry and cavalry was uncommonly rare.50

  When we separate the strands of this battle, several important components help explain the Roman victory against the odds. The first is the attention Marcellus paid to raising the morale of his soldiers. Marcellus’ vow of a victory temple to the gods was not the only example. According to Plutarch, right before Marcellus led the charge, his horse in a fit of independence wheeled and headed toward the rear. Worried that his soldiers might see this as a bad sign from the gods, Marcellus wheeled his horse back around and ‘at the same time he went through the movements of praying to the sun, as if it was for this purpose that he had wheeled his horse, for the Romans always turn in this way when they offer worship to the gods.’51 The prayers and the victory temple showed the troops that Marcellus had gone beyond the call of duty to secure the good will of the gods and was so certain of victory that he had dedicated a temple to some of them. These were important symbolic gestures that could make a great deal of difference for soldiers about to risk death.

  Marcellus did more than simply talk about victory. He went out of his way to lead by example and show his courage through single combat. The skill set of a soldier in a formation, particularly a close-order formation such as the heavy infantry maniples of the third century Roman legions, was a different thing from the skill set of the warrior who could win unaided in a struggle to the death. The victor raised the morale of his comrades in the ranks while the slain cast the shadow of a doubt in the minds of those comrades who survived him. It does not take any naiveté to agree with the ancient authors on this point: single combats, because of their impact on morale, could play a critical role in the success of a battle.

  What happened in the duel at Clastidium, however, was more than any ordinary contest of the kind for which Marcellus had earned an early reputation. No, there he had killed the king and commander of the Gallic force in a highly visible display before the battle had started in earnest. The shock of seeing their king slain in single combat and despoiled by the enemy commander helps to explain how the Roman cavalry alone were able to defeat the Gallic forces. As we saw earlier, morale was the lynchpin to ancient battle. So long as soldiers maintained their formations and received the benefits of their comrades’ protection, casualties were generally minimized. Once the individuals came to feel – through wounds, noises, confusion, and fear – that their chances of survival would be better without the group, formations began to disintegrate, units lost their ability to fight, and the battle was lost. Begin the battle with the horror of seeing one’s king struck down, and it would take very little sensitivity to symbolism for an ancient soldier to feel unease if not outright foreboding about the battle to come.

  Certainly, Polybius’ description of the battle, terse though it is, highlights the critical role of morale in this battle and hints at the skill with which Marcellus commanded the Roman cavalry. The Gallic infantry were arrayed in battle formation outside the city. While the exact details of Gallic infantry formations of the late third century are mostly unrecoverable, they appear to have had a distinction between heavy infantry – in which the soldiers fought in close order – and light infantry – dispersed units of soldiers.52 It is not clear the extent to which Gallic heavy infantry forces were articulated into smaller units for maneuver, but it seems highly likely they lacked the sophisticated articulation of the Roman manipular army with its four types of infantry units. Based on Polybius’ description of the Gauls at the Telamon three years earlier, it is reasonable to assume that most wore only their clothing for armour, in addition to a shield, though perhaps some chose, as others had before, to fight completely naked, the better to intimidate the Romans.53 The primary weapon of the Gallic heavy infantry seems to have been their sword, an edged blade that, as Polybius assessed when describing the battle of the Telamon, was effective for slashing but unsuitable for stabbing.54

  Polybius suggests that the Gallic infantry stood their ground initially, but that the Roman cavalry attacked from the flanks and the rear. Where was the Gallic cavalry to protect the infantry’s flanks? While Plutarch explicitly refers to Gallic cavalry at the start of the battle, Polybius does not. The brevity of his overall description of the battle, however, suggests he did not wish to dwell on the matter. His silence does not rule out the presence of cavalry, which we would expect of most any Gallic field army, and certainly a detachment sent to raid into enemy territory. So while it is possible that the Gallic cavalry force was extremely small to begin with, no more than a bodyguard for Virdumarus, it is more likely that the force was larger. If the Gauls, as Plutarch says, had a legitimate cavalry force, they presumably were driven from the field after Virdumarus died, allowing the Roman cavalry to attack the main Gallic force unhindered. This would not have been the only time a cavalry force routed and left the infantry to their fate: most recently, the Roman cavalry had driven off the Gallic cavalry at the Telamon before charging the exposed Gallic infantry.55

  After the Gallic cavalry fled, the main attack on the infantry began. Again, Polybius notes the Gauls held firm initially when the Romans ‘boldly charged them with their cavalry alone.’56 It would be an over-confident if not incompetent general who ordered his cavalry into an all-out charge against the front of a well-ordered heavy infantry formation. Occasionally, though, such charges could be successful if the infantry was already in a state of disorder. Perhaps Marcellus hoped to capitalize on the momentum gained by slaying the enemy king and driving off their cavalry by scattering the Gallic infantry with a charge. In this case, however, it is difficult to explain how the cavalry successfully charged the front of the infantry when it was in an orderly state, and indeed the infantry continued to be in an orderly state after the charge. Certainly, Marcellus was well aware that cavalry had little hope of success in a frontal assault against infantry ready to receive the charge. Perhaps he was testing the mettle of the Gallic infantry by making a feint at the front line. Once the feint proved unsuccessful, however, the Roman cavalry engaged in the standard tactics for defeating enemy infantry; attacks on the flanks and rear.

  However it came to pass, it was not until
the cavalry attacked the flanks and rear that they, in Polybius’ words, literally ‘rendered’ the Gallic combatants ‘useless in battle.’57 In other words, the attacks did not destroy the Gauls themselves, only their ability to fight. With their king already dead and his corpse despoiled, the Gauls would have been particularly vulnerable to the kind of fear that shattered armies. Those panic-stricken soldiers who were not cut down in the rout threw themselves in the river, and the current carried them off. Marcellus had taken advantage of the speed and flexibility of the Roman cavalry to do what it did best; attack the more vulnerable flanks and rear of enemy formations.

  After the victory at Clastidium, the accounts of Polybius and Plutarch diverge somewhat again. That Roman forces soon took Acerrae and, subsequently, moved on to storm the Insubrian stronghold of Mediolanum is agreed to by both sources. Polybius, however, suggests that Scipio alone marched on Mediolanum. When he arrived, the Gauls kept safe behind the walls of the settlement. Scipio opted to return to Acerrae, but while marching his army was attacked in the rear and a number of Roman soldiers died. Scipio rallied his troops and won the day.58 Plutarch, on the other hand suggests that Marcellus returned with his detachment to find Scipio besieging Mediolanum and the two consuls took the city together. Polybius, however, had already shown a willingness to understate Marcellus’ achievements in the campaign of 222; he may have done so in this case as well. His close connection to the Cornelii Scipiones, whose ancestor was Marcellus’ consular colleague in 222, may have prompted him to prefer evidence and a narrative that gave some credit to the consul Scipio that year, while still preserving a reasonably accurate narrative of the campaign.