Vae Victis

by Francis Mulhern

  The city of Clusium was a member of the Etruscan alliance and had been besieged by the Gauls who said they had been given divine guidance to take the lands around the city. The Clusians sent envoys to Rome for help because, following the defeat of Veii, the Etruscan alliance had faltered and there was no-one else to turn to. Some historians suggest that the whole Clusium story was invented to give both a reason for the Gauls to invade Rome as well as giving later Rome a reason to invade Gaul.

  The three Fabii brothers were sent to negotiate with the Gauls under the role of ambassador as I have explained, though I have chosen to give the lead role to Quintus Fabius despite the fact that it was more likely his older brother would hold the lead role due to his age. In previous books I have created a hot-headed personality for Quintus which has, I hope, led him to be the slightly over-confident man that he is in this book. It was always my intention to kill Quintus off in this battle, though in reality it is unclear where and when he died.

  The sacrifice of the Gaul Batarius is a development of my own, though there is evidence that the Gauls did sacrifice their own people in such circumstances and that they read much into the way the sacrificial man fell, or the legs twitched and so on. There is also some evidence that the Gallic leaders drank the blood of their sacrifices or ate the boiled brains to gain the wisdom, or strength, of the fallen man. As such I thought it made a good start to the story and gave Aengus a measure of power which added to the story line.

  Whatever happened at Clusium the king did not accept the Gallic request for land and a battle ensued. History suggests Quintus Fabius slew a Gallic leader, but the circumstances aren’t clear. Therefore, I created a scenario in which the Gauls retreated outside the city and then attacked. This was the only way I could see any of the Fabius brothers leaving Clusium, which was under siege by the Gauls, and returning to Rome. It also gave me a good opportunity to write a battle scene in which the nature of the Gallic tactics could be drawn at an early stage of the book. It is clear that the Gauls had better weapons and different tactics to the Romans at the time, and this was exploited to the full at the Allia. I had already given Marcus a glimpse of the Gallic fighting technique in book 1 of the series by way of introducing the Gauls to him, and so I have expanded that through this book as I have attempted to show his ability to change the Roman’s battle tactics.

  We are unsure if there was a man name Brennus who led the Gauls. Some historians say that the name Brennus simply means “leader” and that it is likely that different chieftains were selected to lead different attacks. I chose to have a man who would stand out amongst the tribes, ably supported by his bull-like brother and their cousin Aengus. Aengus was born from a discussion with Angus MacKay, a friend from facebook, and a fellow lover of Roman warfare, so I dedicate his character to you Angus. As a character I wanted to contrast the religion of the Gauls with that of the Romans, using the druid as a means to express the similarities between the two cultures and their reliance on religious symbols and activities at the time. Gallic families shared bonds linked by blood, and I have tried to entwine this into the story. Aengus was sent away to learn the crafts of the druid as part of these family alliances in which children were left to be brought up by other families to strengthen alliances.

  The Gauls, after the death at the hands of Quintus Fabius, sent an envoy to Rome, which was, of course, unsuccessful and they returned to declare war on the city. The scroll exonerating Quintus Fabius is my own invention to get Javenoli’s wider network back into the story and to find a reason against which the Romans, usually strictly law-abiding people, could reject the Gallic request. I had built Javenoli into a larger than life character in the fall of Veii, and it was my intention, initially, to kill him off in this book in a plot which involved him and Brennus attempting to share out the gold which was used to free the Romans. However, the plot for the next book (King of Rome) needed someone who could wield power across Rome to support Capitolinus as he starts to move to his inevitable end. I therefore recreated a thinner Javenoli who would survive the months on the Capitol and who would use his plots to gain enough gold to support the re-development of the city when the Gauls finally left.

  Following the rebuke by the Senate the Gauls surprised the Romans by the speed of their march and did send scouts ahead to say that they would do no damage to any village or town which did not bar their path, as I mentioned in the story. The Romans sent out a force which was roughly equal to that of the Gauls, but many of the auspices and auguries were ignored and, Livy says, no defensive structures were prepared. The battle at the Allia seems to have been quick, with the Romans splitting into two groups as they fled the battlefield, one group to Rome and the other across the river and away to the empty city of Veii. It is known that Brennus saw the reserve lines on the hill and, after an initial attack in the centre, he diverted his forces and charged towards it, which split the Romans lines as the Romans were unprepared for the ferocity and speed of the attack. It is suggested that as many as eighteen thousand Romans died at the Allia, a day which was later named the Alliensis, the unlucky day. I chose to have both Tribunes die at the scene, though it is likely that at least one returned to Rome. I chose Marcus Manlius as the man to return to Rome with the dreadful news of the defeat as I wanted his figure to be central to the later happenings on the Capitol and keep him central to the new link to Gaius Javenoli for the next story in Marcus’ journey.

  The Gauls arrived at a city which was deserted by its people, the gates standing open and the few remaining statesmen and soldiers crowded onto the Capitol. There is mention of other men and women hiding around the city of Rome in some antiquarian writing, but I’ve chosen to stick to Livy’s account as much as possible which centres on the Capitol but does mention a smaller group on the Citadel. The elder statesmen did commit themselves to Devotio, in which they gave their lives to save Rome in a grand gesture which they hoped would appease the gods. The story of Papirius is quoted in texts and I have used it here to enhance the symbolism of sacrifice.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find much information which gave road names in early Rome in the 4th Century and so have used a mix of old and new names which may not be as accurate as I’d like. I invented the ‘one slave’ rule on the Capitol as it seemed logical to me to limit the number of people who crowded onto the hill, and I would have expected the patricians to have to make sacrifices from their households at the time. I also assumed that some people would have hidden within the city itself, maybe even in the great sewer which ran under the main streets of Rome at the time. The city was besieged for several months, and as stated the Gauls did leave the dead in the streets and bring down all manner of plague and pestilence once the weather began to warm up in the spring. Marcus Furius Camillus began to build an army at Ardea, though it is unclear how he communicated with the men who had retreated to Veii. The story of Comminus climbing the Tarpeian Rock is true, as Marcus required the Senate to agree to his being declared Dictator, and not the remaining soldiers at Veii. I included the link between the two men from Marcus’ days as Censor to add some history between them, though, of course, this is my invention.

  The Gauls agreed that they would leave Rome if paid a thousand pounds of gold, and the people on the Capitol agreed to this. There is some confusion in texts as to the nature of the issue with the scales which caused the delay to the payment of the fee, and so I changed this to bring a set of scales from the market into the temple of Jupiter as a way to link the story together. Within the story I’ve tried to show that the Romans were masters at bending the truth to fit their own circumstances, as they did with the incident of Quintus Fabius and his breaking of the oath of nations. The use of their own ‘weighted’ scales to weigh the gold was something I couldn’t resist, though it is fiction on my part.

  However, and whenever Marcus arrived to throw his sword on top of that of Brennus as the gold was weighed is unclear. There are many writers who suggest that the story is invented and that he probably f
ell on the Gauls as they left the city, with the story being created at a later date to show that Roman iron would retake the land and not payment of gold. This could be because, at the time, it may have been detrimental for the Romans to be seen to pay a ransom to their enemies, an act that might bring other tribes to their doors to demand fealty. I, therefore, developed the plot to combine the incident of Brennus throwing his sword onto the scales and Marcus appearing to save the day as his men attacked the city and won the initial fight for Rome. The loss of Mella was painful. I liked his character, though I think he had run his course in this story. I brought Apuleius back into the story in an attempt to link Marcus to the wider Plebeian developments which occurred after the recovery of Rome. In history Marcus is noted as someone who gave more powers to the Plebeians throughout his career, and so it seemed logical, at this point, to show that he was able to forgive and forget as part of his broader love of Rome and his sense of duty.

  The battle at Gabbi isn’t recorded in any detail other than it was a ‘set-piece’ battle and that the Romans defeated the Gauls, killing almost every last Gallic invader. As such I let my imagination run wild and created the battle scene as described. I decided that Brennus should make the ultimate sacrifice, rather than die at the hands of Marcus. In doing so I created tensions in the Gallic camp and allowed Aengus to be the bringer of death, his druidical powers finally failing him as he sacrificed his cousin for the greater good of the Tribes, but mis-read the signs. Such actions, it is documented, actually occurred in battles, with the leaders giving their lives as a sacrifice to the gods to bring greater glory to the remaining men, especially when the battles were turning against them. The contrast I tried to draw here was between the Devotio of the Romans and the sacrifice of the Gauls. In doing so I hope to have shown that one of the reasons (as described in Marcus’ speech regarding Veii later) that Rome endured was because their gods favoured them more than the gods of the Gauls favoured their men. This seems, in my interpretation, to be a key element in the written history.

  In my attempt to complete this section of the historical facts I’ve raced through the triumph, the re-consecration of the temples and the giving of oratory plaudits to the women of Rome, which Marcus decreed. I’ve also attempted to give Manlius Capitolinus a central part in the success of the battles to save Rome from the barbarians, as well as giving Javenoli enough gold to start to rebuild his networks for the next book. Javenoli is my own creation, and he was not Pontifex Maximus in real life. Having this position will enable his plots and schemes to work for Manlius Capitolinus and also give his character an edge which I will really enjoy writing in the next book, he certainly has the power he has always craved now – how will it work out for him?

  There was a cry to leave Rome and move to Veii, as described in the story. Marcus’ speech is much lengthier than my attempt to keep to the key points he made, and the reaction was, as described, inconclusive, with the Senate retiring to the Hostilia to debate the subject in more detail. Livy tells us that the Centurion setting his guards spoke the words “we might as well stay here then” which was heard through the windows of the building and interpreted as words spoken by the gods. So, I included the story as a finale to this book as I thought it fitted to the continuing divine injunctions which have led Marcus to his current situation.

  So, Rome is saved. Marcus has received another triumph and his family are rising to the top of the Roman hierarchy. But now a new menace comes to Rome, the old issue of one ruler who has the power of life or death over his fellow citizens. Rome will also face more enemies as the alliances of city states around them see an opportunity to take the city whilst it is in such as weakened state. As Marcus wages war on the enemies of Rome, which of his enemies, and friends, in the city will be working to undermine him and declare themselves King of Rome?

  Please do leave me some feedback on Amazon to help me improve my writing. I have already updated spelling and editing mistakes based on feedback received.

  Francis Mulhern, 2015