On this day, it would be the last sight beheld by many more such warriors.
Three dozen vessels in even succession crept out from a narrow cove, their oars caressing the water's surface to the rhythm of the drum. When the last ship had weathered the cape, the fleet abandoned the single-file line and effortlessly maneuvered into a formation resembling a giant diamond. An unintelligible order drifted amongst the staccato of the drums, and the lead ship, a quinquereme of three banks of oars, unfurled its giant square-rigged sail. Each of her consorts followed suit until a forest of purple canvas floated above the sea, catching every breath of the offshore breeze.
It was as fine a day for sailing as the Rhodian admiral might have hoped for. As he stood on the quarterdeck of the lead quinquereme, squinting his eyes to gaze back upon the long lines of sails behind him, he thanked the gods for the fair weather, and for the clear seas. His thirty-six warships had spent the last weeks ducking from one island to the next, from one hidden cove to another, traveling under moonlight when possible and anchoring at the first light of day that they might not be seen. Throughout the long and arduous journey they had managed to remain unnoticed with only one exception. This came when a sudden gale forced them to seek shelter in the abandoned port of Halieis on the east coast of the Peloponnese. The dilapidated little town had been largely empty, the crumbling walls of its centuries-old acropolis nearly overtaken by the brush, but the Rhodian admiral was sure at least one of the curious vagrants he had seen among the ruins had understood that the passage of so many warships would be valuable news to the Roman Senate, especially since the Senate had attempted to recruit these same warships to their own cause when their ambassadors had approached him weeks ago in Thrace. Now, the exiled Senators would know that he had gone over to the other side, and they would also deduce his ultimate destination.
But what had they expected? Did they not understand that he and his men did not put to sea for any causes other than gold and silver? Caesar had promised to pay ample sums of both, enough for every last seadog to spend the next year drunk on the shore. Thus, they sailed for the port of Brundisium where they were to reinforce Marc Antony’s motley assemblage of transports and then assist in ferrying the rest of Caesar's army across to Greece. With the anticipation of this gold at the forefront of their thoughts, they had made good time, swiftly skirting the Peloponnese, keeping the coast just within view. The lookout had been doubled, each man straining his eyes to study every crag and cove, expecting the entire Optimates fleet to pounce from each one. But the journey had been uneventful. No ambush had appeared to block their path, and now all that remained was the final leg, in which they would leave the surety of the coast and strike out across the sea to Italy.
The admiral had begun to think their journey favored by the gods, that they might reach their final destination without ever encountering the enemy. But then, the dreaded announcement came from the lookout.
“Masts on the horizon, sir! Several of them!”
The masts were not near the coast, as the admiral would have expected, but out on the open sea ahead, a mass of sticks riding along the distant mirror edge. Soon, narrow hulls appeared beneath the sticks with banks of oars rising and falling out of the shimmering expanse, the lead ships flying the purple standard of Rome, confirming his worst fears. The Optimates fleet had found them.
“I count thirty-eight ships, sir!” the lookout called. “Warships, every one! Heading straight at us! They’re cleared for action, sir!”
Could it be? The admiral dared to hope. Only thirty-eight ships meant this was not the entire Roman fleet, but only one or two squadrons. His fears had been predicated on the reports that the Roman fleet numbered in the hundreds. This was something quite different. In fact, the tables had perhaps now turned in his favor.
The two fleets drove at each other like two lethargic swarms of insects, the Rhodians with a new found confidence in the evenly matched numbers, the Romans pressing harder that their quarry might not have time to organize an effective defense.
The Rhodian admiral laughed at the Roman arrogance. For it was well-known that his fleet had no equal. The Rhodians were the masters of the seas. Perhaps the word had not yet reached these western lands, but from the muddy, tree-lined shores of the Euxine Sea down to the sunbaked coast of Egypt, every mariner knew of the mighty Rhodian fleet that had never been defeated in battle. For the right price, they would tip the balance of power in any conflict.
His captains were all proficient and well-drilled in large-scale engagements. Thus, the admiral did not have to give them explicit orders to set them in motion. He ordered the attack pennant run up. Upon seeing this, his captains knew what to do. They maneuvered their agile warships into formation as methodically as the players in an Apollonian dance. As the Roman fleet drew nearer, the Rhodian ships compressed into a circle around the admiral’s flagship and held station there as if they were bound by invisible spokes.
The arrangement gave the appearance of defense, but oh how the Romans would learn its true nature very soon – and before they could do anything about it.
In contrast, the overly eager Romans had assumed no discernible formation whatsoever. They came on at great speed, each racing to be the first to engage. The smaller and swifter triremes made up more than half of the Roman fleet, and these sprinted well out ahead of the lumbering quinqueremes until a good league of open water separated the two groups.
The Rhodian admiral beamed with delight when he saw this, certain now that the Romans' rashness would be their undoing.
As the front line of triremes drew within range, their ballistae began recoiling on their mounts, flinging their missiles at the nearer edge of the Rhodian circle. The range was too great for good accuracy, but some of the long bolts found their marks, slicing through rigging and skewering rowers at their oars. Most fell harmlessly into the sea. As they had been trained to do, the Rhodian ships held their formation, bearing the Roman fusillade, returning only a few ineffectual salvos, the merest appearance of a defense.
The Rhodian admiral nodded with approval at the discipline of his captains, for it was all a ploy meant to give false confidence to their attackers and lure them nearer. He waited patiently for the right moment. Then, when the overly confident Roman triremes had drawn too close to get away, he gave the order. Signal flags shot up the yard arm, and his hitherto passive fleet sprang into action. In perfect unison, his ships broke formation, their glimmering oars coming to life with a sudden alacrity. They fanned out, leaving the tight circle which had given the illusion of fewer numbers and drove into a line stretching longer than that of the Roman triremes. Alarmed at the suddenness of this movement, and suspecting a trap, the Romans backed water and brought their rocking hulls to a stop. But this only played into the hands of the Rhodian line which did not seek to engage the Roman ships in a missile exchange. The Rhodian vessels on the flanks had been carefully chosen for their speed and skill with the ram. Now, with great litheness, they swung around like long arms to embrace the Roman line, and then drove straight at the stalled wings. One by one the jagged edges of the submerged bronze rams ran at full speed into the exposed beams of the Roman triremes, turning the sea to foam and filling the air with the gut-wrenching sounds of lead-plated keels and giant oak girders snapping. Hulls shuddered such that their seams burst. Masts toppled, some over the side fouling other ships, some onto the decks crushing the men beneath. Many of the punctured ships filled with the sea and immediately began to sink, while others hung onto the rams like harpooned whales in the throes of death. With the flanks smashed, some ships in the center of the Roman line sought to come about in place, but most thought better of it, realizing that such a maneuver would expose their beams to the rams in the Rhodian line facing them. Left with few choices, each drove directly for the nearest Rhodian vessel, seeking a boarding action. But this, too, was precisely what the Rhodian admiral desired, since he had placed the ships with the largest crews and the best fighters in the ce
nter of his line.
The two lines of ships drove together amidst the incessant exchange of arrows. Grapples flew across the gaps between the hulls and the horrific melees began. Little maneuvering occurred after that, the trapped Roman triremes and the surrounding Rhodian ships transformed into a massive, floating arena. Cries of battle erupted here and there as sword and pike-wielding marines leapt from one grappled ship to another. The Romans were vastly outnumbered, many with Rhodian ships lashed to each side, but they fought courageously as hordes of howling mercenaries poured onto their decks. Shrieking marines, sailors, and rowers fought side-by-side, sharing shields and spilling Rhodian blood with every weapon they could find, slickening the decks with gore. They resisted bravely, but all of their valor could not withstand the overwhelming might of their attackers. Individual struggles quickly transmuted into a series of last stands, and, one by one, the Roman ships began to surrender.
The Rhodian flagship stood off well behind the tangle of vessels such that the admiral could direct the battle. Observing from the stern deck, the admiral was pleased, and somewhat surprised, by the ease with which the triremes had been overcome. He looked past the embroiled ships to the line of Roman quinqueremes which had come to a stop a half league beyond. The Roman cruisers were holding back, undoubtedly fearful of meeting the same fate as their sisters. By all appearance they looked ready to turn and run, and by all logic they should, since they were now outnumbered, the other half of their fleet having been isolated, swallowed, and digested before their eyes.
The admiral considered ordering his grappled ships to break away from their prizes and reform for pursuit, and he was about to give this order, when dozens of fiery projectiles suddenly took flight from the decks of the Roman quinqueremes. The tongues of flame climbed slowly into the sky like the ejecta of an erupting volcano.
The admiral was not immediately concerned by this. It was undoubtedly an act of desperation, a parting shot to cover the Romans’ withdrawal. The quinqueremes were at the extreme range of their heavy engines, and he fully expected the flaming missiles to fall harmlessly into the sea. But as he watched the glowing projectiles draw their black arcs across the sky, his trained eye realized that the trajectories were not haphazard. They had been well-aimed, each one intended for a specific target among his own outlying ships. His deductions were confirmed when the fireballs came down with a thunderous roar, more than a third striking their marks and setting the crews of his tightly clustered ships into a panic. Like hail from Hades, the pitch-laden stone balls smashed through the wooden decks, setting everything in their path ablaze. The battle had come on quickly, and thus some of his ships had not had time to store their collapsed sails in the lockers deep within the damp hold. Long clumps of furled sailcloth lay strewn on the deck, like kindling arranged around a campfire. One after another of these ships burst into flames as the fiery projectiles found the dry linen. Within moments, another enemy barrage had taken to the sky, this one descending on the ships missed by the first volley. These missiles fell with even greater accuracy, two and sometimes three striking a single ship, smashing through oak, armor, and flesh in their destructive passage, starting multiple fires in the lower decks. Many crews, after brief attempts at containment, leaped into the sea to escape the rising infernos.
In his many engagements at sea, the Rhodian admiral had never witnessed artillery employed with such precision, certainly never among the Romans. He found himself staring with open-mouthed admiration even as the fusillade wrought destruction on his own fleet.
The circle of Rhodian ships that had converged around the Roman triremes now resembled a great ring of fire, with most of the outer vessels ablaze. The crews of the untouched ships in the center, still in the final junctures of the boarding melees, were overcome by a wild panic upon seeing the fates of their screaming brethren. They hurriedly withdrew to their own vessels, no longer concerned with the capture of prizes, but only with escape, lest the horrendous fire spread amongst their own tightly packed ships.
The Roman quinqueremes now advanced, slowly picking up speed, never ceasing the barrage, and seemingly impervious to any missiles the Rhodians sent back in their direction. Whenever an unscathed vessel left the fiery circle, it immediately became the target of every Roman ballista until it, too, burned like the others.
As he watched with dejection, the Rhodian admiral realized that his defeat was sealed. He had fatally underestimated his foe, and now his ships would be fortunate enough should they escape, much less continue on their journey to Italy. It was time to withdraw.
“Signal the fleet,” he commanded. “Disengage. Let every ship fend for herself.”
The signal was given, and any of his captains who could read it through the smoke and the flames might do as they will. With a casual wave of his hand, the admiral ordered his own ship turned about and steered for safe waters.
As expected, the Romans did not pay the flagship any mind, for she was well removed from the heart of the battle and too far away to bother with, especially when they could simply wait for the easier prizes to emerge from the circle of fire. The wind soon shifted, masking the whole mass of embroiled ships in a cloud of black smoke, the screams of the burning and dying fading in the distance.
The admiral sighed, pondering the great loss of time and expense, and how quickly fortune had turned against him. It was almost as if the Roman commander had intended all along to sacrifice his triremes that he might use his superior artillery to win the day. But, whether it had been a coolly calculated plan, or simply the unpredictable nature of battle, he would never know.
The quest of the Rhodian fleet had ended in complete disaster. The admiral, however, would escape and live to fight another day. Of course, he would have to hide out in some sparsely inhabited part of the world for a time, until the kin of all those he had led to their deaths had quite forgotten about him. There was always a need for swords for hire on the Euxine Sea. He still had a good ship, and a good crew that was devoted to him. Perhaps, now that the Romans were busy fighting each other, he might try his hand at the lucrative life of piracy.
“Ship there, sir!” the lookout’s voice interrupted his thoughts. The man pointed at the billowing cloud of smoke in the flagship’s wake beyond which the battle still raged.
The admiral turned and looked just in time to see the high prow of a Roman quinquereme materialize from the smoke, her bow jumping from one crest to the next and tossing the seas aside as she came on at full stroke. She was alone, but her intentions were clear. She meant to engage the flagship, and she was closing at an alarming rate.
“Battle speed!” shouted the admiral with a managed coolness.
The whips cracked and the oars increased their pace, but the Roman ship did likewise, and still the distance between the ships diminished with every thrust. It was not long before flocks of arrows and bolts began flying between the vessels. As men fell all around him, transfixed with the deadly missiles, the admiral fully expected his flagship to be roasted like all of her sisters, but, surprisingly, no fire came from the Roman vessel. His own ballistae sent flaming bolts into the Roman’s bulwark, but these were quickly quenched by sailors who briefly exposed themselves to dump buckets of seawater on the flames. The Rhodian archers killed a few of these, but it seemed this had little or no impact, since the dead sailors were instantly replaced by others.
Seeing that he would eventually lose the chase, and that the Roman captain intended to board, the admiral began ordering wild maneuvers to throw off his opponent. Perhaps, if he turned sharply and often enough, the opportunity to grapple would never come. With any luck, the Roman might make a wrong turn and expose his beam to the flagship’s ram. But then, the admiral saw several projectiles fly from the Roman deck, each trailing behind it a long tether. Two of these managed to strike the flagship’s beam, driving firmly into the oak.
“Harpago!” one of his crew announced.
Both Roman harpoons had penetrated well below the railing
and far from any portal. Thus, for a man to attempt to cut the attached hemp cable he would have to be lowered over the side. The admiral selected four of his most agile sailors for this, but all four were quickly feathered with Roman arrows the moment they left the protection of the bulwark. As the cable stretched taut, and the Romans slowly reeled the two ships together, the admiral donned helmet and sword, and took up position with his bodyguards and several dozen armed marines and sailors behind a wall of arrow-riddled shields.
As they all waited for the inevitable fight, the admiral snuck a peek over the brim of one shield to see a mass of Roman helmets and bristling sword points, assembled by the rail of the enemy ship and preparing to board. They looked to be formidable warriors with battle-maddened eyes that shined like pools behind the shadowy slits in their faceplates. But one stood out from the rest, and the admiral concluded that this man must be his adversary. For he wore a lapis blue cloak over a bronze cuirass and a white-plumed helmet on his head. Although the faceplate hid his features, the tailings of a beard covered the exposed neck beneath his chin. He stood at the forefront of the gathering, speaking in low tones as if to keep the eager warriors steady in the face of the slaughter into which they were about to step.
The admiral momentarily lost sight of the blue-cloaked officer when the two ships ground together, shearing off every oar, arrow, or javelin that had been protruding from that side. The impact knocked nearly every man on both ships to his knees. A silent interval passed, in which each man regained his feet. The next moment, the enemy horde began spilling over the bulwarks, slashing and jabbing, pushing back the dazed Rhodians, and establishing an ever-widening foothold. Although the two forces were nearly even in number, the methodical Romans found the gaps in the chaotic Rhodian defense. Where the mercenaries fought in pairs and threes, the Romans fought in squads, covering each other’s flanks, and moving instantly at every bidding of the blue-cloaked officer. He pointed his reserves into every gap in the lines, seeing opportunities where an untrained eye might perceive only a jumbled throng of swinging swords and battered shields. The Rhodians fell by the dozen, the course of the battle decidedly in the Romans’ favor, its direction changing only once, when the frantic rowers abandoned their oars belowdecks to storm onto the main deck, catching the Romans off their guard and slaying more than a dozen. But the composed Roman commander quickly recovered from this. He organized a counter-attack and regained control of the hatchways, ordering his marines to thrust a gladius through the neck of any man who dared emerge thereafter.
Rome: Tempest of the Legion (Sword of the Legion Series) Page 10
