by Peake, R. W.
“Pullus, I want to apologize for the way I treated you earlier,” he began, and I fought to keep my jaw from dropping as he continued. “You caught me at a bad moment, as I had just learned that our squadron was given the slip by Antonius, and I took my bad temper out on you. I fully understand why you acted the way you did, as I'm sure these last few days have been very trying.”
“No apology is necessary, Caesar. I acted poorly as well, and you are of course correct. The trials of the last days have made me very raw.”
I did not really feel that way, but I knew a peace offering when I saw it and it would have been boorish, not to mention foolish, of me to spurn such a gesture. With this out of the way, Octavian immediately turned to business.
“Tell me,” he began, “will Canidius, and more importantly his army, put up a fight?”
I considered for a moment, then slowly shook my head.
“I don't believe so,” I replied cautiously, and I saw a flash of irritation cross his face. Evidently, he wanted a strong assurance, but I was going to err on the side of caution. “A large part of the army with Canidius is Eastern and any loyalty they felt was to Antonius. The rest are veterans and a good number of them were with us at Philippi. I don’t believe they relish the idea of fighting one of their former commanders. Now that Antonius deserted them, I don't believe that they have much fight in them.”
He said nothing, just glanced at Agrippa, who nodded in acceptance of my judgment.
“That makes sense, and that agrees with the information I have from other sources,” Octavian said.
Now it was my turn to be irritated, since it was clear that I was not telling him anything he did not already know. As usual, I did not do a good job of hiding my emotions, because Octavian gave a short laugh when he looked at my face.
“Pullus, I like to be thorough. Just because I have other ways to get information doesn't mean that what you tell me isn't valuable.”
This mollified me a bit, and he turned to other matters.
“What about Antonius? And Cleopatra? How are things between them? What frame of mind was Antonius in going into this battle? Tell me everything.”
This was what I had been waiting for, since this was the other reason that Octavian had called in his debt at this moment. He wanted and needed the 10th, but he also wanted as much information on Antonius and Cleopatra, gleaned from people who had access to the both of them. As he himself had just stated, Octavian was and is a very thorough fellow, particularly when it comes to understanding the mind of his enemy. I also knew that Octavian’s apology was not to Titus Pullus, but to the Primus Pilus of the 10th Legion, although I did not mind all that much. At that point, most of my outward respect to Octavian was due to his status and not to the man that he was, mainly because I did not know this version of Octavian all that well. I could see that much about him had changed in the time I had been serving with Antonius, but it was still too early to tell exactly what type of man he had become in the process. Now I was able to tell the young Caesar all that took place between Cleopatra and me, along with all that I had seen between the queen and Antonius. Probably unsurprisingly to you, gentle reader, I held nothing back. Midway through my tale, Balbinus showed up and he reinforced some of the points I was making about Antonius and his relationship with Cleopatra. Octavian only interrupted to ask an occasional question or to have me expand on some point that interested him, while Agrippa said nothing, just listening to everything. By the time I finished, I had grown hoarse from speaking, so Octavian ordered one of the scribes to go get me some water.
“You’re a lucky man, Pullus,” Agrippa said suddenly. “Not many men that Cleopatra wanted dead have escaped, especially someone that's so close by.”
“Luck is just the favor of the gods,” Octavian said. “And Titus Pullus has always been one of the gods’ favorites.”
As he smiled at me again, I caught just a glimpse of the eager boy who had wanted so badly to have dinner with me. When he spoke, it became clear that our minds were running in the same direction.
“I still owe you a dinner, Pullus, and while I’m afraid I can't spare the time right now, I promise it will be very soon. I have some ideas about what to do with the army that I want to discuss with you.”
Intrigued, I assured him that I looked forward to it, wondering what his ideas were.
“How soon will your Legions be ready to march?”
Agrippa, always the general first, had asked the question.
“I'll have to check, but I believe we should be ready to go now,” I said, judging that the Centurions had kept the men busy while I was talking.
“I still need another third of a watch,” Balbinus said, and I felt a smug sense of satisfaction, ignoring the fact that we had had a head start. Agrippa turned to Octavian, who walked to the tent flap to look out at the sun, judging the time.
“We can get in at least a full watch of marching if we leave immediately. We'll push on.”
Octavian dismissed us to return to our respective Legions and I was relieved to find that my guess had been correct; the men were ready to march. While we waited for the 12th, I called a meeting of the Centurions, knowing that they were waiting to hear how things went between Octavian and me, and by extension the fate of the Legion. As soon as they gathered, I reassured them that all was well, that we were now part of Octavian’s army and that we were setting off in pursuit of Canidius. Somewhat to my surprise, many of the Centurions were clearly unhappy about this so I singled out one, Ovidius, the Princeps Prior of the Fifth, asking him what was wrong.
“I don’t much like the idea of fighting men that we’ve been marching with for so long,” he replied, and I saw many heads nodding at this.
“I seriously doubt that Canidius’ men are going to fight,” I tried to assure them, but there was clear doubt on their faces.
“What if they do?” Ovidius persisted.
“Then we'll do our jobs and kill any bastard who's stupid enough to fight us,” I snapped, immediately regretting my words and tone.
Seeing Scribonius wince did not help, but I was not about to soften my words. No matter what, I expected the men to obey, despite my hope that they would not have to lift their swords, mainly since I did not want to face the possibility that they would refuse. There was no outright disagreement, but it was an unhappy group that returned to their men. Scribonius walked over to me, his expression easy to read.
“You could have handled that better,” was his only comment.
“I'm tired of having to handle anything,” I shot back. “They just need to do what they’re told, whenever they’re told to do it.”
“Just like you did, obeying Octavian.” Scribonius was straight-faced when he said this, yet I knew that he was teasing me.
“That was different.” I could not help grinning as I said it, knowing that it was absolutely no different than my Centurions’ reaction to the idea of fighting Canidius.
“Of course,” Scribonius snorted. “It’s always different when it’s you.”
I punched him on the arm. “You know, for such a smart man, it's taken you a long time to figure that out.”
Joining with the rest of Octavian’s army, for the veterans in our ranks, the men of the second dilectus and not the replacements we had salted our ranks with after the Parthian campaign, it was almost like a reunion of families. Men who had not seen each other since after Philippi called to each other, the fact that just days before we faced the prospect of eying each other across a battlefield not lost on anyone.
“I’m glad I didn’t have to kill you, Proculus, you old bastard.”
“As if you’ve ever seen the sun rise on such a day, Glabius!”
“Herennius, you still owe me 20 sesterces from dice!”
“I haven’t forgotten, you old goat! How could I? With a face that ugly, who could forget anything?”
“Rest easy, boys! The 10th is here to pull your fat from the fire again!”
“The 10th
! That bunch of poxed old women? They couldn’t find their ass with both hands! It’s the other way around! The 7th will save you again, just like we did in Gaul!”
And so on, with each Legion marching by while we waited to take our spot in the column. Since we were new arrivals, we were near the rear of the column, causing some grumbling, but it was to be expected. Octavian set a fast pace, except that unlike his adopted father, he rode instead of walking with the men. Agrippa, on the other hand, got off his horse to walk up and down the column, talking to the men, swapping jokes and stories.
As we marched along the southern edge of the bay, I saw men working on the abandoned ships that had been part of Antonius’ fleet, making them ready to be towed to the nearest port. I wondered what was to happen to them, since possessing these massive warships was a blade that cut both ways. They were enormously valuable, but they were also enormously expensive to maintain and, as Antonius learned the hard way, finding experienced and well-trained crews was not an easy task. They were useless as cargo vessels, making it highly unlikely they could be sold, while it was equally unlikely that Octavian would be willing to sell them to nations like Bithynia, which would essentially give them back to Antonius. I was just happy that it was none of my concern. It was easy to follow Canidius, the ground being churned and torn in only the way that the feet of thousands of men and hooves of thousands of animals can accomplish, leaving a trail a blind man could follow. It also made the going rough, men stumbling and tripping across gouges in the ground. While it felt good to be on the march again, it had been quite some time since we last carried our packs for any length of time, making it a blessing that we only had a few thirds of a watch of daylight left, since a full day on the march would have been difficult. There was still moaning and groaning while the men worked on the camp that evening and I must admit that I felt a few aches as well.
Once we were settled in, with the duties for the night assigned, I released the men to go see old friends and relatives in the other Legions, and the other Primi Pili did the same. There were a number of new but still-familiar faces around the fire, so I stopped to greet some of the men who I had known in Gaul or during the first civil war. All in all, it was a pleasant evening catching up with old friends, though never far from anyone’s mind was the thought that we were in pursuit of Canidius, and soon might be facing other old friends.
Our pursuit of Canidius lasted almost a week before we finally drew close enough for both armies to see each other plainly. The preceding two or three days we had seen the dust cloud hovering in the sky ahead of us, or caught the occasional glimpse as they crested a hill. Now they were just a couple of miles away and we had been led deep into the interior of Greece, Canidius evidently still trying to make it to Thrace. At the end of the day that marked a week of pursuit, we made our respective camps on the tops of hills, barely a mile away from each other, close enough that the men of both armies were plainly visible to each other as they worked digging the ditch and building the rampart. Being in such close proximity, both sides posted a full Legion on the opposite slopes facing each other to keep an eye on things while the rest of the men worked. It was inevitable that almost immediately after the respective camps were constructed that men would walk down into the small valley between the two to meet and talk.
Naturally, following initial contact, talk soon turned to the situation facing the men of Canidius’ army, and representatives of Canidius’ army asked for an audience with Octavian. While Canidius was trying to convince his men to fight, his men were talking with Octavian, seeking to come to an accommodation that would allow them to avoid the prospect of facing us in battle. Not surprisingly, this was as popular with the men of Octavian’s army as it was with Canidius’, so it was not long before an agreement was reached. Seeing that his cause was doomed, Canidius and most of his staff slipped out that night to escape, fleeing to the east, with the goal of taking the long way around Asia to rejoin Antonius, presumably in Alexandria. The men of Antonius’ army from the East were given their release from service, without any bonus or bounties being paid. The Italian veterans of Canidius’ army who were due were also given their discharge. However, they could not receive any bonuses either, since there was no money in the treasury at the moment to pay them. A fair number of Octavian’s Legions were past their discharge dates as well and as with the members of Canidius’ army, there was no money to pay them their discharge bonuses, nor land to give them at that time. In order to reduce the likelihood of trouble, these men were not discharged all at once, but in smaller groups to disperse them. Octavian also ordered them to disarm, only allowing them to keep their daggers, which was exceedingly unpopular, so the 10th was called to supervise the handing over of the weapons. Tensions were very high and I could sympathize with the men, since every Legionary talked about having their sword hanging over their fireplace at the farm or tavern they would own when they got out, a symbol to anyone who entered that told of their service. Every day, another group was discharged, the process taking almost two weeks before Octavian was satisfied that the affairs of the army were settled for the time being.
Octavian’s next order of business was the city of Corinth, which had gone over to Antonius and was still refusing to surrender. Marching up to the walls, we immediately began an investment the city and that was enough to convince the citizens to surrender. With these matters settled, we marched back to the coast, settling back into Octavian’s camp north of the inlet, while he founded the city, now known as Nicopolis, to commemorate his victory over Antonius. The seasons were changing and we were ordered into winter camp, staying in that spot on the coast. Meanwhile, Octavian went to Athens, where he dealt with all the administrative matters left in the aftermath of his victory, while he sent Agrippa back to Rome to deal with matters there. Even after all that he had accomplished, there were still massive problems facing the man who was now the master of Rome. Most importantly, while Antonius was defeated, he and Cleopatra still lived and as long as they did, Octavian would not rest.
Chapter 5- Nicopolis
Nicopolis was settled with the discharged Legionaries, their families, and a number of native Italians who were either bribed or forced to relocate to the new city. Overnight, it sprang up from what had been a military camp, and with the strong backs of not only the retired veterans but the rest of the army, streets were laid down, walls were erected, and buildings constructed. While the men did not particularly like it, the work kept them busy and out of trouble for the most part. Almost as quickly as the boundaries of the city were laid out, the shacks and shanties of the camp followers sprung up on the outer edges, meaning that as usual, the first to arrive and set up business were the scum that always hovers about an army the way blowflies surround a corpse. Wineshops, whorehouses, gambling houses, quacks selling fake cures; these were the first inhabitants of Nicopolis, cheering the men greatly.
After spending almost a year on the marshy plain of Actium, even a tumbledown shack selling wine that was virtually indistinguishable from horse piss, filled with whores missing as many teeth as a thirty-year Legionary, was a welcome sight. Very quickly, the men who had a fondness for drink or a talent for trouble with civilians fell back into old habits, but unlike other times when there was a true civilian population occupying whatever town or city where we were garrisoned, these inhabitants were old soldiers or rough characters who were no strangers to trouble themselves. Very rarely were we accosted by an angry citizen who had been roughed up or whose daughter was insulted, since these men were willing and able to take care of their own troubles. However, that meant that there were times when one of my men was carried in by comrades after being beaten senseless for offending a citizen of the town. If that was as far as it went, it would not have been a concern, and I would have told the men who were bruised and battered that they more likely than not had earned their beating. However, there were some new inhabitants who were not content with inflicting a few bruises along with a broken bone or two, an
d it was less than a month after the consecration of Nicopolis that the body of one of my men was found with his throat cut ear to ear. And it did not stop there; within another month, five more men joined their unfortunate comrade, all dumped in a rubbish heap just outside the wall on the opposite side from our camp, which was a mile south of the new city. All of them had their throats cut, although half of them had also been beaten, one of them so badly that he was unrecognizable. Their identity tokens had all been taken from them, along with their purses and daggers, which are the only weapons men are allowed to take out of camp. The 10th was not the only Legion to lose men in this manner; after asking the other Primi Pili, I learned that perhaps a total of 20 men had been murdered, all the same way, to be left in the same place. An emergency meeting was called with the Primi Pili and the Centurions to whom the murdered men belonged, in order to try and determine what was happening.
“There has to be some common pattern,” Aulus Flaminius, the Primus Pilus of the 8th Legion and the man who called the meeting, declared. “Something that they all have in common that will help us find out who's doing this.”
“They liked getting drunk, gambling, and chasing whores,” said a Centurion from the 8th whose name I did not know. “That makes them like every other man in the army.”
“There has to be more than that,” Trebellius, my Quintus Pilus Prior, spoke up.
His was the first man from the 10th to be found dead. Turning to Flaminius, he offered a suggestion that each Centurion give a description of the man they had lost, his habits, his service record, anything they could recall. Realizing that this was a good idea, and would also require more of an organized effort, Flaminius requested each Primus Pilus present to summon their clerk and sufficient writing materials with which to take notes. I sent for Diocles, and once all the clerks arrived and had gotten situated, we began our investigation.