Revenge

by Andrew Frediani

“Only Cassius for now, they say.” So Octavian was still alive. That was comforting news for the centurion.

  Six days. So that was at least how long it would take to reach the front. What had become of Octavian and his followers? There had been defeats, and Gaius knew that he had abandoned his duties and his friends, walking out on them at the very moment of greatest need, he thought. He felt deeply ashamed and terrified at the thought of never seeing them again. He had to find out if the defeat was irreparable for Octavian, and communicate not only that there were no traitors in the sect, but that Octavian could still count on him, especially if he had to fight Caesar’s murderers.

  “Quickly, take me to your village, give me something to eat and two horses. And look after my comrade,” he ordered the fisherman in an authoritarian tone, exercising his role as a Roman soldier who never had to ask something of a subject people, only demand it. Then he went over to the other soldier and set about waking him up.

  *

  “You lot are just a bunch of cowards, my friend!”

  “Yeah – you’ve got everything in your favour and you daren’t even go into battle… you milksops!”

  “It’s easy to win if you do it like that! Even my four year old son could!”

  “And you fought for Caesar in the past! You’re cowards, as well as traitors!”

  “How much did Brutus pay you to change sides?”

  “You’re afraid of taking on real soldiers in combat, aren’t you?”

  The sentries were starting to get jumpy, noticed Maecenas with satisfaction: the prisoners’ goading was beginning to produce the desired effect. Brutus would never allow a massacre of other Roman soldiers, so the Etruscan was certain that this teasing was more dangerous for Caesar’s killers than it was for Octavian’s soldiers, and he exhorted the legionaries to continue. His plan had taken shape three days before, immediately after he had spoken to Brutus, when he had started telling his soldiers about the inaction of the enemy army and encouraging them to deride their captors.

  As he had expected, the taunts of the hostages had come to the ears of the guards: at first, some had reacted angrily, prodding those responsible with their spears, but then those same sentries had started talking with their fellow soldiers during their break, and in the later shifts some had even started nodding in agreement with the prisoners’ insults. One guard had even begun to talk to one of them, and that man had, in turn, told Maecenas about the man’s complaints regarding their forced inaction. Since then, there had been growing consensus among Brutus’s soldiers – so much so that the hostages could now get away with any taunt, in the knowledge that the sentries were inclined to agree with them. By now, in fact, they had lost the furious expressions that they had worn at the beginning, and their faces bore a shadow of shame that made it look as though they were the prisoners…

  Maecenas decided to approach a guard to gauge the mood of the camp. He chose the watchman who had seemed more sympathetic to the considerations of the captured legionnaires. “Soldier, I’m sure you’d rather earn the prize that Brutus will give you for fighting instead of playing nursemaid for Roman citizens…” he began.

  “You can say that again, by the gods!” the other replied, bluntly. “That’s the trouble with being commanded by senators who’ve never been professional soldiers… They’re always trying to get a political result, not a military one. And I just don’t like it.”

  “I understand,” nodded the Etruscan. “He never fought for Caesar, as you did, I imagine. Caesar was used to taking risks, and that is something that you would understand. But this stalling… it would not be Caesar’s way, nor that of those who fought for him.”

  “And it’s not even a risk!” the other complained. “That soldier of yours is right, the tribune, when he says that we have all the advantages on our side: numbers, terrain, provisions… Why hesitate, then? There’s no honour in obtaining a victory by waiting for your opponent to die of starvation. I know that the commander pays me, but this isn’t what I signed up for.”

  “Yes,” admitted Maecenas, seriously. “It is not very edifying, for a veteran, to tell his sons that he won like that. I think that children eager to hear war stories from their father or grandfather would be a bit disappointed to learn how things went at Philippi: watching Roman citizens who, in other circumstances, would have been friends, starve to death. No, they would not be proud of their father.”

  “You’re right, by Jove! But it’s not my fault! It’s not the soldiers’ fault! You can see yourself that we want to fight,” he protested, turning to the nearest sentry, “isn’t that right Pescennius?”

  “Of course it’s not our fault! We are the hostages of the politicians,” agreed the other. “But we were even before the battle that we won! If it wasn’t for us taking the initiative, the commander would never have given the order to attack and we would never have taken Octavian’s camp. And now we would be talking about a defeat, not a half victory. Which, as far as our work goes, was a complete victory…”

  Maecenas’s interlocutor looked at the Etruscan. “What did I tell you?” he winked. “He’s right. It’s us who are the real winners of the fighting, not our commanders.”

  “Well, that means that you’ll have to do it again…” said Maecenas. He knew that what Antony and Octavian wanted more than anything else was a fight: he was not sure who would win, but at least there was no certainty they would lose, which was what would certainly happen if Brutus was able to keep his soldiers on a leash. It was down to him to prevent that, by exploiting the fact that the enemy commander was not an individual able to impose his will on the soldiery.

  It was time to investigate the aspect that interested him most. “But… What about your officers? The tribunes, the centurions, the optiones… What do they think of all this?” he asked with apparent nonchalance.

  “The centurions are all with us, of course. They’re real soldiers, that lot, even if they’re often complete bastards!” said the legionary. “As for the tribunes… The laticlavius tribunes all lick Brutus’s arse, obviously. They’re senators like him. The angusticlavius tribunes think like us, but they cannot declare it openly.”

  “And who told you that, soldier? I for one do not think like you – quite the opposite.” A voice interrupted the soldier, and sent a quiver through the stomach of Maecenas, who spun around in its direction.

  Horace was standing there.

  The Etruscan could think of nothing intelligent to say, and thus preferred to keep quiet, awaiting the next words of the man who had made such an impression on him months before. When he had last seen him he was an optio, but now he found him a tribune, like himself.

  Horace took him by the arm and led him into a secluded corner of the prisoner’s camp. He was carrying a sack, which he deposited on the ground as soon as he decided they were safe from prying eyes. “Are you planning to make the entire army mutiny?”

  “I-I’m just doing my… my job,” stammered Maecenas, overcome by emotion and immediately chiding himself for not managing a wittier retort.

  “Then go and do it in the camps of Antony and Octavian. You are doing too much damage here. In there,” he said, pointing to the bag, “is the uniform and equipment of one of our legionaries. When it’s time for the changing of the guard on the praetorian gate, I will come to get you. Once out of the prisoner’s section, you will put it on, and then I’ll take you to the exit, where you will say today’s watchword – ‘Three eagles’ – before declaring that you’re going out for the evening patrol. After that, I don’t want to see you around here again.”

  Maecenas was silent for a while. Seeing that he did not react, Horace was about to leave, but Maecenas grabbed his arm. “Why are you doing this for me?”

  “Because you are causing problems… and because Brutus has figured out what you’re up to and might forget about his proverbial good manners and get rid of you.”

  Maecenas swallowed, feeling an even more intense wave of emotion wash over him. His t
emples were throbbing wildly and his vision was blurred. He felt like a little boy. “Then you are not wholly indifferent to me after all…” he said in a strangled voice.

  Horace pulled away abruptly and walked off. “Remember. I will be here at nightfall,” he repeated, before leaving once and for all. The Etruscan stared at him as he walked away, thinking that he had obtained two great victories that day. No, all was not lost. Soon he would see his friends again.

  Soon, the battle of revenge would take place. And soon, he hoped, one way or another, he would meet Horace again.

  XXIII

  The taller legionary snatched the biscuit from his shorter, stockier comrade, and pushed him to the ground. “We made a bet and you lost,” he shouted in his face. “You owe me your ration!”

  But the other wasn’t having it. He got up and gave him a surly stare. “You say I lost the bet, but it’s not over yet, so for now I’m eating my ration!” he retorted, and so saying, started trying to get the piece of hardtack back. The tall man dodged, and the pudgy one swung a punch at him which went wide, upon which the other responded with a kick between his legs. The shorter legionary fell to his knees while his fellow soldier burst out laughing, but he recovered quickly and grabbed the man’s legs, pulling him off balance. The biscuit fell into the mud the two were rolling in. In any other circumstances it would have been inedible, but Octavian, who was watching the scene from nearby, was in no doubt that they would continue to fight over that lump of mud. Soon afterwards, in fact, that stocky one found himself within reach of the biscuit, grabbed it and put it in his mouth, sinking his teeth into it like an animal. The tall one tried to hit him in the stomach with one hand while snatching the food from his mouth with the other, and in the meantime they continued to roll around on the ground, looking more and more like two clay statues.

  The triumvir decided that enough was enough. He saw an optio a few steps away and called to him, and the officer hurried over. “You! Don’t you see your subordinates fighting? How can you tolerate such a lack of discipline in your unit?” he said scornfully. “Separate them immediately and see that they are given appropriate punishment.”

  The officer looked confused. “Forgive me, Triumvir… I was putting down a brawl behind those tents and I didn’t notice anything. The centurion died in the battle and I’m the only one in charge of the whole unit, and in these conditions…” he stammered.

  “I am not interested in your excuses,” interrupted Octavian, peremptorily. “Stop them, or I shall do so myself – and then you will receive punishment with them!”

  The other nodded and rushed over to separate the two, who were fighting so savagely for the biscuit that it was all he could do not to end up not covered with mud himself.

  “That optio has a point, unfortunately,” said Agrippa, who was walking next to Octavian. “We no longer have enough officers to keep the men in line, and Antony has no intention of lending us any…”

  “He has his work cut out controlling his own men,” replied Octavian, bitterly. “After all, they’re starving too. I know very well that there’s nothing more that optio can do, but we have to maintain a semblance of discipline and authority over the troops, otherwise Brutus will have won without even touching his sword.”

  The young man was extremely dejected. He had returned to the camp immediately after the battle, and had found it devastated. He had lost three legions and then the news had arrived that he would not even be able to count on the two that Domitius Calvinus was supposed to be bringing him. From the heights of his victory, Antony had begun to ignore him openly, just as he had when Octavian had first appeared on the political scene: he didn’t bother to summon him to councils of war and made his decisions regardless of him, or merely sent messages requesting his co-operation. The men were dying of hunger, supplies could no longer reach them from Thessaly and the intermittent autumn rains had made the plain they inhabited intolerable and unhealthy – the water soaked the tents, wrapping the soldiers in its icy grip at night, while during the day they waded through a sea of mud.

  And to make matters worse, the condition of the Sect of Mars Ultor was increasingly critical. Octavian had been thinking about the reasons that had led to the debacle of the battle a few days before, and had not yet managed to reach a firm conclusion regarding individual responsibility. Was Rufus or Agrippa to blame? At first, on the basis of the junior officers reports, he had got the idea that it had been Rufus who had made the defence of the camp impossible by marching his column with its flank exposed to a counter attack from Brutus’s camp, but then Rufus himself, in a private interview, had come out with a flood of justifications and excuses which shifted all the blame onto Agrippa. Octavian had confronted the latter, and as was his wont, Agrippa had neither thought it necessary to justify himself, nor had attributed the responsibility to his fellow minister. The result, however, was that Octavian was now more confused than ever.

  And he had lost Maecenas. But the biggest problem as regarded the Etruscan was that he did not know if the loss was a blessing or a curse.

  Was he dead, had he been captured or had he voluntarily handed himself over to the enemy? With his disappearance, he had in fact become the most likely culprit for the betrayal that had cost the lives of his mother and of Etain. And perhaps the real reason he had convinced Octavian to leave the battlefield at the decisive moment, claiming it was for his own good, had been to discredit him in the eyes of the troops. Yes, that must be it – Octavian was more convinced than ever. Maecenas and all that rubbish about the need to stay out of the fray, that a general should observe the battle from above, without taking risks… It was just a way of making him look ridiculous – of making him look like the least able of the commanders involved in that great battle for the destiny of Rome. One of the many subtle plans of that damned Etruscan. Who knew for whom he worked… For Antony, perhaps, or for Caesar’s murderers, or simply for himself? Octavian could not know the extent of the man’s ambition – apparently so interested in gratifying others and willing to serve him, but perhaps simply to guarantee himself the greatest advantage.

  He had mentioned this to Agrippa, but his friend was too pure of mind to think the worst of one who had helped him on several occasions and he considered him almost a brother, so Octavian, therefore, had to keep his thoughts to himself and continue to agonise over how to drive forward the sect and get himself out of the thorny situation the defeat had put him in. His only consolation – having got Cassius Longinus, the real leader of the conspiracy against Caesar, out of the way – had ended up being of little importance in the face of the bleak prospects awaiting him and the survival of all the other murderers in Brutus’s army.

  “Caesar Octavian, this man here was caught while trying to escape. What shall we do with him?” Rufus suddenly appeared before him, dragging with him yet another defector. He seemed to take particular pleasure from the unpleasant task, which he had undertaken to deal with in person, aided by a group of assistants. It was useful, certainly, and contributed to preventing the dissolution of an army which seemed on the verge of collapse… but Octavian would have preferred him to carry out more edifying tasks, such as the development of a winning strategy, something in which he no longer seemed interested.

  “Do what you feel is appropriate. You are responsible for the deserters, aren’t you?” he replied peevishly, knowing that, in this way, he was condemning the soldier to death. Rufus seemed to want to take out all his frustrations on what he considered the scum of the army. His friend nodded in satisfaction and dragged the deserter off by his arm. When they had disappeared behind the tents, Octavian imagined what would now be happening: they would make him kneel down and with a clean, decisive blow, would sever his head, giving it then to one of his lieutenants who would place it on a pole and set it on the battlements, where it was clearly visible to both the occupants of the camp and their opponents. There were already many heads along the battlements, but the dismal vision of them had not deterred other
soldiers from attempting to flee. The conditions in which his army found itself were so desperate that the men felt they had little to lose by risking death to get away.

  “Triumvir, we have problems with propaganda.” A breathless centurion stood before him.

  Octavian could not stop himself from holding out his arms wide in a gesture of exasperation. He urged the officer to follow him and they walked towards the fence. It was not the first time that this had happened. A few days ago, he had decided to use Maecenas’s old idea and start launching propaganda leaflets into the enemy camp, hoping that it would create defections in Brutus’s ranks. But once under the enemy’s fence, their men let themselves get carried away by their desire to fight, to avenge the defeat and to escape a desperate situation, and provoked their opponents in the battlements, exposing themselves to greater risks and to fights in which they inevitably came off worse. Nor could it be otherwise: they were fighting uphill against enemies who outnumbered them and who were protected by their ditch, embankment and fence, and who could limit themselves to simply bombarding them with all kinds of projectile. And they too, like the deserters, felt they had nothing to lose, and would rather die fighting than of starvation.

  Octavian climbed up to the battlements with Agrippa, only to witness a scene that he had already seen in the previous days. A group of legionaries was trying to form a tortoise close to the moat of Brutus’s camp to shelter from the objects that the archers and scorpios were hurling at them while another was falling back in disarray, apparently driven by the survival instinct to give up their suicidal undertaking.

  But then he noticed something new. The gate to the enemy camp had opened and a group of horsemen were setting off. For the first time, Brutus’s men were putting their noses outside the walls. He was tempted to send out a contingent of cavalry to seize a small consolatory victory in a skirmish, when he noticed a figure whose unmistakeable form he knew all too well heading for the fence of his fort.