by R. W. Peake
~ ~ ~ ~
My next memory is of opening my eyes to see the leather roof of a tent, the flickering light of an oil lamp making it seem as if the roof were dancing about. Within an eyeblink of regaining consciousness, an avalanche of pain emanating from my side and shoulder forced a gasp from my lips, my body spasming as if it had a mind of its own. Yet when I moved, it made the pain even worse and I passed out again. I do not know for how long this time. It was in this manner that I passed the next two or three days. I would regain consciousness for only brief moments before the all-powerful agony of my wounds rendered me senseless again. In those brief moments, I would hear snatches of conversation, and I thought I recognized the voice of Diocles, along with Scribonius, Balbus, and once I even thought I heard the voice of Vibius, yet I could not swear that it was he. During those short periods, a shadowy figure whose face I could never really make out would try to get me to sip some water or some concoction that tasted horribly bitter, which I fought, but thankfully was too weak to successfully ward off his ministrations. It was a world of shadows and smoke, where I would see my dead sister standing by my bedside, next to the one who still lived. Gisela came to visit, and we would talk and laugh as if she had never gone away. Once she even brought Vibi and my baby daughter to see me. I cannot lie, it was very pleasant and I remember thinking that if this was what it meant to be dead, it was not bad at all, particularly when compared to the wretched agony of those moments when I returned to this world. Slowly, the periods of time I remained conscious lengthened, but I was still too weak to talk so instead I listened and learned about my condition and what had happened at the battle. The first sign that I was regaining my strength was when I was able to turn my face to look at more than just the ceiling of the tent, though the effort left me with a pounding head and as exhausted as if I had just done a 30-mile forced march in full gear. That was how I learned that I was in my own tent, that I had indeed heard Diocles, who was sitting on a stool in the corner of the tent. I do not believe he ever left my side, as he was always there whenever I awoke. It was from the expression on his face, the exhaustion etching deep lines in his cheeks and the way his lips were pinched together, one of the surest signs that he was worried, that I determined just how grave my condition was. I finally was able to recognize the man who had been there to force water and medicine down my gullet, and more than Diocles’ manner, his identity told me that I had one foot in Charon’s Boat. It was one of Caesar’s personal physicians, not his chief surgeon, but one of his top assistants; I do not remember his name. I suppose I was unconscious for so long that the two had become accustomed to speaking about me as if I could not hear, which most of the time I could not, yet I vividly remember the first exchange I overheard between them. They were speaking in Greek, but by this time, I had picked up enough to understand what was being said, though I still could not converse very well.
“Has enough time passed to tell whether my master will live or not?”
The physician’s tone was not encouraging. Surprisingly, I was not particularly distraught by what he said, probably because of the dreams or visions I was having.
“The fact that he is still alive at all is a good sign, I suppose, but I honestly do not know why he is still breathing. In fact, I expect almost every breath he takes to be his last.” He chuckled, but without much humor. “But I have been expecting that for almost a week now.”
“But you said that since his bowel wasn’t pierced, he had a good chance,” Diocles protested.
I must say that news was a relief.
“No, I said that he had a chance,” the physician corrected Diocles. “I never said it was a good chance. And just because neither his bowel nor his intestines were pierced, that does not mean that his wounds will not become corrupt. Indeed, I am worried about the wound to his chest more than to his side because the flesh around the wound is turning proud and the pus is no longer clear.”
That explained why my shoulder and chest hurt relatively more than my side.
“I thought you got everything out of the wound. You said you were sure that you had gotten everything out of it.”
“I did.” The physician was beginning to sound irritated. “But that does not assure that the wound will not putrefy. Once I have done all that I can do, it is in the hands of the gods, and that is truly where the fate of your Primus Pilus lies. Do you know who his household gods are?”
Diocles assured him that he did.
“Then you should make offerings to them.”
Now it was Diocles’ turn to be indignant. “I have been, three times daily, and I’ve offered a white kid goat to the augurs when he recovers.”
“Then you should sleep well, because you have done all that you can do.”
“Don’t I have a say in the matter?”
I did not recognize my own voice, which was little more than a rasping sound that could only charitably be called a whisper, the forming of words feeling foreign to my tongue, but the reaction of the two men was worth the effort. It almost made me weep to see the joy on Diocles’ face as he knelt by my side, while even the physician looked pleased, impressed by his own skill, no doubt.
“Master, it’s good to hear your voice!”
“It’s good to be heard,” I replied, but that was all I could muster as I felt my eyelids growing heavy, so I turned my head away and fell asleep.
~ ~ ~ ~
The wound in my shoulder festered, becoming corrupt, the smell so sickening that it made keeping down what little I could tolerate almost impossible. I was beginning to think that I would not survive after all, but then the physician attending me brought Caesar’s chief physician along, and after a brief conversation, they talked to Diocles in low tones that I could not hear. I saw his expression change to one of disgust then he shook his head, but the physicians were insistent, so he left, clearly unhappy.
Only then did they turn to me, the man who had been treating me saying, “Primus Pilus, I think you know that you are in grave danger.”
I did not answer, only nodding my head.
“The wound in your shoulder has become corrupted, and while it is draining almost faster than we can change the dressing, it is not improving and in fact is getting worse.” He pointed to a series of red streaks radiating out across my chest and down my arm. “See those? That is a sign that the poison is moving through your system. Because of where the wound is located, cutting out the corruption is not an option. So,” he glanced at his superior, who had remained silent, “we are going to use the maggot treatment. It is your only hope.”
While I had suspected this was what he was going to bring up, it still made my stomach lurch. I had seen it used before, and while it was certainly effective, the men who had undergone the treatment had not recommended it. Diocles returned, his hands cupped together, his face wrinkled in revulsion and loathing at what he carried. It was not just the maggots themselves that I imagine he found so disgusting, it was how and where he found them. After a battle, in just a matter of three of four days, the air becomes black with flies busy laying their eggs in the rotting meat that is strewn about, so there is no shortage of maggots to be used. Nonetheless, plucking them from a rotting corpse is one of the more unpleasant tasks a man can undertake, and slave or not, I appreciated the fact that Diocles did so. He offered the physicians his harvest, and they peered into his hands, poking about before finally selecting three fat, wriggling specimens then bringing them to my bedside. Lifting the bandage, they placed the maggots in the wound, and the sensation of their movement in the hole in my flesh still ranks as one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life. Shortly after, I fell asleep again, my head filled with thoughts of worms eating my flesh.
~ ~ ~ ~
As disgusting and unpleasant as the experience of using the maggots may have been, it still proved to be effective. Barely two days later, there was a marked improvement in my condition as the red streaks subsided while the corrupted flesh was reduced, the maggots eatin
g happily away. The only problem was that the maggots became engorged on my rotten flesh so quickly that they had to be replaced every day, forcing Diocles to trudge out to the battlefield again and again, which he did without complaint. I finally improved to the point that I actually had an interest in what had taken place after I had fallen, so the physician finally relented, allowing some of the other Centurions to come visit, though they were ordered to keep their visits brief and no more than two at one time were allowed to see me. It was from them that I learned that our victory was total.
“Well, it's finally over,” Scribonius told me as he sat next to my bed. Seeing my raised eyebrow, he gave a rueful laugh. “No, Titus, it's really true this time,” he insisted. Continuing, he told me, “Gnaeus Pompey is dead; he was caught outside of Carteia and had his head lifted from his shoulders. His brother Sextus has disappeared, but he’s just a whelp, so he won’t be any trouble.”
“Yet,” I interrupted grimly.
My mental outlook was not the best at this point, I will be the first to admit. As much as I trusted Scribonius, knowing that he would not be telling me anything that he was not sure was true, this war had been going on for so long that I found it impossible to accept that it would ever be over.
Scribonius seemed about to argue, then simply shrugged. “That may be,” he admitted. “But it won’t be for some time; he’s barely out of his teens, if he’s that old.” I was too tired to argue, and in my silence, Scribonius pushed on. “After you fell, the battle turned in our favor when the Pompeians finally broke. I don’t know what you remember. They had started to fall back, but they were still fighting for every single inch of ground.”
I nodded that I did indeed remember, the feeling of doubt and despair still very clear, the idea that we had finally met an enemy we could not defeat as fresh a wound in my mind as those of my body.
“Well, for some reason that nobody really seems to know, they suddenly turned tail and began running for the town.” He shrugged. “You know what happens then. Still, a pretty good number of them actually made it into the town and made to put up a fight. Caesar put a stop to that pretty quickly, I can tell you.”
“How?” I asked, only mildly interested.
I was finding that topics that had seemed of utmost importance to me just a few weeks before could now barely hold my attention. I remember wondering if this was a temporary condition, or if I had reached that point that many soldiers do, of complete apathy about one’s situation, the clearest sign that it was time to get out of the army, before it was too late.
Scribonius grimaced, clearly uncomfortable with what he was about to describe. In a moment, I learned why. "To convince the garrison of his sincerity, he ordered us to build siegeworks.”
“So?” I interrupted. “That’s standard procedure. I don’t understand why that would scare them off the walls.”
“It wasn’t the siegeworks themselves, it was what they were made of that convinced the Pompeians to surrender.”
Now I was completely lost, and I said as much.
Taking a quick look around, as if hoping to catch someone eavesdropping, which would have been impossible since we were all alone in my tent, Scribonius continued. “We used the bodies of the dead Pompeians as breastworks. Every 50 feet we stuck the head of one of them on a spear, facing the walls, of course.”
As hardened as I was at that point, I still had to suppress a shudder at the thought of what that must have looked like.
Seeing my reaction, Scribonius nodded. “Exactly the same reaction the Pompeians had. It didn’t take them long to surrender after that.”
“I can imagine,” I agreed. I was struck by a thought. “And what of the other Pompeian generals? How many escaped this time?”
Now Scribonius’ smile was unfeigned, though it bore more than a trace of malice. “Labienus is dead,” he said with relish.
Forgetting how much it would hurt, I let out a whoop of delight, sending a stabbing pain through my body, but it was worth it. Of all the remaining Pompeians, Labienus was the man we hated the most, even more than Pompey’s sons. Gnaeus’ and Sextus’ implacability towards Caesar we understood. Even if it had been indirectly, Caesar was the cause of the death of their father and the ruin of their own fortunes and future, but Labienus had been Caesar’s most favored general in Gaul, and in our minds owed all that he was to Caesar. As we learned, Labienus did not see it that way, in fact viewing the situation in the exact opposite terms, that because of his brilliant generalship, Caesar had been the man to benefit more than himself. The fact that circumstances proved otherwise had not deterred him from being our most virulent foe. Indeed, perhaps that realization had fueled his hatred of Caesar and his cause even more.
“He was cut down outside the town, near the end of the battle as he tried to escape.”
“I hope he suffered,” I said fervently, and I meant it.
Moving on, Scribonius described Caesar’s movements as he mopped up the last remnants of resistance, marching first to Corduba with most of the army, where he was faced by the 9th and 13th Legions. Although the 9th immediately threw in with Caesar, the 13th refused to return to the fold, so to speak, for which they paid a heavy price, the 13th being wiped out almost to a man, part of more than 22,000 more dead. Fortunately, these were the last major casualties of the civil war, as now Caesar was finishing his inspection of the remaining towns still in Pompeian hands.
Turning to other matters, Scribonius seemed to hesitate, and I struggled to sit upright despite the pain I still felt moving about, alert to the change in his demeanor.
Before he could begin, I said sharply, “What is it?”
Scribonius winced. “Can’t you ever let a man work up to things in his own way?” he asked wryly.
“No, not when I’ve been lying here for weeks,” I snapped, then instantly regretted my tone, but Scribonius and I had been friends too long for him to be ruffled by my bluster.
“The 10th has been discharged,” he said, his tone as neutral as he could make it. I sat back, a flood of emotions running through me that I found hard to identify.
I cannot say that it was unexpected; we had been due for discharge some time, but I realized that the attitude of the men had infected me as well, with a deep-seated disbelief that the day would ever really come. Now it had, and I supposed that technically I was a civilian, as was Scribonius, and it was a very unsettling feeling.
My emotions must have been clear to Scribonius, who laughed. “Yes, it does feel strange, doesn’t it?”
Turning my mind back to the men, I asked the question that had immediately forced its way to the front, and that was whether Caesar had honored his promises. For a moment, Scribonius did not answer, and my heart started thudding heavily in my chest. If Caesar had gone back on his word, for any reason, the implications were enormous and not just in the political sense, but personally as well. I had been Caesar’s man through and through for half of my life. All that I had and all that I was I owed to him. My dignitas, such as it was, was as important to me as Caesar’s was to himself, albeit on a much smaller scale. Still, it was the thing that I held most dear, so if Caesar had reneged on his agreement, my standing among the men, at least those who would elect to remain in the army, would be substantially damaged. Caesar would return to Rome, but I would be left behind to deal with the aftermath. All of these thoughts were racing through my mind in the instant it took Scribonius to answer, though the gods were only toying with me again.
