Legatus Legionis: Book Two in the Gaius Claudius Scaevola Trilogy

by Miller, Ian

  The exercises continued, and at the same time the legion made by far the slowest march towards their destination of the three legions. However, Gaius became more confident; with each exercise, the situation became more complex and more difficult to resolve, but that was because each group was performing so much better. Because the format of proceedings were more or less known to all, it became increasingly difficult for any of them to do anything original, which of course meant that the legion was developing procedures to deal with just about anything. That, of course, did not mean there would be no problems; just because the legion could manoeuvre did not mean the enemy could not fight well. The important point, from Gaius' point of view, was that now the legion had minimized the chances of fighting man on man in single combat. Even small groups of men fighting coherently for each other was a great improvement on single-man combat, as in single combat the Roman soldier had no advantage over his opponent, and in some ways his heavy armour put him at a disadvantage. Even the forming of a small shield wall turned the odds significantly back to the Romans.

  * * *

  They were almost to the coast when the next mail arrived, and Gaius was pleased to receive a letter from Vipsania.

  My Darling Gaius,

  Spring is here, the trees are greening nicely and many are in blossom. You will be very pleased to know that the rains were good, so it looks like a promising start to the year.

  I am afraid I haven't got any further as regards Quintus, and I don't think I can. Word must have got back from Egypt that I had been asking questions, and Quintus became quite angry. I think the fact that I am a woman has something to do with it, and his attitude was quite overbearing. He did not explain anything, and he seemed to think that any explanation to me was unnecessary. I am sorry, but I think that's as far as I am likely to get.

  I have met another problem. Polybius had been helping me, but it seems he has been mourning a brother (I have no idea how he died) and his work efforts have declined. He requested Claudius to relieve him of his appointment, but Claudius was in no mood to agree. Polybius was told to straighten up, or else; he might have been freed, but he was still in the service of the state. The overall result is that now he cannot help me, which means I cannot see how to make further progress. I am not the only one he cannot help either. Seneca, from exile, wrote to Polybius to console him on his loss, but in reality it seems to have been an attempt to get Polybius to help him get back to Rome. That isn't going to happen, and in his present mood Polybius is not going to help anyone, possibly not himself either.

  It appears that kissing shoes might well be a sound strategy after all, since Vitellius has been made Consul. It seems that some of the other courtiers must have guessed or known this was going to happen, because there has been a lot of real grovelling to Vitellius going on for some time. From what I can make out, you got on reasonably well with him while you were in Syria, so his being Consul can't be too bad.

  Mind you, being Consul this year may not be all that desirable. The Senate is definitely restless. They seem to be laughing at Claudius, and I think some of them, including Marcus Vinicianus and Valerius Asiaticus, expect Claudius to fail. Poor Claudius has an awful lot riding on this invasion, so it better not fail. Of course I have no doubt that the Valeria will sweep all before it, and believe me, if it does, you will get just about anything you wish. Besides the invasion working, it has to work with soldiers that don't have their own eyes on the Principate, and I know that you are one of the few that Claudius really trusts.

  So, our future lies in your hands. Doesn't that make you feel good?

  Your loving Vipsania.

  Gaius laughed hollowly at the last part. The future would come, irrespective of whether he was there, although he did acknowledge that his actions might well alter it. That Vitellius was Consul was certainly not the worst thing that could happen, although it would make very little difference to him because the position would last for a year, and he would be invading Britain through the whole Consulship.

  The reference to Quintus annoyed him. He would write a letter to him, requiring him to produce the documentation Vipsania had requested. Quintus should consider a request from her to be a request from him; if he sent her away, calling her a woman, he was sending him away, calling him a woman, and when he, Gaius, returned to Rome Quintus would answer for any such insults.

  Quintus' antics were just what he needed; just when he was to embark on an expedition that would be the height of his career, he had to deal with an arrogant relation.

  Chapter 21

  Legio IX Hispana, having much further to travel, and also requiring a replacement for its duties, would not join the invasion until much later in the season but the three legions that had marched from the Rhine, Legio II Augusta, Legio XIV Gemina Martia and Legio XX Valeria were sufficient for this channel port to be a seething mass of humanity and of chaos. Food and materials had to be acquired, and since the heavy equipment had been brought by boat down the Rhine and along the coast, it had to be reunited with its legion. Everything had to be recorded, particularly the money. There was a huge fortune in coin, more than most tribal kings could ever hope to amass, but with three legions guarding it there was little opportunity for theft.

  Clerks were everywhere, recording everything. The power of Rome arose not from the gladius and shield wall, formidable though they may be, nor from the ability of the ordinary Roman soldier to achieve the extraordinary, but rather from the ability to organize and deploy over great distances such a massive disciplined force kept in supply. The ability to bring over twenty thousand well-disciplined troops to a chosen point at a chosen time, then to mount an attack with all units coordinated to preset goals meant that the tribally dependent Celts could not defeat this invasion once it became established.

  Just because Rome could do it, however, did not mean there were no slip-ups. Inevitably equipment was mixed up, lost, misplaced, and sorting out the mess was a task for every man who could read. The ability to read led to a safer life; the ability to read and fight led to rapid promotional prospects. A number of soldiers whose reading ability was marginal at best were now helping. If they were lucky, they might get noticed. If they were unlucky, they would get noticed, as someone else would have to deal with the resultant chaos.

  One beneficial legacy of Gaius Caesar was the experience gained from carrying out a similar exercise only a few years before. Some previous mistakes had been avoided, but the problem of interlegionary competitiveness had not. Something was always in short supply, and the respect that a Tribune gained lay partly in his ability to ensure that the shorter the supply, the greater the fraction he acquired. One source of interlegionary competitiveness arose from the fact that a Tribunus Laticlavius was always given more by the General Staff, and by various clerks. A legion had one Tribunus Laticlavius; the Valeria gained an immediate advantage by allegedly having three. This was something of an irritation to the other legions.

  However, in terms of irritation, the Flavians were leading the charge. While Vespasian had a legion, Plautius had made Vespasian's older brother, Sabinus, a staff officer, thus superficially giving the Augusta a clear advantage. Then, when Vespasian complained to Plautius that one of Gaius' Tribunes got something he thought should have gone to the Augusta, Plautius quietly told Vespasian that if Sabinus couldn't manage that little problem, then maybe he needed better staff officers. Vespasian then learned that Gaius had previously served under Plautius. Expletitives flew.

  "Another scared-shitless youngster of senatorial rank wanting glory from the back of the Roman soldier," was the very mild form of the gruff assessment that eventually got relayed to Gaius.

  Gaius simply laughed when he heard about that statement and suggested that Vespasian be informed that at least he had killed enemies of Rome and not Roman citizens. Later and privately he was annoyed. How dare that man! A man who responded to having filth thrown all over him by persecuting those whom the erratic Little Boots had singled out for
attention. A man who was given a legion by Claudius to get him out of Rome! Admittedly, he was a man given a legion by Claudius because the discipline in that legion was poor, which meant he got this legion for similar reasons that he, Scaevola, had got his. Vespasian was a man who had the cheek to criticize advancement the way he, Vespasian, had advanced! Yes, Vespasian's assessment of the promotional system of the Roman army had some truth to it. Such appointments sometimes led to useless legates, whose ineptitude was covered for by the determination of the ordinary soldier, and the fighting ability of the centurions and NCOs.

  Vespasian was a political animal of the first order. One way or another, he had acquired the backing of Vitellius, and through him he had ingratiated himself with Gaius Caesar, and apart from the filth, he had been useful to Little Boots. Come the change, come the political skills! Somehow he had got to be on extremely good terms with Narcissus, who, thanks to Claudius' distrust of everybody else in Rome, had acquired an extremely powerful position, effectively Chief of Home Affairs. Many people thought it was Narcissus' influence that had lead to Vespasian commanding the Augusta, but Gaius knew better because Claudius had told him. Probably even Vespasian did not know the real reason. And that man had the cheek to question his position! Damn the man! Youngster! He was only a few years older himself, and most of those years had been spent advancing up the political ladder.

  Vespasian was not tall, but he was a powerful man with close-cropped hair, a bull neck, a large nose, powerful jaw, and huge muscular arms. He had the reputation of a no-nonsense commander with zero tolerance for some of the antics of lesser officers. He had none of the tolerance shown by the great Julius. Julius, when told of men reeking of perfume would comment that his men fought better that way, probably because if they didn't, they were in deep trouble. But when Vespasian smelt a perfumed officer, there was an immediate demotion. Apparently, Vespasian commented that the man might have had the good sense to stink of garlic.

  When the Valeria finally reached the port zone, the long sequence of exercises had knocked out the slackness that had come from a long period of doing nothing and the lack of discipline passed on from ill-disciplined Legates more interested in plotting than maintaining a fighting force. Nevertheless, Gaius continued a series of drills that were far more intense than those of any other legion. Gaius intended to win with unconventional manoeuvres to minimize casualties and ensure quicker victory. Accordingly, the legion would drill until every conceivable movement and formation that he might require was second nature.

  Apparently Vespasian's spies had watched these drills and it seemed that the latest formation, emphasizing breadth rather than depth, had made a poor impression on Vespasian, or so Gaius had been told. That raised an interesting question: how would he know? From what he could gather, Vespasian had followed the standard route for someone outside the strict senatorial families: he had spent some years as a Tribune in Thrace, then had followed the standard political route back in Rome. The period in Thrace had not been notable for any military action, so while Vespasian would know the standard army tactics, it was less clear that he had any field combat experience. Accordingly, Vespasian could be expected to use standard tactics. The standard tactic was to bludgeon the enemy, then replace the front-line men with fresh ones and continue bludgeoning. This appeared to be the approach Vespasian intended to take, with the modification of placing emphasis on artillery to do the bludgeoning. His intended approach to a fortified village or town was to level it with rocks, or incinerate the villagers with fireballs. The philosophy seemed to be, surrender or die.

  While this might be effective, it was counterproductive: dead men did not pay taxes, and the relatives of dead men felt they had to get vengeance. Much better to leave as many alive as possible, because a man who had surrendered did not provide sufficient reason for a cause, and the payment of taxes was not sufficient cause for a relative to feel the need to revolt or fight. Even apart from the instructions Athene had given him, and that Rebecca had added in support, pointless killing was something he would not tolerate. No, he would win with the minimum of killing by being a better commander.

  In the event he got open ground, Gaius decided he might line up broadly; the enemy would either match or not match. If they did not, it would be reasonably straightforward to turn an enemy flank and attack the rear. If they did, he would select the weakest spot he felt to be critical, then launch a wedge formation at it, the remaining forces now forming oblique lines, and some moving to reinforce the attack. The Celts were not professional soldiers and would not respond well to a fluid situation. They only had light infantry, mostly spearmen without armour who would not be able to embarrass him by rapidly punching a hole in a cohort of heavy infantry, and even if they had a minor success, they did not have the command and control to take full advantage. The second difficulty for them was that their initial deployment would be their final deployment. The final deployment of the twentieth would look nothing like the initial deployment, unless there was no option, such as a frontal attack on a fortified position.

  When a Centurion asked him about these tactics, Gaius simply said that his soldiers' lives were too valuable to waste on battles of attrition. These words spread through the legion like wildfire. Even grumbling about drills stopped. Staying alive while winning was a goal the men could relate to.

  Gaius also spent much time with the exercises, even at times personally taking a part to help someone who was in trouble. At first the optios were unhappy, feeling they were being criticized, but each time he intervened he did so by pointing out that he saw something that might go wrong, he wasn't doing anything in particular, so he was just joining in to help. What he hoped was that others would follow his example and help whenever they saw some other soldier in difficulty. They needed to work as a team, not as a bunch of observers. What happened next was that whenever he was around, special efforts were made to ensure nobody needed his help. The cohorts were becoming more coordinated and the men appreciated what he was doing for them.

  Once these new tactical moves were being performed to his satisfaction, he initiated drills in his other new tactic. It was not unknown for Roman commanders to take the first cohort and use it independently, but he was taking this concept further. He would take the standard separation into three groups of cohorts, but use these to launch simultaneous attacks in slightly different locations, but combined in objective. The enemy would have to improvise. If they merely charged ahead, as he expected they would, they would be enveloped and crushed as if on the horns of the bull. This was a fairly standard Roman tactic. If they split, then the better Roman appreciation of the situation and better coordination would win through. This was not exactly novel; he was taking a tactic of a Roman army group, and employing at the legion level. Of course he could only do this on suitable terrain and the deployment might have to change before battle commenced. That was why the legion was drilling twice as hard as any other legion, and not, as Vespasian seemed to think, because he could not get the standard drill right.

  The hell with Vespasian! The twentieth would have the best manoeuvres, carried out the fastest, of any of the legions. As for Vespasian's brother, the hell with him too!

  * * *

  On his first meeting with Vespasian, Gaius was struck by the fact that everyone was deferring to him and trying to get his attention, which was a waste of time since Vespasian ignored them. Well, someone was going to be different. Claudii were not noted for being deferential! Vespasian noticed him, and strode towards him.

  "Your men haven't got here yet?" Vespasian frowned. It was not until later that Gaius realized that Vespasian seemed to have a perpetual frown.

  "They're camped about two hours march to the north," Gaius replied, then he kicked himself. Vespasian knew that anyway! He had been watching the training!

  "Don't want to mix with the rest of us, huh?"

  "Better forage there," Gaius shrugged.

  Vespasian stared for a moment, then nodded as he
said, "That's a good enough reason. Is there spare forage there?"

  "A few miles to the east there's plenty."

  "I'll tell my cavalry commander," he said, and turned away to deal with his next problem. If nothing else, Gaius noted, while Vespasian's social graces were slight, he was efficient.

  * * *

  Organizing the running of the cohorts was the Tribunes' job and Gaius felt it was more important that he showed he trusted them to do it than he spent time overseeing. The trick was to show he trusted them rather than to give the impression that he did not care. So, each morning he required reports as to what problems were being dealt with, what problems were solved, and any problems that might seem to be too difficult for the Tribune. No Tribune would permit anything into the last category unless it bordered on the insurmountable, so by about ten o'clock each morning he had time to deal with some of the more vexing problems facing him.

  Gaius also felt that the Tribunes would prefer it if he was not watching while misunderstandings were sorted. As a reason to be out of their way, he decided to go for a walk along the coast. He had hardly gone any distance when he noticed that the reef he had seen previously was gone, and the beach was almost submerged.

  "It's the tides," Timothy remarked. "You remember we discussed them. They were first discovered by Pytheas."

  "If they're this big here," Gaius muttered, "it is fairly obvious that the locals would know about them well before Pytheas turned up."

  Timothy was about to mutter something about a certain anti-Greek feeling, but decided against it. "They would know about them," he conceded.

  "So the moon can actually pull this much water up?"

  "Apparently. The sea definitely rises and falls, depending on where the moon is. It is obvious that the moon must be pulling the sea up."

  Gaius was intrigued. If the Moon went around the Earth, it had to be falling around the Earth, but if the sea rose, was that not the sea "falling" towards the Moon? He vaguely recalled the lesson about Pytheas, but he had never imagined the tidal movement could be so great. A local fisherman told him that it was now high tide, and the water would not come any higher. So how far did it go down? He would come back twelve hours later.